GET QUIET TO GET LOUD
On girl bosses, betting on yourself, and the only place clarity actually comes from.
Some of the spookiest people you know are working on themselves right now, and I say that as someone who has spent years doing exactly that. BOO.
The other day I was on a walk with one of my best friends, a fellow former girl boss, the one two punch. We call ourselves the board of directors of each other’s lives. She is one of the best leaders I know. She builds things and sees them through with structure, heart, and follow through that I genuinely admire. I have the instincts and the ideas. She has the execution and the vision to land them. Together we would be one complete person but instead we are each other’s advisors and honestly I will take it.
A girl boss, for anyone lucky enough to have missed that era, is basically an ambitious woman who turned herself into a brand, a job, a personality, a whole operating system. It’s a little sexist and annoying, but that’s a different essay. Ambition really does look different on women.
She’s about to launch her new company and I’m circling relaunching a modern day version of HelloGiggles, my old company. We were talking about where we get stuck, where we over and under perform, why are we even doing this vibes. And I said: isn’t it funny when you are aligned, when you go for a walk or say your prayers or have a great workout or a great night’s sleep, you just know what to do. You know who to call. You know the next move. But when you’re tense and fearful you think everyone else has the answers and you seek and seek and seek.
And as I was saying it I thought: I need to take my own advice.
Because I have tried everything. Every psychic, every healer. And the times I won the most in life were the times I trusted myself completely. Blindly, even. That is what youth gives you, a kind of delusional confidence that actually works. Wisdom is a gift. It really is. But it does make you move more cautiously. You see the edges now. You know what things cost. And sometimes that knowing slows you down in ways that youth never would have allowed.
Which is why I think we need to add something to the conversation about ambitious women. We talk a lot about the cost of ambition. The personal life deferred. The relationships that didn’t survive the building phase. And yes, that part is real and it certainly sucks. But I think we have it backwards. The answer is not to want less. The answer is to want more. An ambitious life deserves a balanced life alongside it. We should be rewarded for the building with the living. Not forced to choose between them. We have to honor the achievers in us.
These are not prescriptions. They are not a program. They are not the ten steps to trusting yourself again. They are simply the things that helped me get quiet enough to hear myself. And I offer them the way you offer a friend something that worked for you — not because it will definitely work for you, but because maybe it will, and that is worth saying out loud.
Getting quiet is a lifelong project. I am not there. I am a work in progress. I am, if we are being honest, one chatty bitch who has spent years filling the silence with seeking and searching and very expensive healers and the occasional candle that burned for seven days. The quiet is not my natural state. It is something I have to choose, over and over, every Tuesday morning when the email feels impossible and the resistance is loud and every tool on the shelf is right there asking to be used.
But when I do get quiet enough — even for a moment — I can hear her. The version of me who knows. The one who jumped without looking down. I literally have bungee jumped.
So here are some tools that helped me get there.
The Artist’s Way — Julia Cameron
Julia Cameron’s twelve-week creative recovery program. Two tools: morning pages and artist dates. The morning pages keep me accountable to myself, three pages every morning, longhand, no filter. What I’ve noticed is that I say the same thing over and over until I can’t ignore it anymore. Lately what keeps coming up is this: I am not living up to my potential. FUN STUFF! The artist dates, a weekly solo outing just for play and curiosity, remind me that I am allowed to be more than productive. I am allowed to be playful. Both of those things together are doing more for my clarity than any psychic has.
The War of Art — Steven Pressfield
I picked this up on a recommendation from my artist way buddy Aura because I needed something that was not going to ask me how I was feeling. What I found is that the enemy is not other people. The enemy is resistance. My own. And resistance is not a sign that something is wrong. It is a sign that something matters. The dragon at the gate is not there to stop you. It is there because you are close.
The Let Them Theory — Mel Robbins
Stop trying to control what other people do. Let them. Your clarity does not depend on their choices. The permission to stop managing other people’s behavior and come back to your own, that one stayed. Also, I once screamed “let them!” during an argument with an ex. He said “don’t mind if I do.” Technically correct. Deeply not the point but hilarious.
The Tanya — Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi
The foundational Chasidic text that teaches, among other things, that every person has a divine soul that already knows. The work is not to find it. The work is to get quiet enough to stop drowning it out. It does not ask me to improve. It asks me to listen. That is the most useful thing anyone has ever asked of me.
Talking out loud to God
Hitbonenut. Personal prayer in your own words. Not liturgy. Not a formula. Just you, out loud, saying what is actually true. I do this on walks. In the car. Sometimes at red lights. It always works and somehow it’s the hardest one to do. Maybe because I know it means I will have to listen.
One honest conversation with a friend
The board of directors model. One person who knows your strengths better than you do right now. Who can say: you already know what to do. You just stopped trusting that you know. That conversation on that walk did more than any healer I have ever paid. And I have paid a lot of healers. They know who they are.
And it is a new month tomorrow! Rosh Chodesh Nisan, the start of the Jewish astrological new year. I don’t fully know what that means and I don’t need to anymore. I used to need a framework for everything. A system, a sign, a woman on Instagram who could tell me what the stars were doing and what I should do about it. I outsourced my knowing for a long time.
Not anymore.
Small steps. All of it counts.
Also, I just started taking creatine and I think it is helping my moods. I am not going to take peptides because they freak me out. And that is me trusting myself.
Chodesh tov. May this new month bring you the courage to honor the achiever in you, the quiet to hear what you already know, and the wisdom to stop seeking and start trusting.
I love you trusting yourself.
All of our friends trust you... you DEF should trust yourself.
Chodesh Tov my friend! Let go & let god is not just a bumper sticker 😝🥰🥰🥰
Let the new month begin!