"Embrace the glorious mess that you are."
Happy Happiness Happens Month!
I love the above quote from Elizabeth Gilbert. Because we're all a mess (some a little messier than others), but we're all glorious despite - and even because - of it.
I've been rereading one of my favorite books - Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck. It helped me get through a particularly difficult time in my life. I picked it back up recently to come up with something pithy and insightful to share with you, but soon got lost in the words yet again.
Was this email forwarded to you?
Beck talks about how we all have two selves.
"Your essential self formed before you were born, and it will remain until you've shuffled off your mortal coil."
Whereas, your social self is the self you learned how to be. It developed in response to the world and people around you.
Most of us build up our social selves to fit in, to be loved, to survive. But our essential selves are still there, crying out to be heard in some of the most inconvenient of ways.
Word of caution - don't read through Chapter 2 (titled "Reconnecting: How Your Essential Self Says 'No'") unless you have time to read and do the exercises in the following chapter (titled "Getting to Yes"). I may have learned that one the hard way.
Let's just say it was a very difficult day at work.
Oops.
I highly recommend reading this book. A couple of my favorite quotes so far:
- "...the vast majority of us put other people in charge of charting our course through life. We never even consult our own navigational equipment; instead, we steer our lives according to the instructions of people who have no idea how to find our North Stars. Naturally, they end up sending us off course."
- "That's the wonderful thing about heading toward your North Star - compared to a strictly social-self existence, it's fun and easy. It's like falling in love or breathing."
A New Time, Place, and Magic
In Truthtaker, a ship sailing from Regency England is magically displaced to a land of snow, ice, and mammoth beasts.
Not only that, but a new magic is introduced, which changes everything.
How does this impact their culture?
The ship Atlantia has just under four hundred people onboard. This includes crew, high-ranking passengers, those of the lower class...and prisoners being transported. Men, women, and children who were convicted of petty crimes like stealing a loaf of bread.
When the Atlantia arrives in a new time and place, a new magic system emerges that changes all they knew. Only women can wield the strange new powers and their abilities, or gifts, can only impact men. This, understandably, throws their traditionally patriarchal society into chaos.
Truthtaker takes place three hundred years after this initial displacement, after the dust has settled. Beliefs and culture have changed to adapt to their new reality. And along with these changes, there are secrets. Secrets that must not be Revealed.
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Keep chasing your dreams and slaying your dragons, my friends. I believe in you.
Coming soon...
Truthtaker by Lysandra James
Regency culture in an ice age environment. Magic that drives men mad. Secrets that could unravel society. Truth that can’t be…Revealed.
Coming December 2025. Subscribers will be the first to know when and where Truthtaker will be available. If you haven't done so already, subscribe now!
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