Prescription: A Double Dose of My Own Medicine
Observing myself through this yearʻs 1,000 words a day process and .... horses
Aloha! Welcome to They Keep Telling Me I Should Write My Memoir. Mahalo for supporting my annual two-week break to participate in the 1,000 Words of Summer writers challenge1. Thatʻs a time I write a thousand words a day for 14 days for my eyes only, no edits allowed, free to explore a new topic or push myself to find something fresh in my way of writing.
The process is relevant to our ongoing story, even if the content is not yet ready for public eyes. So without further ado…
I have a five-year One Line A Day journal I gave myself (and several friends) at the beginning of last year. I write faithfully. It is only a sentence or maybe two. Sometimes my entries are prosaic…a real estate showing I had that day. Sometimes they are cryptic…references to people and gatherings in a personal shorthand. Sometimes they are shocking to me as I look back exactly one year and realize how far I have come, how far in the past that entry seems.
Three years of 1,000 Words of Summer feels the same and more so. After completing this yearʻs 14,000+ words, I printed it out, found and employed my rarely used and therefore squeaky three-hole punch, and added the punched pages to a many-times-repurposed three ring binder containing 2023 and 2024 Words. Then I started at the beginning and read the 42,000+ words through.
In 2023 those 14,000 words took me to some genuinely new ideas on a very personal topic that was taking up a lot of space in my head (and no, not ready to add that to the tell-all memoir quite yet). In 2024 those 14,000 words guided me to a stronger, more authentic and resonant voice when I felt I was singing flabby and flat in this writing.
This year, thanks to a very last minute decision to travel to northern California, Day Minus One of the Fourteen Days found me at an unanticipated inflection point. 1,000 Words of Summer 2025 would begin on Day 4 of another round of Leadership and Horses at Casari Ranch - another round of learning with my mentor and friend Ariana with whom I have been learning for 24 years and counting. I joke that I am her slowest student ever. I also could joke that the Universe/Guides/Kūpuna sometimes have to hit me over the head with astonishing synchronicities2 and/or multiple reinforcements of support when they want to make sure I get a message and act on it.
Or to put this in concrete terms as I have clearly buried the lede: just prior to the two weeks away I had been writing here about becoming a fresh observer of ourselves and of our world in order to design new actions or become more effective as leaders for our commitments. The five days of equine guided practice bleeding into fourteen days of writing practice became a double dose of my own medicine.
In 2023 I quoted Suleika Jalouad:
If you want to write a good book, write what you don’t want others to know about you. If you want to write a great book, write what you don’t want to know about yourself.
The value of journaling, the value of the disciplined writing of 1,000 words a day for my eyes only, is having a place to safely write what I donʻt want to know about myself.
The value of repeatedly opening myself vulnerably in a brilliantly facilitated group of strangers to receive feedback from them and, especially, from the horses and the herd, is to safely hear what I donʻt want to know about myself.
Pretty much the essential message of They Keep Telling Me I Should Write My Memoir, through all the adventures and essays, is that we equally need the skill of non-judgmental introspection, and the ability to receive grounded feedback from others, in order to grow personally and spiritually - whether as business leaders, professionals, partners, parents or members of whatever herds we choose or choose us. We need to see ourselves in the eyes of others, in eyes that may be compassionate so that we find forgiveness or offer grace to ourselves, or in eyes that challenge us with their ungrounded assessments to find our truth, to find our stand, to find our voice.
I spent most of the five days with Arianaʻs herd in an uncharacteristically nonverbal space. Ostensibly I was there to complete one of the requirements for Level 2 certification. But that was just the rationalization to follow an overpowering intuition that I needed to change my appointments and reserve flights and car and hotels to attend a program that would begin in six days time. I didnʻt really care about that goal. Without the overlay of needing to accomplish an objective, I allowed myself to attend the program with the same curiosity and openness with which I bless myself during the 1,000 Words of Summer writing weeks.
The first day of my writing practice “coincidentally” fell on the day of my round pen session - an opportunity to get one-on-one feedback from the mare Luna, the mare who received and affirmed my personal declaration of purpose in a similar session three years ago. As I began my 1,000 Words writing at dawn, this yearʻs topic became clear. Through the morning hours, a new declaration around my three years ago commitment took form. That afternoon, I entered the pen and walked slowing around the perimeter, feeling this new direction in my body. Luna listened to the energy and responded, then directed me back to the facilitator and the watching students, instructing me it was time to open my mouth and begin to talk it through with them.
I had another thirteen days of writing ahead to talk it through with myself.
The thing is, the horses tell it like it is when they read our energy and body language. The horses never lie to themselves, so we trust they are equally truthful with us. But we humans do lie to ourselves. We rationalize and find a hundred twisted ways to keep the fear of becoming true to ourselves at bay.
Luna told me it was ok to face my fear. She told me it was overdue. In that round pen, she touched me with her nose, connecting with infinite tenderness, and then nipped me, in a private moment out of sight of any human, the way one horse will tell another “get going already!”
So I am going already - in horse time. I am still in the exploration stage, barely beginning to articulate and feel for the energy in possible new offers. Letting myself stay in that intuitive space while still sharing in words enough to get feedback from my most trusted sources.
I am sure these weekly pages will help me find my way. Mahalo for being faithful readers. May your own inflection points be reached in the company of faithful guides.
You can find information, guest author posts, and sign up for next year at Craft Talk.
Much of the drama and magic in the chronological memoir portion of what I have written here is in those synchronicities, omens, and “you cannot make this shit up” moments.