When my morning alarm goes off, I pull myself up to sitting, lean back against my headboard, and grab my phone to begin a meditation. On Sundays, I sometimes first check that my weekly email went out.

Sometimes I re-read it, sometimes I don’t.

Last Sunday, I read my words with a sinking feeling. At the Jane Friedman event, I correctly hadn’t focused on the cookies.

But I focused on the wrong thing.

Instead of focusing on the people, the experience, and what I was learning, I focused on my side hustle.

Each cookie was bagged tagged, marked with a QR code to get the free cookie recipe and StoryJoules handbook. I hoped to get a handful of signups to my Saturday email list for writers, ten if I was lucky.

I got one.

When I mentioned this (and only this, nothing else about the event) to a writer buddy, she asked if I’d had a good time.

My writer buddy knew what mattered most.

That was lesson #1.

Lesson #2 came from Laurie, my friend the psychologist who is also a social scientist, which makes her highly analytical and fiercely data-driven.

“Did anyone, from the stage, recommend to the audience that they use the QR code and download your handbook?”

No, they had not. Both John (who introduced Jane) and Jane praised the cookies, and Jane thanked me. I had hoped for, but hadn’t asked for, a from-the-stage reference to the handbook.

“I need to learn to ask for what I want,” I admitted to Laurie.

“That might be too much for you, knowing you as long as I have. You could start with what would be helpful.”

“I need to think about what would be helpful and then ask for it.”

“Yes. Start with that.”

It’s hard for me to ask. Like so many of the invisibly wounded, we learned growing up that it wasn’t safe to ask. I learned asking was, at best, futile. At worst, dangerous.

But I don’t need the behaviors that served me in the past to hinder me in the present.

Might as well start now.

Because I want StoryJoules to be known and used, it would be helpful, if you’ve found benefit from StoryJoules (formerly the StoryWheel), if you would send a writer friend either:

This link that gets them the StoryJoules handbook by signing up for my mailing list, which will keep them updated on new stuff from me, or

This link that gets them the StoryJoules handbook without signing up, a super speedy direct download.

Thank you. 🌻

PS: This is a small ask, right? But as I’m writing this, I’m crying. I’m not saying this for sympathy, but so we can be vulnerable together about the reality that, for some of us, asking is hard.

If we see each other being vulnerable and doing something hard, maybe it can help us all do something hard.

I take a deep breath in and a slow breath out, reminding myself (as Laurie says), “Nothing bad can happen.” It’s safe for me to ask, what matters is the asking, not whatever happens or doesn’t happen after the asking. There is nothing I need to do to deserve a spot on the planet, nothing to accomplish to be worthy—nothing at all.

Chewing the Cud of Good

Thankful for my headboard, woven with scarves sent by friends during a time when I needed to cover my neck.