So here’s what I am noticing lately.

It takes tremendous energy to show up, to communicate whole heartedly, to build multiple relationships the way we do when we have a business to nurture and advocate for.

I’m not talking about the effort to rally to write a series of articles or a promotional email. I’m talking about the more enduring effort.

Showing up with a full heart, with something to say, with courage to say it, with willingness to step forward requires a constant returning to center, an anchoring in, a nourishing of courage and strength and depth.

And in a busy modern life, that can be hard to find.

I struggle with it. How about you?

I have moments where I am on fire. Where some notion takes a hold of me and comes tumbling out of me. Where something in me demands to be said and won’t let me go until it has shape and words.

But other days, I am tired. I didn’t sleep well. The kid is home sick. I get distracted by Facebook. I schedule too much important life stuff and it crowds out my thinking and writing time.

I see how easy it can be to hide away. Days and weeks slipping by. I don’t flatter myself that people are wondering, worrying about me.

But I also sense this. If I am not that beacon. If I am not emitting a homing signal every now and then, then I disappear.

And if I disappear, my work doesn’t get served. My people don’t get served. There’s a little less magic and potent expression in the world.

The answers I am finding for myself aren’t simple or formula-friendly.

First, take exquisite care of yourself. Attend to your sleep and your food and the demands of this lovely body. Our bodies can be our allies, our homes, our guides to finding what we want to say.

Stay connected and engaged in the world. Read, wonder, ask questions. Allow yourself to be stirred. Provoked. Enraged. Enlightened. A part of something bigger.

And keep asking yourself, over and over, what’s inside that I can bring forward.

Like the baby’s ask for milk creates more supply, keep asking yourself.

What do I have to say today?

What do I have to share?

How simply can I bring it out in the world?