After posting my piece about marriage last week “the middle”, I sat down and I wrote a song. It was hard for me to write because I have a genuinely difficult time writing about my marriage and happy topics, which I am grateful that those two things go together in my life, but it doesn't make writing songs about it any easier.

After writing three really terrible songs- like really terrible ones- I wrote this one and I don't feel like it's too horrible, so I thought I'd share it.

It's a very raw and vulnerable song and if you haven't read “the middle”, you definitely should before or after listening to this to understand where I'm coming from a bit better.

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=374417002367812776

I apologize for the camera & audio quality. It was pouring today and it took everything in me to even show up and record the video. Soon we will be in our own place and I will have much more control over what my recording space looks like, I'm very much looking forward to bringing you quality content. In the mean time, bear with me.

Here's to slowing down, treasuring the little moments and drawing closer together with your partner.

xoxo -Ry

Dear Creator,

If I could be with you today in person, I would much prefer that. I don't like to have personal conversations over the internet, but due to social distancing and the fact that we are hundreds of miles apart, a letter will have to do.

If we were together I would invite you to my favorite coffee shop where I would order a buttery, chocolate filled pastry and an almond milk honey latte, in a mug. I would find us a cozy spot, on a couch or by a window and we would nestle in for an afternoon of conversation.

I would start off by asking you about your story, how you've come to be where you are today and then we'd get into the nitty gritty.

Creator, I'd ask you what fills your soul up. What gets you out of bed in the morning. I would inquire about your process, why you create what you do and how it comes about. I would pick at you. It would probably bug your ego a bit, I tend to have that effect on people, but it would be out of your best interest.

Creator, I want to know what you're afraid of! Failure? Lack of originality? The deafening sound of silence? No one caring after you pour your heart and soul into your art?

Creator, I want to know your deepest struggle. What keeps you up at night? What haunts your dreams? What is the constant reminder sitting on your shoulder, whispering into your ear?

Creator, I want to know why you're not showing up, pursuing your fullest potential.

Creator, I want to know why you're afraid to step into your voice and own who you are.

Creator, I want to see you thrive, but you cannot flourish without pruning and weeding and most importantly, watering.

I say that because the next thing I would do, my dear Creator, is I would start to pour back into you. Showering you with the words of affirmation you need to keep going.

Once the soil has been overturned, the weeds are all gone and the clouds have been cleared, we can get to work.

Creator, I would tell you how important you are. How much you showing up and owning who you are is vital to the ecosystem.

Creator, I would tell you that your unique qualities and your voice, built on a life no one else has lived is your greatest asset.

Creator, I would tell you that whatever qualms you have with your past experiences should not hinder you from showing up and being the creator you were born to be.

Creator, I would tell you that on the days you feel yourself slipping you need to rest, reset and start again.

Creator, I would remind you that your presence is palpable and that your absence is noticed.

Creator, I would speak the truth over you that as long as you are living and breathing you are worthy of creating and sharing and being listened to... even by one.

Creator, I would remind you that even the one person you are reaching has the power to waterfall that inspiration you planted in them to hundreds.. of thousands.

And then Creator, I would tell you to keep going. Do not look back. Nestle into a community of people who care, who are present with a purpose.

Creator, I may even invite you to Coil, but seeing that you're already here, why don't you stay awhile? We welcome newcomers, unlike every other corner of the internet. No strings attached.

At this point, Creator, I would hope that your cup has been filled up and you can acknowledge just how valuable you are.

My coffee would be cold and my pastry may only have a bite taken out of it, but you Creator, you are worth it. You are worth being poured into. Even though we cannot be together at this time and I cannot finish off our lovely conversation with a warm hug and a “see you soon”, I will do my best to fill you up here.

I believe in you and I believe that you are so very capable and on the days that you don't feel that you can do it, if you just keep pushing forward, you will wake up and realize you've already done it.

Do not let the mental blocks get you.

Do not let the dramatics get you.

Do not let the fear get you.

Do not let the thunder of other voices drown you out.

You have a place, you are welcome, you are capable.

Just because you need a pep talk once in awhile doesn't mean you aren't ready or able. We all need to have our cup filled up before we can pour out of it. Find an accountability partner and dedicate yourselves to encouraging one another and having regular coffee, even if it is online.

Dear Creator, I hope you feel loved and cherished and seen today.

See you soon,

xoxo – Ry

For those of you who are regulars on Coil, you may have noticed I was a little absent last week. I still posted but I certainly wasn't interacting like normal and I appreciate those of you who reached out to check on me. I love this community.

Last week was kind of a whirlwind and a bit stressful.

Monday I had my 22 week tele-health appointment with one of the midwives at the practice I was using. It did not go well. I got off that phone call feeling completely lied to, bamboozled and like I wasn't going to be able to maintain any of my birth plan/preferences. A few quick examples...

- I was informed I would be pushing with a mask on, no exceptions.*

- There was always a possibility of them taking my baby if I refused Covid testing or accepted and tested positive, which if you haven't looked into the false positive rate I will not be taking that chance. This was also a possibility if I removed my mask at any time during my stay. Which is illegal but during a pandemic it seems like all bets are off.

- I would not have the team or location I was originally promised.

- I wouldn't have my birthing center if I didn't pass a test that I've been told multiple times I wouldn't pass. Thanks?

- If I did end up at the birthing center I would most likely be transferred. They advertise a 5% rate, it's more like 50%.

*Regardless of what you believe about masks, asking a woman to labor and deliver in one is inhumane and wrong. Threatening to take her baby is a whole other level of wrong and not even evidence based according to the WHO and the CDC. Not that I believe either of those organizations can be trusted, but if that's what the hospitals are choosing to go by, they ought not to be cherry picking their rules based on convenience and the media narrative. Anyways...

I fully believe that for something as important as birth you should set yourself up for success. If you aren't comfortable with your team, fire them and find people who will support you and your wishes. There will always be cases of emergency and things going unplanned, but I'd much rather have a team that will guide me through those things as close to my plan as possible rather than throwing away the whole thing and telling me to “deal with it”. After hearing I just needed to “deal with it” and “other women deal with it, you'll be fine”, more than once on said call, I knew that this team was not for me and I needed to get the heck out of this practice before it's too late.

This will be second switch and my third provider during this pregnancy, which you may think is high maintenance, I certainly do, but I refuse to sacrifice the quality of care I will receive for convenience. As women, especially when pregnant, we need to understand our rights and know how to advocate for ourselves. Rebecca talked about this in a recent article and she very much encouraged me (unknowingly) to switch providers after my experience. Thankfully Dustin is on board too and just wants the best for me and our baby boy.

With all of this being said, this week I embarked on the difficult task of...

1. Finding the best option for where I needed to give birth. (No mask requirements, zero chance of being separated from MY baby, low intervention rate, birthing suites, doula friendly.)
2. Finding a support team that would be allowed at that location.
3. Finding a provider that would accept me in my 2nd trimester.
4. Finding a practice that would take my insurance.
5. Finding a provider that has privileges to deliver at said place that I wanted to give birth at.

Aligning all of these requirements was a huge undertaking but with a lot of prayer, a ton of research, over 20 calls and making calculated decisions I finally was able to check off all five boxes.

So here's the big surprise: I am firing my midwives and dropping that practice and hiring a traditional OBGYN and... I hired a doula.

Why would I hire a typical OBGYN when midwives are usually more focused on natural unmedicated births like I'm choosing to have?

Two reasons.

1. The two sets of midwives I've seen at the two practices I've already been to during this pregnancy have turned out to be terrible experiences. I attribute this to the fact that they were all nurses first. Now there isn't anything wrong with that, but you're either geared towards natural or you're not and I've felt as though I've been lured in under the guise of the title “midwife” and then had a switcheroo done on me and have been treated from a very traditional standpoint. Not cool.
2. I hired a doula. She will help me to make informed decisions, she will be supporting me through the rest of my pregnancy, labor and delivery and even part of my postpartum experience. She will help to advocate for me if/when my provider or care team pushes back on my birth plan and I will have personalized support. If I was completely on my own, I'd be more hesitant to simply go with a traditional OB, but I feel supported and I know that if I am armed with evidence based birth information and someone to physically back me up, I'm going to be fine.

Now zero aspect of this is saying that having a birth with expected interventions and medical procedures is wrong, it's just not what I want or what I feel is best for me and my son. I believe birth is a natural process that women are very capable of and that in most cases a lot of the interventions and protocols are done with the wrong intentions and we've turned birth into something it was never intended to be. I will not be giving into all of the people that keep telling me that I cannot do it naturally and unmedicated. I am capable and women have done it for thousands of years, period. It's only in the last hundred years or so that unnecessary interventions have become standard and you are considered wrong if you attempt a natural birth. So backwards. Again, there is a time and place for interventions and protocol, but in America we tend to treat them as one size fits all and I don't agree with that in the least bit.

I am so incredibly happy that we are investing in my health and my labor experience with a doula. I feel like I will be so much more prepared mentally and that it will take a lot of stress off of Dustin. He shouldn't have to worry about all of my preferences and communicating that to the nurses. He should be focused on being emotionally present with me and assisting me as much as possible. I've done my due diligence and I've researched and prepared as much as I possibly can and I am finally at peace with my birth plan and team. I meet my new OB on August 19th and although I would typically be nervous about meeting with ANOTHER doctor, I am excited. I feel confident that I know what I want and that I am supported. I finally feel like we'll be ready and prepared to face whatever comes. In my dream world I'd be doing a water birth at home with a midwife and a doula but that's not realistic for our situation and medical history so this will have to suffice.

I hope that if you are facing a similar situation or honestly any situation with a medical professional that you remember that they work for you and you should set yourself up for success. Far too many people feel uncomfortable but go forward hoping for the best because “a doctor would never...” and then end up in the exact situation they wanted to avoid. Go with your gut and advocate for yourself. There is a reason there are so many providers out there and you always have a choice. Informed consent is key and if you aren't being provided the information to make choices, you need to find it for yourself or find a different provider. A nurse friend of mine recently reminded me that bedside manner is just as important as the information that they are delivering. Their personal opinions, political stances and bias should not EVER get in the way of your care. If they're not treating you with the utmost respect and with basic human decency, they shouldn't be treating your medical conditions.

Thanks again to all of you who reached out this week, I am so happy that this problem is resolved and I truly feel like God showed up and guided me through every step of this process. I didn't want to leave the first practice, trust me. This wasn't me overreacting, in fact they've already done a lot of things I've questioned, even something that Patty B made a video about because she was so upset hearing my experience, but my tele-health appointment was the last straw and I finally felt God give me permission to start seeking other care. I had my interview meeting with the doula yesterday and she is a total gem and I feel like God put her right in my path, she's truly everything and more that I could want for my support team.

Don't forget to advocate for yourself, it will always be worth it.

xoxo – Ry

When you start at the beginning, with someone new, you never stop to think about the day you’ll lose that person. You’re so entangled in the web that is new love that you hardly stop to look around and see the bigger picture.

It isn’t until two years in, laying in bed, skin to skin that you are faced with the stark reality that one day this will all be over.

Not because you want it to be but because everything has a beginning, a middle and an end. And you are no longer in the beginning. And to meet your deepest fear right where you’re at, you have to face the realization that you have no control over how long the middle is.

It’s easy to take advantage of the forehead kisses and kitchen twirls and late night cuddles. It’s easy to grab a cute butt and be wooed by the way they look at you. That part is easy, but those moments, as you go on, become fewer and farther between as you allow life to take over the spaces that you leave blank.

I wish it didn’t have to be like this. I wish you could have your love forever.

Why must I stay up and watch his chest rise and fall just to make sure he’s still with me?

Why must I say “be safe” when he leaves every morning just to spend the next hour replaying scenarios in my head of what would happen if he didn’t make it home that evening?

What must it take to enjoy a love to the fullest, every fleeting moment, without wasting a second worrying about when it’s over?

Maybe it’s because I live with a widow and the blatantly loud silence that fills the other side of her bed breaks my heart on the daily.

Maybe it’s because those around me are losing their husbands at ages I can’t imagine.

Maybe it’s because I see how frivolously common divorce is in our society and as much as I want to leave some days I cannot because I know how much fuller my life is with my love but yet the fear that I may walk away on a whim one day still haunts me.

I don’t know what it is, but it’s a reality check.

I lay here typing out my thoughts as my love lightly snores away, his cold feet pressed between my legs. I feel his breath and I feel safe because I know he’s right here. We’re in the middle. And it prompts me to be a better woman. A more present and loving wife. One who forgives and forgets and lets go with ease because every moment spent fighting for my opinion is a moment wasted that could’ve been spent enjoying the love of my life. Enjoying his presence, his humor, his freckled shoulders, his crinkled eyes and his curly hair.

Two years in and I feel more in love with him than ever before. Even on the hard days. We are in the middle. So I’m going to live like tomorrow will be the end.

Hey friends! I'm super excited to show up and participate in another Cinnamon challenge. I forgot to do the last few but this one was right up my ally and with the extended timeline it fit perfectly into my life! As many of you know Catera Combs won the #FortifyThis challenge and is hosting this one, #ShowMeTalent. As a fellow artist I couldn't help but join in and support the challenge she came up with!

It felt weird just singing a song for a talent challenge because y'all know I write music and I sing all the time. But this song felt different. I chose one of my latest original songs, “What Do You Know?” as my submission because this song in particular forced me to tap into talent I didn't know if I had or not. Let me explain...

When I wrote the song I did it with the intentions of leaning into my current challenges. At the time Dustin and I had a fight and I wanted to lean into that challenge but I was also struggling with breath control and range from my pregnancy. My diaphragm is not what it used to be. 😅 (Thanks baby.) This song is what came of that. I decided to treat my insecurities and challenges as strengths and so I set out to write a song that would capture the frustrations of fighting with someone you love, lyrically & vocally. You can tell I struggle to hit some of the notes and I even purposely change the tempo & vibe of the song at the end to not only help with the lack of breath control but to emulate what happens at the end of a fight when you start to get sad and back and slow down.

I feel like I have a brick on my chest when we fight and I feel like that 24/7 anyways (growing baby) so it kinda worked perfectly. Another artist with a bigger range who’s not also sharing their oxygen supply with another human could probably sing it better, but this is my interpretation.

To top it off I showed up with my biggest (current) insecurity: pregnancy acne. Frankly because I’m too lazy to put makeup on and I thought it added a nice touch to showing up where I’m at for this challenge. I mean a challenge isn’t supposed to be easy, right?

I hope y’all enjoy it, it’s not like a lot of my other work because it’s a specific songwriting challenge that I gave myself. It’s rough, but so is life. I guess one of my talents is capturing a moment, especially the hard ones, in song.

Don’t forget to participate in Catera’s #ShowMeTalent challenge as it does end next week on the 31st!

Xoxo – Ry

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=370352774153503834

The last few months have been really frustrating, to say the very least. But for artists and musicians it's been devastating. If you were reliant on touring you're more than likely jobless or relying on PostMates & Grocery Delivery to pay your rent. You may be struggling with your mental health because you're not used to being shut out of your favorites venues. Experiencing the scene and playing shows to the Friday night crowd just isn't possible anymore. Maybe you're a recording artist, like me, and you've been struggling because the money just isn't there to get in the studio. Or writes haven't been possible or you've done them over FaceTime but it's just not the same.

Artists, to the world, aren't as important as those in the automotive industry or the medical field. We haven't been included in the reopening plans because we're just “extras”. We're the entertainment and to the naked eye, entertainment isn't priority. As much as I have to disagree with that, because let's be real, ya'll wouldn't have survived quarantine without our music, movies, tv shows, podcasts and other forms of art, none of ya'll are ready to have that conversation. We'll have it another day.

Instead, I want to use this post to encourage my fellow artists and other creatives of things they can do during this time to maintain their audiences and creative flow. This is obviously directed at musicians and musical artists, but a lot of these things can be done by any kind of creative, so feel free to browse the list! Now obviously these things aren't going to make you money, you still need to find a job to pay the bills and feed yourself, but at least you'll be doing little things here and there to keep the faith and keep maintaining what momentum had going pre-corona.

I know what we're going through is hard and if you're sad or depressed, please know that's okay to feel that way. Try to get involved with a virtual counselor or someone else who can support you during this time. You're important and needed in this world, entertainment is important, whether our society likes to treat it like it is or not. Keep the faith and keep moving forward, small action adds up.

xoxo – Ry

I recently read an amazing quote from a multi-passionate creator that I love and follow on Instagram, @joi.knows.how.

“All of your passions have a seat at the table, but they don't all have to speak at once.” – Joi

As a multi-passionate creative, that really hit me. I have the tendency to want to do all the things, all of the time.

Sometimes it can be embarrassing when people ask what I do because I don't know what to say.

If I say I'm a songwriter I'm met with: “who do you write for?” and if I answer with “myself”, it seems less legitimate and that I can't call myself a songwriter because I'm not considered successful. To them it seems to be more of a hobby.

If I say I'm a writer I'm met with the same question. If I answer “on Coil”, they want to know what I write for Coil and then I have to explain that I don't write for them, but I write on the platform. That is usually met with “oh, so you're just a blogger.” Another stinging reminder that they see my career as just a hobby.

If I say I'm a website designer for small business owners then I'm met with nods and affirmation, but that's not who I am, it's just one of the things I do and it’s not even something I’m super passionate about.

I’m also passionate about health, wellness and natural birth.

I’m passionate about mental health.

I’m passionate about my faith.


I’m passionate about raising awareness about sex and human trafficking and how we can stop it.

I’m passionate about helping those who have been sexually assaulted, abused and traumatized.

I’m passionate about a lot of things and thankfully I can talk about a lot of those passions easily through my writing, but to the outsider it probably looks like I’m confused and that I talk about too many things. Which is just too dang bad, because I’m never going to change being a multi-passionate creative. It just means that some of my audience is going to drift off sometimes when I’m not focused on a specific topic they’re interested, but it also means a different part of my audience is going to be very tuned in when they weren’t so much before.

I’ve been criticized for this and questioned.

“How can you expect to make an impact without going all in on one subject?”

With that I respond, “how do you define impact?”.

I’m not living to die famous for one of these things. I’m living to make change where I can and promote healing in whatever individuals God brings along my path.

Some days it’s frustrating even for me, shouldn’t I just drop everything and do music? But then I’m quickly reminded that when I’m only focused on one thing, I’m the least happy. I get stressed out focusing on one thing because there’s so many parts of me that are dying for their voice to be heard.

This may sound strange but I allow my brain to work like a board meeting most of the time. Everyone gets their chance to speak at some point, but they all have to take their turns. Like Joi said, they all have a seat, but they’re not all speaking at once. This means that for awhile I may be putting out music projects that are on my heart to share and for awhile I may be talking heavily about mental health in my writing and/or my music. Rather than letting the medium control me, I allow the topic to take the reins. However I feel compelled to create, I do.

I encourage you dear friends, if you’re struggling with the fact that you can’t seem to nail down just one thing that you’re passionate about, maybe you’re not supposed to. Throw everyone’s opinions out the window, even those of the creators around you. I’ve always been one to say, “niche down”, but if that constricts you too much, don’t. You’ll find your audience and attract your people simply by showing up and being the multi-passionate that you are, whether its makes other creators uncomfortable or not.

YOU have to define what success means to you.

YOU have to decide what your mission in your life is going to be.

Do not let others negatively influence you for the sake of fitting in or feeling normal.

You are enough just as you are and your creative voices ALL have a seat at the table. So come sit down and stay awhile.

xoxo – Ry

“You can get fired from a job, but you can't get fired from your gift. So find your gift and you will always have work.” – unknown

“I let you take everything from me, set me free.”

Trigger Warning: Stalking, Sexual Assault, Abuse & Trauma

I cannot believe it has been an entire year since I released what I consider to be my first REAL single, “Stitched”. Yes, I released three songs before this one but they weren't really me and two of them were from when I was 16. Stitched was the first song that I truly felt something powerful with and I was introduced to the idea of helping people via my music.

For those of you who don't know, Stitched is the song that I wrote after an awakening when I was 16 and I realized I had endured some kind of assault or trauma when I was a child. I cannot fully pinpoint all of the details, they come and go, but during an acupuncture/prayer session a lot of them came out when I was 16 and a lot of things started making sense. For those of you who doubt the possibility of this, look into childhood trauma and repressed memories and you will see how heartbreakingly common this is.

I started Stitched when I was 16 but added the rest of the first version to it when I was 18. I had just found out that I had a stalker, whom of which I just thought was an admirer for 8 months. It turned out to be much more and much deeper than that. I had just moved into my first apartment, I was out on my own and I was terrified. I had daily panic attacks as he worked at the building I worked in, he knew everything about me, my schedule, my family, my life and where I lived and it was a lot for a teenager to handle. I developed severe anxiety from this situation and the threat increased as I began to learn more and more about him, his past, his situation and his infatuation with me. It was terrifying and truthfully, I've never been so open about this before, but I can confidently say that even though I still have fear and anxiety creep up about the situation two years later, God has healed me in a lot of ways. Through the situation with him, there was a lot of perversion and many instances that would've been considered office sexual harassment had I said or reported anything at the time. It was still considered it, but by the time everything came up and the other person involved in the situation came forward about their experience with him and the literal sexual assault that had been taken place, my experiences just added to the whole pile of crap. It was all bundled together and although he was fired, he still mentally and physically terrorized me for months.

That's why I moved to Nashville. Yes, I moved here to explore a new place and get to know myself and work on music, but I also moved because everywhere I went he seemed to be. Whether he was physically there or not, oftentimes he was, I still “saw” him everywhere. I couldn't go places alone without feeling physically paralyzed and terrified for my safety.

Moving to Nashville was the best choice I could've made and it was there that I finished the first draft of Stitched. It was still too painful to talk about and too real, I was still scared out of my mind, but I started opening up to a few people here and there. But the situation still put a damper on my life, especially when it came to Dustin entering in and our physical and emotional relationship. It was hard to trust someone again. Not that I ever fully trusted the guy who stalked me, but he manipulated me in a lot of ways and it was terrifying to open myself up again to anyone, in any form.

A year later after I moved, Dustin and I were married and I had just started Coil. My heart was more ready than ever to start music back up again and a friend from high school who is a producer reached out to me. She wanted to hear what I had and wanted to work with me on a song. I sent her Stitched and she fell in love with it but knew that it could be so much more powerful if we refined it; she was right. After a year of living with the overly emotional, yet very vivid version of the song, I was ready to move onto actual details and create something that could help to heal me and others. What came out of that writing and recording experience is the version of Stitched that ya'll know today.

It was such a special project to me because I was able to include a lot of women who wanted to share their stories of putting themselves back together after experiencing abuse, assault and trauma. What so many people don't realize is that it's not always as (disgustingly) simple as unwanted advances or even rape, as awful as it is, abuse and assault go a lot deeper and they're often more complicated. There is emotional manipulation, unwanted touch, stares, comments, plans being made, etc. You can't ever just assume that if a woman wasn't raped that she hasn't experienced abuse, assault or trauma. We should be thankful when a scenario does not go to that extent, but that doesn't mean what did happen isn't truly just as horrible and traumatizing. Just the knowledge that someone was planning on doing something awful to you is horrifying and will keep you up at night or wake you up screaming from the nightmare you're living in.

The video that I was able to put together to raise awareness and promote healing featured a lot of different women, from different walks of life with very different stories and I am proud of that. Still a year later I look back and wonder how on earth I made it to releasing this song and I'm super proud of the 23.2k+ streams I've gotten so far and the 25.3k+ views on the video. It's not a ton for a year, and I know that, but I'm still a small artist and the fact that I've been able to reach that many people with my message means the world. If it means that just one person knows that just because someone tried to break them, that they're still worthy and capable of stitching themselves back together, then it's absolutely worth it.

If you'd like to stream or download Stitched on your preferred platform, you can do so at: https://lnkfi.re/stitched. And if you haven't seen the video yet, here is the version I posted on Cinnamon.video. I've temporarily unlocked it because this message getting out that you are worthy of love and that what happened to you is not your identity is more important to me than money.

https://www.cinnamon.video/watch?v=122479330604353298

If you'd like to support me and my music and my mission to spread positive messages through hard things, I encourage you to snatch up a Coil account. It's $5 a month and you can support every creator on this platform and on the Cinnamon platform that is trying to change the way that the internet works. This is an ad-free platform and by supporting creators on Coil and Cinnamon Video, you are saying no more to the advertisers, blatant censorship, political agendas and the money being taken away from hard working creators. There's actually a ton of other perks of having a membership, but I'll let you check that out here.

Thank you for reading my story and if you are need of a listening ear or you're looking for emotional or mental support, please reach out to me on Instagram or Twitter (both are @riley_quin). Even if I cannot directly help you, I will do my best to put you in contact with someone who can.

You are wanted, you are needed, you are loved, you are seen, you are heard and you are enough.

xoxo – Ry

I go through spurts of being crazy productive and then just hanging on by the edge of my teeth, it's kind of ridiculous. This is my natural flow and so I don't beat myself up for it, but after two weeks of laying around and getting the bare minimum done (being pregnant doesn't help with my motivation) I'm ready to get back to a schedule. I'm sure that if you've been suddenly working from home or your life has gotten messed up from the pandemic that you're desperate for a schedule too!

Lately I've just been so overwhelmed with everything going on in our lives and it's not that I don't want to hit my goals and be productive, it's just that I haven't had it in me. For example I've been wanting to get started with pregnancy yoga & walking. I was walking for 20ish minutes at a time, per my doctor's instructions but it was honestly exhausting me so much that the last two weeks I've been dreading it so I put it off. Pregnancy literally sucks the life out of you, easy tasks become not so easy. I also know myself and if I keep telling myself I have to walk for 20 minutes on the treadmill, I won't. I need to find another way of getting movement that's healthy for me and safe for baby boy. I decided that I need to start doing 10 minutes of yoga and light stretching to prep myself for labor and then do 10 minutes of walking each day. This sounds a lot less overwhelming and I know I can get through a guided yoga session and a 10 minute YouTube “mommy” video way easier than I can 20 minutes of straight walking. Another thing I noticed since I've been less productive is that my depression has been slipping back in and even though I’m on supplements and semi-strict diet to help with that, I still need to move daily and I haven’t been doing that. Depression and I have a weird relationship because I'm not sure if the isolation and lack of movement causes it or if it causes the self-isolation and lack of movement. Regardless, I'm self aware and I know what I need to do to fix it so that's what I'm going to do. Because frankly, I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired and I need to get back on the ball.

This is why I've decided to create a schedule. Like I said I go through spurts and when I'm on a productive high, I have a schedule. It'll last me a month or two until something changes in my life, throws me off my game and we'll get back into this pattern. Maybe I'll address that one day, but for now this works for me. I'm going to lay out how I go about creating my schedule because I think it might be interesting to those who either struggle with their mental health or who are struggling to get on a schedule simply by “writing it down”.. that doesn't work for me either.

How I create my schedules:

1. Identify where you’re wasting time/falling behind

- I’m watching way too much YouTube (all mom videos which are helpful but I need to balance it out).

- Scrolling on social media way too much.

2. Identify what you’ve been slacking on

- Working out.

- Eating on a good schedule, I keep letting my blood sugar crash.

3. Identify what’s working

- I post & engage in the morning and that works well for me.

- I write during the day and get my post for the next day ready but if I wait too late I’m too tired so I need a break between activities but not wait too late.

4. Identify Priorities

- Physical Health

- Mental Health

- My Clients

- Posting & Engagement

- Creating & Brainstorming

5. Work out a loose schedule that you know you can stick to on a regular basis

- Post on Coil & Engage

- Breakfast & Supplements

- Check in with clients

- Post on Instagram/Facebook/gFam & Engage

- Pinterest Updates

- Lunch

- Create Content & Graphics

- Nap/YouTube (pregnancy life)

- 10 Minutes of yoga & 10 minutes of walking (pregnancy workout)

- Shower

- Client/Website Work

- Evening Coil Engagement

- Dinner

Now that I've gotten the outline of the schedule figured out, I hold myself to these rules..

1. If I am exhausted and need a day off, I will take it.
2. Not everyday is going to go according to schedule but I know my priorities and as long as I feed myself, create at least one thing and talk to one person, I've done my job and served well.
3. If my mental health is acting up, I need to rest, get out of my room, eat something and talk to someone.
4. If I'm continually skipping something on my schedule I need to reevaluate and try again.
5. Drop the schedule on the weekend. Relax.

I am aware that this is a fairly simple concept, one that we've been trained to practice since our early elementary days, but that doesn't mean it's not still hard for some of us. Especially as a creative, I often find myself getting so overwhelmed with other people's creations or my own ideas that I either shut down or I spend all day doing one task and I can ignore my other needs and priorities. It's an all or nothing kind of thing. I also understand that those of us who struggle with mental health issues often have a hard time prioritizing ourselves or the things that need to get done. We slip into our own thoughts or feeling of overwhelm and we just give up.

I hope that if you're dealing with any of this or if you've just gotten frustrated with your lack of productivity that you try out creating a schedule. Remember that it's not a binding contract that leaves you without a sense of freedom, rather it's a tool to help you move forward and accomplish your goals so that you can be more free.

Have a happy and lovely and schedule free weekend!

xoxo – Ry