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In Books, Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Personal Growth, Politics, Relationships, Speaking, Writing

Release

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Most years, I tend to ease into the three words I choose to focus on. But this year, the word release has packed a real punch from the word go.

When Jason and I were in Baja, Mexico in late January, on one of the most fabulous trips I’ve ever taken because it was so chill and relaxing with just the two of us, I floated in the pool one hot afternoon and asked myself what I wanted to release. The phrase “trade fear for courage” dropped into my mind. I loved it. I decided to adopt it.

When we got home, I had trouble falling asleep one night. My conscience was whispering about lining up my values with my actions. I didn’t know what this meant at first, but when I tried to quiet down my busy mind I realised that Substack was not a social media platform I wanted to be associated with due to the increased press about the money they earn from far-right white supremacy fascist newsletters hosted on their site.

I started my Ruby Finch Books newsletter there in June 2023, followed a year later by my monthly podcast Intuitive Courage. After two-plus years, my subscriber numbers were small, but I had enjoyed the process of slowly growing those readers, listeners, and supporters. I thought about transferring my newsletter and podcast to a platform that didn’t feel so morally compromised, but then I remembered my word release.

A better question for me to ask was, “Do I need this?” At first, the answer felt like it had to be yes. I started the newsletter to let people know what Ruby Finch Books was up to, and then to try podcasting after several readers and teachers suggested I should have one. But after trading my fear for courage and deleting Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Spotify, Goodreads, and unpublishing my books for sale on Amazon, I realised just how amazing it feels to cut ties with products that don’t align with my values.

Projects begin and then end. We learn what we can while doing new things, and we meet interesting people along the way. And then we release them when they no longer serve us or we re-evaluate our focus. Perhaps that’s what this word release has really been for me: a re-alignment of who I am and where I’m going (and what I utilise to communicate these things to others).

I wrote a goodbye post on Substack and sent it to my subscribers, and then I deleted everything over there. It felt like the right thing to do. I ported my email subscribers over to my Ruby Finch Books site, where I started a page called Updates. I won’t post on a schedule, but if I have something important to communicate I can use that space. If you are interested, please subscribe there with your email.

So now I’m down to two websites: Ruby Finch Books and my author site here at julianneharvey.com. I have been posting here once a month for years now, but I’m going to stop writing to a schedule and post when I feel like I have something I want to say. I’d love it if you are willing to subscribe here with your email so you don’t miss out on any posts, as my only remaining social media is a Bluesky account.

I’m committing to rebuilding the analog world, by spending way less time on the digital version. I refuse to support evil far-right tech bro oligarchs who systematically destroyed what was initially fun about the internet to sell ads, create disinformation, and cram genAI trash down our throats in an effort to make us less intelligent and empathetic. That’s not a path I choose to walk down any longer.

The best part about releasing things is making room for something new to grow in their place. After release, my next word for 2026 is imagine, and I’ve already spent some time imagining Ruby Finch Pictures into being. I’m committed to finishing the screenplay for Jamesy Harper’s Big Break, working a little on that every day, along with completing my murder mystery novel A Body at the Fair. I’m writing a political journal, responding to the daily nightmare onslaught of the current news cycle. And I’m doing two new things that scare me this year: training as a hospice volunteer, and working out three times a week at fitness classes with other women in my neighbourhood.

It all starts with releasing the things that have run their course. Thank you, for reading this and for being here as a support for me in my writing and publishing journey. Each email subscriber or kind comment about my writing or speaking or teaching or nurturing means so much to me. It makes me feel less alone in this overwhelming and loud world we’re living in. Community care reminds me why it matters that we are alive right now, that we are messy humans having a messy human experience, and why nurture is important. Thank you for your care and kindness.

What are you releasing in these early months of 2026?

In Books, Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Movies/TV, Nurture, Personal Growth, Politics, Writing

3 Words for 2026

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Choosing words to focus on for my upcoming year is a favourite December practice for me. I find a time when I’m alone. I close my eyes, breathe deeply, and get quiet enough to listen to my intuition speak. I allow the words I want to rise to the surface of my consciousness, like something submerged in a pool that bobs up to the top.

Every year, I think maybe nothing will be there, but then, like magic, words arrive. This year, those words were: release, imagine, build. They might not be in that order when they initially appear, but when I look at the words, it’s usually easy to decide what comes first. In this case, I want to spend the first portion of 2026 releasing what doesn’t serve me, then imagine my way into new possibilities, before finishing the year by building on those dreams.

I anticipate that release will be the hardest challenge for me. I like to hold onto things. Grievances, irritations, certainties. From years of therapy and five decades of life experience, I know this isn’t a healthy pattern. Life ebbs and flows. Change is a guarantee. Month-by-month and year-by-year, we must re-evaluate what no longer works for us and choose to let some things go.

So I will practice the art of release. For a long time now, I’ve been trying to simplify everything. Minimalism has taught me that it’s better to want less than to have more. I’ve worked on being content with what I have instead of envying what other people have. This has been one of the best decisions of my life. But now, in 2026, I plan to identify and then release even more, so my life and my focus remains uncluttered. I know for sure that I can do anything but not everything, so I will make an effort to release what I no longer need to prioritise what matters most to me.

The second word, imagine, will be easier. I love to dream my way into new hopes and endeavours. I continue to long to form a production company, Ruby Finch Pictures, to turn my literary work into films and TV shows. I planned to do some of this imagining in 2025, but with my commitment to deeper, simpler, quieter this next phase of my career didn’t happen. But there’s time. I’m learning that there’s more time than I think, and slow growth is always preferable to no growth at all.

I’m also applying the word imagine to the murder mystery novel I’m aiming to finish this year, and the political journal I’ve been writing to help me process the endless nightmare of unfolding fascism and hate in our world. I think it falls to each one of us to imagine a healed society and planet. One where equality isn’t for rich or white people, but for every single person who has breath in their lungs. As human beings, we must be able to imagine something more inspiring than the current hierarchical and corporate systems we’ve been made to live under.

Then there’s the last word, build. It’s not enough simply to dream our way into things. We have to put foundations under it. We have to make peace with how slow and messy it can be to build anything that we hope will last. It never goes exactly as planned. I’m hoping to leave room in the building process to be inspired; to change my plans when something better comes along. I want to meet new people this year who might make excellent partners for me with my businesses but also just new friends to hang out with and learn from.

My overall word for 2026 is flexible. This will be a huge challenge for me, because I tend to be rigid as a coping mechanism for life. But I’m going to try to hold looser to everything and everyone. I will continue to practice receiving care and nurture from others, and remember my counsellor’s advice to DO LESS because I tend to over-function and then get resentful.

It’s a whole new year, which offers each of us a fresh chance to try again. To be gentler, with ourselves and others. To have more fun. To laugh every day. To feel afraid and do things anyway. To invest in community care the way we invest in self-care. Here’s to 2026. May it be bright, beautiful, and generous. May each one of us work to make it so.

In Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, Writing

Awakening to Meaning

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

For a few months now, I’ve been ruminating on meaning and purpose. I began thinking that I needed to create a deeper sense of meaning in my life, so I brainstormed possible avenues: volunteering for a hospice society, applying for a new part-time job, taking a class, learning a hobby, making new friends.

I did a few of these things, even going so far as to schedule an interview for a remote admin position working twenty hours a week. As the interview drew near, I started to panic about where I would find those additional twenty hours a week with my current schedule. By the time the interview happened, and the therapist I spoke to about the job said, “You don’t want an admin job, you are too overqualified for this and you are already doing such interesting work!” I had essentially come to the same realisation.

It’s funny how meaning functions. If I hadn’t applied for that job, and scheduled the interview a couple of weeks after the application, it might have gone differently. But in the interim, I slowed down enough to notice my day-to-day life, and it was like an old polaroid photo developing in front of my eyes. The meaning was already there, baked into everything, but I wasn’t tuned in to recognise it.

It’s been an extraordinary time, waking up to the meaning and purpose that’s all around me. I thought about friends I already have that I haven’t seen for ages, and I sent a bunch of texts to set up some plans. Being open to making new friends is lovely, and I hope that happens as well, but I have so many friends from decades back that I could be investing time and nurture and care in.

I feel like my nerve endings are awake now. So much of what I think will fulfil me doesn’t live outside of me. It’s within. The job is to get quiet, to slow down and pay attention. As part of this awakening to meaning, I recognised how much I loathe Instagram. I only created an account on there for Ruby Finch Books so I could see what my daughter posted, but that’s not enough of a reason to have an account that only gave me a feeling of stress. So I deleted it.

I started to look at my work with a fresh pair of eyes. I love my company, about to celebrate its second birthday on June 7, 2025, and I love the vision that I had when I formed it. When I checked in on my online book sales recently, I saw that five paperback copies of Post Civ sold in the UK last month. I have no idea how anyone in Britain knows about my climate novel, but I’m thrilled. I got a report saying that the Las Vegas Library bought an ebook of Post Civ for their patrons. For someone who used to receive royalty cheques in the amount of .09 for online book sales, this news made me smile from ear to ear.

My monthly podcast Intuitive Courage is small but growing. People are listening in Canada, the US, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, New Zealand and other countries. I have no idea who they are or why they’ve chosen to listen to me, but it’s an honour and a privilege. There’s meaning baked right into those stats. And it gives me a fresh jolt of purpose every month when I consider what to talk about in the podcast. It helps me boost my own confidence as I work through these ideas in real time in front of a microphone. I feel the same joy when I work with teachers and writers at conferences, libraries, and in my online classes.

The idea here is that meaning is everywhere—in our work, our big dreams, our key relationships, our friendships, our unique connection to our own inner life and intuition. It’s all there. The key is to notice and appreciate it. To reflect on why it offers a sense of purpose to us. I’m practicing feeling happy in my life as it is, right now in this exact moment, instead of longing for some other place and time where I might eventually be happy.

Recently I changed my tagline from Author, Educator, Nurturer to Author, Innovator, Nurturer. I’ve been innovating my whole life, and I’ve decided to own it as part of my identity. My first author bio in 2010 said, “I’m fully awake and happily original.” It’s taken me a little while to live completely into those words, but I’m doing it now, and it’s so satisfying to awaken to the meaning that’s all around me.

In Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, University, Writing

3 Words for 2021

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Every year I choose 3 words to focus on. For 2021, I picked peace, priorities and potential (can you tell I’m in a poetry class in my final semester of my undergrad and we are focusing on techniques like alliteration?).

Living into these words looks different from year to year, but I like the process of noticing how they filter into my life month by month, and then reflecting on them at the end of the year. This is what I’m hoping to discover with each of these words:

Peace

I think of peace not as a permanent state of being but as a worthy goal to aim for. I long for peace in my relationships, within my own mind and heart, and for my words and actions to reflect peace toward others and the larger world. For me, peace is best achieved through controlled, deep breathing and meditation to slow my thoughts down. When I fail to achieve peace by speaking rudely to others or thinking violent thoughts, I try to centre myself, apologize, and try again to promote peace from the inside out.

Priorities

As Queen Oprah once said, “There’s no such thing as balance, only choices.” In 2021, I want to make better use of my time by better managing my choices. I try to remember Annie Dillard’s wise words, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Years ago, I practiced saying no to what I didn’t want to do in order to have more time for what I really wanted to accomplish. Now, it’s much harder than that, for I have to say no to things I like in order to make space for what I love. My key priorities this year are writing, speaking, graduating university, resting and nurturing those I’m closest to (and being nurtured by them in return).

Potential

Late last year, I heard Rob Bell say in one of his RobCast’s, “As writers, we have to make peace with unrealized potential.” I loved this quote so much that I wrote it down and stuck it above my writing desk. Potential has long been the bane of my existence. For decades, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. The fear that I was wasting my potential dogged me every single day. I’m exhausted by fighting with my own “unrealized potential.” This is the year I’m determined to lay down this endless grudge match with myself. I’m going to struggle with this concept until I’ve made peace with it.

What are your words for 2021? What areas of growth would you like to focus on in the coming year?

In Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Patience

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’m not a patient person by nature. Frustration settles hard and fast in my soul when things go wrong. I get brittle and testy in a hurry (yes, I see the irony of using hurry when I’m writing about patience).

Something in me longs for security. For safety. For peace. And in our pandemic days and months, these entities are in short supply. Where patience is required, I end up spinning my wheels in a state of fear instead. The fear builds, looking for a release, and I realize that I’m far too tense.

I know I’m not alone in these feelings, which helps. When I talk with friends, I hear a similar note of frustration and uncertainty. It’s hard on all of us to peer into the future and see a series of question marks with no ability to plan due to the unpredictable nature of the virus.

And I know that we were never really in control, however, that’s cold comfort right now (nothing is actually cold as we are in a heatwave, but I digress). Control itself is an illusion, but oh how I miss that illusion. My insides are like sandpaper these days, rough and tight. I’m tired but also restless, irritated and somewhat paranoid.

Which brings me back to patience. I need to find my way back to it. When I feel the most stable, I take time every day to stretch my body and do a guided meditation to calm my mind. I’m still stretching, but meditation seems to have disappeared. I also write in my journal, as it’s a safe place to explore my fears and emotions, but lately it doesn’t seem to be helping.

Not one of us knows what’s coming. A vaccine would be great, but this outcome is not guaranteed. For now, we all struggle along in our brave new world of masks, social distancing, increased cleaning protocols and uncertainty about school and work reopening (my God, how I miss our townhouse complex pool in this 32 degree weather!). Over all of it hovers a sense of fear about the virus – will I stay healthy? Will my loved ones continue to avoid getting sick? Is this get-together an acceptable risk or is it reckless?

I’m not sure of anything right now. I know this is a growing place to be, and six months from now I’ll likely have learned something. But I can’t understand or predict that growth right now. This is the survival stage. It requires patience and gentleness, two areas I’m weak in.

Just writing this has helped me to breathe a little bit deeper. I’ve recommitted to the idea that I need to meditate each day to try to counteract my rising fear. It’s always better to swim with the current and not against it (not that I’m doing a lot of swimming but the metaphor still works). For today, I am safe and secure. I can move toward being at peace. And if I continue to feel unsettled, I can attempt to just make it through this stressful time to see how I’ve changed at the end of it. Maybe I’ll develop a bit more patience.

How are you at the 4.5 month mark of this Covid-19 pandemic?