A funny thing happened over the last month—I came down with a case of designeritis.
You know the symptoms: dissatisfaction with how things currently are, an intense urge to scrap everything and start over, a new git branch just to do “a little fiddling” that turns into a full blown project.
It was so intense I couldn’t really focus on writing anything until some of these, let’s call them “renovations” were in place. And now that they are, here I am again in your inbox.
What’s new?
For one, this newsletter template. I love Buttondown for many reasons, but it is pretty restrictive when it comes to email design and I wanted something that felt in line with the website, more of a connected system. Thanks to Claude Code and a little hacking, here we are.
I also found that I wanted to write more, shorter things, that didn’t quite fit with the long form intention of the newsletter. To solve for this, Words Make Worlds is now a little more like a blog. This won’t affect the newsletter experience much, other than some extra content aggregated at the bottom, but on the website you’ll see I can now post shorter “notes” alongside longer articles.
And finally, the homepage now has a better way to surface different kinds of content as it gets added to the site: essays, guides, notes, newsletter articles, announcements, and events.
New Guide
What I really wanted to write to you about though, is a new guide that I published a few weeks ago, “Moments of Deep Rest.”
For the past few years I’ve been studying Yoga Nidra, also known as yogic sleep. The idea is to let the body move into the deep relaxation of sleep states while retaining awake awareness the entire time.
Why do this? For one, it is deeply nourishing and restorative for the body. For two, it helps us connect with our true nature and inner wisdom. And for three, we get to learn how to do less.
I use it frequently in my personal practice and find it helps me be a better coach and leader. I’ve also woven it into workshops on imposterism and resilience and have received positive feedback from a wide range of professionals (doctors, founders, non-profit leaders, etc).
And now I’d like to share it with you!
Back to our somewhat regular schedule
There is still an endless list of updates I want to make to the site and newsletter, but I think I’m back in a place where I can flow again.
I’m forever trying to find the right balance between structure and openness that facilitates a generative creative space. Where my work with clients cross-pollinates with what I am reading, writing, and thinking to create meaningful stories and impactful insights that trickle into a stream of sharing. Too much structure and everything feels heavy, too much openness and I get lost in possibilities.
