I had been looking forward to this past weekend for quite some time.

In my pursuit of meeting people after moving to a new town, I looked into different avenues and researched several events that could lead to stumbling upon My People, eventually finding Monarch Workshop on Instagram. After perusing their feed, it seemed like I was on to something. An event for makers, movers and shakers? All women? Yoga?! CONFETTI?!? I was intrigued, no doubt.

But what, really, is it all about?

Monarch Workshop‘s site describes the event as follows:

(further description can be found on their site: MonarchWorkshop.com)

I’ve spent a lot of time & energy  doing soul work over the last few years, be it through lots and lots of yoga for a while, reading a silly amount of self-help books, and removing toxic people from my life time and time again, so I was worried I wouldn’t learn something new or get anything out of it. Would it be worth the cost? I did what we all do with a little indecision these days, and took to Google. Heck, if there were makers and bloggers there, I knew I’d find a lot of posts. I did. I went FIVE PAGES in to Google, y’all. It’s not too often you go there.

Here’s a few posts about previous events that swayed my decision.

Monarch Workshop Fall 2014

Monarch Workshop Spring 2015

Monarch Workshop Fall 2015

Another blogger, Classy Ladies of CT, already did an awesome job of summing up the who, what, where of the event in her post about Monarch Workshop Spring 2016, but before you head over there, I’ll pass on to you a few of my biggest takeaways from the event:

Just start.

add coffee and begin

The only way you can prove that you know what you’re doing is by doing it over and over and over again. I can’t tell you how afraid I was going to the event and calling myself a blogger OUT LOUD. It was a first for me, my blog is still not where I want it to be, I don’t even have a Facebook page for it, I’m not sure of myself or where this is going, etc etc etc.

As humans, especially as women and creatives, we constantly feel that we need to be validated before we put our work out there. Be it through getting certifications, a piece of paper, or a thumbs up from people we know, we need someone to tell us it’s OK. Failure is paralyzing, so we find ourselves either holding off on doing the work, or downplaying our craft. When really, what we should do, is:

Own it.

This is what I needed to hear the most. In a sit down with the speakers, we were discussing my blog when one of them, Cyndie Spiegel, pulled up my Instagram and pointed out that the description said nothing about what I did. Though I had put my blog link in the bio, there was no mention about my blog or what it was about in the description.

Later, she pulled me aside and told me-I’m paraphrasing here-“I think you’re taking on too much of you being small, and that’s not you. You need to embrace who you are and what you’re doing and just OWN IT. I’m serious. Own it.”

This surprised me, because though I make comments about my height often, I don’t think of myself as small. In fact, it’s just the opposite–I spend a lot of energy trying to be less big–to not talk too much, being aware/self conscious of how loud my laugh is and how my voice bellows in a room, downplaying the things I’ve done or do to make room for others.

Though there’s a time and a place for that, when I do it in regards to my blog, my work, my dreams, I’m selling myself short–no pun intended.

Lift each other up.

Libby Vander Ploeg: Lift Each Other Up

This is the best time in history to be a woman in the Western world. There are more women entrepreneurs and women out-earning their husbands than ever, and the inequalities we continue to face are consistently getting attention, proving that we are on the verge of more change in the right direction.

In addition to that, the days of putting other women down to lift ourselves up are fading. This isn’t a winner-takes-all world, and we’ve noticed. Being in a big room full of women who know what they want and are creating businesses and/or are being payed for doing what they love for two days while doing yoga, crafts, learning something new, eating delicious food, listening to great music, getting a bag of swag from local makers and taking a whole lot of pictures IS worth it.

I left most of the photography to the event photographers and videographer, I’ll link to their posts when I see them.

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Now, I know this isn’t slap-yo-mama unbelievable stuff I’m telling you. Maybe you’ve read it a time or two before in other ways. Maybe not. But sometimes you just need a bad-ass, ready-to-conquer-the-world, supportive, entrepreneurial woman to look you in the eye and let you know that you are a bad-ass, ready-to-conquer-the-world, supportive, entrepreneurial woman, too.

I’m available to do so over Skype. 😉