Posts by Linda McLean
Let’s Say We Don’t Know.
I’d like to live in this reality – I don’t know what will happen really. I’m in London this week where Brexit is still the hot button topic, and PM May is facing the final vote on her deal. A decision will be made later today in fact – a decision that might change the…
Read MoreConversation at a Thai Yoga Retreat – On Being the Most Important Person in the Room
Here’s another interesting conversation I recorded about being the most important person in the room. I celebrated my birthday last year at Bhud Sunshine’s Xhale Yoga Retreat Centre in Pai, Chiangmai with a dozen people from around the world. We spent long days doing yoga, practicing meditation, chanting, discussing philosophy and eating vegetarian meals prepared…
Read MoreTalking with Errin – On Being the Most Important Person in the Room
Errin and I had been chatting for a while about what it means to be the most important person in the room when she agreed to let me record our conversation. We sat in the lounge of the public library and sipped coffee – that’s why you can hear people chatting around us. Errin spoke…
Read MoreCooking Onions
Sautéed onions, the slowly cooked gently coaxed mouth-watering aroma that fills a room kind, takes me back to grade seven Home-Ec. Mrs. Boyko stands near her desk, every now and then looking up to make sure we’re all stirring conscientiously. Fifteen grade seven girls – four to a stove – taking turns at developing patience.…
Read MoreThe Story or Creating an Online Creativity Course – Part 1: “This is Your Song”
I’m creating an online songwriting course and I’ll tell you why. It’s because I know for a fact that everyone has a creative genius in them, lurking there behind a veil of equal parts fear, confusion and overwhelm. It’s the genius that lives in the secret desire we suppress into submission and call ‘stupid’, fanciful’…
Read MoreComing in from the cold – at home in my local yoga studio.
We all need somewhere to go where we can come in out of the cold. I’m looking out my living room window at the gray sky and the slush falling in near freezing temperatures. Winter is coming, as it does, right after the short sweet Canadian autumn of dazzling reds oranges and yellows. Barren trees,…
Read MoreDreams and Schemes – The Magic of Doing What We Love
When I was twenty- eight years old I told myself I needed to stop wasting time daydreaming about being a songwriter. I remember distinct conversations with myself, talking right at my heart and saying, “Stop your moaning. Be grateful for what you have. Get on with your fabulous life.” In reality I was terrified of…
Read MoreWhat Do You Stand For?
“If we don’t stand for something, we’ll fall for anything.” It’s hard to know what we stand for. Especially, I think, because of all the self-censoring going on these days. We’re afraid to say what we truly believe. Or we’re so confused by the zillions of different ideas floating around in the strato-blogo-twitto-media sphere that…
Read MoreWe’re all Creative – but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
We’re all creative. I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again. If you are alive and you are a human, you are a creative being. I first heard the idea in 1996 when I read Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention – our ability to be creative is what distinguishes…
Read MoreMy 28 Day Writing Challenge – Single-minded focus
Multi-tasking versus one task. It comes easily to me. After years of working on several things at once or fitting a project into all the other responsibilities (‘Writing is what I do between the ironing.” Alice Munro) I can work on several songs at a time while moving houses. I can work on a story…
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