Marissa Polselli

What Happens When You Finally Stop Mistaking the Ceiling for the Sky

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:02:11 GMT

On inherited audacity, immigrant grandmothers, and what it means to finally claim your ceiling-breaking birthright.

I used to believe there were glass ceilings I simply could not break. I did not lack ambition or effort. But somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that the ceiling was fixed. That my reach had a natural limit. That people like me arrived at a certain height … and stopped.

The ceiling felt real. It felt structural. And for a long time, I looked up at it and mistook it for the sky.

What My Mother Gave Me

It was my mom who began to crack that story open.

She handed me a necklace that looks like a piece of shattered glass, and told me what she and my dad see when they look at me. A woman who traveled the world. Who built a meaningful career in education. Who walked away from the familiar and started her own business. The granddaughter of people who came to America on boats, carrying little more than their names and a willingness to begin again.

She said: We don’t know anyone like you. You break glass ceilings.

Of course, I cried. And then I sat with it for a long time.

Because people, I had decidedly not been seeing myself that way. I had been looking up at the glass, not down at the shards.

The Real Ceiling

When I wear that necklace now, I use it as a reminder. The only limits I cannot breach are the ones I tell myself I cannot. That’s it. That’s the whole architecture of limitation.

The glass ceilings we fear most are rarely imposed from the outside. They are narrated from the inside. They live in the sentences we don’t finish, the ideas we don’t pitch, the stories we decide aren’t worth telling before we’ve ever opened our mouths.

Half-volume is a ceiling too. Maybe the most insidious one of all, because it looks like humility. It sounds like wisdom. And it costs us everything.

An Inheritance Worth Claiming

I think about my grandmother often. Rozalia. An orphan from Poland who crossed an ocean for months to arrive at a harbor she had never seen, in a country that did not yet know her name, and catch her first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

She did not have a roadmap. She did not have a safety net. She had herself. And she built a life.

That is the lineage I come from. Women who did not wait for the ceiling to be removed. Women who moved through the world anyway, with everything uncertain and everything at stake, and made something out of nothing.

That is my inheritance. Not just the struggle, but the sovereignty. The willingness to break what needs breaking. The audacity to keep going.

Where Voice Comes In

What I have learned in my own journey, and in the work I do with women, is that reclaiming your voice is not really about speaking up in meetings. It’s not about confidence hacks or learning to project more. It is about tracing the story back to where it got quiet.

For some of us, it got quiet in childhood. For others, in workplaces where the unspoken rule was that you should know your place and smile while you did. In relationships that felt safer when we stayed small. In rooms where our kind of knowing was not treated as knowledge.

Soul Story exists because that tracing matters. Because the lineage of your silence is real, and worth excavating. Because the voice that got turned down is not gone. It has been waiting. Patient. Certain.

It knows your name. It has always known your name.

A Note to Rozalia

I hope she is proud.

Not just of me, but of what it means to carry her forward. To take the audacity she crossed an ocean with and use it, here, in a life she could not have imagined, for a purpose she might not have had words for.

Breaking glass ceilings is in my blood. And I bet it’s in yours too.

The only question is whether you are willing to look down at the shards instead of up at the glass.

P.S. If you are ready to trace the lineage of your own silence, and to find the voice that has been living underneath it, Soul Story is a four-week intimate container starting April 9. I built it for the women who are done living at half-volume. Come find me.

5 Signs You're Living on Half-Volume (And Why It's Costing You More Than You Think)

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 23:41:59 GMT

Half-volume isn't a quirk. It's a pattern. And it can be changed.

I was 34 the first time I realized I'd been apologizing before I even opened my mouth.

It showed up as a physical thing. I'd be about to speak in a faculty meeting and my shoulders would curl forward slightly, my voice would become a bit hesitant, and the words " I'm sorry, but... " would tumble out before I'd said anything that needed apologizing for.

I was making myself smaller before I'd taken up any space at all.

That recognition sharpened recently in a conversation with the brilliant Amy Ensinger. We were deep in one of those off-the-charts synergistic exchanges, talking about the words and phrases we'd love to see disappear from women's vocabularies forever. And it got me thinking: how many of us have been quietly turning ourselves down? Not all at once. Slowly. Over years. So gradually we started to believe that half-volume was our volume.

The sentence you soften before it leaves your mouth. The opinion you swallow in a meeting. The story you tell yourself isn't interesting enough to share. These aren't quirks. They're a pattern. And the pattern has a cost.

If you've had that sinking recognition that you're playing yourself at 50% while everyone else is at full blast, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Chances are, it's showing up in more ways than you realize.

Do you recognize yourself in any of these?

Sign One: You Soften Things Before You Say Them

You know exactly what you want to say. It's clear in your mind, direct and true. But somewhere between your brain and your mouth, it gets diluted.

" I think we should go in a different direction ," becomes " I was just wondering if maybe we might want to consider possibly taking a slightly different approach? "

You hedge. You qualify. You wrap your actual point in so many layers of diplomatic cushioning that by the time it arrives, no one can find the sharp edge you were trying to deliver.

What it's costing you: Your ideas land with no force. Decisions get made without your input being weighted properly because you delivered it like a suggestion, not a conviction.

What becomes possible: When you learn to state what you actually think, without the seventeen-layer protection bubble, people listen differently. Your words carry weight because they sound like they come from someone who knows what she knows.

Sign Two: You Apologize for Existing in Space

" Sorry, can I just squeeze past you? " " Sorry, do you have a minute? " " Sorry for the long email. "

You apologize for taking up physical space, time, attention, bandwidth. You apologize for having needs. You apologize for the fact that you exist in a way that occasionally requires something from another human being.

The apology isn't about something you did wrong. It's a preemptive strike against being perceived as too much.

What it's costing you: You're teaching everyone around you that your presence is an imposition. You're making yourself apologize for being human, which is both exhausting and impossible to sustain.

What becomes possible: When you stop apologizing for existing, you get to show up like you belong in the room.

Because you f***ing do.

Sign Three: You Go Quiet Exactly When You Should Speak Up

Someone says something in a meeting that you know is wrong. You feel your throat tighten. You have the information, the experience, the clarity. But you don't speak.

You tell yourself it's not the right time. Maybe you're wrong (you're not). It's not worth the conflict.

And then later, alone, you're furious at yourself for not speaking.

What it's costing you: Opportunities pass you by because no one knows you have something valuable to contribute. And worst of all, you lose trust in yourself because you keep watching yourself stay silent when it matters.

What becomes possible: When you learn to recognize the moments that require your voice, you stop betraying yourself. You become someone you can count on.

Sign Four: You Can't Just State Something, You Have to Explain It to Death

You don't just say " I can't make it Tuesday ."

You say: " I can't make it Tuesday because I have this thing I committed to six months ago and I really tried to move it and I feel terrible about it but I just don't think I can swing both and I'm so sorry I know this is inconvenient... "

You over-explain everything because you need the other person to understand it's not personal, you have good reasons, you're still a good person despite having boundaries.

What it's costing you: Simple exchanges become lengthy justifications. You sound uncertain even when you're completely certain. You waste enormous energy managing other people's potential reactions to your perfectly reasonable statements.

What becomes possible: When you learn to state things clearly and stop, you discover that most people don't need the elaborate backstory. " I can't make it Tuesday " is actually enough.

Sign Five: You Make Yourself Smaller So Others Can Feel Bigger

Someone asks about your work and you downplay it. " Oh, it's nothing really, just this little thing... "

Someone compliments you and you deflect. " Oh, this? I've had it for years. "

Someone asks about your expertise and you minimize it. " I mean, I've been doing this for fifteen years but I'm still learning... "

You've learned that taking up your full space makes other people uncomfortable, so you've gotten very skilled at folding yourself into smaller and smaller shapes.

What it's costing you: People underestimate you because you're actively teaching them to. Opportunities go to people who claim their expertise while you're busy qualifying yours.

What becomes possible: When you learn to occupy your actual size, the people who need you to be small start fading from your life. The people energized by your full brightness start showing up instead.

The Pattern Underneath the Patterns

If you recognized yourself in three or more of these signs, you're living on half-volume.

And it's not your fault. You learned this. You watched the women around you do it. You absorbed the message that taking up space was dangerous, that your voice was too much, that the safest way to move through the world was to make yourself smaller, quieter, easier.

The pattern was intelligent once. It kept you safe in contexts where being loud or certain or unapologetic would have cost you.

But what worked then doesn't work now. And the cost of continuing to live at half-volume compounds every day you do it. It costs you relationships. Opportunities. The deep, marrow-level satisfaction of being truly known.

What Changes When You Turn Up the Volume

Your relationships get more honest. Because you're bringing your actual thoughts instead of the carefully edited version.

Your work gets more resonant. Because you're speaking from authority instead of borrowed confidence.

Your creative expression gets bolder. Because you're not censoring yourself before the words even land.

And most importantly, you start trusting yourself again. Because you're keeping the promises you make in those quiet moments when you tell yourself: next time, I'll speak up .

Your Voice Is Already There

Turning up your volume isn't about affirmations or confidence hacks. It's excavation.

It starts with understanding where the half-volume pattern came from. What you inherited from the women who came before you. What you learned through your own experiences of being silenced. And then comes the practice of speaking at your actual volume. Not performing boldness. Not overcorrecting into aggression. Just learning to state what you know, claim what you've earned, and occupy your actual size.

Ready for the best news of all? You don't need to find your voice. It's not lost. It's been living at half-volume, waiting for you to recognize that the old protection patterns don't serve you anymore.

There is a version of you that speaks at full volume. That knows what she knows and says it without apology. That has stopped waiting for permission.

She's ready when you are.

P.S. Soul Story was built to help you find her. It's a four-week intimate container where we trace the lineage of your silence, map the arc of your voice, and practice speaking from rooted authority. If something in you is ready to unmute, let’s talk! The beta version launches April 9. Check it out here , or drop me a line to chat about it.

They Called Da Vinci a Renaissance Man. What Do They Call You?

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 20:31:33 GMT

A manifesto for the multipassionate woman who is done apologizing for her depth

You're standing at a networking event, drink in hand, and someone asks the question. So, what do you do? You take a breath. And in the half-second before you answer, you edit yourself — cut the parts that won't translate, smooth the edges, pick the one thing that will make the most sense to this particular stranger. You give them the digestible version. Not the true one.

Have you ever been that woman?

Me, too.

If you're a multipassionate woman, chances are you have watched the face of at least one hapless networking participant shift from open curiosity to the subtle flicker of confusion as you try to compress the full constellation of your work into something they can nod at. So you edit yourself. You apologize in advance. You say it's complicated like it's a character flaw.

What if it isn't?

What if the problem was never that you had too many passions? What if the real problem is that you've been trying to fit a wheel into a box?

Boxes Are Overrated

Somewhere along the way, we absorbed the idea that in order to be successful, other people need to be able to file you. Quickly. Cleanly. Into a category they already have a folder for. People are pattern matchers — they meet you and immediately reach for the nearest labeled box: coach, consultant, healer, writer. If you don't fit a folder they recognize, the confusion becomes your problem to solve.

So we try. We shrink the parts of ourselves that don't fit the frame and lead with the one thing we think will land. And for some women, that works. For others, the ones who came alive studying herbalism and financial strategy and ancestral storytelling, who built careers that refuse to hold still, something always gets left behind. Not because they lack focus. Because they were never meant for one folder.

The advice is always some version of conform . Find a box. Make yourself fit it. Sand down whatever spills over the edges. And every time you try, something in you goes quiet in a way that doesn't feel like clarity. It feels like loss.

The scattered feeling isn't proof that something is wrong with you. It's proof that you haven't yet found the thread that names what you're already doing.

The Wheel Already Exists

A wheel doesn't have one point. It has many, and every single one of them connects back to the center.

That center is your through-line.

It's not a label. It's not a tagline. It's the living principle that has quietly organized your interests all along, the reason why your work with clients always seems to arrive at the same essential truth, no matter which door you walked in through. The reason why the herbalist and the storyteller and the business strategist in you aren't in conflict. They're spokes.

Nothing about you needs to be fixed or narrowed or reorganized. The connective tissue is already there, running through everything you do. The through-line doesn't need to be invented. It needs to be uncovered.

When you find it (and you will find it) you stop apologizing for your range. You start speaking from your center. And everything changes: how you introduce yourself, how you write, how you show up in a room, how you price your work.

Clarity isn't about becoming smaller. It's about finding the name for how big you already are.

The Renaissance Reclamation

Merriam-Webster defines a Renaissance man as "a person who has wide interests and is expert in several areas." Read that again. Wide interests. Expert in several areas. We have a word for that. We celebrate that.

You know what they call a woman who has wide interests and is expert in several areas?

Scattered.

The same range that earns a man a title earns a woman a diagnosis. The same breadth that gets framed as mastery in one context gets framed as a liability in another. And somewhere along the way, too many of us accepted that framing as truth.

It's time to co-opt the Renaissance.

You are not scattered. You are expansive. Your range isn't the problem to be solved — it's the point. And when you find the through-line that connects everything you carry, you don't have to choose between your depths. You get to bring all of them.

You Don't Need to Get Smaller. You Need to Get Clearer.

Your many passions are not the problem. They never were. They are the evidence of a mind that refuses to be diminished, a life that has accumulated wisdom from more than one direction, a woman who was never going to fit into one folder and was never supposed to.

The naming is the work. When you find the through-line that runs beneath everything you do, you stop apologizing for your range and start speaking from your center. Not smaller. Not simpler. Just clear.

Renaissance women don't shrink. They illuminate .

PS — If you're ready to find the thread that connects everything you carry, join me on Tuesday, March 10 for From Scattered to Selective: Finding Your Through-Line . It's a 60-minute Grounding Circle where we work through the Sacred Wheel framework together — a practice designed to surface your through-line so you can speak about your work with confidence instead of apology. The investment is an act of kindness directed toward someone who needs clarity or direction. That's it. Register here .

Wild Roses Don't Ask Permission to Bloom

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 17:37:34 GMT

On Thorns, Roses, and the Audacity to Keep Blooming

"What happened to you? You used to be so faithful."

The person who asked me that had grown up like a brother to me. Someone who had watched me at my most earnest, my most seeking, my most devout. And in that moment, with all of that history between us, he looked at who I had become and decided something must have gone wrong.

My heart broke in at least three directions at once: for the relationship, for the assumption that I had been acted upon rather than grown into myself, and for the way "faithful" was being wielded as a category I no longer belonged to.

But the part that stings the most, even now? My first instinct was to answer him. To justify. To compress years of experience, betrayal, reconciliation, wrestling, prayer, grief, and hard-won peace into something that would make sense to him. After all of that becoming, I still just wanted to be understood.

The Quiet Tyranny of Needing to Be Understood

That need is so human. So tender. So completely universal that even St. Francis named it in his famous Prayer for Peace, asking to be granted that he might "never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love."

He didn't shame the need. He just pointed toward something greater on the other side of it.

Because the need to be understood, while profoundly human, becomes a kind of quiet tyranny when we let it govern our evolution. When we hold ourselves still so that others can keep up. When we soften our edges to remain legible to people who knew us in an earlier chapter. When we reach for the explanation instead of trusting the becoming.

It is one of the more invisible ways we abandon ourselves. And it costs more than we tend to calculate.

Faithfulness Looks Different From the Inside

Here is what I want to say to every woman who has ever been asked some version of "what happened to you" by someone who meant "why aren't you who I needed you to stay":

Evolving is not betrayal. It is, in fact, the most faithful thing you can do.

Faithful to what, exactly? To the soul that has been quietly insisting on its own truth. To the version of you that was always there underneath the performance, the compliance, the careful management of other people's comfort. To whatever you believe about why you're here and what you were made for.

Michelangelo said the sculpture is already complete within the marble block before the work begins. The artist simply chisels away the superfluous material to reveal what was always there. No one asks a sculptor to stop. No one demands that he justify removing a layer of stone. The revealing is the point.

We are no different. And what a disservice to the masterpiece within us when we apologize for what gradually, miraculously takes shape.

The Permission You Were Never Actually Waiting For

Here is something worth sitting with: whatever you believe happens when our time here is complete, one thing is almost certainly not on the agenda. You will not be asked to answer to a government, a church, a system, a man, or any structure that hoarded power during your earthly tenure.

Which means the permission you've been waiting for was always yours to give.

That's not a small thing. Giving yourself permission to evolve without external approval is an act of self-sovereignty. It's a claiming. It's a form of self-love that looks, from the outside, like stubbornness or straying or going quiet in rooms where you used to make noise. But from the inside, it feels like finally standing on ground that belongs to you.

And paradoxically, it is when we most fully inhabit who we are becoming that we are of the most luminous service to the people around us. The woman who has done the work of becoming does not show up performing. She shows up present. There is a difference, and people can feel it.

The Roses and the Thorns

I revisit that question now from a different place. I won't pretend it has no power. Some mornings it still feels like a thorn turning slowly in my chest.

But these days, I am far more interested in cultivating the roses. Wild ones. Lush and unruly, flinging their fragrance toward the heavens with absolute abandon, unapologetic about how much space they take up. Because the heavens can take it. It is a benevolent sky that embraces this becoming of mine. A welcoming earth that holds me without question, that reminds me I belong here exactly as I am.

Be of good cheer, fellow traveler. You do, too.

If you're in the middle of your own becoming and you're tired of translating yourself for rooms that were built for a smaller version of you, I would love to be in conversation with you. This is exactly the work I do with women who are ready to stop self-censoring and start showing up fully. Let's talk .

This January, Trade Your Vision Board for a Shovel

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:25:58 GMT

Why your business needs archeology before it needs an action plan

I don't know about you, but every January I find myself sorely tempted to initiate a drinking game where we throw back a shot every time we hear, "new year, new you!" Considering that the whole internet transforms into a shrine to optimization in the first month of the year, however, we'd all quickly become sotted.

So instead of another blog about fresh goals, bigger numbers, and shinier systems, I'm going to tell you what my heart says every time I see a vision board plastered with stock photos of women laughing at salads and standing on mountaintops: you can't manifest your way out of living someone else's life.

You can't optimize your way into authenticity.

And you definitely can't vision board your way past the fact that you might be chasing a version of success that was never actually yours to begin with.

The Problem With Building on Borrowed Ground

You've inherited more than your grandmother's cheekbones and your father's stubbornness. You've inherited entire narratives about what success should look like, how a professional woman should sound, what legitimate business means, which dreams deserve pursuit and which ones need to stay hobbies.

These narratives don't announce themselves. They don't arrive with a disclaimer that says "Warning: This Definition of Success May Not Actually Be Yours." They just show up as the water you're swimming in, the assumptions you've absorbed, the invisible architecture shaping every strategic decision you make.

So you set goals that look impressive on paper. You chase milestones that would make your parents proud. You build businesses that prove you're serious, credible, successful by all the agreed-upon metrics.

And somewhere underneath all that accomplishment, there's a quiet voice asking: Is this actually mine?

What Excavation Reveals

Before you can build anything authentic, you need to know what ground you're standing on. Is this foundation actually yours, or are you just redecorating someone else's house?

Excavation means getting curious about the narratives running your professional life. It means asking uncomfortable questions about the goals you're chasing, the positioning you've built, the version of yourself you're presenting to the world.

Here are the three questions that reveal unstable ground:

Who Decided This Matters?

Look at your current business strategy. Your professional goals. The way you describe what you do and who you serve.

Now ask: who decided these things were valuable?

Not "do I think they're valuable" but "whose value system am I operating inside of?" Because there's a difference between goals that come from your actual purpose and goals that come from inherited definitions of what impressive looks like.

Maybe you're pursuing speaking engagements because that's what thought leaders do, not because you actually want to be on stages. Maybe you're building courses because that's how you scale, not because teaching in that format brings you alive. Maybe your entire positioning is designed to prove you belong in rooms you're not even sure you want to be in.

The question isn't whether these goals are wrong. The question is: are they yours?

What Am I Performing?

Women are masterful performers. We've learned to read rooms, adjust our volume, edit our intensity, soften our certainty. We know exactly how much authenticity is palatable, how much ambition is acceptable, how much complexity we can reveal before we lose people.

This performance happens everywhere. In how you write your LinkedIn profile. In the voice you use for client calls versus the voice you use with friends. In the gap between what you actually think and what you allow yourself to say publicly.

Look at your professional presence and ask: where am I performing someone else's version of credible? Where am I editing myself for approval? What parts of my actual thinking am I keeping hidden because they don't fit the expected script?

The cost of this performance isn't just exhaustion. It's that you end up building a business around a version of yourself that doesn't actually exist.

Where Am I Editing Myself for Approval?

This is the deepest layer. The place where you've learned to make yourself more digestible, more acceptable, more aligned with what successful women in your field are supposed to sound like.

You qualify your expertise. You soften your prices. You add disclaimers to your strongest opinions. You present the polished, proven, professional version instead of the raw, real, still-figuring-it-out truth.

And here's what happens: you attract clients who want that polished version. You build a business that requires you to maintain the performance. You create a professional identity that feels increasingly far from who you actually are.

The editing never stops because you've built everything on the edited version.

Why Excavation Creates Sustainable Growth

You cannot build authentically on narratives that were never yours.

All those January optimization strategies assume you're starting from solid ground. They assume your goals are actually your goals, your positioning reflects your actual purpose, your professional presence represents who you really are.

But if you're building on inherited narratives, borrowed definitions of success, and performed versions of credibility, optimization just makes you more efficiently inauthentic.

Excavation is different. It's diagnostic, not prescriptive. It's about uncovering what's actually true before you build anything new. It's about identifying which parts of your current strategy come from genuine purpose and which parts come from unexamined assumptions about what successful women are supposed to do.

This work isn't comfortable. It requires looking at the gap between who you're presenting and who you're becoming. It means questioning goals you've already told everyone about, examining positioning you've invested in, challenging narratives you've been performing for years.

But here's what excavation makes possible: building a business that doesn't require constant performance. Creating positioning that sounds like coming home instead of showing up for an audition. Pursuing goals that come from actual purpose instead of inherited blueprints.

January Is for Digging

So this January, I'm inviting you to hold off on the vision boards and goal templates. Instead, get curious about the ground you're standing on.

What would you discover if you stopped optimizing and started excavating? What narratives are you building on? Whose definitions of success are shaping your strategy? What would your business look like if it came from what's actually true instead of what's supposed to be impressive?

The answers to these questions matter more than any productivity hack or revenue goal. Because sustainable growth doesn't come from optimizing inherited narratives. It comes from building on ground that's actually yours.

Ready to excavate? If you're tired of performing someone else's version of success and ready to build from what's actually true, let's talk. The work isn't comfortable, but it's foundational. Connect with me here and let's start digging.

From AI to Authentic

Tue, 03 Sep 2024 06:37:49 GMT

HOW TO USE AI WITHOUT LOSING YOUR TRUE VOICE

You’ve been under pressure to write the copy for the Home Page on your website, but… you’re meeting with a new client for a discovery session, you have 12 voicemails and 36 emails to answer, a pile of paperwork to attend to, and those quarterly tax estimates aren’t going to file themselves.

Suddenly, the glow of your laptop screen illuminates the browser you have opened to ChatGPT, and the allure of automated copy calls to you. “Write a home page welcoming people to my acupuncture practice in a friendly tone.”

In under two seconds, it’s done. And you know what? It’s not bad!

Friendly tone? Check.

Hitting on people’s pain points and desires? Check.

Welcoming and inviting people to connect? Check.

So what’s the problem?

The Great AI Debate

When ChatGPT can churn out decent copy at the speed of light, why not use it?

You may be surprised to hear that my answer is actually, “Go ahead and use it!”

The strategic use of ChatGPT can be a time-saver and an aid in writing copy. The problem comes in when people use it not as an enhancer or catalyst for original thought and writing but as a replacement for it. In other words, starting out with ChatGPT can be helpful, but leaving it there is a huge missed opportunity for authentic expression and connection.

In the great AI debate, there are valid arguments to be made for and against its use in copywriting. Before we dive into the drawbacks, here are a few ways ChatGPT and similar technologies can be a true support in the writing process.

The Benefits of AI for Copywriting

Generative programs like ChatGPT certainly have benefits, and can come in handy if used strategically. Here are just a few ways tech like ChatGPT can be used to enhance your copywriting for websites, posts, letters, and all kinds of copy:

It can save you time on research and help you find keywords to include for SEO.
It can help you brainstorm or give you an example when you are in a rush or stuck. ChatGPT’s output can help jog you out of writer’s block.
It’s fast and you can do a lot for free.
It can give you a decent baseline for your work, helping you create a content brief that can serve as inspiration for you to expand on.

With all of that to recommend it, why not stick with AI as your secret copywriter? No one has to know, right?

Drawback #1: People Will Know

When you read copy that is decently written but generic, it’s a major tip off that it was written by an algorithm instead of a person.

Programs like ChatGPT are trained on a massive amount of data, but no algorithm can account for what makes you you – your memories, your humor, your dreams, your sensitivities. It doesn’t have the capacity to look at a piece of work, draw on your lived experiences, and decide that this is the perfect place to tell that story about how you met Sting in an elevator.

Generative AI also has its telltale characteristics that make it easy for savvy readers and other software programs to suss out your secret:

Algorithms have their own patterns and churn out generic copy.
The output can sometimes sound unnatural – unless you are a huge fan of transitions like “furthermore” and “moreover.”
Very often, it is detectable. Programs like Turnitin are plagiarism checkers with up to 98% accuracy – and they pick up on AI generated copy. Recruiters and hiring managers can tell when a resume is written with AI because of the generic job duty descriptions and summaries. Submitting an AI-generated resume can send up a red flag and even disqualify you from consideration – people want to hire a person, not a bot.

Drawback #2: Original Thought Need Not Apply

ChatGPT is a powerful natural language processor – but it doesn’t actually understand anything. It’s not comprehending the ideas you are writing about, but using a sophisticated algorithm to predict what words should come next as each sentence and paragraph is written.

This algorithm draws on existing data to predict what words to use, which means a bunch of things:

Generative AI can only draw on the data it is trained on – and while that pool of data is immense, it can contain biases that may result in a lack of accuracy and diversity in the writing it produces.
Programs like ChatGPT are inherently backward-looking. They are basically a super sophisticated way to reshuffle existing information.
Because these programs are trained on existing data, there is a very real danger of the ideas of other writers and creators being used without proper crediting – in other words, plagiarism is a major risk.

And the biggest drawback of all here: AI can’t generate new ideas. That’s all you, my friend, with your marvelous and unable-to-be-replicated human brain and spirit.

Drawback #3: No One Connects with Algorithms

Now, you may or may not be a person who cares about the energy of words. If you’re like me – and so many of the heart-centered business owners and practitioners I know – you do care. Creating copy with the right energy really matters to us, because we want a soul to soul connection with our intended reader. Just like the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz only had straw where a brain should be, AI only has coding where a soul should be.

And people connect with other people – not coding or algorithms.

Even if that sounds a bit too woo for you, simply consider it from this simple and practical perspective: How can you connect with your people when they are hearing a conglomeration of other peoples’ voices spliced together instead of your voice?

Using AI Without Losing Authenticity

So how do you make the most of this tech, capitalizing on its benefits without being sucked into a vortex of soulless mediocrity?

It all comes down to using AI as a creativity stimulator, rather than a replacer. The best time to leverage the power of generative copy programs like ChatGPT is at the beginning of a project. Writing a detailed prompt can result in some phrases and key terms you can use to spur your own ideas, and add your own personal touch and stories to.

I also really recommend paying attention to the thing that keeps your own creativity alive – whether that is meditation, prayer, time in nature, journaling – whatever it is, nurture that practice. If your spirit and imagination are continually fed, it will be easier to use AI as a tool instead of a replacement or crutch, and let your own authentic voice be the thing that goes out into the world to seek and share and connect.

If you’d like a step-by-step guide on how to Use AI Without Losing Authenticity – complete with an Authenticity Checklist, I’m happy to share that with you here .

Interested in working with a writer who infuses soul into copywriting and will honor your voice and values? Let’s chat! Click here to book a call.

Making peace with grief

Sat, 08 Sep 2018 18:06:00 GMT

The day I didn’t want to arrive is here.

A year ago, my family and I walked into my Dad’s ICU room at Jefferson hospital, and Missy, the nurse who had been so compassionately caring for Dad, said to him, “Tony, can you tell your family what you told me this morning?”

She removed his breathing tube and mask, and he managed to say, “I want to go home.”

Missy clarified. “Not home like your house, but…. home, right?”

Dad said yes, and from that point on there were no more needles or tests or treatments. Missy slowly adjusted his morphine to the point where she could take the tubes and mask off for good and, surrounded by his family, at peace with God and the world, he went joyfully where he chose to go.

His death could not have been more beautiful and grace-filled. All the same, it was my first real meeting with grief, and since then the acquaintance we struck up has become an odd friendship, with all the stages and phases of intensity of a relationship.

So I didn’t want today to come. I didn’t want to reach the point where I could count the amount of time without him in something more than weeks or months.

I don’t want to relinquish that special status of the “firsts”—the first Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year with him not there. The pain of those moments was a form of connection, but more importantly, a form of immediacy. Keeping the pain of his passing fresh was a way of keeping him close.

One year is also a turning point in expectation. A month after a loved one passes, everyone gets it if you burst into tears for no apparent reason. A year out and it seems…imbalanced.

The problem is, my emotions aren’t cooperating with the established timeframe. A random memory can still take me from laughter to tears and back again with lightning speed, and I still cry when I hear the Sinatra song he sang to my Mom the last time he was able to sing.

Maybe someday I’ll feel differently about this. Maybe I’ll feel differently tomorrow. But whatever happens next week or month or moment, this is where I am now.

My family is gathered together again today. We’ve gotten away to the shore—a place that was special to my Dad. There is so much joy in remembering him, and so much comfort in the assurance of his continued presence in our hearts.

Each one of us here, though, has her or his own relationship with grief, and we have the chance to love each other better as a family by creating space for that relationship to play out the way it needs to in each person’s life.

The day I didn’t want to arrive is here. I can’t change that, and I’m giving myself the gift today of not trying to change me, either. I’m letting it be, and opening my heart just a little more to whatever I’m meant to experience. I hope it makes me a more compassionate and peaceful person. My Dad would be happy to see that.

3 ways spring can make you a better writer

Wed, 02 May 2018 16:24:00 GMT

It’s been a long time coming.

Just when we thought we couldn’t take one more Nor’easter, power outage, and frenzied trip to the store to fight off fellow humans for the last gallon of milk on the shelves, Mother Nature relented, and has given us instead the purple of a hyacinth and the bright freshness of air and sun playing together once again.

Spring is synonymous with new life, hope, and light—and in addition to the fact that those things are just plain old good in and of themselves, they’re also good for writers. When I say “writers,” by the way, I mean everyone! Whether it’s your resume, a blog for your company website, a thank you note, your LinkedIn profile, a novel, or a report at work, you write, and Spring can help you do it better.

Spring Shows Us There Doesn’t Need To Be Anything New Under The Sun

Ask anyone why Spring makes them happy, and chances are they’ll wax poetic about budding blossoms and trees and grass—the season brings out the Walt Whitman in us, and we’re all a bit lovestruck by the tender beauty of it.

And here’s the kicker: It doesn’t matter that the same thing happened last year. It doesn’t matter that the same thing will happen next year. It’s enthralling, and it gets us every time.

It’s been said that there’s nothing new under the sun. That’s true, but notice how it doesn’t keep us from smiling when the sun shines? There is a temptation, when we write, to go for novelty as a way to make the piece more effective—but when the focus is novelty, the end result is not beauty or authenticity; it’s a gimmick, and its impact will be fleeting.

Spring shows us that what really moves us is not novelty but innovation. Unlike novelty, innovation doesn’t prioritize newness. It prioritizes the thing itself—your potential as displayed on a resume, a tree’s purpose in bearing fruit, your company’s vision as it unfolds on your website—and allows the sun’s warmth to illuminate a unique instance of that thing.

In other words, a tree is not a new thing. A tree blossoming is not a new thing. But that particular tree blossoming in its own way is a source of joy and nourishment. It’s effective because it is true to itself in playing out its own variation on the theme of treeness.

Likewise, a resume is not a new thing. But your particular resume, informed with your experiences, unique potential, and personality, can be effective if you cultivate it with authenticity. Each one of us is a variation on the theme of humanity, and how much of an impact we have in our expression depends not on trying to force a new theme but on being the truest form of our own variation.

Springs Helps Us Not Take Ourselves Too Seriously

I knew it was Spring when my lovable oaf of a German Shepherd, Max, flung himself onto the grass and rolled around with wild abandon, all paws and floppy ears and goofy grin. He’s a large dog, and he’s not a puppy, but he knows how to respond to a sun-dappled field.

We do too! Spring is the great “un-stifler,” inviting us to be a little freer in our way of moving through this world, a little more inclined to deep breaths and open arms, a little closer to the wild abandon we’d chose if we felt we could.

Spring is about exuberance, not perfection, and if we want people to be drawn in by our writing, we’d do well to remember the joy even just a bit of light brings.

Spring is the great “un-stifler,” inviting us to be a little freer in our way of moving through this world, a little more inclined to deep breaths and open arms, a little closer to the wild abandon we’d chose if we felt we could.

Springs Reconnects Us With…Everything

It’s easy to see how Spring is a time we feel really connected to nature. We literally shed the barriers that exist between us and the natural world—coats and scarves are tossed aside, windows and doors are flung open, boots are exchanged for sandals and, when we get a chance, sandals come off and skin touches earth.

Underneath the surface of that earth, roots forge their way through and over and under, anchoring and seeking nourishment. Above the surface of that earth, flowers and trees and plants reach for sunlight, and we breathe together, trading oxygen and carbon dioxide, syncing our breath like lovers do, our existence intertwined.

It’s a symphony of being, and you can’t pull one piece out to try to live on its own. You never can, but Spring makes it obvious. We’re connected—to the earth and every being (used in the widest possible sense of the word) that lives here with us. We’re connected to whatever or whoever it is that underlies all of this. I relate to this source as God. Others, as Rumi says, call the Beloved by a different name. It’s the Love that matters, not the letters we string together in our attempt to define the ineffable.

Wayne Dyer was fond of saying, “The same Intelligence that makes the flower grow flows through each of us.” That’s exhilarating, and humbling, and uplifting all at once. It’s also pretty darn useful for writers, because it means that we (all of us!) are connected to an inexhaustible Source of joy and creation and growth and beauty.

This Source flings wildflowers out like an old lady at a park tossing breadcrumbs to pigeons—if you’re not familiar with the sight, it’s A LOT of breadcrumbs, scattered with reckless extravagance. We’re connected to a Source whose modus operandi is reckless extravagance…and we think the right words won’t come? We think we can stay stuck?

That’s sillier than Max rolling around in the grass.

Breaking through writer’s block: it’s not all in your head

Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:37:00 GMT

You know that feeling when something is right on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t find the right word? It’s the same feeling you get when you’re sitting in front of your laptop with two words typed into a Word doc. Then deleted. Then retyped.

When that happens to me, my instinct is to cajole myself: “Think, Marissa! What do you want to say?” But I’m learning that there’s a better—and less stressful—way.

In her book, “Writing Begins with the Breath,” Laraine Herring talks about writing being a bodily thing. For most of us, it will take some doing to reframe it that way. We are primed to think of writing as an intellectual exercise—and I am not here to discount the beauty of the intellect.

What I am growing to understand, though, is that the intellect is one thread in a vibrant and living fabric. It’s not the whole piece. It’s not the loom. And it’s not the weaver.

Writing, when it’s at its best, springs from a much deeper place, and the only way to get there is to get out of your head.

Whatever you’re writing today, if you find yourself stuck or stumped, take five minutes to stop thinking. Our minds race with thousands of thoughts an hour. Let it be quiet for five minutes. Focus on your breath. Breathe in through your nose for a count of four, hold it for seven, and breathe out through your mouth for a count of eight. Let yourself settle into your body, and be still.

I’m not guaranteeing that the words will flow with divine inspiration when you’re done….but then again, the divine has a much better chance at flowing through you when you get grounded in yourself and reset the connection.

There’s more to Ash Wednesday than meets the forehead

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 19:45:00 GMT

What’s a Catholic with “New Age tendencies” to do on Ash Wednesday?

This was the question I faced today at 7am, as I sat in the parking lot of St. Isidore’s. I had gotten the Mass schedule wrong, and so had half an hour to contemplate the day, and how someone like me—a person who combines crystals and essential oils and oracle cards with a stubborn attachment to Jesus—might enter into it.

In Catholicism, Ash Wednesday is the kick off to Lent—40 days of introspection and purposeful sacrifice meant to bring you closer to God. It’s like spiritual boot camp. The words we hear when we receive ashes, “Remember you are dust, and unto dust you shall return,” are the ultimate reality check, a not so subtle reminder that someday we’ll shuffle off this mortal coil and be left with who we really are.

And guess what? That’s an idea I can still get behind.

What I realized is that any unease I felt about Ash Wednesday and Lent were not about Ash Wednesday or Lent, but about the way they are frequently portrayed. While there are certainly exceptions to this, it’s been my experience that what is intended as a time of sobriety, reflection, and spiritual growth somehow all too often comes across as a gloomy caricature of that, leaving us with vague feelings of shame, the general conviction that we should be suffering, and the pressure to have a kick-ass answer to the perennial question: “What are you giving up for Lent?”

What a great disservice this is to a truly needed and noble concept. And I do mean needed. Far beyond the question of Catholicism or Christianity, the world needs Ash Wednesday.

Here are three reasons why:

It reminds us that what we see is just the tip of the iceberg of reality, and what we often spend so much time building up has an expiration date. “Listen up!” Ash Wednesday says; “This life doesn’t last forever, and there’s more to you, and reality, than this physical stuff we’ve got going on.” This is not a morbid thought—it’s actually really good news. I love this life. I love my body, and my home, and I enjoy moving through this physical world and reveling in its beauty and pleasures. But, as Sting famously sang, “there is a deeper wave than this.” It’s easy to miss, because it’s not visible to the eye, and it usually only surfaces in quiet and stillness—neither of which are the norm in modern life. Ash Wednesday and Lent create space for the quiet and stillness we need to reconnect with the deeper realities that lie beneath all the noise, and will, thank God, remain long after the noise has ceased.
It helps us come back to ourselves and God. Wayne Dyer used the image of a clock to talk about this. Picture a clock when it’s 12 on the dot: the little hand and the big hand are together, perfectly aligned. This is what we’re like when we are born—we are simply ourselves, pure of heart and one with God. It doesn’t occur to us to think of ourselves as bad, or as at odds with others, or as separate from God. As the years progress, we learn things and take on attitudes and misconceptions that separate us from ourselves—the big hand starts to move. The process of spiritual development begins when the big hand turns the corner and starts to move back towards the little hand, back towards realignment. Ash Wednesday is an invitation to move the dial towards realignment—to authenticity, purity of heart, innocence, and unity with God.
It helps us come back to each other. A glance around any Catholic church today will show the young and old, the rich and poor, people of every race, opinion, persuasion, and status, all equally besmudged. This reminds us of something it’s way too easy to forget nowadays: we all come from the same place, and we all face the same existential reality of experiencing this lifetime in a place where, contrary to all appearances, we have no lasting home. Ash Wednesday is a great equalizer, and as we move the dial back to our authentic selves, and back to unity with God, we inevitably recognize erstwhile strangers as brothers and sisters.

I thought about all of this as I waited in the parking lot, and I’m thinking about it now, as I sit with a cup of coffee, ashes firmly smudged on my forehead by the heavy-handed Fr. Fred, and a collection of crystals lining the top of my keyboard. I embrace them both. I am a Catholic, and today, I’m wearing ashes. I am not sad, or ashamed. I am awake, and I’m moving the dial.

Why 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t make Trump’s comments OK

Sun, 09 Oct 2016 18:55:00 GMT

I was 22, fresh out of college, and teaching English in Eastern Europe for a year. One morning, on my way to school (from church—not that that matters), I turned down a familiar street to see that there was construction going on. There was only a narrow pathway for me to walk on, and a group of construction workers surrounded it.

I had a bad feeling about it, but I was running late, class was about to start, and this was the only way to get to school, so I went forward, careful not to make eye contact with anyone, clutching my scarf and trying to make myself invisible.

The hands reached out after I passed the first man. And then it was a gauntlet. I couldn’t move quickly, because there was snow and ice on the ground, and they were crowding me in; I could only move as fast as they would let me.

The worst part for me—worse than the groping and touching—was the sound. The sound of snickering. Twenty-one years later I can conjure it up like it was yesterday, and it makes me just as sick to my stomach. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, as it was happening, that this was not about sex or lust. These men weren’t so arrested by my beauty that they couldn’t control their ardor—not that that would have been OK either—but no, this wasn’t about that. This was about power. And what made me sick then, and now, is that they had all of it, and I had none.

They did what they wanted to me, without asking, without consent, because they could. They grabbed and they snickered, because they had power.

This is the first time I have ever spoken about this incident. To anyone. So why now?

It all started with a meme. Popular on Facebook the past few days, the meme asks, “If American women are so outraged by Trump’s use of naughty words, then who in the hell bought 80 million copies of 50 Shades of Grey?”

Now, I found the writing so bad that I only made it partially through the first book in the inexplicably popular franchise, but I got far enough to know that the female protagonist gives consent to Mr. Grey’s activities. In fact, she signs a written contract. There is a huge difference between reading a work of fiction about consensual S&M and bragging in real life that you can do what you want to women because you’re a celebrity:

“You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy.”

So, problem number one: E.L. James’ literary travesty is about consensual sex; Trump’s words are about doing what he wants without getting consent. As Sophia Bush pointed out, the word that’s truly offensive in his comment is not pussy—it’s grab.

Problem number two: The guy who says “I don’t even wait,” is running for president.

Now, don’t read this as an endorsement of Hillary. It’s not. Ultimately, this blog is not about the election, or Trump, or Hillary, or even goofy Anastasia Steele mentally doing her happy dance as she nervously nibbles her upper lip (or was it her lower lip?).

Ultimately, this blog is about problem number three: The idea that because a lot of women read a really shitty book about consensual S&M, they forfeit their right to be upset when real abuse is described. Which sounds a lot like “you were asking for it,” “you secretly wanted it,” “look at what you’re wearing—or reading.” Which sounds a lot like rape culture.

Do I think that Hillary is the champion of women’s rights her campaign paints her to be? No. People who are far more politically savvy than I am point out her treatment of rape victims when she was practicing law, and her connections with states that as a matter of course oppress women. I am admittedly not as knowledgeable about that as I perhaps should be, but here’s the thing: even if it’s all true, that doesn’t change this underlying mentality that “boys will be boys” and “women like Christian Grey” is somehow a get out of jail free card for…grabbing, because you have power and you can.

If you think I’m overreacting, check out the exchange I had in response to this meme on Facebook this morning (I blocked out the name of the gentleman who posted the meme and was replying to me, out of respect for his privacy):

You read that right. #BaseBallBat. #GrabEmByThePussy. And this is not the voice of some lone discontent. It’s part of the world we live in. Your sisters, your mothers, your daughters, your wives and girlfriends and colleagues live in it. This happens. It happened to me. It happens way more than you think. Sometimes it takes 21 years for the woman sitting or working or sleeping next to you to tell her story. Some of us never tell at all.

So how do we bring some light to all of this?

First, let’s stop pointing to 50 Shades of Grey as proof that women secretly want to be grabbed and kissed without consent. 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t even justify itself, let alone sexual assault.

Second, let’s call a spade a spade, whether the person holding it is a Democrat or a Republican.

Third, let’s respect men enough to not ascribe bragging about forcible sexual advances as normal for them.

We owe this to ourselves. We owe this to our daughters. And we owe this to our sons.

I believe, with all my heart, that we are better than this.