Author: Ananda Leeke

Thriving Mindfully Coach + Author + Artist + Human Design Doula

#CreativityThursday is back with #Creativityat50 Lesson 1 SURRENDER

Posted by on in #Creativityat50, Creativity, Creativity ThursdayLeave a comment

Happy #CreativityThursday!

I’m bringing #CreativityThursday back with #Creativityat50 Lessons, a five-week blog series that will share the five key lessons I have learned as an artist and writer over the past 20+ years.

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SURRENDER is #Creativityat50 Lesson 1. Each time I have created a piece of artwork or written a book, I have faced creative blocks stemming from fear and/or feelings of being overwhelmed. The one thing that has helped me overcome the fear and overwhelming feelings is making a choice to surrender my will and need to control. The act of surrender opens the door to my intuition and imagination. It also jumpstarts my courage to move with my fear and feelings while taking positive steps to express my creativity. I surrendered my fear and overwhelming feelings surrounding the content I am creating for my web site relaunch, upcoming email campaigns, and the creation of a newsletter today when I decided to attend a free class on MailChimp email campigns and newsletters offered at Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC (see photo above). Thanks to DC Librarian Victor Benitez I walked away with tons of creative tips I can use in my MailChimp email campaigns and newsletter, web site content, and work with clients seeking to launch and offer newsletters. I also walked away feeling energized and more committed to the creative surrender process. Have you ever practiced surrender in your creative process?

#DigitalSisterhoodat50 Lesson 1: COMMUNITY

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Happy #DigitalSisterhood Wednesday! Guess what I’m doing today? Launching #DigitalSisterhoodat50 Lessons, a five-week blog series that will reveal the five key lessons I have learned while cultivating relationships and working with women online.

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COMMUNITY is #DigitalSisterhoodat50 Lesson 1. In 1995, I visited an Internet Cafe at the United Nations (UN) Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. It’s hard to believe that it happened 20 years ago. I was 30 and on the brink of a major career and life reinvention. When I walked into the UN Internet Cafe, I saw women from around the globe reading and sending emails, accessing web sites, and having face-to-face conversations. In a matter of seconds, I realized how powerful women are when they connect and build community in the digital space. I left the cafe and conference determined to keep in touch with three women from Boston (MA), Nairobi (Kenya), and Greensboro (NC) who later became my first community of digital sisters via regular e-mail sharing. image Tonight, I was reminded of the importance of COMMUNITY among women online when I attended the DC Web Women’s (DCWW) Entrepreneurial Speaker series held at the Uber offices. DCWW is one of my strongest and nurturing #DigitalSisterhood communities. It uses a group of daily listservs to share events, information, resources, and opportunities; provide feedback and support; and celebrate women’s accomplishments each Friday via a brag thread. The group also sponsors in-person events including job fairs, networking socials, workshops, and speaker series. I am really grateful for all my fellow DC Web Women do to build and celebrate COMMUNITY. Do you have a #DigitalSisterhood COMMUNITY? How has it helped you?

#YogaMonday is back: #Yogaat50 Lesson 1 NAMASTE

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Happy #YogaMonday!

Today, I’m bringing #YogaMonday back to the blog with a five-week series entitled #Yogaat50 Lessons. Each week, I will share a lesson I learned through my yoga practice and service as a yoga teacher.

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Here’s LESSON 1: Namaste helps me honor and celebrate my true identity and connection to others from the inside out. Guess where I took my first yoga class? Aboard a cruise down the Nile River during an African American studies trip with Kemetian scholar Tony Browder in 1995. I was 30 and interested in the deep breathing and stretching benefits of yoga for support with my running practice. When I returned home from my trip, I found a yoga teacher who provided one-on-one instruction in my home. Her name was Gloria. She taught me how to breathe deeply and do poses that eased the tension and tightness in my hamstrings, hips, legs, and lower back. She explained the meaning of Namaste and showed me how to chant it at the end of each session. Over the past 20 years, my home practice and service to others as a yoga teacher has deepened my understanding of Namaste. It has become a sacred self-care ritual that reminds me to to look within, accept, and celebrate my true identity as a spiritual being living a human experience with strengths and weaknesses. Saying Namaste also taught me to appreciate and value the true identity of everyone and everything in the universe, and our bond of oneness. What does saying Namaste mean to you?

Photo Credit: Leigh Mosley, www.leighmosley.com
Photo Credit: Leigh Mosley, http://www.leighmosley.com

Join me at the Press Publish Conference on March 28 in Portand, OR!

Posted by on in Ananda's Speaking Events2 Comments
Photo Credit: http://presspublish.events
Photo Credit: http://presspublish.events

Greetings All,

If you’ve been reading my blog and/or following me on social media, you know I’m heading to Press Publish, WordPress’ first-ever conference featuring WordPress bloggers and the people behind WordPress.com, on March 27 and 28 in Portland, Oregon. While I am at Press Publish, I’ll lead a session on “Blogging for Obama” that will give me an opportunity to share how I began blogging for personal reasons, evolved into a social media leader for the White House, and learned how to make the most of opportunities that have presented themselves as a result of my blogging adventures on March 28.

I’m also serving as a panelist for Michelle Langston’s session, “A Tale of Two Sites.” During this session, you’ll have a chance to look at my older web site and blog and learn how Michelle transformed them into a new and improved site that fully expresses my personality and online goals.

In addition to these sessions, you’ll be able to dive into a day of learning with presentations and tutorials led by an amazing group of speakers on blogging 101, blogging on the go, going pro as a blogger, storytelling, turning your blog into a book or business, writing, WordPress design and plugins, and so much more. Click here to see the schedule.

Oh yeah, you’ll get to attend a Friday evening mixer where you will meet your fellow bloggers (like moi), receive your attendee packet, and enjoy storytelling by Longreads, snacks, and libations.

Guess what? The generous and groovy Press Publish team is offering a special 40% discount to the conference! Click here and use the special coupon code SISTERHOOD40 to register. One last thing — your ticket purchase also gets you a 1-year subscription to the WordPress Premium upgrade, a $99 value, that you can use on any WordPress.com blog. A coupon code and instructions on how to redeem it will be included in your ticket confirmation email.

See you in Portland!

Speaker Spotlight: Ananda Leeke

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Happy Thursday!

My groovy friends at WordPress published a speaker spotlight about yours truly today. Check it out below and register for the Press Publish conference on March 28 in Portland. I hope to see you there!

Jen Mylo's avatarPress Publish

Ananda LeekeAnanda Leeke will be joining us as a speaker in Portland from her home in Washington, DC. Published author, founder of the Digital Sisterhood Network, artist, yoga practitioner, social media professional…. Ananda’s accomplishments are so many and so varied that it was almost painful trying to to summarize them into a short blurb for our speaker’s list. Needless to say, we feel privileged that she’ll be part of the inaugural Press Publish this March.

One of the most enjoyable parts of organizing a conference like this is getting to know the speakers a little bit as you prepare for the event and flesh out their session ideas with them. Working with Ananda has been great fun, and hearing the story of how she has evolved personally and professionally since she began blogging 10 years ago is truly inspiring. She’ll be talking about this evolution, and how you can both create and find…

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I’m Hosting Press Publish’s Community Conversation on Blogging Burnout

Posted by on in Press Publish ConferenceLeave a comment
Photo Credit: http://presspublish.events
Photo Credit: http://presspublish.events

Greeting All,

This week, I am hosting a Community Conversation on Blogging Burnout for the Press Publish Conference and Community. It is giving me an opportunity to meet, greet, and interact with people who are attending the Press Publish Conference I’m speaking at on March 28 in Portland, Oregon. Check out the conversation below.

If you need tips on how to manage blogging burnout, I encourage you to read the Digital Sisterhood Network blog post on creating a digital wellness plan (an excerpt from my book, Digital Sisterhood: A Memoir of Fierce Living Online) the #DSUnplugged Weekend resources.

Is it time to take a blogging break?
Is it time to take a blogging break?

Ananda Leeke's avatarPress Publish

My first tango with blogging burnout happened shortly after I published my first novel. I had spent many months pushing myself to use my blog to market my book. My “joie de vivre” for blogging about my journey as an artist and author died a little more each week I chose to turn up the volume on my marketing efforts. I became a marketing machine on steroids. I wasn’t having fun. My stories about my creative journey were missing in action. It took several conversations with people close to me to realize I needed to step back from the blog, rest, and regroup. When I finally made that decision, it was the best thing I could have done because it created space for me to take a mini break. That space allowed me to rest and rediscover my “joie de vivre” for blogging.

Have you ever experienced burn out from…

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