After a powerful experience, do you ever find yourself a bit numb—emotionally drained? Do you retreat to the safety of restorative activities that enable you to create some distance between you and the experience? This time for restoration is essential to your ability to digest and process the experience.
During the Reverb11 journey, I noticed that many prompts touched on experiences too close to the surface for analysis. Rather than try to rush the process, I found that I gained clarity by simply noticing that more time was needed. Most importantly, I realized that the act of reflecting does not mean you need to generate grand patterns and interpretations. The act of showing up and reflecting does not need to generate anything new. The experience itself is nourishing.
After a few days away from Reverb11, I spent some time reflecting on the experience. I’ve shared these raw reflections below. Thank you for showing up and sharing this journey with me.
The Good
- My prompt responses brought a new sense of vulnerability to the blog. This vulnerability is scary yet extremely liberating.
- My relationship to comments changed, for the positive. Prior to Reverb11, I was easily let down when a blog post generated very few or no comments. I questioned my content and my identity as a blogger. I was so immersed in writing and interacting with other reverbers that I don’t know which posts generated higher or lower numbers of comments. I love the posts that I created during this time and feel much more comfortable with my role as a blogger. I don’t need a certain number of comments to validate this for me.
- I loved having the Reverb11 Facebook group to vent and connect with others in real time. I definitely want to create a Facebook group for this blog in the near future.
- I responded to all 31 prompts (which I didn’t think I could do). My goal at the beginning was to complete 15 of the 31 prompts. I guess I underestimated myself!
- I loved collaborating with Tiffany on this project. It was so much fun and something I want to do more of in the future.
- 54 people joined the Reverb11 community via the Facebook group (amazing!). This number seemed like the perfect amount. It never felt too crowded and voices never got lost in the mix.
The Not So Good
- The community prompt responses felt scattered. It was difficult to find responses from other reverbers to particular prompts, which I would have loved.
- The linky list disappeared on the reverb11 page on January 1st! Next time, I need to remember to extend the expiration date on the list before the list expires. I was hoping to have the linky list permanently available on the reverb11 page for reference.
- Daily blogging takes a lot of time! I loved journaling my responses to the prompts in my actual journal, but dreaded actually plugging everything in online, editing photos, adding tags, and so on. I would have felt more at ease during the experience if I were able to focus 80% of my time on the creative process and 20% of my time on the administrative process.
- I spent more time online during the holidays rather than offline in restorative mode. I’m happy I noticed this and hope to strike a better balance during reverb12.
The Takeaways
- I am eager to spearhead more community projects.
- Embrace spontaneity. Tiffany and I began this project on December 1st and just went with the flow!
- I surprised myself a lot during the experience (in a good way!). I want to remember this :).
- When a project is meaningful, you don’t focus on the end game the entire time, you are in the moment, immersed in the weeds. This is good. Relish the change in scenery and be sure to notice the beauty within the process.
- Deadlines are helpful and creating personal deadlines illuminate a sense of structure that you crave. But don’t defeat yourself with a deadline. Be flexible if you need a bit more time—especially if you’re enjoying the ride. (I needed an additional 3 weeks to complete reverb11)
- Practice and repetition are very wise teachers.
- I will definitely be hosting reverb12, save the date :).
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p.s. have you entered the shabby apple giveaway (it is open until fri evening)!
image: pinwheel designs
Looking forward to continuing this project this year, I was sad to hear that Gwen would not be hosting the online event.Not one to give up, I knew I had to get to work. Chatting with my friend 
