Interview with Wendy May

Emma Dhesi  00:00

Wendy May is an author, speaker and coach. She helps her clients find success in their lives. In her book regenerative purpose, she shares how she started her own purpose journey. She says that to make big changes in her life, she had to starve the ego to feed the soul. She had to let go of old goals and all that entities redefine her concepts of success, and learn entirely new ways of being and leading in the world. She works with individuals and organisations who have a deep desire to participate in CO creating a new normal by saying yes to purpose, the source of purpose that is dynamic, interdependent, and in harmony with nature. Listen to how Wendy can help you make the necessary changes in your life. So you can start and finish your novel. Welcome to the turning readers into writers Podcast, where we teach beginner writers how to find the time and the confidence to write their first novel. I’m your host, Emma Dhesi. And I’m very excited that you’re here. Thank you for joining me today. Because if you’ve been longing to write your novel for forever, then this is the place to be Think of this as your weekly dose of encouragement of hand holding and general cheerleading, as you figure out how you’re going to write your first novel. Trust me, as a mom of three young kids, I know how tricky it can be to tuck some time aside for yourself on a regular basis. And even when you do find that spare five minutes, you can feel so overwhelmed that no rating gets done. Trust me, I have been there. But this podcast is going to help you in practical ways. Because once a week, I’ll be delivering an episode that gives you steps to building a writing routine, encouragement to build your confidence and cheerleading until you reach the end. Okay, let’s start. So hey, when Jimmy, thank you very much for joining me today. I’m really excited to talk to you about the work that you do. 

Wendy May  02:13

Yeah, thanks for having me on. 

Emma Dhesi  02:15

Well, I wonder if we could start with you telling us a little bit about yourself and the work that you’re doing at the moment.  

Wendy May  02:23

Yeah, so I left my corporate job about five years ago and went independent as a coach and consultant for organisations. and small business owners and I now do a lot of different things. I have an online business that I run, I teach something called the enneagram. I run online, women’s circles, I do a bit of speaking and teaching around purpose, and work with both individuals and organisations around purpose alignment. 

Emma Dhesi  02:56

So you have a book out at the moment, but also a programme that’s called regenerative purpose. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about that, particularly, and how it sort of defers to the traditional idea of goal setting and achievement.  

Wendy May  03:12

Yeah, so the concept of regenerative purpose is really kind of just counter our traditional notions of purpose, which are, generally we think about having a single purpose, or we talk about my purpose and your purpose, that it’s a very personal thing. And my take on it is that purpose is fluid. It’s experiential. And it’s relational. Meaning that it doesn’t ever exist in a vacuum, that it’s not an individual thing that you can own and label and sort of brand. But it’s actually something that’s dynamic, and always shifting and changing in the space between you and whoever you’re relating to, or between you, as a person and the rest of the world in a broader sense. 

Emma Dhesi  03:55

So kind of by that you mean that, you know, as we go through life or ambitions change or goals change over time. And, and is that is that kind of what you mean? 

Wendy May  04:09

Yeah, that’s part of it. But I think it’s more just looking at purpose from the perspective of being in harmony with nature, that it’s not this sort of linear logical, we’re trying to get from point A to point B, and we have a strategic plan, how to get there, which is very much this sort of patriarchal process that we’ve all been educated in. But that’s the way that I experience it is that there’s a cycle, you know, I’m getting feedback from life and I’m responding to it. And that creates another impact. And then I get feedback from that. And it’s kind of always moving in this given take, you know, imagine that there’s sort of like a energy movement going out and energy coming in. And that’s, it’s about being attuned and authentic and responsive to that. 

Emma Dhesi  04:57

So I see so within having your You know, for us as writers, for example, our goal is to write our first book. Yeah, I get the feeling that you’re the regenerated purpose is the purpose changes, you still have this goal in mind, but how you go about it is more fluid rather than being stuck on one path? 

Wendy May  05:18

Yeah, for sure. I think the the purpose qualities that I talked about in regenerative purpose is about being authentic. So being true to yourself and your true voice being attuned meaning like that you’re listening to what’s going on, you know, that you’re sort of paying attention to what’s going on around you and getting signals from life and the environments and then the action is being responsive, rather than reactive. What I mean by that is that we’re not moving from this place of contraction or like self criticism, but we’re moving really from an expanded place of moving from love and sort of creativity and playfulness. And there’s this quality of sort of experimentation, almost, that it’s not so outcome focused, you know, that we’re not so singularly focused on the outcome. But we can be a little bit more adaptable to what we see happening around us that we take actions, and then we see what’s happening. And then we respond to that. And then the fourth quality is around receptivity, which a lot of people think about receptivity in terms of financial feedback, you know, am I getting paid for this. But to me, receptivity includes things like feeling appreciated, feeling validated, getting guidance, meeting the right people having sort of these synchronistic coincidental connections that happen between you and other people who can support you on the way. So noticing that as it’s happening, and sort of allowing yourself to be guided that way. 

Emma Dhesi  06:46

I love that idea. I really, really do. I particularly respond or resonate Well, with your point number three, they’re about how often we criticise ourselves and move forward from a place of criticism, rather than seeing life, as you said, more experimentally, and, okay, this didn’t work this time. So how can I change it and do it differently next time and still get to move forward and still get to achieve what I want to achieve or without losing the goal, but you you’re not as rigid. And I guess, even Actually, I love that idea that it comes from a place of love, as you say, rather than looking at the being critical of ourselves, which I think for women particularly is something that we are very quick to do. 

Wendy May  07:29

Absolutely, we’re super conditioned. And that actually shuts down the creative process, you know, if we’re in that judging mind, it’s really kind of stops the whole process, you know, so it is so important for us to have this quality have childlike, you know, kind of innocence that we’re just playing, and it’s not so serious. And if it doesn’t work, it’s fine. We’ll just try something else. You know, like little kids, when they fall down and scrape their knee. It’s not such a big deal. You know, they don’t sit there and beat themselves up like we do as adults, you know. 

Emma Dhesi  08:02

Following on from that you. You mentioned in your bio, that you, you described things when you left your corporate world, and you were going through your kind of change. And you described yourself as yourself as having to start from ego to feed the soul. And I wonder when you were finding your new purpose, what did that mean for you at the time?  

Wendy May  08:24

Well, yeah, I mean, that’s a big shift. This process of starving the ego to feed the soul meant dismantling everything that I believed to be success and redefining that. So you know, I used to think success was getting promoted in my job or getting a salary increase, or getting a bigger title or more responsibility, you know, a bigger team, more direct reports, or, you know, like the big visible project at work that, you know, sort of says, oh, you’re good, right. So this idea of success really had to die. In order for me to really find out what’s true for me, you know, I sort of had to deprogram myself from all of this. Yeah, it goes along with the self criticism that we were talking about, but really redefining for myself on my own terms, what is success to me, you know, is it making more money? Is it impacting more people? Is it just being happy and peaceful and satisfied with myself? You know, it’s just changing that perspective. And that can be hard to do, I think, yeah, particularly in sort of Western world. We are very and target driven. And success does come from perceived money, the house, the car, the 2.4, children, all that. 

Emma Dhesi  09:44

So I guess feeding the soul is looking at what other things in life will make you feel good and feel successful. And I wonder how that might translate into into writers people who are perhaps at the beginning of their literary journey and you’re trying to Establish all what might this mean in my life? I could, how do you think we could maybe repurpose things to Yeah, to head on?

Wendy May  10:10

I think it’s really about, for me, it’s about getting nourishment from the inside, instead of from the outside. So it’s easy to get caught up in this, you know, how many words did I write today, or how many people bought my book. And these are things that are sort of outside of our control. But what’s really valuable I think about the whole writing process, and the creative process, in general is the own transformation that happens within us, right, and being able to value that and write for ourselves. Because to me, writing is actually it’s a form of therapy, you know, it’s a way of really digging deeply into yourself and coming up against your own fears, and yeah, your own sort of insecurities and being able to move through that. So it’s not about how many people actually read the book, it’s like, for me, even finishing the book, and having the courage to put it out there and be exposed and vulnerable in that way, is already a huge accomplishment. It doesn’t matter that it’s not like a best seller or something like that, you know? 

Emma Dhesi  11:14

Yes, no, I absolutely agree. 100%. And my audience probably fed up hearing me say this, but I really do think that when you write your first book, you know if this is something that you love, and have dreams of doing, when you write your first draft, even, it can be life changing, because suddenly you’ve achieved something, and then not in substantial project. But you finally achieved something that you’ve wanted to do for a long time. And I remember that feeling myself of Oh, my goodness, look at this, I’ve finished this first draft, what else can I do? I’ve achieved something I never thought I could do. And just that made me feel amazing. Exactly. It’s it is life changing. 

Wendy May  11:52

Iwould say that’s definitely my experience. It’s life changing to write a book. 

Emma Dhesi  11:56

So talking about that you have written your first book, and also called regenerative, I get to come to a regenerative purpose, regenerative purpose, what made you decide to put pen to paper and write the book? 

Wendy May  12:13

Honestly, I didn’t want to write a book. It was really like, you know, like, you get these messages and sort of signs and signals from life that becomes so loud that you cannot ignore them anymore. And this is what happened with me with the book. Because, you know, I had, the first drop in the bucket was somebody that I had known from years ago, contacted me on Instagram, and she was starting a publishing company and said, Oh, I really like the things that you share on social media. Have you ever thought about writing a book, you know, and it was just a very casual, friendly conversation that was sort of the first like, poke, you know, but then, over the next few weeks and months, I started to get more and more of these signs. You know, like, I met someone who had just published a book, I met a writing coach, I ran into somebody who was a book illustrator, you know, suddenly, I was seeing this everywhere in my space, then I went to a writing retreat with a bunch of other aspiring authors and bloggers and things like that. So it was just that it became so in my face that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. You know, it was that choiceless choice of like, Okay, I guess I’m supposed to write this book, because it doesn’t want to leave me alone, sort of, like, nagging me and I couldn’t sleep and this kind of thing, you know, as I was, like, kicking and screaming, dragging my feet, like, No, I don’t want to write a book. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m gonna fail at this. And it was sort of like, yeah, just, I was carried along into it. 

Emma Dhesi  13:35

The universe told you otherwise. 

Wendy May  13:38

Yeah, pretty much I couldn’t help it. You know, at that point, it was like, Okay, this is just happening. 

Emma Dhesi  13:44

And so, um, as a new writer, I know that one of the things we all struggle with quite a bit is making space in our already very busy lives for our writing. How did you schedule the time to do that? No. Did you make space for it? 

Wendy May  13:59

Yeah, I mean, in this sense, like, I’m super lucky, because I quit my job. And I moved to Thailand, where I don’t have a very high cost of living, and I don’t have a family or a partner or kids, you know. So it’s, it’s a bit easier for me in that sense that I don’t have all of these responsibilities. And I sort of made space that way by choosing an alternative lifestyle. Now, I’m not saying that that necessarily makes it easy, because actually, I think that the time crunch has nothing to do with the actual amount of time that you have, it actually has to do with your own resistance about the process. So even though like technically, I had, like, sort of all the time in the world, I mean, I was working, I was coaching and teaching and facilitating women’s groups and things like that even during the process, but it was really a discipline still, for me to show up every day, you know, to make it like my job. So it’s it’s funny because like, however much time you have somehow gets filled, it gets filled with people uses it gets filled with distractions. And it was super easy even without having a full time job for me to avoid writing. So I basically made an agreement with myself that I made a ritual, I got addicted to coffee in this process, actually To be honest, because I would just get up every morning and go to the same cafe. And no matter what was happening, I would say, this is what I’m doing every morning, when I wake up, I’m going to go sit in this cafe with my laptop and stare at a blank screen, if that’s what it takes. But I showed up, you know, and sometimes I would end up surfing Facebook, or just, you know, answering messages or watching YouTube videos, but I would every day is a ritual, commit to taking my laptop and going to this cafe with the intention to write. And if I needed to just sit there and stare at a blank page for an hour, that’s what I would do. But the space was there. And I gave myself the permission to go there and not right. But I went there every day, the same cafe, the same table, the same, you know, matcha latte, like that was my daily ritual.

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Emma Dhesi  16:05

And rituals, I think are so important. They’re they’re so unglamorous having the teams, but they do just free the mind up a little bit. You don’t have to think so much about what you’re doing. It just becomes habit. You do it, yeah. And then you give your, as you say, you know, you give your brain that little bit of space, then hopefully, that opens up in a creative way. So given that you were being very, sort of, I don’t want to use the word flexible, but you’re giving yourself permission to not write that day if the news didn’t come? Yeah, how long did it take you to write your book. 

Wendy May  16:38

And it was honestly very active for a couple of months. And then I took a couple of months off, and then it started moving again. And then there was several months of like an editing process that I went through with support from a couple of different friends as well as the professional editor. So I think in total from the time that I really seriously committed to it. I mean, I first sort of decided I was going to write a book, I would say in August of 2018. In December of 2018, I made a public declaration on my Facebook wall, that I’m writing a book, so then I was really in it. So I also escalated the commitment, right? So in August of 2018, I committed to myself, I decided I’m writing a book, December of 2018, I made a public announcement on Facebook, I had a few months like December, January, February, while I was there was things flowing, and I was writing and things were coming up. By March, I kind of hit a wall, and nothing was coming. So I kind of put the book aside. And actually, in that time, I decided that I was going to escalate my commitment even more by creating a Kickstarter campaign. So in December, I had announced to my Facebook family that I’m doing this in April, I actually asked for money to support the process. So that actually made my self feel even more accountable, you know, and it also was sort of my way of asking for feedback from the universe of like, do you really want me to do this? Is this really aligned? What I’m, is this really what I’m supposed to be doing with my time? If you want me to finish this book show me and I had 226 people contribute to the Kickstarter campaign and gave me $11,000 to support the production and the editing and the illustrations and publication of the books. I was like, Okay, I’m going to continue. And that actually gave me a huge energy boost. After the Kickstarter campaign finished in May, I again, had the inspiration and motivation moving again. So from May to July, I was writing I think by July, I had sort of finalised the draft. And then August, September and into October when I published was the editing and sort of final touches and illustration. So the total thing was about 10 months. But this was with me being fairly dedicated to it and not having a full time job. 

Emma Dhesi  18:56

Question. I love that though. I love how you did that in very. You committed and you did it and you did it in quick time. But even with lowering yourself those days, where if something wasn’t happening, that that was okay, you could surf the net that day. That was all right. And that’s worked really, really well. I’m fascinated by your and your Kickstarter experience. How did you find that and what was then? Because often I believe I’ve never done it. But I believe that for the people who support you, you Kickstarter generally has to you know, you give something back to the supporter in some way. What was the sort of the, the promise that you made to your supporters or the agreement?  

Wendy May  19:40

Yeah, so I had a few different levels of contribution. I promised people that they would get an early copy of the book of the E book. Also, there were people who contributed to the level to get a printed book, which obviously costs more for the shipping and the printing. I also had people who could contribute to Pay for the audiobook production. I offered some purpose alignment coaching sessions, which is something that I do anyway, I offered personal retreats, which no one contributed at that level because that was a very high contribution level I offered. What else did I offer recorded meditations related to different exercises that were in the book. I also offered people I basically said, anybody who contributes to the book, your name will be in the acknowledgments. I had a free sort of Facebook group community, which everyone was added to.  

Emma Dhesi  20:40

Yeah, yeah. And proactive in rewarding your sponsors. And was it an enjoyable experience? I’ve heard it can be a lot of work. 

Wendy May  20:51

Wow, it was such a Yeah, again, a transformational process, you know, because there’s it actually I think the Kickstarter campaign prepared me for the publication of the book, because what I feel like happened with that is that I had to practice facing rejection, you know, because we all have this thing that we want to be loved and appreciated. We want everybody to like what we post or what we write. And, you know, I was asking, not just on my Facebook, but like, personally in individual messages reaching out to friends and family and acquaintances and colleagues saying, Hey, can you support me? And you know, four out of five times, I would get no response. And sometimes people actually wrote me back and said, No, I don’t want to support your project. And that was like, wow, okay, ouch. But just kind of building almost an immunity to that rejection and and practising not taking it personally say, Okay, cool. They don’t want to support me, that’s okay. There’s plenty of other people who will just like when you publish your book, it’s not going to be for everybody, you know, same same, but you realise that there are people out there who want to read what you have to write, and that energetically kind of, for me, it was like gathering reinforcements of like, getting validation that like, oh, there are people who are waiting for me to finish this book, you know, that’s building a community of support and also accountability, because now people have given the money, I have to finish the book. 

Emma Dhesi  22:14

Yes, I think it’s an amazing thing to do. And as you say, it really must spur you on to get things done. And also lovely to know that in amongst all the people who didn’t want to support the project, to know that there are people who did want to support it, and that must sometimes just feel amazing, that must be lovely, and so supported. 

Wendy May  22:35

Yeah, but you know, it’s so funny, because our mind always focuses on the people who didn’t support us. Because even as we’re talking about it, now, I’m like, thinking of people who didn’t support and even explicitly said, they don’t want to support. But, you know, I just want to remind myself that 226 people did give money to this, like, unrealized vision that I had, you know, so that’s a beautiful thing, like, especially I think, when your motivation is low, because we always go through enthusiasm, dips, you know, like, you’re like super gung ho at the beginning. And then you get to a point where you hit a wall. And I was like, Okay, I need a little bit of reinforcements. Like, I need to hear from people that they want me to write this book, that they’re supporting me, you know, and that kind of kept me going through the last wave that I needed to finish. 

Emma Dhesi  23:20

Yeah, I think it’s very brave of you to put yourself out there like that. I really do. They think also, you mentioned there, that kind of that motivation dip. I think that is really, really true for probably all novelists, but particularly when we’re starting out and we’re still fearful of all the things we don’t know. And we have what’s described, you know, as that soggy middle where we’ve got a brilliant name to the story, we love how it’s going. And then things get difficult, and we lose that momentum. So what an amazing way of regrouping and, and building that momentum up again, and maybe for some of the listeners hear it rather than doing a Kickstarter that perhaps you could be more gentle with yourself and just tell someone about it, tell someone that you’re writing this book and give yourself some accountability that way, that could be another way. A slightly more gentle. 

Wendy May  24:08

Yeah, and I would say that, you know, when you experience that motivation, dip, it doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong, it’s totally normal. And I would almost be suspicious, if somebody told me that they created something without experiencing that, you know, it’s so part of the process, you know, like, and I did, like, late in the process, have these sort of book aside? thoughts. You know, like, I remember at one point, I almost was like, I’m just gonna delete the whole thing. This is total shit. You know, I’m just gonna, you know, and I actually like, had to have a fairy godmother of the book come in, and I sent it to my friend and gave her a backup copy of what I had written. And I was like, I’m having crazy thoughts about killing the book. Can you be a safeguard and hold this copy of the current draft so that I can’t do that? 

Emma Dhesi  24:57

Yeah, I like it. Well, you’re right. Yeah. There is There’s always those moments of doubt isn’t there where we think we don’t have what it takes. And we don’t have the skills that we need to do it but, and welds on you for pushing through and also sort of knowing yourself well enough to say, let’s get this to the fairy godmother. 

Wendy May  25:13

Yeah, yeah, I need someone to hold a copy of this so that I’m not tempted to wake up at three in the morning and delete all the copies of it that are exist, you know? 

Emma Dhesi  25:21

So kind of leading on from that, then what did you find one of the hardest aspects of writing it? You’ve mentioned that you had that low in motivation? But was there anything more kind of MC craft based that you found hired? Even just getting started? Or knowing how to finish the book, for example? 

Wendy May  25:40

 Yeah, I mean, to me, the writing part was, it flowed much more easily than the editing part. Because after a while, you start reading what you’ve written yourself, and you don’t even understand it anymore, you know, you like you sort of lose perspective. So I also had to ask for help with that process. Like I would say, editing your own work is really, really difficult, if not impossible, because you’re not unbiased. And also, you’ve read it yourself. So many times that you start to repeat yourself, and you don’t see things from an objective point of view. So I would just say, it’s really amazing to have a community of support to peer edit, or to just have friends read through things also good for validation, you know, to have somebody say to you like, oh, wow, this is really good.

Emma Dhesi  26:28

Yeah, no, absolutely. And so just talking about editing, how did you find your editor, and you’re going to be two readers. 

Wendy May  26:37

Two of them were just very close friends of mine. And one of them was somebody that I was recommended by my writing coach. So that’s the other thing that I would say is that I had a writing coach working with me during the first three months that I was writing, which was absolutely critical, because this was somebody who was an experienced author himself and published like seven books, and could give me the encouragement and sort of validation that what I was feeling all the emotional process that I was in was totally normal. And also, from a critical standpoint, could look at what I was producing and say, This is really good. Like this is actually worth publishing, you know, and hearing that from someone is really important. Because in the beginning, you don’t have that perspective. You’re just like, I don’t know, I’m not sure if this is even worth writing, you know, that kind of thing? Absolutely. Absolutely.  

Emma Dhesi  27:29

No, I think having a mentor or a coach in any area of life is, is I think we used to particularly here in Britain, I think perhaps it was something that we used to be a little bit dismissive about, I think, they were learning that actually everybody needs a mentor, everybody needs a coach, the coach needs a coach, the therapist, yeah, therapist, and that we all is one big, you know, on the shoulders of giants, I think is the phrase I’m looking for that we we all learn from each other. And it’s, as we move through life, we never have all the answers. So we’re always needing to look around us for people to help. 

28:00

And then it’s not just one person. Also, I think it’s also about building that community of support and feeling that you’re sort of you have a little village, you know, like I call this my virtual village, the regenerative purpose village of everybody who supported me, like the people that I interviewed for the book, the people who edited it that contributed that we’re beta readers. You know, it’s like, literally hundreds of people were involved in this in some way, you know, nobody, we don’t do anything big by ourselves. It’s an illusion that we can actually do anything without community support. 

Emma Dhesi  28:31

And so you have you had your mentor for writing your book, and I know that you help new writers as well, you have a programme called the emerging author focus. Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

Wendy May  28:44

Yeah, I mean, I don’t imagine myself to be a writing coach. Like I’m not the person to sort of guide someone through the entire process. But I just basically these emerging author focus Sessions is what I would say. It’s a chat with an experienced friend, basically, like a lot of the things that I’m sharing with you now. Like I talked to people about their own specific fears and insecurities. I help people to clarify what exactly their project is about, think through, like what kind of platforms they would want to publish on. You know, what is their process for creating a ritual and discipline around this kind of thing. But I would hand that off to somebody who’s actually a writing coach to kind of carry forward it’s just a single session, I think of it more like a strategy session. So it’s appropriate for somebody who’s at that stage where they’re like, I’m thinking about writing a book, but I’m not sure yet. If I’m totally committed to this, and I need to think through it. So I help people with that process. 

Emma Dhesi  29:47

That’s really helpful because I think that it’s particularly if someone’s writing a memoir or a nonfiction book, it can be hard to know what the beginning is. Does anybody want to hear about this? Do I have enough to share with people can I help people which might be

Wendy May  30:11

So having someone who’s been there who’s done that, who understand the landscape, that can be really, very, very helpful, in fact, on clarify projects where you go forward, and understanding what are you, what are you hoping to get out of the process? Right? Is the process of writing a book really just, you know, for your own therapy? Are you trying to use it as a lead magnet to build your business? Are you using it as a way to build your reputation as a professional in whatever field you’re in? Are you hoping to sell a lot of copies and make money off of it? Is it something that you want to use as a hook to get speaking engagements? You know, all the different reasons to just really get clear on what is the purpose of writing the book. So you know, my thing is all about purpose. So understanding what the writing process is serving in the broader landscape of your life. 

Emma Dhesi  30:52

That’s what I would, do you read much fiction as well as nonfiction. And what’s your favourite novel? or What are you reading at the moment, even?  

Wendy May  31:03

You know, what, actually, I don’t read. I have to admit. And in fact, I mostly consume content in audio, which is actually part of the reason why I wanted to do an audiobook because I also prefer to get content via audio these days, because I feel like I look at screens so much that I want to get my eyes a break and just close my eyes. And listen, I think it’s just personal preference.  

Emma Dhesi  31:29

But there definitely audio is a growing market. And it’s, I find interesting, though, you’re not the first person I’ve asked about this. And if they do, I don’t read and listen. And it’s interesting to kind of debate around if you listened to an audiobook, is that reading? Because I think it is, I think it’s still just a different way of reading a book. But yeah, I think is amongst the kind of book worlds is slightly contentious about whether you whether you read or you listen to a book.

Wendy May  31:57

Actually, when I was in the process. When I was in the process of writing my book, I actually very consciously decided I’m not going to read anything on the topic, right. So like, I’m in professional circles with lots of purpose coaches, or you know, life coaches, and people who are helping in this way. Like I’m connected with a lot of people who do similar work. And I very deliberately decided, I’m not going to read anything that they’re writing, like, not a blog, not a book, nothing, because I didn’t want to be influenced in connecting with my own authentic voice. So I very clearly put a moratorium on reading intentionally while I was in the creative process myself. 

Emma Dhesi  32:37

I think it’s wise, I think I will I certainly do the same. And I wonder if we’re not alone. Because if although I write fiction rather than nonfiction, I do avoid my favourite authors, because then I end up unconsciously mimicking them, and I don’t write as well as them. So I must not do that. Find your own voice, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. No, I wonder before because I’m conscious of time. And we’re going to wrap up soon. But I wondered if you wouldn’t just mind telling us a little bit about the book itself, and the sort of the the different chapters in the book and how it might help someone who is looking to find a different way of finding purpose in their life. 

Wendy May  33:18

Yeah, I mean, the book starts, I mean, there’s my own personal story as woven throughout it, although I do say that it’s more of a missive than a memoir, like I have a very sort of, I guess, strongly stated opinion about my perspective on purpose. And you know, really, the beginning of the book is really talking about debunking some of our commonly held notions around purpose like that I mentioned the beginning that we conventionally Think of it as this, this and this, and really kind of flipping that concept on its head. And literally looking at it from the opposite perspective of how can we treat purpose as something that’s alive and dynamic and impersonal and in a shared way that’s cyclical, not goal oriented, all of that. So it’s that and then I talk about in this cycle, this flow of purpose that I call it, what are the qualities that we need to cultivate within ourselves to allow that flow to move through us, which I mentioned before authenticity, attunement, responsiveness and receptivity. I further go into those four qualities and deconstruct them. So in my view, there’s sort of three different layers to each of those four qualities that come from the inner self outwards, or from the outer world inwards, right? They can spiral in both directions that were sort of in this conversation with life. So I talked about the different layers of the qualities. I also share different practical things that we can do to cultivate those qualities in ourselves, like what are the practices, and I share about sort of these, what I call sort of the basic orientations around how we keep boundaries around our space. Then how we do devotional decision making. And then I talk about the cyclical nature of purpose and how that relates to our relationship with nature and kind of losing contact with nature’s rhythms and cycles. And then towards the end, there’s a, there’s a chapter around purpose and privilege, because I think this is a really important thing for us to address about, how does our privilege impact the expression of purpose? And then, you know, it’s closing with really looking at kind of zooming out from a higher perspective, you know, where we’re going in the world, right, looking at all of the change that’s happening around us socially, politically, economically. You know, everyone can kind of see that, you know, we’re going through huge, massive shift in terms of humanity’s relationship with each other with the planets. And how does that connect with purpose, right? When we kind of zoom out from a larger global perspective, like why is this so important for us as humanity right now to engage in this conversation? 

Emma Dhesi  36:07

And I know you’ve got a sort of infographic if anyone’s interested in understanding a little bit more about your the flow work. So you’ve got an infographic? How can people get a hold of that if they wanted to? 

36:19

You can find everything about the book at regenerativepurpose.com. 

Emma Dhesi  36:24

regenerativepurpose.com. And where else will people find you online? 

Wendy May  36:31

my personal like business website is HeyWendyMay.com. And that’s also my social media handle on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and medium. Hey Wendy May 

Emma Dhesi  36:46

I like it. And where can people find your book? 

Wendy May  36:51

Also on regenerativepurpose.com 

Emma Dhesi  36:53

Fantastic. Lovely. Well, hey, Wendy May, thank you so much for your time today. I’ve really enjoyed chatting to you. 

Wendy May  36:59

Yeah, thank you so much.

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Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.