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Newsletter Design

November 2023

Creative Movement

After inviting subscribers last month to either tune in for 30 seconds to receive creative inspiration, or to unsubscribe, I didn’t know what to expect. What ended up happening gave me goosebumps.

The first reply I received related to creative movement. I hadn’t even considered dance or movement when I wrote the update, though many other activities had come to mind – including drawing, painting, sculpting, writing, cooking, film, costume design, photography and music, but not creative movement.

The second person to respond shared that she was inspired to move creatively. Specifically, she “envisioned [herself] dancing in a free, modern dance sort of way.”

The third email I opened contained a link to a video that the sender had made. It showed her moving in a slow, free manner as part of an embodiment ritual she wanted to create. So not only were these people inspired to engage in the same form of creativity (movement and dance), it also appeared that they wanted to do it in a very similar way!

I have no explanation as to why each message that came through was about creative movement, but it was certainly not what I expected.

Pixels and Stars

As for me, I didn’t receive anything about moving creatively. When I did the 30-second task there was only blankness at first. Towards the end of the half minute, a vision of light blue and white pixelated images began to appear in front of my mind’s eye, mostly in the shape of stars.

The next morning, I saw some star-shaped vegan snacks while shopping for frozen berries. I bought and ate them later in the day. Though I had to put those snacks in the oven, it was hardly a cooking achievement, nor could it count as any other type of creative accomplishment. Not that it really mattered though. I had only proposed that we tune in for inspiration, not necessarily act on it.

Nonetheless, I thought it could be fun to use the vision that came through, and eventually chose to create a new look for my monthly newsletter. The November 2023 design has a light blue border with plenty of white space for the body of text. Efforts to insert some white stars into the border didn’t quite work out. Still, I figured it was an improvement over the previously untouched, dull grey template I’ve sent out for almost 10 years.

Lastly, I saw there was a section to add a logo at the top of the newsletter. I had a few logos designed around 2014-2015 for the purpose of social media, which I rarely use. As fate would have it, I found one of those logos in an old electronic folder on my laptop, and the design included a background of white and blue stars.

Had my subconscious stored that image and waited until now to bring it to my attention? Or was it merely a coincidence that there was an already-created logo waiting to be put to use, one that matched the vision I received from the 30-second task? Whether it was synchronicity or coincidence, I cheerfully added it to the new design.

Get Clarity for a Happier Life

That logo with the background of stars contains an old tag line: “Get clarity for a happier life!”

This was based on what many people had told me in the early days of offering readings – that they had gained clarity and felt more happiness after having one. I wanted a tagline to capture those two things – i.e., receiving clarity and feeling happier in life. Later on, as I focused more on helping others to receive intuitive answers for themselves, I used the tagline “Listen, Enjoy, and Trust Your Intuition.” This is still the core message of my book, Channel, as well as the online Clear Channel Course which is based on that book.

When I think about the purpose of listening, enjoying, and trusting one’s intuition, it seems to boil down to the same couple of things. Intuitive guidance brings clarity, and taking action from that clarity has the potential to lead us towards a life of greater happiness. For that reason, I was content to add the logo to the November newsletter, old tagline and all.

Unsubscribes

As for those who picked the second option proposed last month – to unsubscribe from my monthly updates – they came to a grand total of two.

More than one person (none of whom actually unsubscribed) expressed concern that although they wanted to continue receiving updates, others might be offended by the suggestion that they should unsubscribe if they didn’t choose to do the 30-second creative inspiration task. I can see that such an invitation could be perceived as arrogant or rude. That wasn’t my intention of course, but since the idea for the invitation seemed to have come through intuitively, it felt impossible to ignore it while trying to honour my intuition at the same time. My initial reaction was one of hope that the idea would go away and be replaced by another one, but it was not to be.

Anyway, perhaps those two ex-subscribers weren’t offended at all. It’s possible they hadn’t been resonating with my updates for a while, and maybe the invitation to unsubscribe was the push they needed to stop future unwanted email from cluttering their inboxes. If that’s the case, then I’d consider the outcome to be a positive one. Ultimately, how people choose to respond to my words is largely out of my control.

As with most things that result from intuition or inspired ideas, there’s never much point in worrying about the outcome. The wisest approach is often to simply catch and surf that inspiration when it comes, expect surprises, and enjoy the ride :)

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