Risks, Stewardship & Bliss

7 Lessons from 7 years of MOSAICEYE

Mosaiceye, the private therapeutic practice I founded, turned 7 this year on the Summer Solstice 🎈🌞

Exactly two years ago, we celebrated Mosaiceye’s 5th Birthday with a show at La Peña Cultural Center and virtually, sharing multi-media art and story from folks like my illustrator blood-brother Prashay Mehta, my great aunt and elder educator Padmini Masi, yoga teacher and sisterfriend Lakshmi Nair, Palestinian weaver Saniah Naim, sculptor and multidisciplinary artist Ré Phillips, musician Austin Willacy, and so many more.

This was the first time that Mosaiceye- an entity all on their own- clearly communicated to me their desire to be stewarded by more hands than mine. Hence force, they have since grown to be Mosaiceye Collective.

In this post, I’d like to share 7 lessons that I’ve learned in 7 years- personally as a leader, interpersonally as a collaborator, and organizationally as a collective.

TLDR;

1. Taking risks = vitality

2. Some years are fruitful financially, some years are fruitful developmentally.

3. Recognizing progress takes grit and devotion, especially when the world is on fire.

4. My clarity is kindness; and I can only control how I communicate.

5. “Stewardship” is different than “ownership.”

6. It’s not so much what we do, but how we do it. Let us do it blissfully and devotedly.

7. Slow is smooth and smooth is life.

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1. Taking risks = vitality

When things feel stagnant, thoughtful risks are medicine

Kelsey Blackwell

recently reminded me of the 7-year itch, which is a stagnancy or staleness that comes with a 7-year relationship or venture that call for big shifts. The itch has felt real.

This year, I’ve really had to listen to Mosaiceye’s desire for broader stewardship. Despite the inherent complexities, messiness, and risk involved in accommodating diverse personalities, needs, and expectations, hiring a fuller team recently has felt like a revitalizing intuitive move.

My choice to expand the team wasn't driven by financial gains- in fact, this hasn’t been a year of great financial growth- but there’s enough resource to take an important risk and and leap of faith, to be guided by trust and a willingness to explore new collective possibilities.

2. Some years are fruitful financially, some years are fruitful developmentally.

Despite what capitalism drives in us, business isn’t always about growing monetarily- though it can always be about growing (period).

Financial growth is obviously important to get paid what we need to live and to make greater impact. Yet, prosperity has taken SO MANY forms beyond revenue and profit.

Investing in coaching set me back financially but gave me invaluable lessons in sharing my gifts and clarifying who I want to serve and how. Before earning back my investment, I gained profound insights into my purpose and mission.

The freedom of my time, rest and spaciousness are invaluable currencies. Last year, I spent almost three meaningful months in South Africa with my family, a gift afforded by embracing the ebb and flow of my business.

Sure, I'd love to be making money while I sleep like Bezos or YouTubers touting numbers of passive income, and sometimes that does happen. But I also have to acknowledge the currency of my time, even when time isn’t money, exactly.

Nothing about growth is linear; it's more like the rhythm of the tides or the changing seasons. Just as a tree doesn't grow in a straight line but expands in cycles of growth and dormancy, I’ve appreciated this journey with Mosaiceye marked by similar patterns.

3. Recognizing progress takes grit and devotion, especially when the world is on fire.

Even when there are loud parts of me that say, “this shit doesn’t even matter,” there are more subtle and wise parts that say, “it sure must”.

Maintaining clarity with my mission is vital. Every season, I revisit my values and mission in work and life. For example, I’m doing this in community this Friday in Conscious Entrepreneurship- Clarifying Your Mission because it bring more fun, accountability and amplification to engage in this practice in a circle of creatives.

In the midst of global turmoil and interpersonal challenges, it’s critical also to honor progress, no matter how small. At my best, I’m recognizing my “wins” weekly; everything from “I didn’t take their feedback personally but with discernment and invitation to grow” to “a client enthusiastically expressed gratitude for the meaningful shifts in her life’s ecosystem through our collaboration” to “I put work on the back-burner and joyfully leaned into rest and play all week” to “we had a sweet, connecting and inspired team meeting on Monday.”

It's easy to get disheartened. This practice has fueled persistence, resilience and motivation in my mind and heart to travel the tumultuous journey of stewarding loving impact through this social enterprise that is Mosaiceye.

A page from my I Am Devoted Playbook

4. My clarity is kindness; and I can only control how I communicate.

It’s friends and collaborators on the Wellness and Healing Justice Jam team who gave me the phrase, “clarity is kindness.”

Communication helps me and us express kind clarity around our needs, boundaries, intentions, emotions, wounds, mission and purpose. Clear communication facilitates the repair of ruptures when both or all parties are willing to participate.

I've learned that not everyone will have the capacity to participate in open or accountable communication. There are times when I’ve experienced collaborators, even friends in this work, to cut off connection or not speak their truth directly or with clear context, leaving conversations feeling unkind and relationships fractured.

In these moments, I’ve had to realize that all I can do is make space, speak my truth courageously, and ask questions with curiosity, patience and presence. I can allow it to be imperfect, even messy. I can’t control how anyone else chooses to show up. But My realm of control is my own integrity and values of caring collaboration and kind clarity that’s ever-evolving.

5. “Stewardship” is different than “ownership.”

Stewardship, unlike ownership, emphasizes nurturing and guiding instead of possessing and controlling.

For the first 5 years of Mosaiceye, I considered myself an “owner”. The benefits of my ownership was responsibility, leadership, (ego) validation and motivation to hustle. The challenges were possession, domination, fragility and frustration to hustle.

After Mosaiceye’s 5th birthday, there was an ego-death and detachment that happened after Mosaiceye spoke for itself. As I was making shifts to bring in collective energy, people insisted on calling Mosaiceye “my baby.” This sentiment felt familiar, though untrue. This year, after some transitions with the team and personal evolutions around my values in relationships and the role I want work to play in my life, I’ve felt another ungrasping of my hands on Mosaiceye. During a meditation in June, I envisioned eventually transitioning out of Mosaiceye, leaving it to either come to an end or be stewarded forward by others. While we're not there yet, I am contemplating legacy more than ever before.

I’ve had to challenge the power dynamics that I enforce, and to revise my role. I’ve pendulated painfully between the benefits and challenges of ownership, and as I grow into a more embodied practice of stewardship, I inquire:

• What does “stewardship” look like for each of us as different people? What structures or systems can I and we put in place to encourage leadership and ownership among us all?

• How can I and we promote the values of Mosaiceye in every aspect of our work?

• How can I support the development of a shared sense of purpose and belonging?

• How can I remain adaptable and open to change in response to evolving needs and contexts? How do I ensure that my leadership practices are inclusive and equitable?

6. It’s not so much what we do, but how we do it. Let us do it blissfully and devotedly.

For 5 years, most people who knew of Mosaiceye saw me and us as a visual art account on IG. As the Spirit of creativity has moved through me, my medium has shifted to more writing, music and speaking. This unfolding hasn’t always felt blissful, but liminal and scary.

While at one point, bliss lived in bringing to visual an emotional face or naked brown body that validated a deep personal experience; bliss for me now lives in the kanswars of Bansuri and in the spacious grappling with words. I’ve had to trust this and not force creativity to move in a way that my ego thinks it “should.”

In this trust fall with bliss, I remember that my creative muse is not an illustrator or writer or musician, she is simply…me, in an ever-unfolding. This is probably also one of my truest teachings and learnings in “decolonizing creativity”; that it’s not so much what we do, but how we do it. In each iteration of my as a creative entrepreneur, I keep coming back to Joseph Campbell’s words, “follow your bliss.”

This isn’t also all Yin, ease, effortless, flow energy. It calls for devotion to do this too. The river needs the containment/structure/yang of the riverbed. I’ve had to effortfully trust in the bliss and progress despite my ego and inner critic who have plenty to say in the realm of “you’re trash, everything you do is trash, are you done?” I’ve had to show up even when “I don’t feel like it.” This discipline reinforces the trust.

7. Slow is smooth and smooth is life.

Adapted from George Morris’s words, “slow is smooth and smooth is fast”; more than “fast”, I realize slow and smooth is a way I want to live.

I’m learning from movements like For the Wild, a slow media organization dedicated to land-based protection, co-liberation, and intersectional storytelling away from human supremacy and consumerism. I’ve witnessed how their beautiful creations embrace “a humane and earth-borne pace” that encourages us to be mindful with where we put our attention.

Collective pace is slower than solo pace; I’m more thoughtful with my choices and we are more deliberate with our experiments. Since moving into more collective space, I have reprioritized “work” and the grind of solo-preneurship. I’ve been saying that work is on the “back-burner”…it’s been simmering and cooking and generating more than I would think being back there; and what’s really happening is that I’m investing my attention more to life living in the oak trees, the glimmers and our open hearts.

Dearest reader, if you’ve been contemplating and practicing stewardship, accountability, communication, slowness, ebbing and flowing in your movements and with your collaborators, please do share some of your lessons in the comments.

I’d love to learn with you 💜

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