84. Transforming Your Writing Space: A Conversation with Dorena Kohrs, The Space Doula

In this episode, we explore how  writers can elevate their creative process by intentionally designing their writing space. Join us as I interview Dorena Kohrs, The Space Doula, who shares her expertise on creating creative spaces that fuel inspiration and productivity.

Discover how your creative space directly impacts your writing practice and learn practical strategies for transforming any area into a dedicated writing sanctuary. We dive deep into the powerful act of decluttering your creative workspace, discussing why holding onto certain items can drain your creative energy and block your creative process.

Dorena guides us through the art of infusing your writing space with intention and positive energy, helping writers understand the connection between their physical creative environment and their ability to access flow state. We discuss the importance of claiming a creative space just for yourself—whether it's an entire room or a corner desk—and how this act of self-permission can transform your creative process.

Perfect for novelists, fiction writers, and anyone seeking to optimize their creative spaces for deeper work. 

Topics covered: 

• creative space design
• writing space optimization
• decluttering for writers
• creative process enhancement
• energy and intention in creative spaces
• claiming space for creative work

🎙️Find more on Dorena Kohrs here.

🎙️Find more on Nicole Meier here.

Transcript

THE WHOLE WRITER EP 84 - Writing Spaces with Dorena Kohrs

[00:00:00] Dorena Khors: When I use the feng shui tools, particularly the bagua map, which is an energy map, and it shows what area of your home is associated with what area of your life. So there's this connection between the two. So there's an area of your home associated with creativity, with relationships, with money, with your career.

[00:00:17] Dorena Khors: And when I looked at people's homes through that lens, I could all of a sudden see where the stuck energy was. What their houses were saying, where the patterns in their life showed up in their homes.

[00:00:38] Nicole Meier: Welcome to the whole writer, a place where we talk about what it means to show up as a writer, not just a better writer or a more productive writer or a published writer, but a whole one. Someone who's grounded in their voice, in their community, in their creative path. Even when the world tells them to hustle, compare, or conform.

[00:00:59] Nicole Meier: I'm Nicole Meier, a multi published author and book coach who believes that nurturing the person behind the page is just as important as refining the words on it. Each week we'll explore the terrain of riding life with honesty, warmth, and practical wisdom, creating space for you to write from a place of wholeness rather than depletion.

[00:01:19] Nicole Meier: Whether you're drafting your first manuscript or publishing your fifth book, you'll find conversation and companionship for the journey here. So settle in, bring your questions and your curiosity, and let's discover what it means to write and live with authenticity and purpose. Hello listeners, welcome on in today.

[00:01:41] Nicole Meier: I'm happy to have you here joining me with what feels like it's going to be a very energizing conversation. I am with Doina Kors and she is better known as the space Doula. So before we bring Doina in and jump into all things for creatives, if you're creative out there listening, this is for you. I would love to tell you a little bit more about Doina.

[00:02:03] Nicole Meier: So Darina K is better known as the space doula has spent nearly two decades exploring the fusion of feng shui, space clearing and intuitive coaching to shift momentum in people's lives. She serves her clients by offering soulful practices to get unstuck and out of mediocrity by using their homes to unlock their limitless potential.

[00:02:27] Nicole Meier: Whether they're feeling unheard or tired of putting themselves last. Darina helps them shift the energy within their homes, bringing alignment to themselves, their family, and their career. Her work has been featured in Better Homes and Garden Yoga Journal and on podcasts including Hay House Radio and Unity Radio.

[00:02:48] Nicole Meier: She has spoken about how to use your home to shift the energy in your life on numerous stages, including the 2019 Lynn Academy Ancient Secrets Present Alchemy International Conference, and the 2021 Annual Conference on the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. Darina is a certified practitioner of interior alignment, a certified clutter clearing coach in the Lin Method, and a sole coaching practitioner.

[00:03:16] Nicole Meier: Welcome, Darina. Thank you. Thank you. It's so good to be here. Well, this is so fun for me because I am going to be coming at it from a lens of both a creative myself, but someone who helps other writers, and I cannot tell you how many kinds of spaces I've been let into on Zoom calls. So I'm going to be thinking about that during our talk.

[00:03:39] Nicole Meier: So I wanna ask you something really maybe simple for you, but not so simple for our listeners right off the bat is I do love that you call yourself a space doula. So that feels to me like an inviting title. Can you explain what that is or what a space doula does and how you even came to this identity?

[00:03:59] Nicole Meier: How did you come to embrace it? 

[00:04:01] Dorena Khors: Well, I'll start with that question, and it was gifted to me in the oddest of circumstances. My son, years and years ago went to karate and I stopped by the dojo to drop something off and it was in the middle of the day. And the owner was working on his website because I must have said like, oh, what are you doing?

[00:04:20] Dorena Khors: And he is, you know, doing my website. I'm like, oh, I'm doing the same thing. And he said, what do you do? And I said, I help people in their spaces. And described a little bit more of that. And he said, oh, so you're a space doula. It was like one of those things that landed and I was like, yes, that is what I am.

[00:04:35] Dorena Khors: So if you think of space, whether it's your workspace. Your personal space and then a doula is somebody who helps support you in giving life, giving birth to something. So I always think that the work that I'm doing with people in their homes is helping support them in whatever it is that they desire in their life.

[00:04:52] Dorena Khors: Whether it's birthing a book or a baby, a relationship, monetary, whatever it is, whatever you desire, that's what the work we do is in your home. I love it. And how did you come 

[00:05:04] Nicole Meier: to this work? Can you tell us a little bit about your background? 

[00:05:06] Dorena Khors: Yeah. It's been a lifelong, you know, I often say that I was born to do this work, so for those of you who are familiar with astrology, I have a cancer, sun Rising Cancer.

[00:05:17] Dorena Khors: Cancer, and Jupiter and Mercury. So sports is the astrological sign that is nurturing in home. And so I have so much energy in that, that it's just very natural for me to nest, like I'm a constant nester. I grew up in a home that was fairly dysfunctional. That's not usual for many of us, but I retreated to my bedroom and I wanted to feel safe, so I was constantly moving furniture around and lining up stuffed animals.

[00:05:47] Dorena Khors: So those were the early years. Fast forward into college, I wanted to be an interior designer, but I didn't think I was creative enough. So I set that aside. I went into corporate America, into marketing. And then I had the opportunity in my mid thirties to reinvent myself, and I was given the gift of being able to, after my kids were in school, I didn't like my job.

[00:06:12] Dorena Khors: I had been remarried for a couple years when my husband said like, you can quit. And I was like, and so I was like, well, maybe I can go back to this thing that I always wanted to do, this dream I always had. And I ran into somebody who I knew, but I didn't know what they did. But when I saw them, they were in their van that said interior decorating.

[00:06:35] Dorena Khors: So I called her up and I was like, Hey, I didn't know that's what you did. Can I just talk to you and pick your brain? Well, it turned out she was in the middle of moving and she said, my partner needs help. So I became a partner in an interior decorating company, a small local, and I did all the heavy lifting.

[00:06:52] Dorena Khors: I climbed the ladders because my partner. Had arthritis and she was the creative genius and she could put colors together and she just supported me and taught me and mentored me through those years as I was climbing ladders and moving furniture and doing the heavy lifting part. Incredible. After a while she also moved and I was like, I can't, I'm not creative enough.

[00:07:13] Dorena Khors: I'm like, I can't do this by myself. So she's like, why don't you become a professional organizer? And I was like, well, I can do that with my eyes closed. You know, it's just like I'm the one who sits at, you know, in a restaurant, I feel like I haven't seen 'em in a long time, but like in a diner where you have all the packets of sugar and I'd be like putting the weight packets and the pink packets and the blue packets and lining them up.

[00:07:35] Nicole Meier: Yes. 

[00:07:36] Dorena Khors: And so I did that for a number of years, got super frustrated, like, couldn't understand why everybody wanted to hold onto everything. So. I then became a clutter clearing coach, and I focused purely on the decluttering piece and learned different techniques for that and some of the underlying reasons why people Hold on.

[00:07:57] Dorena Khors: I got frustrated again. I was like, there's more to it. I had studied feng shui as just offhandedly and a a community college way, years, but prior and. I decided to go for my feng shui training, and I was sitting in my training and all of a sudden given these tools and reminded of them, and I was like, oh, that's the answer.

[00:08:19] Dorena Khors: When I use the feng shui tools, particularly the bagua map, which is an energy map, and it shows what area of your home is associated with what area of your life, so there's this connection between the two. So there's an area of your home associated with creativity, with relationships, with money, with your career.

[00:08:36] Dorena Khors: And when I looked at people's homes through that lens, I could all of a sudden see where the stuck energy was, what their houses were saying, where the patterns in their life showed up in their homes. So that's the arc of basically my whole life, but it's always been a piece of it. And now I've brought all those pieces together to say, Hey, this is how we can create your home.

[00:09:01] Dorena Khors: These are the changes. We can do Two things with your home. One is identify the patterns that are keeping you stuck, and then the second part is make the changes to support you in moving forward. 

[00:09:13] Nicole Meier: It's so interesting, everything you're saying can really parallel the writing experience. People feel like they're stuck in terms of craft or in terms of story structure, in terms of the plot.

[00:09:24] Nicole Meier: Where am I going? I don't know what I'm doing. It's called writer's Block, but it isn't really, it's really about where you stuck subconsciously, where you stuck emotionally. So I'm nodding a lot. People can't see me, but we're on Zoom because I understand. It's just I understand a different capacity. 

[00:09:42] Dorena Khors: Yeah, I'm And I too.

[00:09:43] Dorena Khors: I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Now do I, those blocks that you feel internally, there's an outward manifestation to those, right. Show up in your home. So when I can come in and say, Hey, here's this energy block, here's where, uh, your lack of self-confidence or your. I have so many ideas. I can't finish one idea. I can show you where that's sitting in your home from a physical perspective.

[00:10:09] Dorena Khors: And sometimes it's a backdoor way to come into the writing process when you're stuck because sometimes when somebody's just like, oh, just get unstuck or just, you know, you have like, I don't know how to, right. I can take you outside of the mind and be like, here, do these physical things that will shift the energy in your home and when it shifts the energy in your home, you feel that When you feel that, that helps the stuck part of it.

[00:10:37] Nicole Meier: Oh, I love that so much. Oh, okay. This is actually a really beautiful segue for me. So I've heard you, I've actually read 'cause I follow your Substack, which I just adore, and we'll mention that at the end so people can follow you. But you mentioned that your house talks to you and it's quite chatty. So was there a particular moment or experience that made you realize his houses had stories to tell and did this even develop or evolve over time?

[00:11:05] Dorena Khors: I think it probably evolved over time. The first one I remember, there's a very dramatic one that happened about two years ago, but the one that I remember where I saw it so concretely in my own home is basically they were in the same timeframe. One was in that whole, I'm not creative enough, and I remember sitting at my desk and thinking, I constantly say that.

[00:11:27] Dorena Khors: So I was like, all right, do your work. So I'm always like, all right, do your own work. So I'm sitting here in my office and I got up and there's an area of your home associated with creativity, as I mentioned, into that space. For me, that space happens to be my dining room, and then I look at my dining room through the lens of creativity.

[00:11:47] Dorena Khors: So yes, it's my dining room, but now I'm looking at it as, oh, if this is a metaphor for my creativity, what would it be? Sitting in the center of my dining room table was an artificial flower arrangement. It was made for me by my interior decorating partner years prior. I think by this time she had already moved.

[00:12:10] Dorena Khors: She had made it, and I remember at the time I had moved into this house. I live now, and I said, Hey, Leona. I'm like, will you do my floral arrangement for me? And she's like, you can do it. And I said, no, I can't. I'm not, I'm not creative enough. Oh, I knew you were gonna say that. Took that and anchored that belief in my home.

[00:12:30] Dorena Khors: And so when I, I was like, all right, off you go. You know? So my dining room now typically has fresh flowers on the table. So that was one. And the second one was. At the beginning of the space doula journey, when I had rebranded to Space Doula, I was like, I wanna be known as a space doula. Why does nobody see me like that?

[00:12:50] Dorena Khors: There's another area of our home associated with fame and reputation. Oh, and be seen in the world. Oh my gosh. Acting your self-expression. And I went and looked at that area of my home, which happens to be a area between my living room and my eating kitchen. In there, there was an art table, a children's art table that I think my son at the time was 10 and this art table was when he was two and it was still sitting there and I was like, oh, so I wanna be known as the mom and everybody can't see it.

[00:13:26] Dorena Khors: I have a sign behind me that says Space doula in my office. Before that sign was there, it was three ginormous. I have three children and it was a big picture of each one of them. A black and white. It was, it looked so pretty and there, because the area where those photos were was my fame and reputation area.

[00:13:46] Dorena Khors: Again, you have several different areas associated with fame and reputation. I don't wanna get too confusing down the rabbit hole of the Boger map, but I started seeing how I was constantly putting my kids who. Were self-sufficient. You know, they were doing well, but it was safe Being mom, I knew how to be mom, building my own business.

[00:14:09] Dorena Khors: That was new and scary. Well, I kept putting my kids in the way, so my kids would call, I'd answer the phone and be like, whatever they needed, I would drop my work. My oldest is 31 now, so it's something that I've, I notice and I watch a lot and it shows up when I start slipping. Not that I would encourage somebody like, oh, don't be a good mom or Don't you know, let your kids like, not that at all.

[00:14:35] Dorena Khors: However, how can you do what I feel like I was called to do and belong at the same time? 

[00:14:42] Nicole Meier: Oh my gosh, I so powerful. So many things to unpack there. I have to tell you that when you began with the story about your dining room table and then you went into the story of your office wall, I had. Two very like strong reactions in my body.

[00:14:59] Nicole Meier: The first one was before you even said why the flower arrangement was there, I got this huge sense of dread and it felt like something heavy in my chest. And when you said that was signifying your statement of I'm not creative enough. That's what the dread was. It's like we all have felt that as creatives of writers, painters, sculptors, whatever, we are interior designers, we have felt that and given ourselves that label that feels like something heavy on our chest.

[00:15:27] Dorena Khors: And what's interesting about this work is that if I didn't bring the Feng shui aspect to it, the feng shui tools to that you would've walked in my dining room and looked, oh, it's a beautiful dining room. It's so well, you know, whatever. You know, like it wasn't cluttered. So there's what I call pretty clutter, right?

[00:15:45] Dorena Khors: That anchors these beliefs, these self-limiting beliefs. And so when we can look at our home through a different lens, we can start seeing that pretty clutter that's holding the dread, that's holding the, I'm not good enough. 

[00:15:56] Nicole Meier: Yeah. And then I think that listeners will be very interested and they're probably, their mind is racing right now, thinking about their own home, but just the fame part of it, the fame and recognition.

[00:16:08] Nicole Meier: Full vulnerability and disclosure is that I have framed art up on my walls that you can see in every client's zoom. That is, of all my books that I've published and that I put, my husband did that for me. I didn't get them framed, which was super nice, but I put that in view of every new client because I feel like it helps validate me.

[00:16:27] Nicole Meier: It helps make them feel okay, like they're hiring someone that is of worth. So now when you're speaking, I honestly just wanna rip it down and put up something that's going to inspire me 

[00:16:38] Dorena Khors: well, but that's how I'm feeling. One of the things that I would recommend for people is anchoring your purpose. So you want touch points that when you see those, you're like, yeah, I'm a successful author, so that's perfect, but maybe there's something else that inspires you at the same time.

[00:17:01] Dorena Khors: Or maybe it just needs to be rearranged or it might need a tweak, but I think it's both. 

[00:17:06] Nicole Meier: Yeah. Well, I know I have listeners here who are a little bit in the same boat as me, where they have their publishing accolades on the wall or an award or whatever it is. And we do have that mixed feeling of like, I need it for myself for validation, but I also need to prove to the world, or whomever is looking, or we think is looking that it will make them feel okay, like they can trust us.

[00:17:30] Dorena Khors: It isn't interesting. It's interesting, right? Because part of it is that proving energy, right? Like I have to Yes, you, so one of the things I say a lot is there's two rules in Feng shui, and one is if it feels good, it's good feng shui. And two, if it feels bad, it's bad feng shui. So that comes from the Lin Academy from where I was trained.

[00:17:54] Dorena Khors: And so there's not one set of rules, it's how you feel about it. For somebody that might be like, this is great. I feel so good when I say that I feel empowered. I see like look at all the time and the energy, the creativity I put into this and I love it. And then somebody else could have that up being like, I can prove that I'm worth it.

[00:18:14] Nicole Meier: Yes. 

[00:18:15] Dorena Khors: And so kind of feeling into which way it falls if it feels to you like a pushing a proving. Then maybe, yeah, switch it out for something else. Or if somebody's feeling like emboldened, like empowered. 

[00:18:32] Nicole Meier: I love that reframe. And that's really helpful. And I did not mean to make this about myself, but I was really wanted to let you know how it was landing with me because it felt so true.

[00:18:42] Nicole Meier: I do wanna transition into people I work with, so I can tell you that because I do a lot of. Client zooms with writers. I get invited into people's homes and so I see their workspace, their creative writing space, and there are so many times when that space is communal in the home, and sometimes it's, more often than not, it's a dumping ground for kids' artwork, for family taxes, for delivery boxes, and I see that poor writer kind of shrinking themselves smaller and smaller to try and be creative at this completely.

[00:19:17] Nicole Meier: Cluttered space. So can we talk about that a little bit? 

[00:19:20] Dorena Khors: Yes. And 'cause it happens so often, like the room I'm in is now, has been my office for years now, but it was the music room when my kids were younger and so the piano was in it, my son's cello was in it, my son was gone. Nobody was playing the piano anymore.

[00:19:35] Dorena Khors: And I was still like, I can't take that space. Ugh. You know? That was like, but why? And I was at the kitchen table and the kitchen table. The dog runs through, the kids run through. Yes. There's no boundaries. And so what I would suggest to people is one is just if you say, I have no other space than the hub of the home where everybody's coming and going, just ask yourself, is that true?

[00:20:00] Dorena Khors: Because sometimes we feel like we can't take up the space because maybe we're not proven yet. Maybe we're not published yet. Right. Maybe we're like I to take up more space in the room. Or in the home. So that would be my first suggestion is just gut check yourself. And if you say, this is the only space I have, is it true?

[00:20:22] Dorena Khors: And it may be, and I don't always suggest working in the bedroom because then it gets confusing, like the sleep work aspect. But it could be putting a screen up. So maybe you have a decorative screen that separates you from another room. Like that could be helpful. It also can be helpful to understand that clutter is a distraction.

[00:20:45] Dorena Khors: Clutter gets a bad rap, but it protects us just like weight. So if you think of emotionally eating and when we're stressed and we have more weight is a protection of ourselves. This clutters the same way. So if you're in a particular cluttered space and your confidence is waning. The clutter is just mirroring that, Ooh, let me protect me.

[00:21:11] Dorena Khors: Because when I send this writing out into the world, like what are people gonna say? What are they gonna think? Like all those voices, well, the clutter is that insulation. So sometimes understanding that can be helpful in the, oh, hell no, I'm not. You know, like, right, no, I'm not going to let that hold me back.

[00:21:31] Dorena Khors: So just, I find that when we understand the clutter, it's easier to let it go. I would say ask if you have another space. And then second, set boundaries. So boundaries, like I said, could be a screen. It could be that you light a candle and you tell everybody, when this candle's lit, wherever this light's shining, you know, whatever the circumference is, don't talk to me.

[00:21:57] Dorena Khors: Oh, I love that. And then the other thing I would suggest is do create, like, let's say it's the kitchen table. I would make the kitchen table sacred space or has nothing on it When you're doing your creative 

[00:22:12] Nicole Meier: work? 

[00:22:12] Dorena Khors: Well, I would almost say like anytime the kitchen table's not gonna be the drop zone anymore, but when it's time to eat, okay, the plates, the food, whatever goes on it, but then it gets cleaned up more time with the kids.

[00:22:25] Dorena Khors: Okay? The homework's there and the papers are there, but when they're done, it leaves so that you come to work and it's your turn to be in the space. You have a clear space and then you take out your writing stuff and make it a ritual where you're, okay, I'm gonna light a candle, I'm going to spritz some lavender.

[00:22:43] Dorena Khors: I actually do a lot of writing. I call coffee shops and whatnot. I have a, it looks like a tea towel. It's actually was designed as antar cloth, but it's this really pretty bright floral, rectangular shape, and I can put that underneath my computer. That's my like, okay, this is my sacred writing space right now.

[00:23:03] Nicole Meier: That's beautiful. I've never heard that before. To just even claim a space in a public space, like a coffee shop or maybe a library and it changes your, what's going on in your brain. You identify like, I've pulled out this altar cloth, or whatever it is, and that signifies to my brain that this is my creative time, 

[00:23:22] Dorena Khors: right?

[00:23:23] Dorena Khors: This is my boundaries. One of the things my clients say to me a lot is. Like it's everybody else's stuff, right? Yes. Like my stuff would be clean if it weren't for my messy kid, my messy partner, it's them. And I always say, you know, it's the three, you know, one finger pointing towards you, three fingers pointing back.

[00:23:44] Dorena Khors: I'm like, okay, the only thing you can control is you. So just look at what you can control and what can you let go of? What can you organize of your own? And that's always such an eye-opener. And a lot of times our stuff seems smaller. And everybody else's seems so big. However, your partner's big pile of laundry on the floor may have an energetic pull.

[00:24:09] Dorena Khors: I'll use my own example. I had a letter my dad wrote me when I was 18, eight pages of telling me I was a horrible daughter. Ugh. I had that tucked away in the back of my closet for two decades maybe. Before I was like, what am I doing? Because I'd pull it out and I'd read it occasionally, but, so that's the kind of things that we squirrel away that have as much of an energetic impact as somebody else's pile of laundry.

[00:24:40] Dorena Khors: I'm assuming you got rid of that letter. I did that. It's been gone for a long time. And my dad, we had an amazing relationship towards the end of Okay. Of my life and the end of his life. So went through a lot of therapy, a lot of healing. But there was a period of time where I believed what those words said to your listeners and those writing, is there something in your past where somebody told you you weren't good enough and is that anchored in your home?

[00:25:10] Dorena Khors: I had a performance appraisal where somebody told me once that I didn't work hard enough that was filed away in my filing cabinet. I'm 

[00:25:17] Nicole Meier: like, 

[00:25:17] Dorena Khors: what am I keeping this for? 

[00:25:19] Nicole Meier: This old story about myself? Yeah. Yeah, I'm so happy. You talked about the belongings of possessions of people under your roof because sometimes when I'm speaking to a writer and I see them in their workspace, I feel like other people's possessions in the room are symbolic of almost that person.

[00:25:40] Nicole Meier: Let's say it's a mother and a wife, and she also has a job. She wants to keep everybody else's stuff on her desk to prove I haven't forgotten about you, or. I don't think that my stuff is a bigger deal than yours. I've seen it like piles of boxes or piles of kids things, and it's like hockey sticks and all this gear.

[00:25:58] Nicole Meier: It's like, why is this in your creative space? It's almost the guilt is showing through symbolically, 

[00:26:03] Dorena Khors: right? When we finally step into our power and do this thing that's like brewing within us, it's like, like you said, it's that mom guilt or the like. Mm-hmm. Partner guilt. Yeah. Like that's the other, we can do all the things, right?

[00:26:17] Dorena Khors: You can do them, but carve out the appropriate space and time for each. It's the multitasking piece that I think gets us every time. 

[00:26:27] Nicole Meier: Yeah, I would agree with that. While we're talking about the dining room table or the coffee shop, let's talk to the people who are listening, who are writing a book in their free time, but they do have a full-time job and a lot of that requires them to work from home, so they.

[00:26:42] Nicole Meier: Work at a desk at home or work at the kitchen table. Would you recommend dividing up, create somewhere else or create here? How do you recommend people do that? 

[00:26:53] Dorena Khors: I would recommend if you have a home office, like if you work outside the home and you have a home office, that would be ideal. But some sacred writing space as part of that ritual.

[00:27:04] Dorena Khors: So this is the place I go to write. I probably would call myself a frustrated writer. So I tend to, I tend to have multiple spaces depending upon how I'm feeling, but I have, you know, my household went from five to three, so I have extra space with my older two left. But where is that space that you feel comfortable to, right?

[00:27:26] Dorena Khors: That your body knows like, oh, I'm here. I'm gonna write One of the things to think of. In a sacred space that you're creating a sacred writing space is, are you in command position, and command position's important? Because of all those voices and feeling like, am I good enough? We wanna feel our most empowered self, and that is when we have a solid wall behind us and we can see the door from where we're sitting.

[00:27:51] Dorena Khors: Okay, say that again. And so command position is whenever you have a solid wall behind you and you're looking out and you can see the door. Is it okay if you have windows behind you or no? You can. A solid wall is a little bit better. You can't always have the perfect, you know? Yeah. Interesting. A lot of people, their desk faces the wall.

[00:28:15] Dorena Khors: Yes. And what happens there is you don't have a lot of perspective when you're looking out, when you have a longer view, a bigger, wider view. You can see opportunities coming to you. You can see perspectives as opposed to a wall that can feel like a wall. 

[00:28:36] Nicole Meier: This is so enlightening. I never ever thought of it that way, 

[00:28:40] Dorena Khors: but it makes so much sense.

[00:28:43] Dorena Khors: Anytime I ever say command position to anybody who has been in the military knows somebody who's been in the military, they're like, yeah, duh. But we always do like, you know that you need to see who's coming and going. We don't necessarily have lions and tigers and bears knocking on our doors, and yet there's just a sense of somebody like, we're just a little more tense.

[00:29:06] Dorena Khors: It's micro, but over time it's that slow drip of like, I don't know if somebody's gonna walk behind me. And so it's just, I would encourage somebody if they're like, oh, it's not a big deal. Just try it. When space doesn't allow you to do that, you can put a mirror on your desk that will reflect. So if I have a mirror.

[00:29:25] Dorena Khors: On my desk, on the wall. It doesn't have to be big, but energetically I can see if somebody's coming up and it just, it feels a little safer. A little more comfortable. 

[00:29:34] Nicole Meier: Yeah. Okay. I'm thinking my mind is spinning. I gotta change my, where I sit when I actually write my back is to the front door, and so people come and go all day long, but it's like my back is to that and that has never felt right and now it makes sense.

[00:29:49] Nicole Meier: Why. 

[00:29:50] Dorena Khors: Yeah, because it's people are coming and going. It just feels a little less. 

[00:29:54] Nicole Meier: Yeah. I get it. Interesting. Okay, so for the people listening who are working on their book or their journal, whatever they're writing, let's give them some, we don't have to make it too prescriptive, but some easy first steps that you would recommend that they could do to change up their creative writing space.

[00:30:15] Dorena Khors: Okay, so the first one I would say is. Designate the creative writing space, claim the space, and then once you've claimed the space declutter, it is gonna be the biggest one. I work with a lot of multi-passionate people, a lot of artists, and they have like, oh, I do this, I do this, I do this. But then the problem is it's harder to focus.

[00:30:36] Dorena Khors: So declutter the space. So if you do have a space that doesn't need to be communal, then everything that's not. Writing related, you know, so have your taxes on your Sure stone, which is just logical because if I'm seeing my financial papers or my whatever sitting on my desk, it's just, it's distract. And the things closest to you have the most energetic impact.

[00:31:03] Dorena Khors: So even putting them on the other side of the kitchen, if you're sitting in the kitchen, but the closer they are, the more you're gonna feel that. So that would be the second one is decluttering, and then the third. Is really creating that boundaries, and I think you can do it around ritual together, but let people know, this is my writing time, this is how you're gonna know.

[00:31:21] Dorena Khors: It's my writing time. I used, I used to tell my kids, don't interrupt me unless there's blood. Then there was the day that like my kids ran and my older two mom, there's blood and my daughter needed stitches. So it was like, yeah, okay. But whatever it is for you to create those boundaries and sometimes it's hard.

[00:31:41] Dorena Khors: For me, it was always hard to say no to my kids, but I can create the boundaries. I can build a muscle of setting boundaries by creating boundaries in my home and looking at my own stuff. So, okay, all my laundry, when I take off my clothes, it goes in the laundry basket. I don't have expired food. I throw that out with or makeup.

[00:32:02] Dorena Khors: So I start setting my own boundaries and keeping them. I can do that in the whole house, but then particularly in that writing space, no financial stuff's going here. No, whatever, kids, homework. 

[00:32:15] Nicole Meier: Right. That's really, really helpful. So many of us are just, like I said, minds are worrying. Worrying with it. WHIR it's because it's like, okay, what can I do?

[00:32:26] Nicole Meier: What have I been doing that's been standing in my way? This is why I feel stuck. This is why I feel uninspired. I get that. 

[00:32:32] Dorena Khors: Then that would be the fourth one I would say is anchor something. Big, whatever that is that big dream. And so it could be like you have like your published, like the cover of the book, but maybe there's like a theme.

[00:32:47] Dorena Khors: You do a trilogy of something and there's a character or a theme or a message like that can show up differently. For me it's a like a bouquet of oz, a blooming flowers. Because if you think of flowers. It's the completion of a project. 'cause we go from seed to blooming. So I look at those flowers and say, yeah, this is the example, or this is my project's.

[00:33:12] Dorena Khors: Fulfillment. Fulfillment, yes. 

[00:33:14] Nicole Meier: Oh, I love that. I had one desk area one time when I had my bulletin board that I looked at, but it was more of a vision board and it was inspiring my project, but it was also other things that inspired me in my creativity and I, that was actually my best working space when I had that.

[00:33:32] Dorena Khors: I would say bring nature in if you can. So a mirror, like if you have a pretty view out, a window where you're sitting and there's trees. If you put a mirror inside, that's gonna double the energy of outside. If you have a dumpster outside, don't do that paper that you can't stand, you know, or whatever. But don't do that.

[00:33:52] Dorena Khors: But if you have, that's another way to bring nature and have something living in your writing space. Could be nice too. 

[00:33:59] Nicole Meier: Beautiful examples. I just love all of this. Okay. I know that my listeners are loving this too, so could you share how they can find you, how they can work with you? I will put everything in the show notes as well, but just share how they can connect with you.

[00:34:13] Dorena Khors: Yeah, so the easiest way is my website is space doula.com. So space and then DOUL a.com. So from there there's a link to sign up for House Talk, which is a weekly newsletter, so full of tips and whatnot. That's my SUBSTACK newsletter. And then I have a free quiz, which is a great way. So when I mentioned the Boggo map early on, if you take the quiz, you'll receive the tool to like figure out your space.

[00:34:41] Dorena Khors: It's super cool. 

[00:34:42] Nicole Meier: I'm so doing that quiz. 

[00:34:44] Dorena Khors: The quiz is fun and it's just, it's typically a big aha moment. 

[00:34:48] Nicole Meier: Yes. Oh my gosh. This has been such a treat. Doina, thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom. I just, I feel like I've just had my eyes open to a whole different way of looking at creative space.

[00:35:01] Dorena Khors: Oh, thank you. It's so much fun. And it's just, if you don't know where to start, just change something. And don't worry, like if you're stuck, changing your environment will help. 

[00:35:12] Nicole Meier: Hundred percent listeners, I hope that you're taking that to heart. If you're feeling stuck in your creativity, replay this. I probably will replay it a couple times as I think about MySpace too.

[00:35:23] Nicole Meier: Thank you so much for being here, Darina. It really was a special episode. Thank you. Okay, listeners, thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time on the Whole writer.

[00:35:38] Nicole Meier: If you want to check out my coaching programs for fiction writers, visit nicolemeier.com. That's M-E-I-E-R. And if you like this episode, I'd love you to take a minute to leave a rating and review for this podcast. This will help more writers like you to discover the show. And to get going on their writing journey.

[00:35:59] Nicole Meier: Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, happy writing everyone.