This past Thursday marked the end of week three of our Accountability Summer Camp, the virtual space Lisa "Rubi G." Ventura and I created so that busy bees like us can finally tackle that pending project and make the sweet honey we know we’re more than capable of!
As two formerly exhausted and overworked 9 to 5’ers (6’ers and sometimes even 8’ers) working towards curating a life more aligned with our creative passions, Lisa and I know that although fulfilling, a non-traditional career path, is no walk in the park either.
A journey that redefines old ideas of what success can be for women like us, requires intentionality, purposefulness, and deliberate resolve. It’s an active process. When motivation is lacking, you have to find a way to cultivate it; when the process gets too lonely, you have to seek a like-minded collective; and when you don’t think you have the time, you have to do everything in your power to make it.
That’s what the Accountability Summer Camp has afforded us: a consistent practice, rooted in community, collaboration, and proactivity.
The camp is set to run for six weeks (July 14 until August 27), Tuesday through Thursday, from 5:30am to 7:30am. Currently we are at the halfway mark.
Here are three things I have learned during the first three weeks:
Body doubling really does double the focus, the momentum, and the fun!
I’ve struggled with focus my entire life, my brain is hyperactive and my body hypersensitive: I am very easily distracted.
One thing that has significantly helped manage my wandering attention is working alongside others. Facilitating a morning Meetup for writers helped me complete the first two drafts of my novel, booking 75-minute Focusmate sessions allows me to get my billing done every month, and of course, my accountability check-ins with Lisa recenters me whenever I steer off track.
Yet despite engaging in these practices for so many years, I was July 20, 2026-years-old when I first heard the term “body doubling” from the amazingly multifaceted hybrid-storyteller, artist, and software engineer Veronica of Get to the Mango Tree 🥭.
Simply Psychology defines body doubling as “the practice of doing a task while another person is simply present — not helping, not supervising, just there, usually working on something of their own.” For people with ADHD the method is pivotal for targeting the hardest part of getting a task done: starting it.
All of us Accountability Summer Campers are working on different things: novels, business/strategy planning, morning pages, job applications, grant writing, schoolwork, even meal prepping, but we are doing it in a dedicated space, together, transforming an isolated journey into a shared experience.
When in doubt, wiggle it out
For me, waking up at 5ish in the morning is…well there’s no other way to say this…for the birds.
I am a sleepy head through and through. I believe there’s nothing better than a good nap and will unabashedly talk your ear off about the physiological and psychological benefits of a good night’s sleep (a recommended 7-9 hours a night for most adults). Yet still, up I am, every Tuesday through Thursday before the sun comes up. Well my body is, I should say, because my mind sometimes has other plans.
There are days I wake up completely restless and it feels impossible to enter a state of flow. Those are the days, as my good sis Jessica, integrative wellness coach, healing artist, and CEO & Founder of Bliss Leadership & Wellness, LLC, reminded us during camp one morning: you gotta let the wiggles out.
Do not fight the resistance, embrace it, and let it lead you back to the task: acknowledge the preoccupied mind, reset (stand up, stretch, shake it out), and once ready, start small, work on something that feels doable until the momentum returns.
That day, after our session, I unrolled my mat for my daily Yoga practice and the Universe (via my Youtube algorithm) presented me with this video that serendipitously culminated with a little wiggle at the end: Anytime Unwind | Full Yoga Practice 🧘♀️.
Collective Resonance: We are more aligned than we think
One Summer camp morning we created space for introductions. In hearing the brief overview of everyone’s journey, I was surprised (but not really), at the similarities.
It reminded me of a story I once heard about Michael Jackson. It was said that when he had an idea he would immediately run to write it down because otherwise “God may give it to Prince”. That’s how energetically aligned he felt they were, how much he believed they functioned on the same creative field.
I was happy to discover this sort of collective unconscious within our own little community. Human experience, in my opinion, is more alike than it is different and like-minded people attract each other like magnets.
Psychologist Carl Jung called it synchronicity. If you are more spiritual, you may see it as vibrating in the same frequency. Whatever you want to call this resonance, finding others tapped into the same zeitgeist, is a sure indication that you are on the right path.
✨ Thank you, my fellow campers, for this reassurance! ✨
See you next week for week 4.
What a treat this was! Love the Science-backed perspective. And I most certainly love what is transpiring thanks to our camp. The possibilities are endless ✨️ 😍 😌 👌 🙌🏽 💛 ✨️