Hello! What the hell is going on here?
A lot of y'all are new here.
Many more of you have been around since The Dharma Letter, my yoga and mindfulness newsletter from 1854 when I was teaching yin and restorative yoga.
A looooooooooooot of changes for the better have happened in 2025. I moved to Colorado from Oklahoma. I became focused on my handcut paper collage art, content creation, and my new career as a creative entrepreneurship educator specializing in social media management.
Things have been moving so damn fast I can barely catch a break (and my ass can't run cross country anymore so it's like I'm riding a metaphorical electric bike right now that doesn't want to stop).
Even though I can barely catch a break, my Capricorn Sun ass LOVES this shit.
My life is the most creative it's ever been. It feels like I'm finally in my natural state of being with joy and bliss.
This email is a simple explanation of what the hell is happening and what's going to happen moving forward.
Look, being a part of a yoga community and the industry was wonderful and amazing, at first.
But honestly, after some time, it almost destroyed my love for yoga. It made me spiritually egotistical and a lot of people are fucking toxic as hell.
I was bullied, intentionally left out of shit, manipulated to do harmful things against people I love and care about, used for other people's gain, but I put up with shit because I was afraid of losing people.
And I grieved for almost two years when I had to leave everything behind.
I knew shit smelt like shit, but fuck, I could go on and on.
But nothing was going to get better if nothing changed.
So. I ended up leaving the yoga community and industry, retiring (again) from teaching yoga, and now treat it as a personal spiritual practice for myself.
I felt like I could breathe again and do the hard work of true healing.
And it gave me a lot of clarity for my life as I grew up.
In the midst of everything, I'm restarting this newsletter for this new chapter in my life as my old one turned the page and closed its story.
I figured it would be the perfect time with the New Year to have fun and play and be creative in ways other than my collage artwork and content creation and teaching social media management.
Here's what to expect from The Heartwood Letter.
A New Beginning
The Dharma Letter is now The Heartwood Letter, a creative business and lifestyle newsletter.
Designed specifically for solopreneurs, content creators, artists, creative business owners, and anybody interested in living a creative life, this is a no-bullshit newsletter where you get tips, advice, updates, life lessons, resources, curated content, and strategies to help your creative business grow without sucking the life out of you.
You don't have to have a creative business in order to get anything out of this newsletter.
You just need to at least be open to living your naturally creative existence.
What this new year could bring from a creativity perspective?
2026 marks a shift in how creativity is approached.
Instead of pushing for constant output or chasing new ideas, the focus moves toward integration, how creativity fits into daily life, and long-term direction.
It’s less about being visible all the time and more about creating work that has structure, intention, and staying power.
Culturally, there’s a move from clout to craft. Audiences are gravitating toward depth over novelty, clarity over chaos, and creators who know what they stand for.
Process, refinement, and consistency matter more than speed.
Creativity becomes something you build steadily, not something you perform on demand.
At its core, 2026 is about meaningful creation.
The question shifts from “How much can I make?” to “Why am I making this and can I sustain it?”
The work that resonates most will be rooted, thoughtful, and designed to endure, even if it grows quietly and slowly.
Endings are beginnings, too.
I know this is a huge change. And many of you who subscribed and followed me a long time ago wanted yoga and mindfulness material.
In a way what I'm doing now is still practicing yoga and mindfulness. But it is in a different form.
The work I'm doing now feels more authentic, more me, and less like I'm putting on a show trying to prove that I'm a good spiritual person.
It was time to stop pretending.
If you want to live a spiritual life, you can't always talk about it. You have to be about it through inspired action.
If none of this resonates with you, it is absolutely okay for you to unsubscribe to this newsletter here and unfollow me on social media. (My handle @katrinaheartwood is the same through Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Facebook.) If the link is being a dick and you still want to unsubscribe, just email me and I'll take you off the mailing list.
I want to connect with people who are on the same wavelength as me. I want to know that what I'm providing for you is helping you in some way.
This is no longer a yoga and mindfulness newsletter, it's something else entirely.
I want you to move on with your life by setting electronic boundaries, not to support me just to be nice.
If something doesn't resonate with you, take what you need and leave the rest.
You need to do what's best for YOU.
This New Year, don't fuck around when it comes to your peace.
🧠Brain-Picks
- If you’re an entrepreneur, run and apply for small business grants no LLC and EIN or app fees required.
- "Build your creative business around your ACTUAL capacity, not what you think it "should" be based on hustle culture expectations + metrics of success. If chronic illness limits your working hours, that's your capacity. If caregiving responsibilities mean unpredictable schedules, that's your capacity. If poverty means you're juggling survival jobs, that's your capacity. If your brain works differently and you need more recovery time, that's your capacity." - Dexter Komakaru​
- Lead with value as often as you can. The WHAT is FREE, the HOW is a FEE.​
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đź«€ Tips for creating and living creatively
- "Maybe your garden isn't growing because every time a flower grows you cut it to prove to someone that you're a gardener."
- "Your past is not your prison; it is your curriculum. Graduate." - Queen Afua​
- "touching grass is not enough i need to swallow the entire forest and let it grow inside my ribcage." - CG Drews​
With gratitude,
Katrina
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