5 Things I Learned While Running My First Online (Writing) Course

Nr. 1 Lock yourself in the restricted section of the library.

It’s been almost two months since the live writing course Headwaters finished, and I am slowly returning to my keyboard. (The waitlist for the March 2025 cohort is now open.)

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Frida Kahlo, 1946

Not gonna lie. It was hard.

The experience of building my own product, selling it, and running it on my own has been the Saturn Return initiation I did not expect to happen at all.

From August till the end of November, I was locked in.

I never felt so full-time focused for such a long period of time.

Perhaps that speaks to my attention capacity. Our attention capacity.

I am convinced. And now, I have tested this on myself — the biggest focus prod is work that you’re really meant to do.

Distracting technology is only half of the story. Another question is why do we seek distractions in the first place?

It’s because we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing (from the soul’s perspective).

I never felt like I could use all of my knowledge/gifts in one workplace/client work/product.

But this opportunity allowed me to do all of that because I was the one responsible for every single bit of it.

I had the freedom of complete responsibility.

It was on me if it would be a complete flop. Knowing that, I approached the design of this course as an experiment and intuitive way of working, similar to how I approach my writing itself.

Here’s what running a 6-week course taught me:

1. You have a right to take a risk and put all of your eggs into that one heirloom willow-woven basket.

When I started building this course, my freelance work with a major client had just finished. I knew that I could either start looking for new client work (in design space), or I could jump off the cliff and create something I always wanted — something of my own.

If you too have a deep dream of building a meaningful offering and starting your personal business, I want to cheer you on. This is the most radical, scary, transformative thing you can do.

I had nothing to lose, I was learning something new every day.

I felt so charged and alive. It was everything or nothing.

But, in order to take this risk in a well-calculated manner, you will have to be very much attuned to Nr. 5 of this list. Otherwise, we risk delusion that spins us out of reality, rather than into it.

Another thing that is very important at this point is to see that it’s possible to earn your living through your passion. Who else has done a similar thing you’re doing? And do you believe that it’s possible for you to do that as well? I did a lot of unblocking work prior to and during the building period. Meditation, journaling, inner child, and shadow work were all there.

2. Intuition is your roadmap. (But, allow yourself help and structured guidance.)

The course had 6 modules. I wanted to combine psychology, healing practices, mythology, mysticism, as well as very specific writing exercises. All of the modules felt like chapters within my own life, very personal lessons I’ve gone through. It felt like an intuitive path, a journey to go on, week by week.

I put together a course that I wish I had gone through several years ago. The creative self-worth struggle is a mythological creature every writer or creative will have to confront. It is an ongoing confrontation, and in my opinion, the most important one in the story. That’s why in the Headwaters course we’ve spent a lot of time unravelling and unblocking the damn thing.

But intuition wasn’t enough. I needed a good to-do list. Using tools that guided me through the structure and organic strategy for this work was paramount because I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel.

If you’re building a product or crafting a service for the first time, I would highly recommend following tried and tested ways of building and launching as a structure. The transformative essence of the material should come from your personal first-hand experience.

This combination of intuition and proven + adapted-to-me strategy worked really well.

3. People who you teach have SO MUCH to teach you.

I fell in love with my students right away. What I quicky realized was that this group of people were here to also teach me. Their bravery to write their life stories, to write fiction, to write truth, and deeply heart-opening stories touched me so deeply. They were showing up for themselves, their craft, their art, their voice, sometimes against all odds.

In fact, fiction was something I’d been considering for a while but never dared to fully step into, and I saw my students just going all in (there was no prescription of what my students should write).

This is the part where you must swallow your own medicine in order to progress as a writer and as a human being.

At the very last session, I could barely keep my tears, as everyone shared their feedback and some read their final writings. I actually felt high in the best way possible.

Greg Mort, The Sun, Moon and Stars

4. Burnout is not sexy. Boundaries are.

Truth is, I could feel a sleuthy burnout coming along. As much as I loved full-time 100% focus, there were days when my body pulled me sideways like a horse refusing to follow the lead of its rider.

I had another kind of work going on, which I had to put a pause on or try to delegate, or ask for support. I don’t think I could have made it without my partner stepping up to help.

I learned that I can’t do it all. That I need a lot of rest. That one 30 min walk in 2 days is not a good measure of health. That I need to be able to focus on one thing and one thing only, to deliver it well. I learned that I thrive if my work consists of 1-2 (max) creative projects.

The most tiring thing in the past years was the amount of creative projects I either initiated or said yes to. Now that I had no other choice but to say no to everything else in my life. I felt so much better. My attention span healed.

Unified focus on one goal—nothing tastes better.
(Capricorn girl here.)

However, after the course finished I found myself fumbling back into a space of not wanting to do anything for a very long time. Not wanting to write. Not wanting to work.

This does smell like a burnout, or end-of-the-year energy altogether, but I made sure to allow myself to do nothing for a while. (I made a Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis test, and it did show that my adrenals and thyroid, glands responsible for energy and metabolism, were under optimal mineral range, signaling actual physical burnout.)

We cannot force our own reemergence and healing, but boredom and a need to create kicks in pretty soon, if we’ve given ourselves the spaciousness to start anew.

I’m still reemerging.

5. Nothing will test your ideas like the market. (Business talk)

Perhaps you have great ideas. Maybe you often change your mind: what to write, what to work on, what to build. Perhaps, you’ve already been a part of building something, part of a company, or a startup, or just doing your own thing (even your own business).

What will show you how good and relevant your product is, is the market.

This is the bitter orange rind we must work with.

This is the part that is very interesting to me, because all businesses stand on this ground.

Is something that you’re building relevant, needed, interesting, transformative, or experiential? Does it solve a particular problem, and ultimately, will it bring people closer to the version of themselves that the product promises to?

Over the years, I noticed that the biggest mistake that people make while launching a product is that they think it would be cool, but there is no real need for it.

I would urge you to first test out your waters with writing about the subject, and having calls with strangers who would be interested.

When crafting offerings, we need to work with truth and be obsessed with it.

It’s an integration work between finding out what is wanted and needed, and what authentically feels natural for you to create and share with the world, which is what makes the fruit of your labor very juicy.

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Thank you for reading this newsletter, it’s a less serious version than what I usually write. I am curious if you are crafting an offer or a product and what your experiences have been!

Much love,
Rūta X

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Post Scriptum (a note I wrote for instagram caption, encompassing the sum energy of the old year finishing, and the new one starting, as well as starting my 30s)

on the 29th of December, I turned 30 and these past months have felt like the peak of my Saturn Return. Through and through I am a winter baby. I was born in the darkest, most intense, and transitional time of the year. I love snow, everything to do with it. My heart breaks every year to see less and less of it.

This was a year of establishing a relationship with darkness. The shadows speak in more eloquent tongues. Waxed candlelight liberates bee’s flight across the wild meadow. Honey is sweeter in a herbal milk before sleep. Round churches, temples, and tombs made in the image of the dark femme. Ruins remind us of what’s yet to come. Wild animals wade through tall grasses while no one watches at night.

Regeneratrix returns through death, again and again, she returns us into the cycle of life. She washes our bodies in a starry river, and they are renewed for a new journey on this Earthen body.

From the darkest moments of my 20s were born desires of different life, different love, different way of being. Today, I thank every human, every guide, every ancestor, every being who helped me on this journey. There is so much love in my life right now, it barely fits in my heart.

It is a privilege to grow old on this wonderful Earth, in this vitriolic world. We are allowed grief, we are allowed joy.

May rue and agrimony protect your path this year. 🤍