10 things I hate (but not about you!)
Before the hate vent... welcome to new subscribers from the impeccable Oliver Burkeman's newsletter, The Imperfectionist! Clearly his recommendations carry a lot of weight (as they should!) because there are a LOT of you here. Wow! Thank you, Oliver. It's not every week you get linked by a best-selling author you admire and in one of your favorite newsletters, so feeling much gratitude. New readers, you'll find content similar to Oliver's here in the Soother, maybe a bit more ranty-early-40-something-American-woman style. But I try to think thoughtfully about being a human in what seems like an increasingly inhumane world, and how we can create practices, rituals and ways of supporting ourselves through this messy life with hope and humanity. In addition to the Sunday Soother newsletter and podcast, I'm also a life and business coach and you can see more about that here. Past issues of the Soother live here and I share additional rants, wisdom, journal prompts and photos of flowers on Instagram here. Welcome! I'm so glad to have you!
On to a particularly rant-y newsletter this week... chuckles nervously... if I'd known you all were coming I might have tried to sound more wise or insightful but here we go.
Let's vent. Hating lately...
That my f*cking phone is LITERALLY DESIGNED TO GET ME ADDICTED TO IT and yet it STILL has the GALL to send me screen notification times that make me feel bad about myself. That is some boldness, let me tell you. "You shouldn't be addicted to our addiction machine, that literally was designed specifically to get you super addicted, but you are addicted after all! You are a weak dummy!" Screw this. I am turning off screen time notifications off of my phone FOREVER. You can addict me, but I ain't gonna let you shame me for it any longer.
Mortgage applications. I am trying to figure out how to purchase a home as a self-employed life coach. Lol. Lenders are like, "That's cute, what does a life coach do?" I'm like, "Bitch I made a quarter of a million dollars last year, give me your money." But the whole process is like so many of these murky, tough, hierarchal and weird language/lingo filled processes, designed to make you feel crappy about yourself, and dumb. Nowhere — even honestly with a good realtor, lender and accountant, you guys are great — do I feel stupider than in trying to navigate the home buying process. Also please just use English, thanks.
That the first cohort of Soothe, my year-long mastermind for highly sensitive women, is winding down. Twenty-six incredible women took the leap with me into an audacious experiment: Could I create 12 months of personal growth and healing content, facilitate small groups of these women twice a month, as well as meeting with them monthly? I am proud to say, it happened, and also I am going to sob like a baby when we end in September. These women are INCREDIBLE and will absolutely feel like soul sisters to me for life. If you want to get on the waitlist for the next Soothe cohort, which will start in January 2023, read more about the program and get on the waitlist at this link.
I think I am in peri menopause? Probably have been for several years? Maybe getting extra close to menopause?? I feel insane half the time. My emotions are no longer mine, they are uncontrollable. I go from in love with the universe one morning to a literal pit of despair that same afternoon. My period is becoming a visitor of a shorter length, though still pretty regular. And because I have a woman's body, I am policed but also severely under-informed and under-educated about whatever is happening. Love to be a 40-something woman in America.
I have relatively successfully (on and off, they still flare up) tended to complicated and addictive relationships to the following: men, coffee, alcohol. And now I am in the throes of getting out of an addictive relationship with overworking and let me tell you this might be the hardest one yet. I love my work, so it's easy to spend literally all my time on it. And then I burn myself out and I'm like, uh, how did this happen, AGAIN!??! The cycle and layers of unpeeling and healing codependency continue.
I hate that I'm not currently immediately on the banks of the Tippecanoe River in Indiana with my boyfriend in the magical little cottage we rent every August. It's only a couple weeks away but my impatient-ass self is all NOW monster-y about it. You couldn't blame me; every morning we take a cup of coffee and sit on the porch overlooking the river and watch what we call "the wildlife parade;" for nearly an hour we'll sit there and see what animals come out. We can usually count on blue herons, deer, sometimes wild turkeys, an occasional eagle and some flopping fish. It is the best.
That I compiled an entire list of awful things that happened in my past 9-5s but haven't published it yet. But here were two particularly smarting memories: When I was 23, at the company's Christmas party, the CEO dressed up as Santa and forced me to come sit in his lap while coworkers took photos. Then, after Trump's election win, a male leader at my company the next day said, "Maybe this won't be so bad. I bet it will be good for business, anyways." In other news, if you aren't enrolled in Secretly Ambitious yet, that teaches you how to start working for yourself... why not?
That the final season of Stranger Things is gonna be like another two years away??? THE HELL? IS THIS LEGAL TO MAKE ME WAIT THIS LONG?!?!?
That every summer I still feel like summer is racing by. I dream of magic moments, of slowness, of ice cream, of grilling, of hazy afternoons, of sun dappled naps... of that unnameable feeling summers had as a kid (if we were lucky) and yet the season every year manages to feel like the Indy 500 whizzing by. Does anybody know how to, uh, fix this?
That whatever is making any of you feel sad, bad, less than or anxious, exists. I wish I could take it away.
What are you hating lately? Let's have a vent session. Send me your hates, and I'll share them later on in the Soother. Hate fest 2022, here we come.