A few things I've been thinking about
Happy Sunday, friends. I was reading that delightful profile of Phoebe Waller-Bridge the other day and I came to this bit:
Somewhere in the ether, there is a draft email that is worth as much as a small jet. It’s titled “Funnies”; it is addressed to no one. Waller-Bridge, who recently signed what is reported to be a $20 million–a–year deal with Amazon, has been adding to the draft for the past decade, accumulating material for future projects. “I could have a notebook, but I know I’d lose it, so I just write ideas down and bring them out every time I have a show,” she said.
"Oh my god," I thought, "... I'm exactly like Phoebe Waller-Bridge."
Clearly in intent and habits, if not in fame, celebrity, beauty, jumpsuits, general creative genius, etc. You see, how I keep all of my ideas for the Sunday Soother is in a Gmail draft email that I started a couple of years ago. Just like my dear friend Phoebe, as I like to call her, I lose notebooks and scraps of paper, and I've never come around to any one notekeeping app, so, email draft it is.
The email draft started out all elegant-like, with separate sections for ideas for essays; links of things to share; and what I wanted to include in Trying & Buying from week to week. At first, it was elegant and simple. However, two years later… it looks like a crazy person’s conspiracy bulletin board.
So! Despite my best of intentions, there's no way I'm going to write an entire essay about each of the random scrawls or links I've pasted there in the last 18 months (though, please enjoy some samplings of half-formed ideas that sound like I wrote them down when I was extremely high, but I swear, I was not):
"Donald Trump's chakras are probably super blocked" [I do maintain this is quite true]
"The tree is already in the seed, it just needs to crack open" [ohhhhkay Buddhist-wannabe-Catherine]
"that cow story and anti-depressants" [nope, I have no idea what that was about either];
"the difference between giving up and giving in" [hmm maybe I will actually write on that one day];
and "we have to have somewhere for lonely men to go other than sliding straight into white supremacy" [which, fwiw, I still do agree with, but not sure exactly where I planned on taking that idea]
Anyhoodles. In the spirit of end-of-year decluttering, and clean-slate-ing it for the new year, let me dump in some of the things I've been saving, with a bit of musing, for your consideration and hopefully, your enjoyment, so I can clear that draft email and give new space for new ideas to come in in 2020.
Oh! Before I do that, I'm putting together a Sunday Soother gift guide, and I would love some reader input. Got something you think somebody else should buy, uh, somebody else? Shoot me a note, and I'll include it!
On to the grab bag...
The ways in which we deny ourselves energetic release: I spend a lot of time thinking about why I don't cry more, and, lately, wishing I did. Instead of the shamesies and bad feelings we've been taught to associate with crying, I actually think of it now as a literal release of emotions so you can move through those emotions and get them out of your body. It's literally a release of energy that no longer serves us. So, go ahead, have that cry. Other energetic releases we often deny ourselves or feel conflicted about: Screaming; laughter; orgasms; dancing like a doofus. Do all those things when you feel called to do them. It's emotions trying to leave your body so you can feel better.
Alexithymia: I can't remember where I learned this fascinating term, but it really struck me, and again, it deals with the body, feelings, and energetic release (is it clear yet that I'm obsessed with that topic?). Its definition? "In 1972, Peter Sifneos introduced to psychiatry the term alexithymia, which (derived from the Greek) literally means having no words for emotions (a=lack, lexis=word, thymos=emotions). Alexithymia is not a diagnosis, but a construct useful for characterizing patients who seem not to understand the feelings they obviously experience, patients who seem to lack the words to describe these feelings to others... Clearly, someone who cannot verbally express negative emotions will have trouble discharging and neutralizing these emotions, physiologically as well as psychically. All feelings, whether normal or pathological, are ultimately bodily feelings. Those with alexithymia lack a lived understanding of what they experience emotionally."
Feelings of scarcity in creatives: Christine Garvey has a lovely newsletter geared towards artists, and recently she published this guide about scarcity and having enough as a creative person. She writes: "Why do creative people feel like they'll never have 'enough'? Here's what I said: '...As artists, we are constantly having to advocate for our value — at work, in galleries, within academia, and in society at large. This sense of scarcity is reinforced by jobs that don’t provide healthcare and contract-based employment, leaving us to feel that security is in short supply. Or perhaps, if we have a full-time job with some security, we experience a scarcity of time for creative projects we care about. Basically, it’s easy to feel like we’re failing in many different arenas at a time. If we’re succeeding in one area, we’re catching up in another.'" Check out the full guide here.
Quitting Amazon: In my reader survey this year, somebody left the astute feedback wondering why I still link to stuff on Amazon, given I've never figured out how to earn affiliate money off of it, and uh, that they're kinda of evil and all. It's an extremely good question. All I can say at this point is I have a very complicated relationship with Amazon and shopping at this point and I hope to explore it more in 2020. In the meantime, I enjoyed this guide from Luke Leighfield (his great newsletter is here at the bottom) on why and how to quit Amazon.
Toxic optimism: I'm extremely drawn to this concept and may still write about it, but for now, here is a powerful example of why Americans' need to be positive and happy all the time is actually pretty cruel and damaging: "More than any other group in history, modern Americans are told to be cheerful, no matter the circumstance. In her book, Bright Sided – How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America, Barbara Ehrenreich explores this culture of “toxic optimism” in various ways, but the most persuasive account she provides is a personal one. Ehrenreich wrote that when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, she found the wildly optimistic books, support groups and popular media surrounding the condition nearly as daunting as the disease itself. Instead of allowing her to have perfectly normal responses to a potentially life-threatening diagnosis – fear, worry, anger – she was told over and over that cancer was her chance to grow spiritually, to embrace life, to find God. The result, from her perspective, was simply exhaustion – denied the opportunity to react instinctively, recover her emotional balance, and then move on to therapy, she felt profoundly stressed."
Being controlled by your own need for control: As a recovering control freak, codependent, whatever you wanna call it, I found the concept that you're merely being controlled by your own need for control pretty *galaxy brain exploding.* This Instagram post puts it pretty succinctly: "While attempting to control others and situations, you are actually being controlled. How? By gaining self-worth only when you get your desired outcome."
Finally: The thing you fear the most has actually already happened - and you lived: The reason we are so afraid of something - being abandoned, being shamed - is exactly because it already happened to us. And it was in the past. And that doesn't mean it's going to happen in the future. And even if it did happen again, we already lived through it and we are going to be okay. Just read this whole thing.