A diary entry: Brain Dumps
an okay day turned introspection on self-love and creative flow
I wanted to reintroduce myself, hi I am Liz! I dove straight into my experience with a social media break here and haven’t explained who I am that much to my lovely friends here. I think I was treating Substack like Instagram, assuming people know who I am, but obviously, we are all strangers turned friends here. (I have seen a lot of things about gatekeeping Substack from friends and family and I totally get it. I’ve told like two people about it so I can write about people without them knowing hehe)
I am a creative gal that likes music, art, crafting, books, writing, psychology and lately pop-culture. I am living in Raleigh, North Carolina, with my husband and almost two-year-old daughter and my day job is part-time data entry—a little blurb about myself at this moment.
Read til the end for a little surprise…
An unfiltered brain dump is incoming because my mind is busy these days and I need a spot to process and see if I am nutso or relatable or both, feedback is welcome.
Today I have three main topics my brain is cycling on and I want to just preface by saying that I am not in crisis, my friends are not really in crisis (I don’t think), and everything will be okay at the end of the day.
The first thing I have been thinking about is surprise surprise, people pleasing. This time in the form of therapy. I had my first session with a new therapist and it was honestly so insanely life-changing for me. Not only were my feelings validated and heard, but the right questions were asked so I felt comfortable sharing a LOT more than I normally would with, well, anyone so it was extremely productive— most of a good therapist’s job I think is asking the right questions. Anyway, I received a couple of quizzes for anxiety and depression since our session, I presume to see how I am doing on that official DSM scale and my instinct was to LIE. Perhaps, that is a normal human thing to do, to appear like we are doing better than we are for fear of appearance. I knew deep down that fact even when I was doing it yet I still tweaked the truth a bit to get lower scores. I think I treated my therapists in the past like a parent or teacher maybe. I want them to think I am doing good and achieving all of the things we are working on so hard, so they feel accomplished too. I do that to my detriment though and I think recognizing this will help me be more honest moving forward. I am a recovering people pleaser, after all, not fully recovered yet and that’s okay— it’s a process. It’s something to work through in therapy. (Another factor to half-lying was that I have been having an overall good week so far which lulls me into denial and delusion that my mental health is all fixed and then when I crash again I feel like a failure.)
The second thing I have been wanting to share is for the writers on here. I have been seeing people say they don’t want to read about writing, “it’s too meta”. I still want to share a bit about how my experience has shifted and I am excited about it. I decided to work on my book at a coffee shop for the first time over the weekend. I know, I know, big moves. I don’t like writing in public places because I get self-conscious. I don’t like reading in public either now that I think about it. It’s actually because I mouth what I am reading or writing and I imagine it looks weird to see a 30 year old women sitting alone wearing checkered vans talking to herself. Also, I don’t want people looking at my screen, seeing I am writing a book or short story, and making a snap judgment about me. I think if I saw someone writing a book at a coffee shop I would be tempted to roll my eyes so I am clearly projecting. It just makes me cringe I don’t know why. I decided to try it though, and I got a corner seat facing my laptop away from everyone and I was able to just focus on my writing. The sunny afternoon lighting, me sipping a fresh iced latte and listening to whatever bops they were playing in the shop. The vibes were right and I got a ton done. So what I am saying is, that I think a change of scenery can go a long way in the creative process to kick-start when you are in a bit of a rut, maybe a change of perspective or something happens. I will be trying to write in public more often to push myself and get a jolt of creativity again from the people, places, and things around me. (Yes, I just described nouns. I will try to pull inspiration from nouns more. )
I’ve been thinking a lot about self-worth and self-acceptance, lately. In my own life, but it has also been a theme I have been seeing in my friends and family’s lives, even internet buds it would seem we are all just trying to figure that out. A lot of the root causes of our problems can come back to that. It is hard to hear other people talk about themselves sometimes because you could tell them every day for years how amazing you think they are but if they don’t believe it for themselves, it will probably go in one ear and out the other depending on the day.
Self-worth is another way of saying self-esteem which is defined by the dictionary as:
self-esteem: a confidence and satisfaction in oneself
Self-acceptance is something I have been working on personally and the definition hit me right between the eyes just now.
self-acceptance: the act or state of accepting oneself : the act or state of understanding and recognizing one's own abilities and limitations
A word that stands out to me here is recognizing. Which puts us into a self-reflective state to understand where we are coming from and what we are capable of that then builds our confidence in ourselves. I love that. It all goes together. Let’s be cyclicle in our self-love, I don’t know if that makes sense but I think that is a key thing for myself anyways. That maybe I could come back around to that inner confidence by just reflecting on who I am thus far, instead of looking ahead to a version of myself I think I should be. (okay that’s enough sappy introspection for one diary entry thanks for reading me ramble on.)
A surprise song lyric blurb for reading this far ;)
For my song PINING (out this fall hopefully)
Loved this!
Loved reading this Liz and thank you for sharing. So glad to read that you have connected to a therapist you will def get the most out of it when you connect with the person and the session plans. Also how inspiring that you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone for writing and in turn found a beautiful spot to create. I think I’ll try a new space this week and see how it helps with ideas and writing 🫶🏻🫶🏻