What I’ve learned from one year on Substack

The good, the tender, the unexpected

I once had an astrologer look at my chart and tell me I was a paradox. “There’s a part of you that wants to walk onto a stage in front of an audience and throw your arms wide” he said to me knowingly. Then he paused, “But once you get up there it’s like you find yourself announcing ‘Hello everyone! I’m a very private person!’”

I laughed. It felt like the perfect description of a creative who is also a highly sensitive person.

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of waltzing onto the stage that is Substack and saying “Hello everyone! I’m a very sensitive person who deeply needs to talk about this profoundly sensitive aspect of my life!”

As a teacher, earth mentor, and guide I’ve been writing and sharing in the public eye for over a decade. But something about Substack. Something about motherhood. Something about sharing from one of the absolute most private corners of my life, has made me feel like I’m doing this, all of this, for the first time.

When I started this Substack a year ago I gave myself a very specific task—to let go of all my roles. I wanted to know what it would be like to not show up as a teacher or a guide. I didn’t even want to put pressure on myself to show up as a mother. I just had to show up. To write about the ocean of movement behind my life as a parent to a young child. To let my own self-expression, my tenderness and unknowingness, be enough.

It's been one of the most confusing, exciting, brave and uncertain things I’ve ever done in my adult life. I’ve learned a lot. More, maybe, than I can put into words. But here are the things that stand out most…

1.        It takes so much to show up to the page every week, but it’s worth it.

Posting every week here feels like a miracle. In a time when even necessities like showers are negotiable, the reality that I’ve shown up here every week for a whole year floors me. I’ve written a fair share of these posts sitting in my car, pulled over in the CVS parking lot for 45 minutes while my daughter naps in the backseat. I’ve had to give up a lot of my perfectionism to make it every Sunday. There have been plenty of times when I didn’t have the space to edit what I wrote in the way I wanted to, making it more lyrical, poignant or clear. Time simply ran out. And so it had to just be what it was: Raw, honest, here. Nearly every time I post, a part of me still wonders—“is this good enough to share?” and then I post it anyways. Because that was the goal. To just keep showing up. In the last year I’ve chosen writing over napping. Writing over meals. Writing over the million other things that need to be done every day…and it’s always been worth it. Because writing shows me what’s here. It shows me what’s going on beneath the surface of my being. It connects me to my self in a time of life when the dissolution of your identity is all but guaranteed. Writing brings me back to my life, and shows me that the miracle of your life continuing is possible. So it’s worth it, every time.

2.        The community is always here, even if you can’t be.

There was a part of me that thought I could be more involved in the community aspects here on Substack (notes, cross-posting, commenting etc.) but parenthood has forced me to accept the one thing I’ve always had trouble embracing—my limitations. What I can handle in a day, and what I can’t. How much bandwidth I have to be on the computer before it all starts to falls apart like a badly put-together cake. What’s been most piercingly beautiful though, is the realization that even if I can’t respond to a message, even if I miss reading a post, even if I loved someone’s essay and never end up saying anything because the moment I tried to type my daughter woke up from her nap and started to cry in the other room, the community is still here. The grove of mothers who understand. The circle of those of us who are writing, parenting, sharing, becoming, are here, always here. Those of us who know that you can step in and out, in and out, and that this movement can be a kind of dance. A pattern of nourishment that is important, sanctioned, needed.

3.        I’ve felt the need to be less private than I thought I’d be.

When I first began this Substack I figured I’d paywall at least half my posts. It felt so vulnerable to step out and share from this un-figured-out place in my life. Paywalling felt like a way to create a safer, interior garden-within-the-garden. I still feel that way about the things that are just too tender to share with any person with a passing google interest. And yet, I’ve been surprised by how little I feel the need to paywall most things. It’s felt refreshing, honestly, to be so open. To have anyone who needs it, be able to read what I wrote. I’ll still likely paywall the things I know I’m still fragile around. But so far opening the gates to this garden, without much reservations, has only meant more creativity, connection and abundance.

4.        The support will surprise you

Making money from writing isn’t easy. After I wrote my first book, I was intensely grateful for all the support it received. But it also made me feel for all my writer friends whose only stream of income is their words. Making money, any kind of money, from writing is hard won. And so it’s felt like such a blessing to witness people decide to pay for this Substack. To have someone say “I believe in you,” in this way, has lifted me more than I can express. When I was younger I wanted to be a writer, a writer of lyricism, of poetry. But as I grew up, I internalized the belief that making it as a writer was too hard. I didn’t think I was good enough. So writing just became something I did on the side. The subscriptions I’ve received for this Substack has been a kind of soul retrieval for me. A force of kindness reaching back to speak to the young part that still believed “I can’t, it won’t work out, I don’t deserve it.” Your support has changed me. It’s shown me that it’s actually possible to be in the stream of your own deepest naturalness, your flow, your creative pool of creative nourishment, the thing you need to do to be yourself, and someone will say “I see this, and it’s valuable.” It’s shown me that is truly enough, for all of us, just to be ourselves. And that when we do, we will be supported in ways that touch us beyond words. So thank you, thank you.

5.        I want to keep going

When I started this, I set a goal for myself to write once a week for a whole year. I can be bull-headed about goals, so I didn’t take this one on lightly. When I began my daughter was just a year old. We didn’t have any formal childcare and I was still supporting the entire family while running my own business. How would I also do this? But time has done a miraculous thing. Because writing about motherhood has given me life, my life has somehow expanded. I wrote my last post sitting at Ingles (our local chain supermarket). The small pocket of time before grocery shopping was all I had. So I sat at a table next to an older couple eating General Tso’s chicken from the take-out section and typed for forty minutes straight. I felt like a different person afterwards. I wasn’t sure if I’d want to keep going after a year. I set myself this goal with the permission, in advance, to let go once I reached it. But now having hit the one-year-mark I find myself more passionate than ever about this writing, this sharing. There are things, big things, I’ve yet to write. And this is the space where I want to do it. I’ve hit the one year mark, and I want to keep going.

And for that, for you, for this space, I’m so grateful.

What about you? What is one unexpected thing you’ve discovered about being here on Substack?