Kate's Five Things #73
Rewiring in real time.
Catching Up
I've been thinking about what happens when you stop narrating the work and just do the work. Not in a cute thera-speak way. In a way that is boring and unglamorous and uncomfortable and occasionally makes you feel like a beginner at your own life. After a few weeks of slog, I kind of like it here.
One
I started brainspotting. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a therapeutic framework that uses where your eyes naturally focus to access and process stored trauma. The premise is that the position of your gaze reaches different parts of your brain. It sounds like it shouldn’t work. It does.
It feels really natural. I find myself processing by staring in one direction—on walks, at my desk, in the car. I’m not going to oversell this or tell you it’s changed my life in some dramatic, cinematic way. But things that used to snag me aren’t snagging me the same way. Rumination is quieting. I’m hopeful.
Two
I started a creative practice that lives somewhere between journaling and scrapbooking. The only rule is that it doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be shareable. It doesn’t have to become anything.
I’ve been collecting things for it the way you collect things for a junk drawer you actually love—clippings, ticket stubs, color swatches, fragments of sentences that don’t go anywhere yet. I bought sardine pens for my desk, and they make me unreasonably happy. Some things just get to be there because they delight you.
The permission to make something with no audience has leaked into everything else. I’m learning “Dawn” from Pride and Prejudice on the piano, and it is HARD, but missed notes aren’t even registering as “signs I’m horrible and should quit” anymore.
Three
Salty Face tanning spray. A spritz each morning, and I look less like I've been living under fluorescent lights since November. It's subtle and buildable and doesn't smell like a coconut candle. If you're the kind of person who wants to look alive but not "tan," this is the one.
Four
I’m packing for Mexico, and my suitcase contains books. Strangers by Belle Burden. The eighth journal from the Emma M. Lion series by Beth Brower (swoon). Heart the Lover by Lily King. Blackouts by Justin Torres. The books that have been sitting on my nightstand waiting for me. (If you want the full packing list, I shared it on Wit & Delight.)
Five
Question: Where are you applying pressure that’s hurting more than it’s helping?
For me, it was creative work. For seventeen years, making things and sharing them were the same act. I didn’t know how to make something without an audience attached to it. The pressure wasn’t external—it was just the shape of the container I’d built. Changing the container has changed what I’m able to make inside it.
I’d love to hear your response. Hit reply in the comments, or sit with it for a minute and write an answer just for yourself.
And in case you missed it…
If you missed the latest essay, “Nurturing Your Inner Weirdo” is about finding inspiration in the quiet, weird parts of yourself that don’t fit neatly into a brand or a personality or a room.
Wow, #5 hit me deep. Exactly how I’ve been feeling and couldn’t name. Like my creativity could expand but I have allowed it to conform to the habits of what it knows. I’ve created and shared online for so long it is hard to detach from the idea that creating for the sake of soul fueling alone is just as valuable!
All good stuff! Your experience with the piano reminds me of my journey with the guitar. It’s difficult to create without self-judgment.