We start with all parts at the table

And heaping doses of humanity because I'm a creative human being.

This loose re-introduction post of sorts is inspired by something

Sarah Shotts

wrote entitled, I am not a brand, I’m a human. The title of that post and what it means to me has been living in my head ever since I stumbled across it.

I entered the digital entrepreneur space in 2018, Instagram was alive with health, wellness, and spiritual coaches. I became one, because I thought I knew so much, but I was barely twenty-five and dumb, just dumb. I chased that path for a while until I was burned badly and the whole idea of coaching as I knew it unraveled before my eyes.

I ran my business for a few years, but I was never good at it. Marketing made my skin crawl (the irony this is my day job now is not lost on me, I am great at it for other people). I did not know how to package myself, tell my story, sell my offerings. The way I had been taught to go about it never felt right to me. So, when my son was born, I threw in the towel from sheer exhaustion of trying to fit into a box.

I am glad I did because the feeling of helping people that used to motivate me was starting to lose its luster. I started to want to make things, write things, share things. I grew tired of trying to wrap myself in a neat package and trying to convince someone they needed what I was selling.

I wanted to do something different.

I started writing here in the fall of 2023, I started with pure intentions to write. But I quickly got caught up in the endless thoughts of…who I should be, what I should offer, what I seemed to sense those around me needed. I did not know how to let myself be a creative, but I did know how to see a need and try to fill it.

From the place of trying to be what other mothers needed, Unspoken Words and Motherhood Musings were born. I invited mothers to share their stories and this invitation sparked idea after idea. I had plans for another business, I spent all of last summer mapping it out, what I would offer, how it would work, and who I would serve.

But reality stepped in and quietly showed me the truth about why the path I kept choosing over and over again was not satisfying me. I learned I was neurodivergent, and I realized what I wanted more than solving other people’s problems was to write and create.

Something Sarah pointed out in their piece is how autistics find their place by adding “value.” This has been me my whole life, I feel I “fit in,” not by being myself but by adding something of value. I feel lost when I am not adding value, the desire to be valuable is something that drove me for so long.

And this is not my value of being my awesome human self, it is strategic. It is seeing where the gaps are in a setting, institution, conversation and filling it with what is needed, I find value when I can smooth things out.

I tried to fit myself in a box, I tried to stick to one interest, one topic, one thing. I tried to follow traditional marketing and branding advice. I tried to make offering after offering only to become frustrated that I cannot sustain the level of commitment what I set out to do requires.

I know myself more intimately now, I have learned the best things come out of me when I stop trying. While I can plan things very well, it is following the plan that sucks my soul dry. I need to follow my flow, I need to see where the wind takes me on a given day, week, or season.

I need to bring all parts of myself to anything I do. The creative parts, the analytical parts, the nerdy parts, the parts I have been to afraid to share out loud before. I know how to fit into a box…

This next season in this space and in my life is an exploration in stepping out of the box and bringing all parts of myself to the table.

Introducing a few of the parts

I love writing. I write here on Substack. I am also working on a fantasy/romance novel about a woman living on the last island where there is magic and the people she meets along the way who change her life forever. I am an avid romantasy reader, give me an intricate world with complex relationships and you won’t see me for three to four days. If this is you too, share your favorite series with me, I love recommendations.

I write poetry. I rarely share it here, but I have notebooks upon notebooks filled with poems. Writing poems became a way for me to outlet frustrations, traumas, and all the aspects of my life I could not make sense of as they were happening. I started weaving these poems into a collection that I work on periodically. The collection is called…Wading Through Their Waters: A Collection of Grievings. I share this with you because I think it is awesome, do not take it!

I love painting. It comes to me in seasons. Sometimes I will paint a ton, sometimes I won’t paint for months. But its a form of self-expression that has been a big part of my life for the past few years. It was the starting point for me to embrace my creativity and see myself as a creative being. I grew up thinking I was not creative at all.

I am historic people-pleaser, box-fitter-inner, and recovering self-help junkie. Most of my twenties was dedicated to fixing myself and solving the perceived problems of my flaws. Right before I turned thirty, I learned I was neurodivergent. While walking a path of self-discovery did help me work through trauma and become more intimate with myself, understanding my neurodivergence showed me there are some things about me that are here for life. I am learning that is okay, because I am not a problem to be solved.

I love baseball. I am counting down the days until the first game of the season (Go O’s, no I am not from Baltimore, my partner is and he likes them, so I like them). It is something that surprised me, and my husband, when he introduced me to it two years ago. Of course, I knew what it was, but I was not raised around people who watched baseball. Now, I love it and I cannot explain exactly why. There is something deeply calming about watching a game to me. I will watch almost every game in a season, which is a commitment because baseball is played almost every day from the end of March through September.

I love Zen Buddhism. It comes through a lot in my writing, the notion of being with what is, right here, right in front of us. I love the tradition so much because it does not feel like fixing or striving, something I have been lessening in my life. Zen meditation, teachings, and practice feels akin to acceptance. Acceptance in a way that feels like what I need at this moment of my life. Zen is a reminder to me to soften, to let go, and trust everything is evolving at its own timing. Zen speaks directly to the parts of me that cling, fixate, and see everything as a problem.

Finally, I struggle in motherhood. While I have journeyed with different pieces of myself over the few years of my son’s life, I still find this resistance to softening. I am being with it and noticing how much I long to soften. I have spent my whole life trying to survive, take care of myself, fit in a box and then step out of it and reconfigure myself for the next thing. It has been hard to let that go and not let motherhood became another box, but to let it be something bigger than me. I am afraid of softening into the experience, I am afraid of losing myself. The parts of me that are still stuck on striving for something more see softness as weakness and not worth my time. But I am practicing softening, because without it, I feel I am missing something vital in the experience of being a mother.

Those are the big pieces in my life, the big things that influence my writing (maybe not baseball, but I am open to let it come through). I see myself using this space to let myself write and be free, to step out of the box and away from any masks and be whole myself. I will bring all parts of myself to this space, as best as I can. I also want to explore different styles of writing, maybe sharing my poetry or writing stories.

I see Being in Motherhood as my creative playground where I tell the truth about motherhood, neurodivergence, creativity and whatever else comes into my heart.

I am grateful you are here. A special thank you to those who have journeyed with my through all the different seasons of this space and myself so far. It means so much that you have stayed while things (and I) have shifted and emerged more fully.

Invitations for you

• The first year of this space was dedicated to hearing stories from other mothers. These posts are are always accessible for a moment when you need to remember you are not alone and we all struggle on the path of mothering our children.

• I invite you to join the Creative Circle, my paid subscriber space. We gather each month to talk about writing and creativity, share what we are working on, and give and receive gentle, supportive feedback. This time together fuels the creative revolution of women whose ideas, words, and self-expressions are birthed around the edges of motherhood.