The readers voted. I will continue writing my meandering thoughts. (see previous post Searching searching for more context) And I have to agree with the voters.
Last week I was mulling on a strategy for this substack. I thought about crafting a newsletter highlighting a range of people’s experiences with big change. After doing the strategy work and putting the pencil down – I’m like, wait, do I even want to do this?
I invited readers to decide (or at least give their prospective):
Not ready to start a new thing and I don’t want to
I was feeling a little untethered without a definitive project to work on. The project now is not having a project.
Reflecting on 2023 leads me to reflect on the past 10 years. 10 years since I came out and my life really turned upside down. 10 years of intense change, challenges and emotions. The pressure cooker / explosion years. There was a breakup, another breakup, the awkwardness of everything, the shame, losing job, starting new job, making new friends – rolling right into starting herstory instagram, being more public, so many dates, finding love, starting personals, extreme public shaming, starting Lex, being a CEO when I didn’t want to be CEO, taking a break from Lex. There’s so much buried layers of pain here. Now using this time to find myself again and heal.
I slowly start to feel better, there’s ups and downs. I am hopeful about my future again but taking it all slowly.
Helping Self Books
This week I read Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr. Julie Smith. Skimmed more like, some parts I really needed, other chapters I passed through.
I completed the exercise designed by a Swedish therapist Tobias Lungren, adapted by Dr. Smith. It’s a 6 pointed values star. Each point has your life value - on each arm there’s a scale from 0 - 5 - 10. The exercise is to not only think on what your values are now but more importantly how well are you aligned with your values. Ideally it’s 10s all around. I scored using my experiences in the year 2023.
One of the points that really dragged me down the past year is that work was getting in the way of friendships. Friends, who I value so highly. Friends, who are literally the reason we are building Lex. I abandoned my friends. This was a red flag. And completely ironic, going against my own core value and Lex core values.
I also struggled with health, curiosity and passion. All of those are getting back on track the past 3 months. I’m still a bit behind on friendships. I’m taking more time to focus on my family. I’m lucky to have time to give them now and they need my care.
Working on my self-awareness as well, which in part is why I’m writing this newsletter.
❤️🔥
Tiny Goal Check-in
