Practice
As an imperfect person existing in a transactional, utilitarian, achievement-focused culture, I struggled for decades to accept my downs as well as my ups.
Conceiving of these vicissitudes as natural and cyclical has helped me to identify my downs and trust that I will circle back up.
Different people have different tolerances for the unknown, and our individual comfort with it shifts throughout our lives depending on our energetic and emotional reserves. Mapping my shifts onto this cycle has gifted a little more familiarity and predictability onto my low points and unknowns.
I want to share what I’ve learned in the hopes it will help you feel stronger and more capable through all the shifts in your own life.
Founder
I believe that when we’re kids we all know who we are. Then adolescence and teenage- and young-adult-hood hit and we have to learn how to not be ourselves in order to survive in our society. Then, as adults, we try to get ourselves back to the same self-knowledge and confidence we had when we were kids.
So. Who did I start out as?
I was an artist. I loved fashion. I loved interior design. I was humiliatingly sensitive. I love getting lost in imaginary worlds, whether I was reading about them in a book or making them up as I went along. I was very, very smart. I loved people with my whole heart and in whole self.
Then I had to learn how to hide in plain sight. I learned that girls don’t masturbate. I learned about the internet. I learned to listen closely to the lyrics of songs I liked when they came on TV, search the lyrics I remembered, and listen to 30 seconds of every song with a plausible title on CDNow until I found the right song. I learned to cut my hair myself. I learned to buy some of my clothes in the mens department. I learned it was possible to learn about way more subjects than they taught at my high school.
Eventually I found out I actually am so smart it scares me a little bit. I figured out I love cats. I figured out I’m profoundly sensitive. I figured out I get abnormally hangry. I figured out life never stops changing. I figured out that nobody is owed or guaranteed anything, actually, not ever. I figured out that closure is forgiving my past self for the part she played in a shitty situation. I figured out which clothes (and shoes!) to continue buying in the mens department. I figured out when behavior tracking is helpful for me and when it’s not.
I figured out that even when we think we already know things, we constantly have to re-learn them in slightly different ways.
I figured out I want to help people, and how I can. And I figure I can help you, too.
Liz Welsh
