Rachel L. Saunders's Blog

New Hosting, New Look...

So, come August 27 (very soon at this writing) y’all will notice a new look to my site. That’s right, I’m moving away from Wix for hosting. And for a while my domain name may not link. Not great, and cannot be helped.

I made the hard decision to go with something a little less expensive in Notion Sites and haven’t yet decided when I’ll start paying for the premium of that. It is a lot cheaper, and still money I don’t have at the moment.

I’ve also not been writing here a lot these last months. Gut health has been tricky at best though I think it is moving somewhere positive I just don’t have the bandwidth I used to for everything. And, honestly, my focus has been on art and my Etsy Sticker Shop.

The resistance has been strong against writing even this I’ll be updating all of my links at some point and I’ll try to update socials too. Hope you can make the switch with me while I’m working in kinda an inbetween space with my website.

Love to all y’all

PS. The Squizard should be making her way (alongside three other stickers) into my shop line up:

Anxiety is a B*tch

Not that I’ve not been anxious before. Not that I’ve not had anxiety. But recently was a perfect storm of heartburn that didn’t resolve quickly and a surge of massive anxiety. Both were fueling the other for a few days while I was working on figuring out how to exist and manage.

I’ve gotten little good sleep because of heartburn off and on and it was worse at night, of course. Which led to night time scaries where my anxiety would spike as soon as it was getting dark or close to bedtime. Who knew that sleep could be a trigger for anxiety. Sleep is supposed to help with everything, right??

When your body doesn’t feel right and things feel so far outside of your control it make sense to be anxious but waking up with an anxiety attack in the middle of the night that was not expected. The anxiety actively flaring my heartburn was an unhappy realization.

So, what can we do to manage anxiety? Well I’m learning. Obviously everyone’s mileage will vary, it is trial and error to figure out what does and does not work. But some things will hopefully prove to be more universal.

Exercise is a big one, one that when built up over time will really help. Sometimes it really does feel like a scam though. Especially when if you miss a day or two a week it isn’t the end of the world. Or, if you’ve been doing fine you start to skimp on the exercise. It’ll be fine, right? Maybe not.

So I’m getting my anxious butt out that door for an at least 45 min walk every day for a while. And that is hard for me. I hate the weather, it is gross. Overcast and often rainy most days. It makes me sad. The sensations of the experience are not my favorite: wet rain, cold wind, running nose. I’m trying to see the beauty in it, though, because I’ve gotta be there for at least 45 mins of my day. And I’ve notice improvements in just 4 days.

White noise is another option that I’d not realized would be so clutch. I found a white noise, yes a specific one so you might have to try a few, that makes my brain relax. Listening to it when I’m ok helps me focus. Listening to it when I’m anxious helps me focus on the noise rather than the anxiety or the anxious thoughts. I highly recommend giving it a try. I find it most useful using earbuds.

Affirmations. Things I never thought would work. It feels so silly to tell myself that I am ok, that I am safe, or whatever I need to hear in that moment. And, they work. Not necessarily right away but repeating affirming mantras really does do the trick sometimes. I’m finding it most useful while also placing a hand over my heart.

Nervous system regulation, this is something I’ve dabbled in and am actively looking into. My therapist recommended some Vagus Nerve exercises that I’ve not had enough time to onboard yet. I do think that things like box breathing and such might fall into this category and I often try to do box breathing when I’m anxious. If I’m especially anxious combining it with movement seems to help more.

So many other things are also out there to help. Drugs are a very valid option for many. I absolutely do not want to say that anyone is managing their anxiety wrong. We all have very individual needs and situations. Making the decision for you is best based on you and your life. And, of course, with the help of a medical professional! Of which I am most decidedly not. In case there were any questions or concerns.

My plan for anxiety busting is: exercise, those 45 min walks daily; the affirmations and white noise when I’ve already gotten my walk in for the day (not that more walks is a bad idea but sometimes they do not fit the schedule); and, for now, when I wake up in the middle of the night anxious I have an as needed medication that helps the anxiety and makes me drowsy. And all the stuff I’m using to combat the heartburn. That is also a b*tch.

In most things we all will be ok. I’m working on believing it through all of the stress and anxiety and heartburn lately.

Keep it up and always be your lovely weird selves. We’ll get through this, too.

with much (also, currently anxious) love

-R

PS. Since I’ve been working overtime to manage the anxiety the sticker listings are still a bit in flux. I do plan to get started at the very least and hope that the task, once broken into smaller, bite-sized chunks will prove more manageable by the end of the weekend! No promises, simply hopeful vibes!

Here is a pic of a cool mushroom in the meantime:

October | How It Went

Hey! Hope you all are keeping well in this wonderful, yet dreary, fall season.

It has really been a transitionary month, more so than September. The dark and drear really snuck up on me and I had a really hard time getting back into the swing of using my Happy Light. I always forget just how much that improves my mood. And helps me find more energy to get things done.

October is a favorite month of mine, though. I like the idea of Halloween, the spookiness if not actually going out and doing any trick or treating…and we generally don’t answer the door either… The favorite bit comes because my birthday is in October. And in recent years I’ve been taking a whole week off for it, a staycation where I get to do what I want from the comfort of my own home. It is pretty great!

This year I was sick before my birthday and recovering on it. It was most definitely not the day, or week, I’d hoped. I’d not really planned much but I’d had a lot of ideas about what I’d wanted to get to, what I wanted to do. And it wasn’t just that I was sick, for the first time I experienced really bad heartburn. That is such a scary feeling. Especially when it keeps you from sleeping for a few nights before you figure out what’s going on.

We did make the most we could of the week, went to Barnes & Noble and really relaxed. I binged the first seasons of a couple of shows and had a bunch of really nice goblin days.

I am also further into my hyper focus/obsession with an app called Notion. Have no memory if I’ve mentioned this lovely program before but I’ve been using it like my brain’s external storage. It makes sense to my brain in ways that the separation of products in the Microsoft and Google suites do not. And, in that space I’ve found that I’m not alone, a lot of people (seemingly especially neuro-spicy individuals) really like what Notion has to offer. I like to say it is like having one bucket with multiple sections rather than separate buckets for everything. And that makes my brain very happy indeed. Notion is helping me keep track of myself, my thoughts, and I’ve been moving towards using it to help me stay on task and make plans and goals for the future.

Oh, and, I rearranged my office. I was feeling very stuck and disorganized. Apparently a new office setup really helps!

Novel Writing

I really fell off of this train in October. At least the back half of the month but for at least one week I do have an excuse of sickness. I’m not one who tends to try to write a novel in a month in November but I am hoping that this coming month will be better progress. Elle will need to hold on, I guess.

Artwork and Art Business

While I did do an art piece a day this October I was still very low energy in the whole creative scheme because Inktober was the only art I did all month long. Here it all is! I learned a lot about myself and my creativity, more coming on that in November's posts.

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I also did receive my newest order of stickers, finally, while I was still recovering from being sick. They will be dropping the end of the first full week of November if all goes to plan! For my current stickers:

New stickers coming soon:

Blog

As with everything else this also fell off the rails a bit too, though it was also understandable. I missed a post gasp and tried not to feel weird about posting a book review because I had literally no other energy or ideas the week after being sick. I’ve not done book reviews in a while. I think it partly comes from worry that I’m diluting the content I should be making like talking about art and creativity but reading is a part of my life so I’m thinking I’ll bring back a bit more book reviews in the coming months.

Honestly even writing this, an objectively easy post wrapping up the month and reviewing how things have gone, is feeling hard. To be fair, I did take care of some bigger items that I’ve been putting off because, well, I’m a little scared. So I’ve already spend some other creative energy today.

Reading

I guess everything was slow in October, which makes sense if I’m trying to lean into a season of rest. Partly this is because I did read a draft of the hubs upcoming book, partly it was because I was sick, and partly it was because while I enjoyed The Goblin Emperor it was a bit of a slow burn and I was feeling out how I felt about what some people called cozy fantasy. Jury is still out and once the plot was going a bit more at pace I greatly enjoyed it. Sadly I would have liked more and as far as I know there is no more in the series proper though there is a related series that follows another character from the original book. May check that out!

The books I finished this month:

Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett, book 12 of the Discworld series. A thoroughly witty and hilarious journey of witches going to take care of problems abroad.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. As stated above, I did enjoy this book, a lot by the end but it definitely started slow. I’ve heard some people place it as cozy fantasy but others state otherwise. As this would be my first foray into that arena I cannot say whether I agree or not and further study of other cozy fantasy is required, not a bad gig, honestly. Anyways I really wish that there was more of this story directly but will likely get to that related series at some point, as the TBR pile allows.

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill. This was brilliant. You can read my more in depth thoughts here since I wrote a whole post on this one!

When Women Were Dragons | Kelly Barnhill

I got this book for my birthday not expecting to pick it up the very next day and then finish it barely two days later. That is what happened though. It wasn’t a restful book. It was a book that made no secret about it’s commentary. And I can see how others have marked it as heavy-handed.

And it technically was quite heavy-handed, in it’s way. But I don’t think that it was to the books detriment. The author set out to write a book about feminine rage and strong women, and she did. And so much more than that, too, as she points out in the acknowledgements. It is a story of the trauma of silence, the freedom of allowing others to simply be who they are. It is a story of healing. It is painfully beautiful.

Alexandra, Alex, as she has always insisted, lives in a world not too different from our own, though the narrative is set in the 1950s at the beginning. She suffers for her biological sex and there are a myriad of things that she is taught that exacerbate the problem. Silence and the pressure of conformity are the biggest.

In a world where dragoning is seen as a women’s problem it has been ignored, forcibly forgotten and an embarrassment to polite society. But what if, like with every other surface level difference between ourselves and others, it was just something that existed? Maybe we don’t need to assign morality to things that simply are.

Fear is the thing that most often leads to anger and violence. What if we strove to understand, to talk about, to acknowledge all that we fear? What could we achieve? How much better could we love those we care about?

How much better could we love ourselves if we were not given the narrative that all we are is wrong?

I was deeply moved by this story, I don’t think I’ve read feminine rage so beautifully or rawly written. It wasn’t sugar coated or made less than what it was. It was honest and real.

5/5 would recommend!

PS. There was no post, or mention of no post, last week because I was sick. First time in a while I’ve been so sick. And, yeah, I was recovering on my birthday, definitely not the birthday I’d planned on but we made the most of it! On top of that I was also dealing with really bad heartburn, which if you haven’t dealt with that, that can feel very scary. Especially when one already deals with gut troubles to begin with. And, btw, apparently it can be heartburn and the pain can present lower for some (I’m no medical professional, this is just my lived experience).

PPS: Stickers are here! More info coming very soon, promise.

PPPS. Kept up with the Inktober though and have been learning so much about my creative self. Here’s all my pieces to date (latest to oldest, not including today since I've not gotten to that yet...):

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Falling into a Season of Rest

Hey friends, I hope you are taking at least some time to slow down, to let your body lead the way to some rest.

For me that is where I’m at with the change of the season, the darker evenings. Where it feels that it should be far later than it is and my body is tired before I am ready or able to sleep. I am trusting my body that we must rest.

The first time there was two mornings in a row where it was overcast and dreary I found myself SAD. I’ve said before that this is the season that I start to contend with it, as many do, but it is still such a new thing for me. I’m learning that I need to give space and vocalize what I’m feeling…even if it doesn’t really make sense or have words for it. In the latter case I can simply say I feel big or little inexplicable things. And somehow that helps.

There are also my attempts to live a bit more seasonally. And since fall is the season of a lot of nature moving into rest before the winter, I am doing that too, in my way.

I can’t give fully into the rest, I must work and contend with productivity and capitalism that stresses that I should always be on and always be working at the same efficiency and productivity day to day, month to month, season to season. But I am taking rest where I can. Giving myself permission to exist at a slower pace.

And that feels so very slow compared to the speeds at which I used to live. The ways in which I used to live that no longer serve my joy. It is hard not to judge myself for not going faster and doing more. Though it is getting easier, especially acknowledging that fall is a season to sink into rest.

So, I hope you are resting, friends.

Take time to rest and care for yourself, we are not meant to be at top speeds all year long.

with love and rest,

-R

PS. Stickers are coming, they are still in production. I had really hoped that they would be here already but it was not meant to be, yet. Hopefully sooner than later! I hear that Rockin Monkey is a bit on the longer timeline side for a sticker production company so I’m not surprised, they do good work and they may have a lot of projects for the Halloween and fall season.

PPS. I may be existing slowly and resting but I’m still creating and I’ve completed more Inktober prompts than I did in 2021 when I last participated. Somehow I am in a better space for this, even as I slow down and rest more in this spooky season. These are my pieces for every day so far:

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Dissolving the Old

There was a caterpillar making it’s way across the path on my walk this morning, one of those fuzzy orange and black woolly bears. Heading who knows where. I do hope it made it since there is a lot of foot and bike traffic on the path and some are not so observant, or care to worry about bug life.

This got me thinking though, about the process of metamorphosis that changes one little caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly, or moth. Moths can be cute and beautiful, too! I’ve seen many people reminding others that the caterpillar must dissolve itself to then be reconstituted into the butterfly. It isn’t just pop into a cocoon one day and become butterfly the next. Or even many days later, depending on the species.

The stage I’m in right now kinda feels like a lot of knowns are dissolving around me. A lot of things I thought I knew about myself are in flux and life (and my emotions) are feeling very chaotic, close to the surface, and raw. And I know it is important to let the old, un-useful things go, dissolve out of sight and mind. But it feels scary when the path forward is full of uncertainty. Which, at times, has been my sworn enemy, the thing that kept me running back to the safety of my comfort zone.

Not this day, though. I’m facing it because I need to, I want to. Learning how to be me, to set boundaries that keep me safe, whole, and happy requires that I face uncertainty. Allow for the big inexplicable feels I find within myself to exist and be in my body while being held as I cry or sob. To be witnessed in safety as I readjust to a life that is a lot more full of melancholy and sadness than I’d have liked. Which, I’m learning is important to help balance the actual joy I’ve found in chaos and existence as well.

But I am still really in flux in many ways. More so than, I feel, at other times in my life. Information that I’d previously known has come to have new meaning for me. It is giving me a lot to consider and a lot to readjust in my personal engagement with self. It is giving new fuel for my neurodivergent journey and validating that I am on the right path. And this readjustment, it isn’t just involving my current self, it is encompassing all parts of myself, in every stage of my life. It feels big, and it feels right. As much as it feels scary and like it is pushing me out into the great unknown.

And that is more exciting than I’d imagined it’d be. I’m embracing the unknowable, teasing the uncertainty as if we’ve become friends. And it is wild.

Because there are more moments, glimmers of joy and embrace of chaos.

In my art it is looking like allowing for the ebb and flow of the creative muse. Being messy and purposefully thoughtless of the details as they will come as the piece comes into reality. Right now I may not have a lot of bandwidth for much outside of Inktober prompts but it has been so fun to do, a lot less decision paralysis, a lot more embrace of whatever ideas come up.

In life in general it is the moments where I’m allowing myself to be without judgement, to do silly little things that previously I would have talked myself out of a hundred times over. Something as ridiculous and hilarious as choosing a “spy” name that nobody suspected of me in one of the various iterations of Who’s the Spy (not the technical name, I don’t think). I am still chuckling about that moment, I haven’t laughed so hard in ages. I cracked myself up being my weird self.

That, my friends, is living life, truly.

So, remember that life is full of changes, some bigger than others. It is ok to be sad, to be scared, to be resistant. Take life at your own pace, that is the only way to live for yourself in a world that, likely, wasn’t built with you in mind.

Changes, especially big ones, require courage, it is an act of bravery to show up and make changes for yourself. Let alone be witnessed as changed by others. It isn’t always a safe thing, as necessary as it can be at times to change. And the messy, dissolving of the old part is fraught with a lot of big things and feels.

Here’s to changing at our own pace, and not apologizing for being ourselves.

All the love,

-R

P.S. Here is that wooly bear caterpillar, and, following, a gallery of my Inktober drawings so far. I like taking it to the basics. Sketching my idea, getting it settled and then inking it using a sharpie.

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September | How It Went

Well it is now fall, and September is just over. Anyone else excited that it is officially fall now?

I love the beginning of fall. The crisp air, but not freezing, yet. Mornings that are cold, afternoons that are still sometimes warmed by the sun. And recently I’ve come to realize I like that the weather becomes my moods more. The rains come, the leaves begin to change, and dreary, overcast days become the norm. I like it. Not in a I’m always or often depressed way but that the fall begins a season of winding down, of resting. This year it has also coincided with some extra large feels as I’m healing some deeper layers of myself, and that feels fitting.

Later in fall I start to really feel the lack of sun in the morning, especially once the time change happens. It feels as though suddenly we’ve been plunged into night when our commercial reality says it is time to get up and start the day. That I don’t like. That is when the SAD really kicks in. Something I’m still getting used to since I truly didn’t feel it so much before I got off of my birth control a couple of years ago.

There are a lot of things in my life these days that I think of in terms of before and after that moment. So much changed for me and while I cannot say with certainty what is directly tied to it I know that it has irrevocably changed my entire existence. Something that is not talked about enough in the woman’s health world, I think.

Novel Writing

Up until this last Wednesday (my writing evening of choice) I’ve been on a 500+ word roll per evening. It is both liberating and terrifying to just let words wander onto the page. To not consider them at length before they fall out of my head. Sometimes I think this is the way I hinder my process. I worry too much about the quality of what I can squeeze out of myself rather than moving a bit more towards quantity. And possibly that is because of the massive amounts of murk that seem to shroud my creative thoughts when they exist in my head. To become reality they must find reality and I struggle, often, with how different, how flat they feel once they emerge.

I’ve been proud of my efforts this month, of my ability to convince myself that this consistency is not a schedule.

Elle hasn’t moved far, as I’m finding the scenes I’m writing are similar or in the same time period of other drafts I’ve written but that is ok, time to explore is important to finding the final story. And the first draft, I must remind myself, is just that, a draft. It is not the final product, yet.

Artwork and Art Business

This has been frustratingly slow this month. Some because I’ve been deep in some emotional turmoil and healing. Some because opening the can of worms that demands, especially other people, can really really trigger me has cut down on my feelings of creativity.

This is also fall, or the beginnings of it. I do feel it can be appropriate to rest a bit.

I created two messy paintings this month and I think that might be it. There was something about pushing into chaos that really took a lot of effort, as much as it was also a wonderful, freeing feeling.

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One thing I did do is order new stickers! They are still in production and hopefully will ship soon. I cannot wait to share them with y’all!

As always you can check out my current sticker selection below:

Blog

This feels about the only thing I’ve been able to keep (mostly) consistent all year. I hope and plan to finish out the year though I’ve proven to myself that this is possible for me to write and post once a week. Next year will be a bit different as I’d like to put more time and effort towards art. That has been a focus of my year and yet because I’m writing both this blog and my novel sometimes the art gets put to the side because as much as I’ve created a lower entrance cost to create art (embracing digital art with iPad and the Procreate app) it still feels so far away sometimes. More often come fall and winter.

I even feel the pull to stop writing this blog, the demand feels too much. Everything in life is feeling like some sort of demand and I’m fighting not to drop everything but the basics. Because the basics feel hard enough right now.

This blog has brought me so much focus this year, it has been wonderful and trying. I worry that what I’m writing is nothing to anyone else. I worry that I’m imposing upon the world by putting pieces of myself out there in the public eye. In a way, this blog has encouraged me to take up space. To help me find room to keep exploring and learning about myself. It is likely the sole reason I actually started an art shop as it has given me courage to put more of me out there, no matter the response.

Gaming

There was probably more gaming than reading this month…I’m not mad. The hubs and I have really gotten into Baldur’s Gate 3, a game that was finally released in August this year. It has been in early access for quite some time, and was well worth it. It is by Larian Studios, a video game company we’ve found to make great games and they stay true to their fans and the quality of the games they produce.

I’ve been playing through an earlier game by the same studio, Divinity: Original Sin, and it is just as good as I remember. The Divinity games (there are 1 and 2) seemed to have more of a cult following, as they say. This recent release has, I hope, put Larian on the map because they deserve so much recognition for the quality game they put out. They put heart and soul into Baldur’s Gate 3 and it shows. It is no wonder it is such a popular game. There are so many details throughout the game. I will likely pick up a replay of it once the hubs and I have finished our joint playthrough…and maybe I’ll finish my replay of Divinity first, we’ll see.

Translating Creative Thought to Reality

How is your creative thought translation process? Like when you think of something creative you want to do how close is the product to the initial thoughts? For me it is usually significantly different, but that has some to do with the fact that my brain is full of thoughts so getting a clear picture of something is, well, murky at best.

I’ve had to learn to accept what the process brings almost regardless of the differences from the seedling thought. I used to struggle with acceptance a lot more. It was a failure on my part as an artist that what I produced didn’t match what was in my head. Perfectionism at it’s worst.

It kept me from putting pen to paper so many times and in so many ways. On a related note it also made me tell myself that I wasn’t an artist because of how infrequently I put pen to paper in the pursuit of art. Not true! Putting pen to paper (or tablet or whatever) is important but not so important that if you have a different way of approaching the practice that that different way is not also valid.

You have got to trust the process. I think any artist will tell you that there will be a phase of every (and I mean EVERY) piece you make where it is going to look…bad…like should you even keep going? Because what is on the page does not look presentable, not even a little bit. Breathe and keep going, I promise it will get better. You may need to put the piece away for a bit (maybe forever, that’s ok, too) and come back later but building the trust in the process, in yourself as a creative, is important.

When I was chatting about this with my therapist she shared this lovely quote and while I don’t know that all of it is fully true for me the entire feel of it is so beautiful. It is something I’m meditating on as I continue to cultivate holistic creativity.

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” —Martha Graham

Sometimes I have so many ideas that there is truly not enough time or space to fit them all in. Sometimes I simply don’t have the time nor energy to make it through all of the stages of an art piece. Part of it is learning to find the right balance for me in my life. Creating a life that is built for creating art.

For me part of that life includes understanding that I don’t often have the time (or patience, or attention) to sit and do a lot of sketching. I just don’t. What I do, though, is think about how I might sketch or paint something. I think without fully realizing it I’ve got thought processes that have layers like most of my art pieces. There is a sketch layer, a linework layer, color layers, shadows, highlights. I don’t tend to really pull them apart and look at individual layers but I can. And sometimes they are a little (or a lot) discordant, like with any art piece at certain mid-process stages.

It also requires understanding how your thought to reality translation works. An example/analogy that I love and will never forget comes from Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking. She uses the idea of putting things in a blender, all of your life experiences, things you watched, just whatever parts and things that make up your life. Some people’s creative or translation process puts the blender on a higher setting and what comes out has little to no relation to the things that went in. Some process at a lower level and you can clearly see the connections. Neither is bad or wrong, it just is. Understanding this is so helpful in embracing self and creativity.

So, everyone’s translation is different. Just because your initial idea is vastly different than what ends up in reality doesn’t mean that you are not creative, not an artist. Creativity is not just for those that have an easier creative translation method/process. I’ve often hated how murky and difficult my translation of creative thought is but I’m learning to embrace it. Just as I’m learning to work with my whole self the way I need. Acceptance is magic. Difficult magic, powerful magic.

I hope you can find your acceptance and your magic.

with much love,

-R

PS. The Black Knight succulent is getting closer and closer to blooming. Super excited to see it in all its glory. The blooms will be bright red and you can see them peeking through the buds now. I just hope it likes the rain because we are likely going to be getting a lot more rain now that it is fall in Oregon. I did check though and this is the right season for it to be blooming, late summer to early fall, so fingers crossed it stays happy and blooming!

PPS. This is "late" because I relaxed and gamed all weekend. The hubs and I have been thoroughly enjoying Baldur's Gate 3 and we just had to play as much as possible over this last weekend. It was rejuvenating for both of us...it has been a long while since we've really had the time or bandwidth to game like this. It was wonderful, would recommend!

Embracing the Chaos

I know I’d posted to my socials with some musings about ‘messy’ paintings and I’ve still been thinking so much about them. They make me feel out of control. In a good way. Which means that I’m getting myself and my poor nervous system regulated again.

Many words have been used to define me or things about me over they years but I think the earliest was ‘organized.’ I was extremely organized as a kid, my mom still tells me that I was way more organized than she was, and I know that it is true. Seeing the piles upon piles stacked all over her desk made my skin crawl. I could not, would not end up with things like that. I don’t know that I ever remember thinking that so coherently, though. I just somehow knew that mess was decidedly not my thing. How wrong I was…

And things I’m learning these days are helping those early experiences make a bit more sense, too.

Coming back into myself I’ve been finding a lot of discomfort in things that I’m not completely, enthusiastically interested in doing. And, sometimes, with things that I do with other people, even when I like the other people. People are messy. The overarching concept is control. And this has been harder to manage in the dysregulation I’ve felt after the family vacation.

In the weeks following the vacation I couldn’t manage to do more with my time than work (under massive mental protest and stress) and game…mostly by myself because other people meant demands that I was uninterested in dealing with. I think it may have even been on the level of legitimately couldn’t have dealt with the demands other people imposed simply by existing…

I felt very frustrated and ashamed of it..to the point that I couldn’t even communicate with a friend that gaming together online was off the table, I ghosted them a bit (I’ve since been able to explain, they very much understood, thankfully).

But this is just the tip of the iceberg at times. I have such large need to always be in control of my life that when I don’t have control (even only in small ways sometimes) it really, truly triggers me. Other people become a demand and I don’t even want to see them, be around them, or interact with them. The only way I can get back to center is to be alone and do my own thing.

If I have to be around people I am literally the worst. I am a cranky, moody bitch. And, contrary to some popular beliefs, no, I cannot just be nice, or hold it together. So I do my best to keep to myself when I reach this breaking point.

All that to say that while I’m learning to embrace the chaos I’m needing to do it deliberately and in a framework that works for my unique needs. Learning to give myself the space to be who I am, and also push the comfort zone I’ve built for myself. Finding room in my heart for my cranky, moody bitch and validating her when she’s super triggered because what she brings to the table is just as important as the nicer sides of myself.

This is why I’ve loved, and felt discomfort around, painting these ‘messy’ paintings. They are a sign to me that not only am I capable of ‘messy’ art but that I can make myself comfortable with new things. They bring me both joy and grief.

Joy for the new room I’ve given myself in both life and creativity. Grief for the strictness I’d felt necessary to survive this world because there is so much more to life than strict, organized structure. It has it’s place and yet, should be balanced by joyous chaos, too.

And hey, maybe I do have ADHD and/or Autism. I don’t know, really, it is just a gut feeling. What I do know, though, is that finding information and stories out there in the great wide world that help me piece together a better understanding of myself has been so, so healing. I am not alone, we are not alone.

The more we see each other, the more we can create a better world, I hope, with more understanding, creativity, healing, and joy.

So, if you think you are alone in needing to have control and getting really, really bent out of shape when you don’t have that. Know that you are not alone. Give space for your nervous system to reset, maybe even do some research, I don’t know. Sometimes the only thing to be done is get through the day.

With love,

-R

PS. In case you missed it, these are the 'messy' paintings. I've been sitting with the discomfort they've brought and haven't gotten to any other art since I created them. My creativity comes in starts and stops, often. Something else I'm learning to embrace...which may also fall under the large umbrella of chaos I guess.

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Here's what I wrote on the socials about them:

I painted two ‘messy’ paintings this week. No sketch, no lines, just one layer. And I’ve been thinking about them a lot, in my struggle against perfectionism and the feelings of imposter-ness I’ve been looking for ways to simply create more. Messy always seemed wrong but now I’m seeing it as absolutely necessary to find my center and to embrace my whole creative self. To find holistic creativity where all parts are welcome at the table. It’s ok to create something ‘messy’ or ‘bad’, in fact those words have no negative connotations, here in holistic creativity. The goal is to heal, grow, create, and show your genuine weird self; show yourself love and show the world the wonderful reflection of that love. We all deserve to be seen and loved. Maybe we can all be saved through art and creativity, creators or viewers, whichever side we find ourselves on, just a thought

Discomfort, Grief, and Healing

Hey all, I’ve been feeling very uncomfortable of late but that’s not too say that things are bad, at least not exactly. I’ve been wrestling with some big feels and a lot of stress and discomfort around healing.

For a bit I hadn’t been able to get outside much because it’s Oregon’s fun, extra special fire season (she says sarcastically with understanding that Oregon is not unique in this). That sucked, I find that if I can’t get out to nature multiple times a week if not a day I’m not ok on a deep body level.

Beyond that though, I am uncomfortable. Healing is hard work. Remembering to refocus your mind and body on the healthier path you’ve found. It takes true effort. It is uncomfortable and messy. You move forward, you move backwards and sometimes you even suddenly apparate somewhere and don’t know how the hell you go there. Unfortunately that is all part of the process.

There is also grief in healing. Grief for the comfort you’ve left and the things you’ve not chosen. Grief for the past versions of yourself that didn’t know what you know now. For the things that you missed out on.

As I’ve said about many things, it’s a journey. And as with many journeys and adventures, often it is more about the journey than the destination. We are all imperfect, there will never be a day where we have become perfectly healed. Sorry if this is how you are hearing about this.

But there is so much joy to be had in accepting this fact. Sure, life is full of hurt but it is also full of joy, if you let it in. And, often I’ve found that discomfort (not usually pain) tells you you are moving in the right direction. The kind and sense of discomfort is different for everyone and please, please don’t mistake it for pleasing or following others.

I find it is the kind of discomfort that I feel deep in the pit of my stomach. There is this sense of knowing and truth to it. This sense of rightness and belonging to me.

It makes me aware of myself in ways I’d not been before. In ways that help me keep to the healing path. That, in part is the stress.

The rest of the stress is that my mind and body want, desperately, to go back to the comfort we’ve left. Even if on some level we all know the discomfort will lead to better, greener pastures.

I am working overtime and consciously on keeping my inner octopus to myself. Of holding myself and soothing myself when something triggers my hyper-vigilance. Of letting trust bloom strong and true between hubs and I, letting him tell me when he wants or needs something. Letting a similar trust build between myself and my family and friends.

And many, many conversations, sometimes desperate pleas to that little octopus to stay put, to cut that out, keep your tentacles to yourself.

I’m learning to sit in this discomfort, too. To be aware of how it feels in my body, of how my mind responds. To see the systems at play so that I can keep adjusting them towards a better me, a bigger joy in life, a brighter existence.

So, I hope that even if you are sitting in discomfort you know that this, too, shall pass. And hopefully better things are coming. I know you deserve that, and more.

The healing can be uncomfortable, I see you, keep going, you got this.

With much love,

-R

It has been harder to find bees to photograph as there are fewer flowers blooming as we drift towards autumn. I was happy to find this one on a humongous butterfly bush (I think) in our neighborhood. They stuck around long enough for me to have my pick of shots, which was mighty nice of 'em! And, I've learned that for the bees that hive together, eusocial, that it is the females that do all the work, I picked up a copy of OMFG, BEES! by Matt Kracht on our way back from vacation and just finished it this last week, highly recommend! I don't think I have a bee problem...