A.R. Mitchell's Blog, page 5
January 9, 2025
Emotions Series Recap
Emotions live in the body and affect the human being in more ways than just “feelings,” or things that we feel subjectively instead of things that we can measure.
Emotions are tied in with our survival system. They are part of how we process the world around us. The survival system of humans lives in the nervous system, just like the five senses.
As with everything in life, there are certain emotions that we like, and certain emotions that we don’t like.
A lot of people group them into good or bad emotions - often based on how disruptive they are to our normal functioning or how it easy or difficult it is to deal with them.
For example, being sad is always more difficult than being happy.
But dynamics like that create a lie… a lie that we are ‘bad’ or ‘good’ people for feeling certain emotions.
(Note: I’m talking about emotions, not the actions that the emotions may cause.)
Just being sad is not a ‘bad’ thing. In fact, if we don’t deal with the emotions that we end up having, it causes more emotions, stress and that leads to more problems.
And we’ll cover that next week.
If you want a recap of the original November 2024 Emotions series:Share Chronic Writer by VintageInkSlinger
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January 2, 2025
I Didn’t Expect This!
A small confession, when I spent November 2024 discussing emotions, I didn’t realize how relevant it would become until weeks after the 2024 election.
Yes I knew there would be an election and I hoped for a smooth transition of power whoever won. But I didn’t expect the results. And when those results finally settled in after several weeks I realized that I had to continue the emotions series that I’d started because a lot of people were confronting emotions and didn’t know what to do with them.
The country was also highly divided with many people declaring on both sides, “if you voted for someone who disagrees with me, then get out of my life.”
And that is a terrifying prospect… because you have probably known that person longer than a US election.
Then we had two high stress family oriented holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lots of emotions there… lots of chaos and challenges, amid fragile memories and a somewhat toxic standard of perfection.
For those of you who were enjoying the Stories of Society series, I will get back to that series, and I think and hope that I will be able to loop our emotions lessons back into that.
A few other notes…I’m going to try to do more social media this year. I’m also going to try to get back to publishing more books.
So my blog posts here on Substack will be shorter and you might get an occasional post that shows up at a different time of the week as I try to build my Substack into a landing site for my other creative works.
A little about me:I’m first and foremost a storyteller. I write fiction on Amazon and Wattpad.
I have always followed my interests to create stories and that has lead to me having a wide variety of knowledge, so I never know what I’m going to be writing on.
I love history, both ancient and modern but I have a degree in criminal justice because my parents insisted I be practical. I have also ended up with certificates in counseling and dealing with trauma. That doesn’t license me to give counseling advice, but what it has done is help people understand how trauma works and affects people.
This is critical because trauma steals words. And words are how we communicate and connect with people.
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December 30, 2024
Author A. R. Mitchell
A. R. Mitchell is an author and researcher from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. She loves 1940s action adventure pulps, archaeology and spy fiction. Her other interests include criminal justice, archaeology, mythology, intelligent conversation, and excellent fiction fodder.
The epic adventure The Mist Walker Trilogy combines all of her interests into a pulse pounding conspiracy thriller.
She has written numerous short stories and novels, including historical thriller 'Red Trouble,' romantic comedy 'Love and Shotguns' and the conspiracy adventure comedy series, 'The Casefiles of the Tinfoil Fedora,' and blogs on trauma healing through writing on Substack at Chronic Writer by VintageInkSlinger.
She's worked in journalism and media for various non-profits, written textbooks and screenplays, won national writing awards and is currently an independent writer who publishes on Amazon and writes Indiana Jones fiction on Wattpad, because she can.
A. R Mitchell's Indiana Jones Adventures
More works coming soon!
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December 5, 2024
Welcome to December
Welcome to December!I wanted to remind everyone that I take the month off from blogging in prep for next year, and also because December tends to be a busy time of the year for a lot of people. If you want to catch up with me and my other writings here’s a few links.
I’ll return to blogging in January 2025!If you need something fun to read in December - I’ve got stories! Happy Reading!My Amazon page is where I have about twenty stories of varying lengths:
My novels are:
Red Trouble: a historical Cold War romantic spy thriller The Mist Walker Trilogy: a fantasy noir crime action adventure with the supernatural verses modern day terroristsSome of my shorter pieces are romantic comedies, detective noir in the spirit of Raymond Chandler and action adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones.
Five O’Clock Shadow: A short romantic suspense featuring a single mother and a detective from her past. I featured it on my post about how to design cover art. (Covers for Your Stories)The Outlaws of Sawdust: A short humorous western with a sassy lady lead who takes on train robbers in the Old West.Love & Shotguns: A short romantic comedy starring a police detective and an unfortunate pizza delivery gone wrong. One reviewer called it, “the cutest meet cute in the history of meet cutes.”Goldlust: A short archaeology time travel adventure with a lady medic who has to save an ancient king.And yes, on my Wattpad page - for free - are my original Indiana Jones adventures. I can’t earn any money from them because it’s a copyrighted character, but I do use it to build my audience and also teach trauma awareness and life lessons through stories. I’ve shared a few here on my blog:
Wattpad is loaded with teenagers and if I can teach them a few extra life skills through a good story, I will consider it a success.
Present on Wattpad are:
The Sidenstrasse TapestryIn 1945 archaeologist Indiana Jones was called on one last mission.
Now, even in 1960, it haunts him as his youngest daughter, Emily Jones - just as rough and tumble and skilled in handling trouble as her father - scrambles after his legacy to prove herself in a mission that should have ended in the last days of World War II.
I wrote it when I was 19, (No judging teenage me!) I’m working on an updated version because a lot has been declassified and my writing has improved dramatically.
Also a lot of resources have been translated into English, so I have more info and can do more exciting things with the region of China that it’s based in.
The Seven Swords of Diya (Part 1 & Part 2)Indiana Jones and his daughter Emily Ravenwood Jones are back in action! Seven missing Japanese swords which may have the power to open hell, unleashing monsters upon the earth are their quest.
Along with them is a hotshot pilot who got his career started as Indy's bodyguard, some Japanese intelligence officers who never accepted the surrender at the end of World War II, and a shamaness with ties to the Russian secret police.
Their destination? The ancient city of Diya on the closed and heavily guarded Russian military base in the mysterious wilderness of Kamchatka.
Come along for the adventure!
The Mirror of Heaven HeistOn the eve of the Second World War, internationally renowned museum thief Joel Cairo sets his eyes on the Mirror of Heaven, a mystical artifact which is the prize of every intelligence agency for its legendary ability to know all things.
Inspired by the highest bidder, Joel Cairo decides the Mirror of Heaven no longer belongs in a museum.
And there’s only one team who can stop him.
It’s Jones. Henry Jones… Senior.
Detective Sam Spade’s best bounty hunter, Marion Ravenwood
Mysterious femme fatale, Inanna Sargon
Lost curator, Marcus Brody
Faithful friend, Sallah
And… Junior. Henry Jones… Junior, aka Indiana - who’s named after the dog.
This is the James Bond/Indiana Jones archaeology heist that we should have had in the 1990s, with Henry Jones Senior riffing on vintage James Bond vibes, teaming up with Marion Ravenwood, and Indy finally realizing that he needs to marry Marion while she one hundred percent sasses him all the way to the proposal and beyond.
Sometimes my fictional characters show up on my blog too.
We’ll be continuing the Stories of Society in January 2025!Until then! See you in 2025!Share Chronic Writer by VintageInkSlinger
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November 28, 2024
Other Writing Resources
Happy Thanksgiving!
I know this is a challenging time for many families, but I want you to know that it’s okay if you’re overwhelmed with all the things you have to do. It’s one meal. It doesn’t have to be perfect - and if your family thinks perfection is a standard to aspire to, they will always fail. But that doesn’t make you a failure.
Impossible standards dehumanize us - try not to buy into them with your mental energy.Here’s some other posts from prior years that you might find helpful.Dealing with Inflammatory Information https://chronicwriter.substack.com/p/dealing-with-inflammatory-information?utm_source=publication-search
NaNoWriMo 2022 (this is a series of ongoing writers advice and help that I started in 2022. I add to it every November.) https://chronicwriter.substack.com/s/preptober-and-nanowrimo-2022
Hero’s Journey from Trauma to Healing (series) https://chronicwriter.substack.com/s/the-heros-journey-from-trauma-to
Storytelling Through Trauma (series) https://chronicwriter.substack.com/s/storytelling-through-trauma?sort=new
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November 21, 2024
How Movement & Art Help With Emotions
Last week we talked about how emotions live in the body’s nervous system creating measurable patterns. They’re not just sentimental out of control moments that cause more chaos.
(The above photo is from: NPR’s article: Mapping Emotions On The Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/12/30/258313116/mapping-emotions-on-the-body-love-makes-us-warm-all-over )
Movement works the emotion signatures through the body making them dissipate like a bad cramp. Sometimes we also dissociate when we’re stressed. Dissociation is an emergency survival protection where the survival system gets the part of the brain that is ‘you’ out of the room to safety. A good illustration of this is how security teams protect the person they’re tasked with protecting. (Its point six in the article below.)
Having emotions and using your survival system is a form of stress. Stress is called oxidation in science circles. Oxidation is a form of rust. That’s right - the exact same rust that shows up on metals when they’ve been exposed to the elements of weather and moisture.
If you don’t work the emotion signatures through the body, they get trapped in your body and too much rust will cause chronic health issues. (It’s one of the main causes - not everyone’s chronic illness or chronic condition is caused by stress. There are so many other factors and each person’s case is unique.)
So it’s important for everyone to physically and safely move to get the stuck emotions out of their body. Massage is also good for this. I’m not an expert in that area, but the experts consistently say that movement of any type is good for us.
Art helps with emotions a different way. Some people find emotions disruptive and terrifying. This is one of the survival responses too. But it becomes a problem when you can’t face the emotions in your own body - so they’re stuffed away and cause the same health issues I mentioned above.
The solution here is to use art as a buffer between you and your emotions.
The art is a safe place for you to put your emotions.
For writers - the character can have and handle the emotions that you are afraid of or forbidden from expressing.
Art also creates distance between you and whatever your emotions are, particularly if your emotions are tied into an event.
I’ll give an example:
Say you hate Thanksgiving because you don’t want to see your family. And there’s a whole bunch of emotions around that. The art or writing can be the place that holds those emotions. It can be a punching bag, a grieving pillow, or whatever item you need it to be. This keeps relationships intact, and allows you to safely revisit whatever happened releasing the emotions so that you don’t have the stress in your body, pushing you toward flipping your lid. It also separates that original pain moment from The Now. If you can separate the original pain moment from The Now - that is a form of healing, because its training your brain to stay in the moment or The Now - instead of trauma time traveling back to the bad things that happened.
For more on how to use writing to help heal you can check out the series: https://chronicwriter.substack.com/s/storytelling-through-trauma
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November 14, 2024
How To Feel Emotions
Emotions live in the body. They are biologically wired to help us survive. In the modern world, we don’t like disruptions and it’s not always appropriate or wise to ‘flip our lids’.
Unfortunately, this has led to a lot of questions and efforts to control emotions. Not all of them have been positive.
Because emotions are part of biological wiring they leave traces and patterns in our bodies.
This means for the logical ones here (me!) - emotions are real. They have patterns. They can be measured. They are tangible to science.
Here’s the full article: Mapping Emotions on the Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over, from NPR (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/12/30/258313116/mapping-emotions-on-the-body-love-makes-us-warm-all-over)1
This unfortunately means that they can get stuck in the body. This is why movement and art are so freeing.
Both movement and art are forms of empowerment. They put you back into control because they use the part of your brain that flipped off like a Tupperware lid. (See video above.)
Movement works the emotion signatures through the body. Art gives the emotions a safe outlet that separates the self from the emotions and makes them easier to deal with.
In theory - it doesn’t always work, and it takes practice. And sometimes life just sucks and you need some extra help. Dialing 211 will take you to local resources in the United States.
And here’s an international mental health resource guide: https://www.helpguide.org/find-help.htm
(Had I known about this one I would have shared it sooner.)
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1I always try to put the exact link and the title in the text. This is because sometimes the articles move and the links are broken. There is nothing more frustrating than wanting information and having the author hide the link info and the article title with something like, ‘click here to learn more.’ Apologies for it being disruptive, but I would rather give you resources that are going to last rather than have resources that will or may accidentally disappear.
November 7, 2024
What Are Emotions?
We tend to think about emotions in terms of subjective sentimentalism - but they live in the body and belong in the nervous system. The nervous system is the body system that helps us react to the world around us. The nervous system works with the five senses you were probably taught as a kid:
The Five Senses
Sight
Hearing
Smelling
Tasting
Touch
The nervous system also helps us survive. Its in charge of our survival responses.
Survival Responses:
Fight: Put up your fists, or start kicking!
Flight: Run away!
Faint: Too scary! Play dead! (Also: Immediate full body reset! Cannot handle situation! Shut down! Reboot now!)
Flood: Overwhelming emotion such as someone screaming uncontrollably. (Like me… when I have a wasp fly in my face. I also try to hit the buzzing creature, which is…fight. And yes, my logic brain knows this is pointless.)
Fawn: This is when a victim does their best not to be a threat. They will physically make themselves small, shut down emotionally, or try to offer things to appease the aggressor. It’s also known as ‘tend and befriend,’ - which is the new understanding of Stockholm Syndrome. (Here’s a great low triggering article on Stockholm Syndrome: https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/why-stockholm-syndrome-happens-and-how-to-help-0926184 )
I’ve shared this video before but it’s the best illustration of what happens when we’re faced with a survival situation.
And when I say survival situation… I don’t always mean life-threatening danger. Our survival response is wired to be extra sensitive so we react quickly in real life danger. But our survival reaction to jerk the steering wheel to avoid a car accident is the same survival reaction to the other person’s candidate winning and ‘our side’ loosing.
The nervous system doesn’t know the difference. And that’s what makes emotions so disruptive. It feels like we don’t have any control.
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October 31, 2024
Minor Housekeeping Update and Info to Come
We’ve been gong through the Seven Stories of Society and comparing them to climbing a mountain as we heal from the unhelpful stories that we were taught, and try to write our own.
Every November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo - https://nanowrimo.org/about-nano) where authors across the world attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in the entire month of November.
I always take November to teach writing tips and then I take December off to prep for next year and give myself a break. Content production is a long haul never ending process.
So I’m going to take November and teach people about emotions.
A common idea is that when chaos happens - we need to have something to do to keep from being overwhelmed by everything. It’s often suggested that art, writing or volunteering is the way to do that.
But people have a difficult time with their emotions in real life - much less in fiction. Emotions show up differently in fiction too… there’s no consequence for you once you shut the book. A real protest is going to be much different.
There’s a lot of emotions right now about the upcoming election. (I’m writing this in August 2024.) And we’ve all been tensely sitting probably since 2020 - some of us longer. The goal of this short series is to be unifying. I don’t know if that can ever truly happen - but at least we will all have exercises, skills and knowledge to know what to do with the things that we’re experiencing.
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October 24, 2024
How to Find a Job That’s Good for Your Mental and Physical Health
I have worked a lot of strange and often unhealthy jobs. My parents were extremely insistent on the idea of a job throughout my life, so I often took the first job I was offered because I wanted to get them to stop yelling at me. This led me to some… not so healthy situations.
As I’ve attempted to reset my life and tried to get healthier I realized there were things I needed in my jobs that I didn’t have before.
For older generations a job was a paycheck that allowed you resources for building a family, job, business, career or whatever was important to you1…. but my generation and younger often don’t view work that way because the paycheck they were getting didn’t cover the bills. It wasn’t because they were spending inappropriately - it was just the money didn’t stretch. (And this was before the inflation of 2020 and beyond.)
When I got sick at twenty-nine and was forced to quit my job for health reasons, I was not planning on staying unemployed. I figured I’d got to school, get a different degree and find a job that fit me better. What I didn’t count on was this being a terribly long process that still hasn’t come to completion yet.
What I’ve discovered about jobs and mental health…1. The job needs to be more than a paycheck.
2. If it costs you your mental health or physical health - no paycheck is worth it.
3. A job should be something that puts life resources back into you. You should enjoy it - you will be spending most of your week there.
4. If it’s a toxic environment, you will bring that home. Even if you live alone, you will carry that toxic environment home with you.
5. A job can very easily become an abusive situation… especially if your needs aren’t being met by people who’s literal job it is to answer your questions and meet employee’s needs.
6. Know and pay attention to the signals of a company going under. Here’s the article that saved my sanity and confirmed I needed an exit plan at one of the jobs I worked. I consult it frequently: https://www.wisebread.com/10-signs-your-company-is-going-under)
7. Know and pay attention to how they manage finances and emergencies, as well as security issues. Also, how the CEOs and higher ups interact with people - all people, including and especially the maintenance, security and administrative teams.
8. Pay attention to your body’s signals. If you start getting sick or you’re counting meals until the end of the week because you’re that desperate to leave the workplace… leave and get another job.
9. You are not required to give soul sucking loyalty to the company that writes your paycheck.
10. There are other jobs out there. If you learn the signals of your company’s behaviors, and pair them with your body’s needs and your mental health - you will be aware and potentially have enough time to leave with a plan instead of a pink slip. (This means that you’re walking out on your own terms, instead of letting their bad decisions show up on your future resume.)
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1I was doing research for the Red Trouble series and ended up asking my mom, “So, my character, Hawk could get a job and feed a family of five kids? All on that one job?” Mom replied, “Yeah. Your grandfather did the same thing.” (Grandpa was The Greatest Generation, World War II era - Mom grew up in the 1960s and 1970s.) And I had to sit there and think about things for awhile because all my friends have worked multiple jobs and have had to take out loans for housing and car repairs or something to help them pay off college and cover basic needs. And this was often while living with their parents or a significant other with two or more incomes coming into their bank account.
