Hello, it me.
Before I get into it: A woman in one of my sessions asked me whether any meditation practices help my ADHD-like symptoms. I gave an answer but I could feel an unreachable itch – now I remember and I hope she reads this!
See, Hear, Feel from Shinzen Young’s Unified Mindfulness. It’s incredible because you’re not asked to focus and re-focus your attention on a particular thing. It’s about allowing your attention to be pulled in whatever direction and then focusing on it for a few seconds. It’s wonderful. It’s kind of funny that I didn’t think of it in the moment, considering the Guide is partnered with Brightmind, which exists for the sole purpose of teaching Unified Mindfulness. Also, my good buddy Jude Star is a therapist and meditation teacher with multiple videos on his YouTube Channel about meditating with ADHD.
Anyway…the Parts Work Unconference was today.
An Unconference is a microcosm (of at least some elements) of life. There are several directions I can go in, some of them equally appealing. I can jump between one path and the next at the sacrifice of fully experiencing either one of them. Regardless of what I do, even if I make all the right (for me) choices, there is always a loss, always a lingering “What if?” Even if I don’t regret what I’ve said yes to, it’s okay to have some grief for what I had to decline.
And there were losses. Sessions I wanted to participate in, people I wanted to meet. When I woke up this morning I seriously considered not presenting at all even after I’d told who knows how many people I’d be there. But I did. And in exchange for some of those sacrifices, people who already knew who I was, who already knew the Guide, even some who already had my phone number came just to be with me. I got to see some familiar faces, some new ones, and even meet some of you for the very first time.
And what darlings you are. I was and continue to be floored at what sweet souls come my way. Someone even made me cry! I had even more fun than I did last time and am so grateful.
Today someone asked whether my personal story can be found in the Guide – not really, no. I’ve been asked, over and over again, why there’s little to nothing about me in it. And I’ve been told by a handful of friends that for all the work I’ve put into it, I am strangely and conspicuously absent. Jeff Warren was shocked that there isn’t even one joke in it: “You’re a great big nerd with a hilarious sense of humor, and people are going to want to know you.”
He didn’t say it, but I keep hearing the same question in the back of my mind: “…but where are you?”
I’ve been mulling it over for months, maybe since before the Guide went live.
I still feel iffy about putting myself in it. Maybe because I never intended the Guide to have even my name on it; I’d planned to stay anonymous and only dropped it because it was starting to cause more problems than it solved. Or maybe because I didn’t want my name or likeness to become a brand and to turn my day-to-day life into more of a performance than it already is. I was definitely afraid that I might be dehumanized and put on a pedestal after the miniature tsunami of attention it got when I’d first published it. On the other hand it’s actually quite difficult to be put on a pedestal when you repeatedly and deliberately knock yourself off it.
I have to re-realize that I dehumanize myself by not allowing people to see me, all the time.
There is fear that once I become three-dimensional there will be a sizable number of people who wish I could go back to two. Because I’m not always patient or plesant or reasonable. Some of my parts can be abrasive and others are terrified of being abandoned when I inevitably say something irrevocably foolish or problematic or judgmental or confidently incorrect, and others simply don’t trust people to see me. A part of me sometimes dislikes or distrusts people for what seems like no reason and then another part of me berates me for not being able to love them the way we all deserve.
The Guide is also more harmonious than I am. I made it, but it’s not me and I have had so much help. There was a time when I was afraid to speak because I didn’t want to infect other people. I felt like a spell had been broken, that I’d learned and could see something no one was ever supposed to, and to share it with anyone would be something akin to evil.
I was a writer long before I knew anything about trauma, before I knew I had any. Yet I doubt I could describe that time of my life in a way that it could be felt. And if I could, I would not. I remember telling someone, “I almost wish I could make you feel this for just one second and then take it right back so you could understand.”
The point is, I might be the only person working on the Guide, but that does not mean I did it alone and it certainly doesn’t mean that I am more worthy of safety, dignity, happiness, and love than anyone who might (or might not) ever read it and that is exactly why it is free. I deserved more help than I had, yet I was one of the lucky ones for having any.
Maybe there’s so little of me in the Guide because I have a part who’s afriad that people will find out I’m not particularly interesting. Or that vulnerability somehow runs counter to competence.
Maybe one is afraid no one would care.
Fundamentally, it just doesn’t feel like the right time. I don’t want to talk much about myself exlcusively in relation to what I’ve put in the Guide so far, because it feels somehow more reductive than not talking about myself at all. The Guide is meant to be informative, dense, clear, and (relatively) concise. It’s mostly me talking to myself. But I want to talk like a person, to people!
I’ve just also reached the point to where I have to be increasingly selective of how I spend my time and energy because I may otherwise end up having spent an incaculable number of hours building a +200k-word not-a-book while being unable even to pay rent.
But this newsletter is different. These things tend to go unread and deleted by some people, while being wonderfully connective and messy and cozy for others. They give me space to talk about whatever I want. And to you!
So, I’m planning to turn on paid memberships soon. Guide updates will continue to be free, while the membership will get you access to the full versions of this sort of thing and whatever it becomes.
I expect this to be more fun, if a bit messy. I’ll be making it up as we go along, and I’m curious to know what you might be interested in. Questions about anything and everything, writings about Guide-adjacent things that wouldn’t quite fit in the Guide itself, or a potpourri of irrelevant stuff and nonsense – it’s a different space.
Thank you to everyone who came, and to those who didn’t but wanted to, and to those who care more about me than whether I keep working on the Guide at all. I feel lucky to have you.
<3
Thank you for all you do 💙