1) I love the Substack community, because I find a powerful current of support among writers who more or less struggle with a lot of the same things that being a writer carries. I'm well matched with family and friends now and have retired from work, which often made me unhappy.
3) I listen to my body and stress hits my gut, which now acts like a sort of idiot-savant therapist who is perfect at telling me "You're stressed; now go figure out why" You remind me that I have to be more conscious of my breathing.
HUGE caveat. This is me at 61. If I think about my thirties and forties and early fifties, I was a bundle of angst. I think the younger people I read on Substack, including you Rae, are so much more advanced in evolving toward wisdom than I was at your age.
I’m definitely in the highly sensitive category (but also hesitate to use the HSP “identity”). I recently started my Substack (after being just a reader for about a year) because I wanted something slower and quieter than Instagram. I have met so many wonderful people in Facebook groups created by sensitive souls, so I have hope that Substack might eventually be the same.
While I have other sensitive friends, I also have a special place in my heart for my “emotional support extrovert.” She keeps inviting me to stuff and doesn’t take it personally when I decline (because the number of attendees to her birthday got too high). Often we’ll meet up for lunch for her birthday - just the two of us for a real conversation- rather than me sitting at the end of a long table of 12-15 friends all chatting (and having a grand time but it’s too much for me). I love that her friendship definition is flexible enough to include me without trying to change me. I try to do the same for her. If I’ve got a “loud or busy” event to attend, she’s my go-to to be there and help me feel grounded (and manage some of the small talk). My husband does similarly but he’s kinda required to ;) my friend is purely a volunteer.
I really appreciate this. And I too, find myself being drawn to the sensitive women corner of substack.
I am in a period of my life where I cannot work (due to visa reasons) but am still pursuing some of my passions. I have come to realize that if I fully listened to myself and took care of my health, I can't realistically work more than 40 hours a week. I also need to be the primary manager of myself in order to set up my workspace and workflow so it can accomodate my health issues. Thankfully, I have the finances to not work full time (and now live in a country where most people don't work over 40 hours anyway), but I still struggle with the fact that my mind's ambitions often don't match my body's reality.
I think for many of us who were very talented at school (or something else) when we are little, we get the message that we should not just work hard, but over-work ourselves, because we are wasting our gifts if we don't. I think one of the biggest things I had to realize is that one of my gifts is my ability to question the values of my culture and live by my own. Passing that permission on to others in an authentic way is more important to me than how much I produce, or how many hours on the clock I log. So I am rolling with that, but also still trying to figure this all out!
As usual, everything about this resonates. As you know, I'm someone who doesn't fit into 9-5 work culture (or retail work culture, etc.) for ALL the reasons.
For a long time, the Internet was a great home for me actually because the asynchronous pace of it allowed me to create community in ways that were right for me. That shifted a lot in recent years when it seemed like everything was asking us to be online and present and responsive ALL the time. I'm navigating what is and isn't working for me on Substack and you make some great points.
I really really really wish that Substack (and all the apps/sites) would make the user experience much more customizable to what we each do and don't want to experience. I would like, for example, to be able to go to "activity" here on Substack and select to see only app mentions or only replies ... or whatever. I would like to be able to opt out of each chat and not see it again. I would like to be able to hit a button to archive everything that's currently in my inbox when I feel the need to start fresh. Those are just a few examples.
But all that said, I'm finding so many people here like yourself who feel like "my people" who "get it" and there's something special about that.
This very much speaks to me! I'm a much happier person since I left tech and San Francisco. It's taken me awhile to realize it's not all tech's fault, either, that I was unhappy there. I was just in a place doing something I'm fundamentally not built to do. Which, also, was a tough realization: I'm smart, and privileged, and driven. I should be made for this, right?
You know what, though? I'm grateful for the beautiful people with an entrepreneurial spirit who have found themselves in and around tech over the past years. (Like yourself!) The flip side is SF attracts so many dreamers who really are artists, once you get beneath the surface, and I love that. I'm also equally grateful for Substack generally and a bit skeptical of Notes.
It's an interesting feeling to feel physically and somatically "home" somewhere, isn't it? Back here in DC in the fall, especially, I don't feel the need to escape. I wake up in the morning and my life is a mess and maybe I have a stomach ache but it's most definitely something I ate, because I find the leaves and the intellect of people I encounter to be beautiful. It's my own playground and I fundamentally have that feeling of being appreciated, of belonging.
1. I am a people-person, a talker-outer, a creative and grew up in a corporate America run by finance teams, the exact opposite of me. I whole-heartedly believe taking care of people takes care of business and that was a mismatch with "well this is what the projections on our excel spreadsheets" say. I also am very comfortable with a wide-range of emotions (my feelings have feelings), something that can turn people off as being too intense. I also saw your Note about "Notes" and have been feeling the same way. I came here to get away from social media and it feels like it followed me here.
2. My husband, while a deeply passionate person, is not an outwardly emotional person. He brings balance, strength and calm to our relationship but gives me space to be myself. It took me awhile to realize it but I know and trust he loves me very deeply just for being me. He also leaves me notes all over our house and office. I also have an incredible trio of best friends that love me in much the same way.
3. I really paid attention to this this morning in particular while racing around to get everyone and myself out the door and slip in a little yoga to boot. My heart and mind were racing and I managed to remind myself just to breathe. It helped. I think overall it helps and I feel more honored and more in tune with myself.
@Rae Katz, thank you again for another insightful piece. I really feel like you should know one of my aforementioned friends, @Melissa Cullens who just started writing https://onpurposeproject.substack.com and covers many similar themes. She also has a similar background in the world of start-ups.
Wow Rae, you hit the nail squarely on the head for me yet again. I've struggled a lot with writing online for this very reason -- to thrive on many platforms, you have to constantly engage, and to constantly engage, you have to be willing to be constantly distracted. I often feel like the Grinch bemoaning the noise, oh the noise, noise, NOISE, NOISE! I spent three years building up nearly 12,000 followers on Medium but recently escaped to Substack, where I can hear myself think.
Regarding my day job, it took me so long to realize that the actual work is not nearly as important as the work culture. You have to like the work, of course, but I spent two decades pursuing important missions in work environments that neither valued nor facilitated my slowness, curiosity, and sensitivity. It was all about decisive decision-making and productivity. I'm now co-owner of a worker-owned co-op at which I can proudly proclaim, "I'm a processor. Can I sleep on this and resume the discussion tomorrow?"
Alas, my hometown of San Francisco used to be a beautiful place for slow, seeking, sensitive souls, as my hippie parents can attest. The tech industry has ruined it in more ways than one...
Lots of nodding along on this one, thank you. The science is comforting.
2: if you want me present, rather than presenteeing, we’re meeting for morning coffee or lunch, not cocktails or dinner.
3. Its tricky, to start with I feel overwhelmed (because I’ve been doing too much, usually) but then if I stick with it I get to a place of ease, where I can do what I value (need/want) without grinding. Then I’m tempted to seize the day to do just a bit more...oops.
Many people try to fit into a culture that didn't align with their personality. Your observations will resonate with those who've grappled with the intricate dance between their innate characteristics and the expectations of the world around them. The relief for them comes from understanding that it's not your fault but rather a clash between your traits and the culture.
Absolute swoon as always for your thoughtful, poignant and affirming writing, Rae. Thank you for this post. I saw your recent note about realising Notes was having the same impact and feeling as social media for you (I think I'm clumsily paraphrasing you back to yourself there, but I'm sure you know the one I mean!) and had that full-body twang of relief and recognition, so thank you for naming and sharing that sensation.
I'm still navigating how to be on Substack without falling into the disregulating patterns I experienced on other social media; one thing I have found helpful even though it's a roundabout process is saving posts I want to read to Pocket. I already do this with longform content from elsewhere online and find it so helpful as a way of separating and saving the things I want to engage with in an intentional way. It does mean I then need to come back to the website or app to comment, which is a faff, but one I like, because it slows that process down and gives me time to cogitate on if and how I respond and to check in with myself that I'm doing it honestly.
Since I became a therapist I've had to seriously level-up my game of bodily attunement to be able to separate clients' energy and my own. I'm grateful for it as a practice but it was a big wake-up call to realise and grapple with how habitually disembodied I'd been prior to taking on this role!
I have never thought about work culture mismatch before. It is explaining a lot, including why certain aspects of my work feel easy and other pieces take a massive toll! I used to be able to use discipline, resilience, and belief in the mission to keep me steady in long stretches of that mismatch. Those things can’t quite overcome the mismatch these days, so I am trying to determine my next right thing. I have recently realized that my body appreciates a slow morning and carved out time to sit and stare a bit before entering the hectic hum of work - even if that means waking up very early. Either way, I also put post-it notes on the edges of my computer to remind me to lower my shoulders and step outside for moments of quiet - otherwise I get too locked in to notice the need.
Hi Rae, Great post! I'm a HSP and a high level empath. Being both, I have learned after over 2 decades being online to keep myself separated from "mismatched" communities online. I was a political blogger for about 15 years, when I had enough of that I started to separate myself from the ingrained habits of sharing and discussing news online. It was a long slow detox.
I am careful here on Substack not to follow political writers, save for a few that I have long standing online relationships with. I scroll past what I see that might trigger me. I stop myself from discussing stressful topics. I don't watch the news. I choose what I feel comfortable with reading here, and also on the two MSM newspapers that I subscribe to in order to at least stay informed on what is happening in the news.
I have found myself on the Notes app a little more lately, but that is because I am following more writers and have a growing list of subscribers. Substack like all social media is designed for the masses, and we have to self police ourselves from whatever might be toxic to us. That takes practice. I shut down my computer in the evening. I have absolutely no notifications turned on on my phone. I set boundaries with all communication and have done that for years actually. I never turn the ringer on on my phone unless I am expecting a call.
It's a practice and devotion to my own wellbeing. I am 66, have a bunch of health issues right now and surgery pending in early December to fix some women's health issues.
On the flip side I find myself inspired and more energized here on Substack than I have been in a very long time, so I have a healthy appreciation for the community I am building here.
2. People in my life not minding if I need to step away and rest, sometimes actually sleeping(I just got off ADHD meds due to new bad side effects and I need even more rest too). Not getting angry and accusing me of not doing enough for them, which makes me shut down even faster.
3. I definitely notice not forcing myself to rush and do things fast helps, and for most of my life I was doing that because of my severe anxiety of not being enough. Reading more experiences like on Substack as you mentioned makes me feel less alone and that rest is radical, that being slow disrupts this cruel system. I can do that just fine! My body prefers it!
I've felt a mismatch with my work/corporate culture since the first day I entered the work force. I had been seriously burnt out and had suicidal thoughts when I had to work overnight shifts for 3 consecutive nights. The work till you drop culture was so bad to my well being. I'm an HSP and an Enneagram 4. Only when I got a remote editorial job during the pandemic did I start to feel more at ease. I could finally work in comfy clothes and bare feet, without the chatters and prying eyes of an office environment. I also could save energy from commuting and devote more time to contemplation, healing and self-care. So in a way, the pandemic gave me an option that wouldn't have been possible otherwise, and saved me from living under the poverty line.
Substack seems to be full of HSPs and empathetic people. Recently, though, I noticed a feeling of overwhelming scrolling through Notes, and a sense of FOMO as well as being tranparent/not seen and heard (similar to IRL). I felt a kind of sensory overload of "too much good stuff" and not having enough time to absorb it all. And as an HSP, I take everything in with high definition and intensity, so I can only read and participate so much.
I enjoyed your essay " All Things Considered" 100%. Every sentence seems to be speaking to and about me. I have a suspicion that you are also an Enneagram 4 like me. Ever heard of the Enneagram? For me, it explains so much about the core of who I am and provides a map for spiritual growth. Fascinating stuff.
Great questions.
1) I love the Substack community, because I find a powerful current of support among writers who more or less struggle with a lot of the same things that being a writer carries. I'm well matched with family and friends now and have retired from work, which often made me unhappy.
3) I listen to my body and stress hits my gut, which now acts like a sort of idiot-savant therapist who is perfect at telling me "You're stressed; now go figure out why" You remind me that I have to be more conscious of my breathing.
HUGE caveat. This is me at 61. If I think about my thirties and forties and early fifties, I was a bundle of angst. I think the younger people I read on Substack, including you Rae, are so much more advanced in evolving toward wisdom than I was at your age.
I’m definitely in the highly sensitive category (but also hesitate to use the HSP “identity”). I recently started my Substack (after being just a reader for about a year) because I wanted something slower and quieter than Instagram. I have met so many wonderful people in Facebook groups created by sensitive souls, so I have hope that Substack might eventually be the same.
While I have other sensitive friends, I also have a special place in my heart for my “emotional support extrovert.” She keeps inviting me to stuff and doesn’t take it personally when I decline (because the number of attendees to her birthday got too high). Often we’ll meet up for lunch for her birthday - just the two of us for a real conversation- rather than me sitting at the end of a long table of 12-15 friends all chatting (and having a grand time but it’s too much for me). I love that her friendship definition is flexible enough to include me without trying to change me. I try to do the same for her. If I’ve got a “loud or busy” event to attend, she’s my go-to to be there and help me feel grounded (and manage some of the small talk). My husband does similarly but he’s kinda required to ;) my friend is purely a volunteer.
Thanks for the post and this discussion thread.
I really appreciate this. And I too, find myself being drawn to the sensitive women corner of substack.
I am in a period of my life where I cannot work (due to visa reasons) but am still pursuing some of my passions. I have come to realize that if I fully listened to myself and took care of my health, I can't realistically work more than 40 hours a week. I also need to be the primary manager of myself in order to set up my workspace and workflow so it can accomodate my health issues. Thankfully, I have the finances to not work full time (and now live in a country where most people don't work over 40 hours anyway), but I still struggle with the fact that my mind's ambitions often don't match my body's reality.
I think for many of us who were very talented at school (or something else) when we are little, we get the message that we should not just work hard, but over-work ourselves, because we are wasting our gifts if we don't. I think one of the biggest things I had to realize is that one of my gifts is my ability to question the values of my culture and live by my own. Passing that permission on to others in an authentic way is more important to me than how much I produce, or how many hours on the clock I log. So I am rolling with that, but also still trying to figure this all out!
I enjoy your writing on these topics a lot.
As usual, everything about this resonates. As you know, I'm someone who doesn't fit into 9-5 work culture (or retail work culture, etc.) for ALL the reasons.
For a long time, the Internet was a great home for me actually because the asynchronous pace of it allowed me to create community in ways that were right for me. That shifted a lot in recent years when it seemed like everything was asking us to be online and present and responsive ALL the time. I'm navigating what is and isn't working for me on Substack and you make some great points.
I really really really wish that Substack (and all the apps/sites) would make the user experience much more customizable to what we each do and don't want to experience. I would like, for example, to be able to go to "activity" here on Substack and select to see only app mentions or only replies ... or whatever. I would like to be able to opt out of each chat and not see it again. I would like to be able to hit a button to archive everything that's currently in my inbox when I feel the need to start fresh. Those are just a few examples.
But all that said, I'm finding so many people here like yourself who feel like "my people" who "get it" and there's something special about that.
This very much speaks to me! I'm a much happier person since I left tech and San Francisco. It's taken me awhile to realize it's not all tech's fault, either, that I was unhappy there. I was just in a place doing something I'm fundamentally not built to do. Which, also, was a tough realization: I'm smart, and privileged, and driven. I should be made for this, right?
You know what, though? I'm grateful for the beautiful people with an entrepreneurial spirit who have found themselves in and around tech over the past years. (Like yourself!) The flip side is SF attracts so many dreamers who really are artists, once you get beneath the surface, and I love that. I'm also equally grateful for Substack generally and a bit skeptical of Notes.
It's an interesting feeling to feel physically and somatically "home" somewhere, isn't it? Back here in DC in the fall, especially, I don't feel the need to escape. I wake up in the morning and my life is a mess and maybe I have a stomach ache but it's most definitely something I ate, because I find the leaves and the intellect of people I encounter to be beautiful. It's my own playground and I fundamentally have that feeling of being appreciated, of belonging.
I will answer n°2- silence. I love when people know how to just respect my need for silence
1. I am a people-person, a talker-outer, a creative and grew up in a corporate America run by finance teams, the exact opposite of me. I whole-heartedly believe taking care of people takes care of business and that was a mismatch with "well this is what the projections on our excel spreadsheets" say. I also am very comfortable with a wide-range of emotions (my feelings have feelings), something that can turn people off as being too intense. I also saw your Note about "Notes" and have been feeling the same way. I came here to get away from social media and it feels like it followed me here.
2. My husband, while a deeply passionate person, is not an outwardly emotional person. He brings balance, strength and calm to our relationship but gives me space to be myself. It took me awhile to realize it but I know and trust he loves me very deeply just for being me. He also leaves me notes all over our house and office. I also have an incredible trio of best friends that love me in much the same way.
3. I really paid attention to this this morning in particular while racing around to get everyone and myself out the door and slip in a little yoga to boot. My heart and mind were racing and I managed to remind myself just to breathe. It helped. I think overall it helps and I feel more honored and more in tune with myself.
@Rae Katz, thank you again for another insightful piece. I really feel like you should know one of my aforementioned friends, @Melissa Cullens who just started writing https://onpurposeproject.substack.com and covers many similar themes. She also has a similar background in the world of start-ups.
Wow Rae, you hit the nail squarely on the head for me yet again. I've struggled a lot with writing online for this very reason -- to thrive on many platforms, you have to constantly engage, and to constantly engage, you have to be willing to be constantly distracted. I often feel like the Grinch bemoaning the noise, oh the noise, noise, NOISE, NOISE! I spent three years building up nearly 12,000 followers on Medium but recently escaped to Substack, where I can hear myself think.
Regarding my day job, it took me so long to realize that the actual work is not nearly as important as the work culture. You have to like the work, of course, but I spent two decades pursuing important missions in work environments that neither valued nor facilitated my slowness, curiosity, and sensitivity. It was all about decisive decision-making and productivity. I'm now co-owner of a worker-owned co-op at which I can proudly proclaim, "I'm a processor. Can I sleep on this and resume the discussion tomorrow?"
Alas, my hometown of San Francisco used to be a beautiful place for slow, seeking, sensitive souls, as my hippie parents can attest. The tech industry has ruined it in more ways than one...
Lots of nodding along on this one, thank you. The science is comforting.
2: if you want me present, rather than presenteeing, we’re meeting for morning coffee or lunch, not cocktails or dinner.
3. Its tricky, to start with I feel overwhelmed (because I’ve been doing too much, usually) but then if I stick with it I get to a place of ease, where I can do what I value (need/want) without grinding. Then I’m tempted to seize the day to do just a bit more...oops.
Many people try to fit into a culture that didn't align with their personality. Your observations will resonate with those who've grappled with the intricate dance between their innate characteristics and the expectations of the world around them. The relief for them comes from understanding that it's not your fault but rather a clash between your traits and the culture.
Absolute swoon as always for your thoughtful, poignant and affirming writing, Rae. Thank you for this post. I saw your recent note about realising Notes was having the same impact and feeling as social media for you (I think I'm clumsily paraphrasing you back to yourself there, but I'm sure you know the one I mean!) and had that full-body twang of relief and recognition, so thank you for naming and sharing that sensation.
I'm still navigating how to be on Substack without falling into the disregulating patterns I experienced on other social media; one thing I have found helpful even though it's a roundabout process is saving posts I want to read to Pocket. I already do this with longform content from elsewhere online and find it so helpful as a way of separating and saving the things I want to engage with in an intentional way. It does mean I then need to come back to the website or app to comment, which is a faff, but one I like, because it slows that process down and gives me time to cogitate on if and how I respond and to check in with myself that I'm doing it honestly.
Since I became a therapist I've had to seriously level-up my game of bodily attunement to be able to separate clients' energy and my own. I'm grateful for it as a practice but it was a big wake-up call to realise and grapple with how habitually disembodied I'd been prior to taking on this role!
I have never thought about work culture mismatch before. It is explaining a lot, including why certain aspects of my work feel easy and other pieces take a massive toll! I used to be able to use discipline, resilience, and belief in the mission to keep me steady in long stretches of that mismatch. Those things can’t quite overcome the mismatch these days, so I am trying to determine my next right thing. I have recently realized that my body appreciates a slow morning and carved out time to sit and stare a bit before entering the hectic hum of work - even if that means waking up very early. Either way, I also put post-it notes on the edges of my computer to remind me to lower my shoulders and step outside for moments of quiet - otherwise I get too locked in to notice the need.
Hi Rae, Great post! I'm a HSP and a high level empath. Being both, I have learned after over 2 decades being online to keep myself separated from "mismatched" communities online. I was a political blogger for about 15 years, when I had enough of that I started to separate myself from the ingrained habits of sharing and discussing news online. It was a long slow detox.
I am careful here on Substack not to follow political writers, save for a few that I have long standing online relationships with. I scroll past what I see that might trigger me. I stop myself from discussing stressful topics. I don't watch the news. I choose what I feel comfortable with reading here, and also on the two MSM newspapers that I subscribe to in order to at least stay informed on what is happening in the news.
I have found myself on the Notes app a little more lately, but that is because I am following more writers and have a growing list of subscribers. Substack like all social media is designed for the masses, and we have to self police ourselves from whatever might be toxic to us. That takes practice. I shut down my computer in the evening. I have absolutely no notifications turned on on my phone. I set boundaries with all communication and have done that for years actually. I never turn the ringer on on my phone unless I am expecting a call.
It's a practice and devotion to my own wellbeing. I am 66, have a bunch of health issues right now and surgery pending in early December to fix some women's health issues.
On the flip side I find myself inspired and more energized here on Substack than I have been in a very long time, so I have a healthy appreciation for the community I am building here.
This is great and I feel this all so much.
2. People in my life not minding if I need to step away and rest, sometimes actually sleeping(I just got off ADHD meds due to new bad side effects and I need even more rest too). Not getting angry and accusing me of not doing enough for them, which makes me shut down even faster.
3. I definitely notice not forcing myself to rush and do things fast helps, and for most of my life I was doing that because of my severe anxiety of not being enough. Reading more experiences like on Substack as you mentioned makes me feel less alone and that rest is radical, that being slow disrupts this cruel system. I can do that just fine! My body prefers it!
3. I allways listen to my body, because i think our body reacts a lot to emotional states
I've felt a mismatch with my work/corporate culture since the first day I entered the work force. I had been seriously burnt out and had suicidal thoughts when I had to work overnight shifts for 3 consecutive nights. The work till you drop culture was so bad to my well being. I'm an HSP and an Enneagram 4. Only when I got a remote editorial job during the pandemic did I start to feel more at ease. I could finally work in comfy clothes and bare feet, without the chatters and prying eyes of an office environment. I also could save energy from commuting and devote more time to contemplation, healing and self-care. So in a way, the pandemic gave me an option that wouldn't have been possible otherwise, and saved me from living under the poverty line.
Substack seems to be full of HSPs and empathetic people. Recently, though, I noticed a feeling of overwhelming scrolling through Notes, and a sense of FOMO as well as being tranparent/not seen and heard (similar to IRL). I felt a kind of sensory overload of "too much good stuff" and not having enough time to absorb it all. And as an HSP, I take everything in with high definition and intensity, so I can only read and participate so much.
I enjoyed your essay " All Things Considered" 100%. Every sentence seems to be speaking to and about me. I have a suspicion that you are also an Enneagram 4 like me. Ever heard of the Enneagram? For me, it explains so much about the core of who I am and provides a map for spiritual growth. Fascinating stuff.