Strange January
A strange month inside a bizarre year at the center of an insane time on this planet. Thoughts on writing, doubt and unlikely progress.
I was watching an energy update from a well-known channeler, and the overarching theme his guides delivered for the month was: strange January.
I could only smile and nod because that's exactly it! Never before have I felt so unmotivated to refocus my energies in the new year. Unmotivated isn’t even the right word for it—there’s a complete disconnect between my mind and body at the moment.
Mind: revamp everything.
Body: sleep in, eat bean’n’cheese burritos (dipped in ranch).
I’m only managing something in between. Last week was the first in four months I didn’t post on Substack. I have oodles of writings in the wings, but life was happening. I had a cluster of final social outings to round out the holidays (a big deal for me as an introverted HSP that requires ample decompression and alone time between outings) plus an impending cold snap to prep the yard for that commanded my time and energy. But the absence of not posting was palpable—a solid confirmation this is feeding me. I’ve been on the platform since September, and the regular publishing cadence has generated momentum. I feel proud of myself, accomplished for showing up to something new I didn’t know if I had the dedication to stick with. In a short time, my readership is growing. As someone who’s wanted to be a career author since third grade, shared my writing online for over a decade and self-published, that piece—readership—is new.
Almost (if not every) copy of my book was bought by someone who knows me personally, many of whom have followed me on social media as I’ve rolled through one branding iteration after another. These allies have consciously kept tabs on me and supported my work, whether or not they’re into the subject matter. An inexplicable drive to keep writing, coupled with divinely dropped breadcrumbs—comments, messages, emails letting me know that something I’ve done has made a plink! in the vastness and touched another life (however few and far between they may come)—are responsible for my presence here, and yet, I’ve always known that there will, and must be, more. I have to grow a readership that’s crazy about not just me, but my writing, to garner the financial support I require to pay for this authorship business. I have to sell enough copies of my books and actively grow income streams to sustain the cost of living. I find it equal parts ludicrous and disheartening that there are so many writers out there making the case that you can’t make a living writing. So we’re expected to work full-time writing and take on more and more gigs or juggle multiple full-time jobs . . . to what? Say we’re creatively fulfilled when we’re physically burnt out beyond reckoning? I don’t think so. Not classifying writing as honest work (that deserves good pay) is not only problematic but inaccurate. Every show, song, instruction manual, book, movie . . . (you get where I’m going here) has a writer behind it. These aren’t just forms of entertainment. Writing is a binding fabric of society.
Stepping down from the soapbox, my writing process is 120% intuitive, divinely inspired and pure. I write for me. I write because it heals me like nothing else—and I’m into all of it (reiki, somatic experiencing, meditation, tapping—the gambit of holistic, energy work, spiritual, “alternative” living schtuff). I spew from my soul, and then that portal zips itself up. I click into share mode, designing post images in Canva, collecting snippets for social, making affiliate lists, strategizing on the best ways to spread the word. I do this creatively and with integrity, in a way that’s genuine and aligned with who I am. I wouldn’t do any of that if this was a hobby and not a career.
Every writer wants something different for their writing and writes for different reasons. There’s space and opportunity for each one of us to realize those desires in ways that fit. That’s not to say we won’t weather failure or heartbreak, flops and ridicule, but we, at the very least, deserve to give ourselves permission to go for what it is we truly want.
I find myself in a strange month inside a bizarre year at the center of an insane time on this planet.
Winter didn’t rush in until the second week of January with a heinously blustery day. Winds raked the trees all night, and I shrunk into the supple old leather chair at the center of the house that sucks you in like pita filling, jumpy from all the clinks, scratches, thuds and thunks clambering around the small brick bungalow. It was impossible not to dread damage come morning, broken branches, blown-in trash, a cluster of disasters to piece back together before scrambling to tuck my succulents under cover and wrap the sensitive plants before the frosts hit.
Everything is whirling, discordant . . . like climate change has stolen the essential guidance of the seasons, and we’re thrown from one to the next, robbed of gradual shifts and familiarity. For years, I’ve received near-weekly notifications that the price of services and subscriptions is going up. I find a product I like, and then the grocery store no longer carries it—everything is shuffled around in different places (My mom admitted she was feeling completely beside herself about this and blamed it on her age; I assured her, No, we’re reeling from it too!). And beyond my minuscule gripes, natural disasters are wrecking lives and ravishing landscapes, war is destroying entire populations (possibly beyond repair) and countless unspeakable acts are perpetrated against the innocent. In the American Southwest, summer scorched into November, and it's been warm until now. The weather alone has been disorienting, and time seems to have taken up the 100-yard dash. I still can't believe it's 2025.
It’s both boring and selfish to talk time and weather with you, but these phenomena anchor daily life—I know I'm not the only one who’s energetically whiplashed. Often the little things make the greatest impact on our internal climate, while the big things feel simply too tremendous to wrap our minds around. With the last two full moons, worms of uncertainty have wriggled from my belly to my brain and spun a cocoon of analysis paralysis.
This week, I got pounded with a tsunami of doubt.
The questioning speared so deep, I couldn’t even identify the root.
I am utterly lacking perspective at the moment. A mole, clawing toward the center of the earth, hoping the molten core will warm me with insight and not incinerate all I’ve ever come to know.
Even though I’m a seeker, and that comes with natural expansion as I explore my inner worlds, I’m bad at transitions, which can equate to not navigating change very well. When something ends, and another begins, I have trouble orienting myself to the next task. I struggle with attention, procrastination and overwhelm. Life feels far greater than my capacity to handle it. I watch The P.I.C. glide fluidly from one todo to the next with seamless execution and an inherent grasp on logic while I run circles in my mind, trying to puzzle together the myriad steps required for a single action. I manage, but I wouldn’t say I’m thriving.
And because 2024 was a boots-on-the-ground kinda year for me—putting out one fire after another and feeling perpetually behind when the new year struck—I was weighed down by the sense that all I'd done was survive it. A few days ago, I made a point to go to a local coffee shop and sit in the sun with a cappuccino and a journal. I honestly expressed this sentiment and then jotted down a few Q's.
What did I let go? What did I welcome in? Did I make any progress this year?
To my surprise, I filled pages with things I had indeed done this year. Legit shit. Mundane but vitally important stuff. Beyond todos, I came to know myself even more deeply and finally embraced my own darkness inside a pocket where I felt quite broken. Sometimes, 12-step gives the impression that there’s a single rock bottom that thrusts one into a hardline decision. But I’ve had the pleasure of discovering that a human can undergo many levels of new lows, even deeper, darker, more disheartening than before, and pulling those last straws knocks out our flip-flopping like bowling pins—if they didn’t fall on the first go-around, they will in time with more life lived. This year, seasonal affective disorder burned away my ability to be fake in relationships, to over-give and waste time with dynamics that drain me. It expanded my expression of vulnerability, gave me more courage to be real and sharpened my bullshit meter. I found more love for myself in the lack thereof this year than ever before. The progress was unextraordinary, easily missed, and would have been nonexistent if I hadn’t taken the time to acknowledge: All of it counts.
Micro musings in the new year:
Don’t discount your progress because it doesn’t look like somebody else’s.
When you stop pretending to be anyone but yourself and rejecting parts of you that need love, your nervous system breathes a big sigh of relief, and everything comes back online. You've returned home to your Self.
Books are good to read before bed because reality love shows will rob you of sleep, every time.
The ground is fucking shifting under our feet. All we can do is hang on like terrified children at unchecked carnival rides assembled in a single day.
SelfLove Lately?
Watching Love is Blind, duh. Sleeping in. Realizing that chores and cat time are the most recharging activities in my day. Sipping steaming tea from a whimsical cup splashed with the phrase: Dear Gentle Reader, the Author is pleased to report . . . Using coldish weather as an excuse to consume broccoli cheddar soup on the reg. Writing again—thank gawwwdd! Feeling love, confusion, lightheartedness and weight all at once. Thinking: Maybe, just maybe, this will work out.
*Malte Marten, the handpan musician I mentioned in my voiceover. I access either streaming or YouTube playlists when in need of writing background sound or nervous system soothing.
Strange January! Yes! Lovely writing!! ❤️❤️