Still working on that! I'm finding that the way I've honed my writing style over the past 20 years I must change. What makes it easier for people to read gets erroneously flagged, even when I'm using obviously extremely personal stories, which is what I always include.
Thank you, Jessica. I'm a former NP with a PhD and I write about navigating healthcare with rare diseases. My note (couldn't get the pic to copy):
Today, I saw a person using a power wheelchair in the street because some of the sidewalks in town look like this and many lack curb cuts.
Ain’t. Right.
The picture shows a sidewalk that is uneven, uplifted or depressed by several inches in some places. There’s a longitudinal crack running down the middle. Green grass and weeds grow from the crack, and dirt has accumulated near the grass, which spills onto the blacktop of the street. There’s a peeling strip of yellow paint between the sidewalk and the road, and a fenced-in green yard in the background.
Thanks, Jessica! I started Midlife U three weeks ago today! I'm grateful for all the women who have helped to build this supportive community. We hosted a class on Thurs. about disenfranchised grief with Ellen Scherr. In addition to live classes, we host community conversations, book celebrations for women in the community with a book release, time permitting (we have 2 authors booked for July 31 and another in mid-August.!), writing workshops and writing groups ("Shut Up & Write" is our writing accountability group). We are building curriculum about midlife which will soon be downloadable. Paid subscribers can attend all classes and other live events (unlimited!), receive recordings of anything they miss, and more ($7/mo). I'm currently putting together an article about midlife from the perspective of as many women as possible; that's the note below! Feel free to comment if you'd like to be included!
This note was for sharing my latest Substack post, which was a remembrance of my best friend, who died 27 years ago when we were 38. I still think of her often:
This day, which would have been your 65th birthday, reminds me of you. When you died 27 years ago, I didn’t think about how you’d never reach Medicare age; at 38, who’s thinking about Medicare? But as I approach that milestone age, I’m thinking of you again.
So many things remind me of you.
Happy 65th birthday, Mary Grace. You will always be part of me.
I am documenting my journey through midlife - one day, one laugh, one cry at a time. This note is reminder that making changes in midlife doesn't have to be drastic or dramatic, sometimes its the small little things that add up in their totality that make the profound change.
I'm glad to be here. I am new to Substack and trying to figure out how it works. I published an article today and then also posted the article in notes. It's my most vulnerable to date. It feels both really good to address a topic many women don't talk about and simultaneously SCARY to have put it out there.
Content:
It was the closing day of a retreat and I glanced down at the smooth, round piece of art I had been sitting beside all weekend when I realized it was an abstract sculpture of a butt.
On the next glance I saw tucked between the two cheeks was a butthole.
It took my brain a minute to register that I was looking directly at a butthole. My friend, Kim noticed me noticing it and our eyes locked, she very directly and unflinchingly said, “yes there’s a sphincter right there beside you.” Naturally, we cracked up.
But it was at that moment that I realized the signs couldn’t be any more literal. It’s time to talk about bottoms, buttholes, clenching, constipation, shame, pelvic floors, being a butthole, not being a butthole, being a tightass, maybe even the planet Uranus, and shame…definitely shame.
Vaginas have recently claimed cultural airtime (with Vagina Monologues, vaginal steaming, yoni art, pussy hats, yoni portals, etc.) But, buttholes? No...they have remained firmly backstage.
Why do I feel a call to be a spokeswoman for anuses? My own initiation happened through addiction which is rooted in shame. I got sober over seventeen years ago, and I’ve spoken publicly about it ever since, not because I enjoy exposing my life, but because shame thrives in secrecy. Every time someone tells the truth, shame loses a little ground.
I have been a pack mule for shame in my lineage. And other people’s unprocessed shame seemed to find its way to me. This was never happening consciously and my body stored it…in the root area, the dark hidden recesses of my body.
I know the antidote to shame is bringing it into the light and also being vulnerable. What I didn’t see coming was the next level of shame release wasn’t emotional, it was physical.
I finally surrendered and found myself in a physical therapist’s office. Week after week I was having therapy done on my backdoor, which I found ridiculously relieving and relaxing (even while on all fours with a finger up my butt…and sometimes with acupuncture needles in my perineum).
I had been keeping this uncomfortable journey to myself because I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to read about it. But that smooth round butt sculpture with its little sphincter tucked in felt like the call to bring another shame laden topic out in the open.
I had spent years working in the invisible with ancestral healing, trauma work, energy medicine, even pre-verbal memory. I understood that the body stored the experience, but somehow I had forgotten the body itself. I had focused on the energetic map while ignoring the actual flesh and bone that carried it.
Now that I’ve opened this door, there are so many reasons I want to address the rectal topic, but the low hanging fruit is lodged in the root chakra. With so much fear, anxiety and instability in the world right now, root chakra issues are primal issues.
Think back to Covid and how immediately upon lock-down, all the toilet paper got bought. That was a primal fear response to the unknown.
We are still in the unknown and for many of us, we need help to unclench and find a feeling of safety as humanity makes a huge shift in consciousness.
So here we are. I’ve become the woman writing essays about buttholes. But I know the places I avoid are usually what liberate me the most.
What if the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden in shame are precisely the places asking to be brought into the light?
I have a feeling this topic will bring grounding and levity for myself and hopefully for you too.
I will keep writing as the journey unfolds without a map, just curiosity at what is held in this portal wanting to be seen.
Love this and I'll definitely be following along too. 😊
This note is actually something I created years ago and originally shared on Instagram and Twitter. It ended up being reshared by so many people.
When I came across it again, I realized the message still holds true today, so I decided to share it here. I also write about this idea throughout my book, Embracing the Calm in the Chaos, because I truly believe it's something many of us need to be reminded of from time to time.
Hi everyone, I'm Caroline, I write Her Journey Rising, about personal growth, money mindset, and building an online income without burning your life down to do it. Sharing a Note I posted about reframing consistency: https://substack.com/@herjourneyrising/note/c-292495232?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=396oo6 . I wrote it because so much money advice skips the mindset work underneath — and that's the part that actually changed things for me. Off to read and restack some of yours now, this spotlight idea is such a generous way to build together. Thank you for creating it, Jessica.
Thanks for doing this Jessica, I found this really helpful to introduce me to resonant writers on Substack Writers At Work! My note: Substack's new AI detector got me thinking about something familiar: how long women have been scanned for what's "real": filler, Botox, a suspiciously smooth face. I just finished working on a chapter about how, for me at midlife, aging IS the goal, not the thing I'm caught failing to hide, and so it felt quite connected. https://substack.com/@heidilescanec/note/c-300258716?r=30cusl&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
This is a note I posted yesterday. I posted it because I thought it might encourage others to know that their writing may be touching people even if they don't get comments. Text below and link following.
This morning I received a message from someone I haven’t talked to in years. She told me she is loving my Choosing Herself stories and appreciates their honesty and rawness.
It was so nice because I didn’t even know she was reading.
The people we touch with our writing aren’t just the ones who comment on it on Substack.
This is so true Jody! I had a very similar experience recently! I recently went on a hike with a friend I hadn't seen in years, before the pandemic, before all my experiences with navigating family members with dementia solo, and she knew all of these big life things I had no idea she was aware of, from reading me here and shared how much it touched her.
Guten tag from Berlin🇩🇪!
Living here for the third summer with my family and writing about mid life, motherhood, minimalism and shifting abroad - it’s called Slouching.
https://substack.com/@almtbd/note/c-305898924?r=41qse&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Still working on that! I'm finding that the way I've honed my writing style over the past 20 years I must change. What makes it easier for people to read gets erroneously flagged, even when I'm using obviously extremely personal stories, which is what I always include.
Thank you, Jessica. I'm a former NP with a PhD and I write about navigating healthcare with rare diseases. My note (couldn't get the pic to copy):
Today, I saw a person using a power wheelchair in the street because some of the sidewalks in town look like this and many lack curb cuts.
Ain’t. Right.
The picture shows a sidewalk that is uneven, uplifted or depressed by several inches in some places. There’s a longitudinal crack running down the middle. Green grass and weeds grow from the crack, and dirt has accumulated near the grass, which spills onto the blacktop of the street. There’s a peeling strip of yellow paint between the sidewalk and the road, and a fenced-in green yard in the background.
https://substack.com/@diagnosticodyssey/note/c-302753091?r=79n9kb&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
Hi Jessica, thank you for this opportunity. I am a physical therapist. I'm sharing my thoughts, observations, guidance how women can understand and live in their changing bodies. My latest substack post is about The Positive spin of an aging body, a challenging thought. https://substack.com/@deniseschwartz466201/note/p-205654626?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=enuel
Looking for something to read today. Whatcha got? Post it in comments!
https://substack.com/@yogawellnesswithnicci/note/c-302185395?r=7gx9h&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
Thanks, Jessica! I started Midlife U three weeks ago today! I'm grateful for all the women who have helped to build this supportive community. We hosted a class on Thurs. about disenfranchised grief with Ellen Scherr. In addition to live classes, we host community conversations, book celebrations for women in the community with a book release, time permitting (we have 2 authors booked for July 31 and another in mid-August.!), writing workshops and writing groups ("Shut Up & Write" is our writing accountability group). We are building curriculum about midlife which will soon be downloadable. Paid subscribers can attend all classes and other live events (unlimited!), receive recordings of anything they miss, and more ($7/mo). I'm currently putting together an article about midlife from the perspective of as many women as possible; that's the note below! Feel free to comment if you'd like to be included!
https://substack.com/@amhalstead/note/c-300974558?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1t782f
Thank you for the opportunity! Here's my note about an infertility re-frame: I love hearing other people's screaming kids at the beach... https://substack.com/@kelseyformost/note/c-299943522?r=22jh2p&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
This note was for sharing my latest Substack post, which was a remembrance of my best friend, who died 27 years ago when we were 38. I still think of her often:
This day, which would have been your 65th birthday, reminds me of you. When you died 27 years ago, I didn’t think about how you’d never reach Medicare age; at 38, who’s thinking about Medicare? But as I approach that milestone age, I’m thinking of you again.
So many things remind me of you.
Happy 65th birthday, Mary Grace. You will always be part of me.
More in this week’s Flower Child: https://flowerchild.substack.com/p/these-things-remind-me-of-you
Here's the note: https://substack.com/@flowerchild/note/c-298935518
I am documenting my journey through midlife - one day, one laugh, one cry at a time. This note is reminder that making changes in midlife doesn't have to be drastic or dramatic, sometimes its the small little things that add up in their totality that make the profound change.
https://substack.com/@midlifegracefully/note/c-300569013?r=8msxr8&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
I'm glad to be here. I am new to Substack and trying to figure out how it works. I published an article today and then also posted the article in notes. It's my most vulnerable to date. It feels both really good to address a topic many women don't talk about and simultaneously SCARY to have put it out there.
Content:
It was the closing day of a retreat and I glanced down at the smooth, round piece of art I had been sitting beside all weekend when I realized it was an abstract sculpture of a butt.
On the next glance I saw tucked between the two cheeks was a butthole.
It took my brain a minute to register that I was looking directly at a butthole. My friend, Kim noticed me noticing it and our eyes locked, she very directly and unflinchingly said, “yes there’s a sphincter right there beside you.” Naturally, we cracked up.
But it was at that moment that I realized the signs couldn’t be any more literal. It’s time to talk about bottoms, buttholes, clenching, constipation, shame, pelvic floors, being a butthole, not being a butthole, being a tightass, maybe even the planet Uranus, and shame…definitely shame.
Vaginas have recently claimed cultural airtime (with Vagina Monologues, vaginal steaming, yoni art, pussy hats, yoni portals, etc.) But, buttholes? No...they have remained firmly backstage.
Why do I feel a call to be a spokeswoman for anuses? My own initiation happened through addiction which is rooted in shame. I got sober over seventeen years ago, and I’ve spoken publicly about it ever since, not because I enjoy exposing my life, but because shame thrives in secrecy. Every time someone tells the truth, shame loses a little ground.
I have been a pack mule for shame in my lineage. And other people’s unprocessed shame seemed to find its way to me. This was never happening consciously and my body stored it…in the root area, the dark hidden recesses of my body.
I know the antidote to shame is bringing it into the light and also being vulnerable. What I didn’t see coming was the next level of shame release wasn’t emotional, it was physical.
I finally surrendered and found myself in a physical therapist’s office. Week after week I was having therapy done on my backdoor, which I found ridiculously relieving and relaxing (even while on all fours with a finger up my butt…and sometimes with acupuncture needles in my perineum).
I had been keeping this uncomfortable journey to myself because I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to read about it. But that smooth round butt sculpture with its little sphincter tucked in felt like the call to bring another shame laden topic out in the open.
I had spent years working in the invisible with ancestral healing, trauma work, energy medicine, even pre-verbal memory. I understood that the body stored the experience, but somehow I had forgotten the body itself. I had focused on the energetic map while ignoring the actual flesh and bone that carried it.
Now that I’ve opened this door, there are so many reasons I want to address the rectal topic, but the low hanging fruit is lodged in the root chakra. With so much fear, anxiety and instability in the world right now, root chakra issues are primal issues.
Think back to Covid and how immediately upon lock-down, all the toilet paper got bought. That was a primal fear response to the unknown.
We are still in the unknown and for many of us, we need help to unclench and find a feeling of safety as humanity makes a huge shift in consciousness.
So here we are. I’ve become the woman writing essays about buttholes. But I know the places I avoid are usually what liberate me the most.
What if the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden in shame are precisely the places asking to be brought into the light?
I have a feeling this topic will bring grounding and levity for myself and hopefully for you too.
I will keep writing as the journey unfolds without a map, just curiosity at what is held in this portal wanting to be seen.
https://tammyrothnorthgeorgia.substack.com/p/bottoms-and-buttholes?r=1rw8mh&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
Haha! " I’ve become the woman writing essays about buttholes." Love it!
I found a bag that perfectly matches my book cover. A small thrilling thing!
https://substack.com/@alysonmosqueradutemple/note/c-300151660?r=92y81&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Love this and I'll definitely be following along too. 😊
This note is actually something I created years ago and originally shared on Instagram and Twitter. It ended up being reshared by so many people.
When I came across it again, I realized the message still holds true today, so I decided to share it here. I also write about this idea throughout my book, Embracing the Calm in the Chaos, because I truly believe it's something many of us need to be reminded of from time to time.
❤️https://substack.com/@stacyigel/note/c-300180379?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=m5in4
I explain here what happened to me recently that led me to open my paid tier on Substack.
I have been postponing it and finally took the step. It’s about building a life I want to live.
https://substack.com/@haateedee/note/c-300267054?r=2ioh20&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Hi everyone, I'm Caroline, I write Her Journey Rising, about personal growth, money mindset, and building an online income without burning your life down to do it. Sharing a Note I posted about reframing consistency: https://substack.com/@herjourneyrising/note/c-292495232?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=396oo6 . I wrote it because so much money advice skips the mindset work underneath — and that's the part that actually changed things for me. Off to read and restack some of yours now, this spotlight idea is such a generous way to build together. Thank you for creating it, Jessica.
Thanks for doing this Jessica, I found this really helpful to introduce me to resonant writers on Substack Writers At Work! My note: Substack's new AI detector got me thinking about something familiar: how long women have been scanned for what's "real": filler, Botox, a suspiciously smooth face. I just finished working on a chapter about how, for me at midlife, aging IS the goal, not the thing I'm caught failing to hide, and so it felt quite connected. https://substack.com/@heidilescanec/note/c-300258716?r=30cusl&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
This is a note I posted yesterday. I posted it because I thought it might encourage others to know that their writing may be touching people even if they don't get comments. Text below and link following.
This morning I received a message from someone I haven’t talked to in years. She told me she is loving my Choosing Herself stories and appreciates their honesty and rawness.
It was so nice because I didn’t even know she was reading.
The people we touch with our writing aren’t just the ones who comment on it on Substack.
https://substack.com/@jodydelichte/note/c-299361371
This is so true Jody! I had a very similar experience recently! I recently went on a hike with a friend I hadn't seen in years, before the pandemic, before all my experiences with navigating family members with dementia solo, and she knew all of these big life things I had no idea she was aware of, from reading me here and shared how much it touched her.
That's really lovely and I imagine it meant a lot.