#48: it's not that serious
audio recording!! + finding an internal motherly voice that suits the stage of life that you're currently in
Oh no, I did a thing! ^^ Here’s a voice recording of me reading this week’s newsletter per the lovely suggestion of my friend Jacey. If you’d rather listen than read, this one’s for you. But still would encourage you to scroll through for the INCREDIBLE art pairings that my friend and curator Xandra does, as well as for the insertion of an occasional in-text meme. Thanks for reading! Oh, one last note while we are here… I started this as a really small project that I only felt comfortable sharing with close friends and family. While it is still very much that, I now am much freer in who I send this to so if there’s anyone else that you think would benefit from being here, send away! Okay here we go…
I talk a lot about Internal Family Systems for someone who has never actually read anything about it.
For those who don’t know (myself included until very recently), Internal Family Systems is a therapeutic theory that views a person's mental state as composed of various sub-personalities or "parts," each with its own viewpoint, memories, and roles. The point is to explore how these different “parts” interact with each other to protect you and promote personal growth.
The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately is because of how I am interpreting a very fun, joyful inner child part of my personality that reached new heights this summer.
I said at the beginning of the summer that if it wasn’t the best of my life, I wanted a full refund.
The verdict: I will not be accepting a single dollar back.
This summer was incredible. It was months on end of “it’s so damn easy to have a good time.” And once you’ve cracked the code on reaching ‘peak experiences’ with nothing but a picnic blanket, a speaker, and an overly priced canned beverage, then it makes you want to go to the nth degree with those same people. To be outlandish in your planning. To err on the side of overdoing it because you know it’ll be well-received. And this summer was an eclectic mix of it all.
And now it’s fall. And I am craving a bit more structure. And routine. And just change in general. But I haven’t quite figured out what to do with the amount of childlike joy that I’ve unlocked.
I was a bitchy and unrealistic parent to my younger self for a long time. Overly rigid for no reason, strict with things that didn’t matter, tight in my grip out of fear that if I gave my inner child an inch, it would cover my house in black paint.
Things have changed though. I’m not so mean anymore. And I actually know how to have a lot of fun. Even in the little things.
What I am grappling with now is understanding how to meet myself where I am. How to create the structure that I crave, while integrating the spontaneity and joyfulness that I feel lingering at the forefront of my personality after this summer.
I know this new inner maternal voice is much more compassionate than it used to be. She takes things on a case-by-case basis instead of sticking to hard and fast rules.
Yet as I started looking to settle into my vision for the fall, I noticed that I started taking myself too seriously again.
And I started to feel rushed in everything I was doing. Just ‘busy’ in general. Rushing through meals, and showers, and to-do-lists. All because of the champagne problem of having a lot going on right now that I am excited about. But still, this mode of operation was taking me out of present joy and into future-oriented anxiety.
There’s little I deplore more than asking someone “how are you?” to which they respond:
Busy.
It’s the in-person equivalent of thumbs-upping a text message.
And yet, I have been annoying myself lately by feeling endlessly busy, and not being able to stick to my methods for getting beyond it.
And then I had a moment this week in which it all clicked. The type of conversation that you walk away from in the exact same circumstances with which you entered but you feel 30 lbs lighter. I have no better way of describing this feeling than as having taken a massive spiritual shit.
And that moment came when I realized….
I was just taking things too seriously. Which is funny because that was pretty much the topic of my newsletter last week. Sometimes I don’t listen to myself either. Instead of knowing when something is good and appreciating it for what it is, I get swept into other people’s desires and it can momentarily knock me off kilter. It can distract me from my intentions in the first place.
And this is all related to my search for this new inner maternal voice. As young people— and I’d argue women especially— we are deluded into giving ourselves much less credit than we actually deserve for knowing what we want. We tend to know ourselves much better as little kids but that conviction gets beaten out of us either by society or by the internal parental voice that we adopt to try to keep our idiosyncracies and ‘unruly behavior’ at bay.
Then, as we get older and wiser, we tend to outgrow these overly rigid inner parental voices and begin searching for a more balanced guide to help us wade through.
There was a fragility in the structure I used to provide for myself. And I see this fragility everywhere around me. It looks like scaling at all costs. Like bursting at the seams. Like losing sight of why you started something in the first place because you overly fixate on more more more. That’s the dark side of capitalism, baby!
So the quest I am on now is about coming to understand what it looks and feels like to be steadfast in standing up for what I know to be true for me, while still operating from a place of gentle assertiveness and receptivity.
There is space for all of it. For the divinely feminine, divinely masculine, and every other binary-breaking iteration that exists between.
I am reading (and loving) a book right now called Detransition Baby, which is about a man who transitions into a woman and then transitions back. I thought it would be pretty heavy and dark based on the subject matter but have been surprised by the levity, raciness, raunchiness, and candor of how it reads. Highly recommend. And I bring it up here because (without spoiling too much), the main character is faced with the prospect of becoming a father. But he doesn’t feel like a father. Or a mother, for that matter. He just feels like a parent. There is no room for him in a nuclear, monogamous, traditional, Western family model to exist just as a parent without having to put on the facade of masculine fatherhood. And that terrifies him. This leads to a fascinating discussion about what parenthood means, how to be a father or mother, what a “family” looks like, and how best to raise a child in 2023.
I bring up this book because it has dovetailed with my thinking about what my own inner maternal voice sounds like. Perhaps I am struggling with this because the traditional ways that we think about the embodiment of moms and dads are too narrow. Perhaps there is another type of voice that meets you where you are at, that can flex a more divinely masculine muscle when called upon and a more feminine voice at other times.
I don’t know the answer to it all. But I do know that there’s something joyful about challenging conventions of traditional parenthood because even if you arrive back at the same place that you started, you are wiser and better for broadening the scope of possibilities that exist.
If you are reading this, you are also likely a person with an ever-expanding constellation of interests. Someone who wants to continuously put themselves in beginner’s mind and get out of their comfort zone. But also someone who enjoys mastery. Who likes the feeling of being good at things. Who wants to contribute in your own unique and palpable ways. You are complex. You are human. There’s a lot going on up there.
You too, likely have many different parts of your personality and internal narratives that can sometimes sound contradictory. And I’d venture to guess that you too know yourself better than you take credit for.
It’s okay to admit and stand up for what you want.
And at the same time, it’s okay to have not a fucking idea about any of it at all.
To bring this full circle, the most important thing (reminding myself) is to come back to remembering that none of this is that big of a deal. It really isn’t.
Yes, finding a sense of balance in how you talk to yourself, figuring out how to implement a little more structure this fall, standing up for what’s important to you… all of those things are so well and good and noble. But even this whole conversation that we’re having about challenging conventions of parenthood and discovering your maternal inner voice… none of it really matters if we lose sight of our sense of humor in the process.
Even in your own personal growth and development. Or rather especially in your own relationship with yourself, which is arguably, the most important thing in the world. And even then, it’s just not that big of a deal. Or at least, there is little value to be found in taking it all so seriously.
Yes, it can be challenging to sit with yourself. To wake up to the patterns that are at the core of your being. But it’s also not that serious. It can be a lighthearted pursuit if you so choose.
Because I can tell you this. What I was doing this past week was looking for my maternal voice to tell my inner child that the fun is up and it’s time to read in bed you little bitch. That you need to rest and you’re taking on too much. And honestly, that may all be true.
But what’s also true is that there’s no part of me that wants to listen to that voice. Because it’s not reflective of who I am. I am someone who takes life extraordinarily seriously. For example, I am writing this newsletter to you as a pet passion project. But I also am at my very best when I remember to take the piss out of things. Because it allows me to set my ego aside and remember why I am spending my time doing things that I set out to do for enjoyment's sake (and the best for all involved) in the first place.
Really, none of this is that big of a deal. And when you can approach life with a mindset of levity, it actually makes anything you want to do so much more effective.
Shit! I might just read in bed with a book this whole weekend :)
Unless Allie and I go out to lunch again and last min swap out our cappuccino orders for espresso martinis. That was fun and would be fun again too.
This also isn’t to dismiss the things that are serious in life. You never know what is on the other side of a phone call. Sometimes we wake up in the morning to unknowingly have the best day of our life or the worst day. There are things far outside of our control. But what is within our control is our ability to have a sense of humor so that we can quickly rightsize the importance of things when they arise. Most of the stuff that we are concerning ourselves with right now probably is not as deep as we’re making it out to be.
Do something fun and lighthearted today. Go on a walk and listen to stand up. Write someone an unexpected letter.
Call your mother or someone who provides you with a feeling of maternal warmth. Or paternal warmth. Or just warmth in general.
Our own parents help us find our voices either by setting an example for what we want to emulate or the very opposite of that. Regardless, an unexpected phone call to someone you love— and hopefully someone with a good sense of humor— will likely make both of your days.
I can think of no better way to end this than with the words of David Whyte that I heard on
’s podcast with Lauren Ducrey the other day.You are more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way
Than any of the gilded roofs you could find upon your destination
-David Whyte
That’s all for today! Catch you here next week.
From my bitchy inner mom voice to yours,
Char
**And an always thank you to my brilliant curator and friend, Xandra Beverlin, for tying this whole newsletter together with her recommendations of SiiGii this week! Always blown away by the pieces that she pulls.
Curator’s notes:
This was at Unfashionable - very clear taps into that frustration of with the heteronormative world
This was at Unfashionable - very clear taps into that frustration of with the heteronormative world
-Xandra
Deeply grateful that we get to do this together!
Char’s Web Song of the Week
All past issues of Char’s Web are available for reading here. A few samples below…
#1: A first of many.
baby covered in black paint reminds me of baby covered in peanut butter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZLs7BHhduA best moment is at 0:35 when the mom asks "Does it feel good?"
Thank you for the podcast shout-out, Charlotte!