Life on Purpose. Or, at the very least, a newsletter with one.
On evolving this sacred space to better serve us through our many seasons
Hello Beautiful Human,
I missed you! You all fill me to the brim and during my break, as I walked the beaches of Florida collecting fossilized shark teeth each day, I thought a lot about this community and how much you mean to me.
The privilege of your presence here is never lost on me.
As someone who was originally destined to live in a long-term psychiatric ward and rarely felt seen or heard in my truth for the first three decades of my life
AND
As a recovering marketing executive who is acutely aware of how EVERYONE! – EVERYWHERE! –ALL THE TIME! – URGENTLY! demands your attention and wants you to join their email list RIGHT NOW or else (holy dysregulation and just, oof),
I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to show up in your inbox.
This year, to better serve you and my own well-being, I am evolving the way I do so.
This will manifest in a newsletter format aimed to better honor the limited time, energy, and attention we all have in this frenetic digital world. Taking a break from social media and my inbox these past two weeks reminded me of how deeply important it is to be intentional with time and focus. It also distilled my understanding of how unbelievably dysregulating and exhausting the online ecosystem is. A sticky web of advertisements, it is a perpetual onslaught of messages telling us that we “must'' grow, hustle, consume, shrink, transform, and optimize ourselves to become “good enough.”
But that couldn't be further from the truth. Our worth is inherent.
We are always good enough, exactly as we are.
So this year, in this newsletter, I aim to honor that truth with a more mindful, grateful, and intentional approach. From here on out, I will send out this newsletter every Wednesday at 12 pm EST, with 3 mission-driven sections: Nourish, Normalize, and Nerdy Nudge. This new approach reflects how I navigate my own recovery – with a multi-faceted approach to the many seasons I live through – those of complete and utter exhaustion and heartbreak, those of yearning and isolation, and those where I muster the courage to bravely do the immense work of living with serious mental illness.
The three sections for future weekly Wednesday newsletters are as follows:
1. Nourish
Three joyful and mindful – put a smile on your face and oxygen back in your lungs - tidbits from my life and the world.
This section has one goal and one goal alone – to offer a momentary shelter from the storm of the world and our minds.
My hope is that this section will remind us that the little things are the big things and that what is right in front of us, contrary to the extravagant lives portrayed in the media landscape, is quite extraordinary.
This might include but is not limited to: an unexpected thing that stopped me in my tracks, the happiest Waffy-Tug moment of the week, a poem that I love, a question that took me from my mind for a moment, a photograph that made me feel something, a passage that touched me, a connection that nourished me, a fact that fascinated me, and books, podcast episodes, tv shows, and/or movies worth engaging with.
2. Normalize:
Three anonymous solidarity stories from our community that normalize the lived experience of mental illness and humanity, in general.
This section honors the truth that it is hard to be human and the only way to make it any better is to find community and solidarity along the way.
A solidarity story is a story of any kind about a lived truth. It can be a story of heartbreak, joy, fury, peace, exhaustion, resilience, pain or bliss. A solidarity story can be about anything - truly.
There is no wrong way to write a solidarity story just as there is no wrong way to be human.
3. Nerdy Nudge:
Mood follows action. It is the greatest truth of recovery. So, each week I will share a science-backed attainable action item that will help you heal and build towards the life you want.
This section is where I will share ‘FEARS’ Camp – Face Everything and Rise Strategically Camp for the first few months of 2024.
For those unfamiliar, FEARS Camp is a neuroscience-backed habit-stacking protocol that harnesses neuroplasticity, nervous system regulation, and tenants of exposure therapy to grow you through and beyond your own discomfort.
This is the protocol that helped me recover from agoraphobia, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and OCD. It is also the framework I apply daily to PTSD and ADHD.
In this section, I will also share links to the science that accredits each action item.
My hope is this new format will offer a mindful and intentional pause in the middle of the week for all of us.
I also hope that it will empower your understanding of your own agency. This framework is all about taking what you need and leaving the rest.
Mental illness is a manipulative demon and it is cunning in its distortions. More often than not, it tricks us into thinking that we must do as others do and endlessly comply and people please to be treated as human beings. But that could not be further from the truth. As I said at the beginning — a truth I will remind you of often:
Our worth is innate. And we deserve to choose ourselves just as others do.
Actually, we must choose ourselves. For choosing ourselves is how we recover.
So, in a bit of a sneaky active learning stunt, this format also empowers your own neuroplasticity to get in the habit of choosing yourself. My hope is that each week, you open the email and ask yourself – What do you I need right now? And then you take it.
Yes. You take it and honor yourself because that is exactly what you deserve and exactly what I want for you.
Paid subscribers – for which I am infinitely grateful and still do not have the adequate words to express said gratitude – will continue to receive:
1. The Patient is In Podcast
This Podcast is aimed to normalize serious mental illness through the lens of those affected. In each episode, I interview a family member or friends about their lived experience of supporting me through my serious mental illness. Each episode dives into what worked, what didn’t, and how they navigated their own lives while I was disabled, psychotic, and suicidal.
If you are new to my story, the most recent episode with my Dad where we discuss parenting a child with serious mental illness is a great place to start.
If you are interested in learning how to support someone living with serious mental illness, the episode with my younger sister Josie speaks to this quite well.
At a minimum, one new episode is released a month.
2. Curiosity with Kate
This is a short-form podcast format where I answer your questions about navigating life with serious mental illness. Each episode is 5-10 minutes in length and at a minimum, I release one episode a month. If you have a question you would like answered, include it in an email to hi@katespeer.com.
3. Podcast Transcriptions/Guides
To better support all learning styles, this is a new addition for 2024. There will be a transcription of each podcast made available so you can read the podcast conversations if you are interested and accompanying guides that highlight key takeaways and answers to your questions.
4. The Final Chapters of my inaugural memoir, Maura + Me
To preserve my own well-being, the remaining chapters will be delivered at whatever cadence my mental health allows. Last year, I wrote 28 chapters and shared them weekly with you all in installments. Though I am so proud that I was able to tackle almost my entire book in that manner, that cadence is no longer sustainable so I appreciate your patience as I find a pace that is a bit more manageable. If you are interested in reading the earlier chapters, you can find all of them here.
A paid subscription costs $6 a month ($1.50 a week) or $60 a year ($1.15 a week) but if that is untenable, I will absolutely add you free of charge.
I am not here to add more barriers of access to the already gatekept world of mental illness and mental healthcare whatsoever. I am here to do the opposite so please do not think twice about it and send an email to hi@katespeer.com with the words ‘subscribe’ in the subject line. Please be sure to put ‘subscribe’ in the subject line so I don’t miss it!
Today, to ease us into the new format, I thought I’d kick it off with my favorite poem, some solidarity stories, and a little Nourish section. So, without further ado,
Wild Geese
By Mary Oliver
~
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
If you would like to submit a solidarity story of your own, you can do so here.
Picture of the week:
Newly discovered TV Show that I am loving – Offspring on Hulu. It is an Australian TV show about the life of an Ob-Gyn Doctor as she navigates anxiety, family and all the romance. It is equal parts romcom, family chaos, and anxiety humor. It has been a joy to watch thus far and I’m already heading into season 3. Thank goodness there are seven!
Moment that stopped me in my tracks — I ducked into our local general store on Tuesday night to grab some last-minute ice cream to top Dave’s birthday cake and there, in the second aisle, I saw an elderly couple scanning the condiments as they laughed raucously. I marveled at their uninhibited joy at such a simple task for a moment or two before darting off. When I left the store a few minutes later, ice cream in tow, I glanced back and saw them hugging each other right there in front of all the ketchups. Pure love. May we all remember to hug our people more often this weekend.
Now, before I share the final item — Question of the week — I want to preface it by sharing the reason behind doing so. Whenever I am in a really dark headspace, I google “weird questions to ask people.” I usually find one I like in a matter of seconds and thereafter, I spend a few minutes laboring over my answer. It has come to be a silly game I play often, especially when I’m navigating hard seasons. It offers a beautiful respite from my endless racing thoughts and usually enough of a distraction to get me moving onto something else.
So, each week from here on out, I’ll share one of my questions, and should you feel inclined (and I hope you do because I really want to get to know you better!), we can all share our answers in the comment section.
Question of the week
If you could delegate one task that you have to do regularly to an imaginary house elf that will do it for you for free, what would it be and why?
And with that, I’m off to think about whether I would choose laundry or dishes or personal hygiene. Even the thought of never doing one of those again excites me to no end. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with!
Wishing you a weekend that honors you, wherever you are at.
And even though I do not know you and I certainly do not presume to know your fight, I see you. I love you. And I wholeheartedly believe in us both.
Kindly,
Kate
I love the new format, Kate!! 💜 And, cool shark’s tooth! To answer the question, my magical house elf would help by putting things back where they belong (cleaning up the clutter). We have multiple people with ADHD living here, and we end up with stuff everywhere just by living life. 😅
I am So excited about the new format! Can’t wait to keep reading them. I think my elf would clean. Not clutter away but like the deep cleaning I never seem to be able to muster up doing after work and family time is done.