Heart centered work

Hi readers,

I'm starting a new thing called "Sunday Notes." Here's the story:

I was lying in bed on Friday morning (yes, actual morning . . . like 9 am . . . it was terrible to be awake so early), and feeling a lot of anxiety. I was doom-googling (that's definitely a thing, right?) stuff like "how to create a quality product" and "how to earn a living while you're writing your first book." A bunch of random, anxiety-ridden bullshit.

This all started when I was reading Rachel Cargle's memoir, A Renaissance of Our Own. In it, she talks about how her deep love for self-taught academic research led to her building her own career out of it.

My anxiety made me feel incredibly guilty. I'm an avid reader, but I hate reading academic papers to "prove what I know" and I'm extremely picky with non-fiction. On top of that, I don't retain information very well.

My thoughts started swirling. They accused me of wasting time reading if I wasn't going to put that information to work. Like how I've read so many finance books and entrepreneur blogs that I should have a thriving business right now, so why don't I??? I blamed myself for not having a deep obsessive interest in something that I could build a business around (selling information = a business), like what's the point of being autistic if I'm not going to obsess over something to the point of being an expert on it???

I've wanted to be a creative entrepreneur most of my life, and I've just felt despair at how easily other people seem to be able to come up with products and services.

Thoughts swirled, accusations flowed, google was scrolled.

And then, WHOOSH. I returned to my heart center. A place of peace, confidence, and authenticity. In this place, I reframed the question. Instead of "products" and "clients" and other words that make me want to hurl, I instead asked, "What do I know? And how can I help?"

What I know is that I'm not a fact-driven person, but a heart-driven person. And both are important in the world.

I tell myself I don't know anything, until I see random questions on the internet like "how can i use journaling to help me make a change in my life?" or "how do i learn to trust my intuition?" Actual questions I've seen online, that made me realize I'm so close to what I know that I feel like I don't know anything at all. But I know the answers to these questions. I know how to return to my heart center. I know how to align with what feels right and reject what feels wrong for my life. I know how to trust myself.

The idea for this "new" newsletter kind of formulated all at once. I DO know things! I CAN help people! And I have breakthroughs every single week thanks to my journaling, on topics like authenticity, writing, self-worth, manifestation vibes, healing, following my dreams and my heart. I journal three large spiral bound pages a day, not some five minute journal prompt bullshit, but really digging into my brain and my heart. And it pays off.

And it's time to do something with these words.

So I'm gonna mail out these journaling vibes on Sundays. I know I'll be more consistent with these than with my essays, because they'll be shorter and more in the present and I'll have most of the content already written in my journal. I'm still continuing my essays, but those will be 1-2 times a month, and I'll probably send them out in the middle of the week. At max, 6 emails a month from me. Is that cool?

I thought I would call these weekly emails "Sunday Notes."

Kind of a tongue-in-cheek combination of being an ex-Christian who hasn't gone to church in six years, but also as someone who still follows God, and feels that it was only after religion left the scene that I had an actual relationship with God.

I pretty much view my intuition, my journaling breakthroughs, following my heart, and following God all as the same thing. Which might send me to hell. But it's also very freeing. Because I tried being atheist for like two minutes back when I was deconstructing, and I was like "fucking ew, there has to be a better way to live life than just religious or atheist." And there was a way.

So I may not take actual Sunday notes in church anymore, but I have a feeling that these Sunday Notes might actually be helpful and worth reading? (OoOoOoh, sick burn @ the church!)

Anyway, I'm pretty stoked for my cringy self-help era.

Thanks for reading!
Ally

PS: I'm going to have these newsletters archived on my website by topic, so they can eventually turn into a resource library. Here's the link to this one if you'd rather read it online.