Notes from the Community, Volume 4
More art, more comments, more links. Settle in and find a few things you'll like. 🛋️
Friends and readers, thanks for being out there! I’m so glad to be writing this newsletter and interacting with lots of people in the community. Here’s our fourth roundup of community notes, featuring reader comments, links, and more.
What We’ve Covered So Far
We’re now nine weeks into the year. So far we’ve covered:
Introduction, It Was Going So Well, Unhelpful Life Advice, From Rejection to Reflection, Overthinking, A Couch Can Make You Happy, “I Wish I’d Made That Change Later,” Why This Now?, “Your Voicemail Isn’t Working,” Your Last 40 Minutes, Imposter Syndrome Isn’t What You Think, Consider the Opposite of What You’re Worried About, Prune Your Calendar, How I Use (and Don’t Use) Adderall to Focus, You Can Be Better than You Are, Is It Always Best to "Do What Makes You Happy"?, A Tale of Two Yoga Teachers, The Reverse Bucket List, The Felt Sense, No One Teaches You How to Breathe, The Trauma of Adult Undiagnosed ADHD, “What matters to me right now?”, “Wellbeing is about capacity”: A Conversation with Emma Gannon, and Lessons From Your Six-Year-Old-Self
I’m looking forward to seeing the list expand as the year progresses.
Popular Comments 📝
Most posts will have the option to comment—and it’s so fun to see readers jumping in!
In this section I’ll highlight a few recent comments that were upvoted the most by the community. (These are edited lightly for brevity, without changing the tone. Read the full comments and many more on each post’s page.)
From
, on the post The Felt Sense:I have always been very intuitive. Even as a child I could sense and feel things. As I got older and started to work mainly restaurant work I realized that I could feel my way through things. Answers to problems rose without thought. I became much less dependent on thinking through things but more reliant on how something felt.
Having said all this I don’t frequently stop and ask myself how do I feel.
And from
:Being able to feel instead of think is the holy grail of mental health! Thanks for this great post!
In IFS (Internal Family Systems) terms, we have parts of us who carry very painful feelings and beliefs, like “I’m not good enough,“ or “I’m not lovable” or “It’s my fault this bad thing happened” etc. Those parts & their erroneous beliefs are so painful to feel, that we exile them from consciousness – hence, they are called exiles. (Read more here)
From
on the post No One Teaches You How to Breathe:There are so many things that we are not taught, yet essential to a good life. I learned most of this by trial and error and am still learning and updating these skills. I am working on my breathing skills, but I forget, especially when I really need it!
And from
:A fun activity to try if you have a wearable device that tracks your heart rate. Take deep breaths into your belly and watch your resting heart rate immediately drop. When we breathe into our belly, it tells our body that we are safe (activates the parasympathetic nervous system to "rest and digest".) Yoga teacher here. 😎 Breathing is amazing.
From
, on the post The Trauma of Adult Undiagnosed ADHD:I wish that I was diagnosed before motherhood. I was EXTREMELY hard on myself because the housework overwhelmed me and I felt behind, shameful and judged myself harshly. When I actually went through and said to myself “what makes a good mum?”, I answered “loving our kids”. Then I asked, “do you love the kids?”, I answered “absolutely, without a doubt”. “Therefore you’re A GOOD MUM!”
From
, on the post “What matters to me right now?”:This is such a good question to ask. It's the one that I asked myself as I started to accept that my depression wasn't something I could bully or shame myself out of, that the only way to deal with it in a way that would last and not actively harm me was to be kind and loving to myself.
When I asked that question, the answer that came up was time to sleep, time in nature and to let go of the todo list completely and accept that, for the time being, I am limited in my capacity to do, and that I need to remember to be.
And from
, on the post Lessons From Your Six-Year-Old Self:Isn’t it interesting (and either exhausting or heartening depending on how you look at it) that we keep returning to these lessons/discoveries throughout our lives? There is no arrival, and once we can accept that, it’s easier to relax into the process.
Art & Other Fun Things
Posts and Stories I Liked
In addition to my regular browsing, every couple of weeks I do a public call for submissions. I’ll share many of the links that people send me in future posts.
Here are a few posts I’ve enjoyed recently:
Kinda Nice by
- A very important distinction between kind and nice!A kind person will help you understand reality as it is, prompt you to reflect, and nudge you to fine-tune your position till you get to a place where your resolution is helpful for you. A nice person will tell you what feels good - and often what you think you want to hear at that time - even if it doesn’t help you move past that situation.
One more thought: it’s harder to be kind than it is to be nice—but kinder is better.
How I Manage My Energy Levels by
Stop Opening Up About Your Mental Health Online by
Re-Noted: Octavia Butler's "Essentials of Success" by
- I recently read several Octavia Butler novels in succession and really liked them. Plus, I love seeing the idea process of other writers
Profile of Courtney Dauwalter - an incredible ultrarunner (note for non-runners: you might like this profile even if you don’t like running)
"I was officially out of the race, but I had this front-row seat for evidence of what it takes. Look at all of these people who are clearly hurting, but they're finding a way. I kept asking myself, do you want to be a person who tries this again and figures it out?" says Dauwalter.
Pursuing Agency and Reinvention in My 30s by
- What a strong first post for a new newsletter. Check out the first part of the story—don’t you want to read more?Let me start with a challenging observation. I'm less successful than I hoped to be by now. The gap is significant. I've always considered myself someone with lots of potential, but over the past couple of years, that identity has been hard to maintain.
Note: if you’re publishing a newsletter, feel free to comment in this post with the name of your publication so that other readers can find you.
Special Thanks to our Paid Subscribers
As promised, most content on A Year of Mental Health will be completely free. Paid subscribers make this possible.
Even though we have very few paywalled posts, many of you have already upgraded your subscriptions—and I am grateful! Thank you. 🙏 🙏 🙏
Whenever someone upgrades, the platform offers subscribers a chance to write a note to the creator, which can be shared with the subscriber’s permission.
Here’s one that I received this week:
"Your free posts have been so supportive of my mental health, while still being realistic about what my life is like right now. I really appreciate your willingness to share and to create a community of others who are going through the same thing. Thank you!"
Again, I want this project to be helpful and valuable to you. We’re just getting started, and it’s going to be a fun year.
The Vault: Tools & Resources for Paid Subscribers
A while back we launched The Vault! This is the first phase of my plan to reward paid subscribers while keeping most posts freely available to everyone. 🔐
Among other items, everyone with access will receive three 5-9 minute audio reflections. You can download or listen to these in the app, whatever is convenient to you. 🎙️
FOCUS: How to Do Only One Thing a Time
OVERWHELMED: Why It Happens and How to Feel Better
PURPOSE: Discovering What Matters Most
I plan to add to The Vault throughout the year, so stay tuned for more.
Scholarships Available Upon Request
What if you want a paid subscription but can’t afford it? It’s all good, we’ve got you covered! 🤝
Specifically, we now have a scholarship plan where you can pay whatever you can afford. These scholarships are covered by our Founding Members—thank you, Founding Members!
If you’d like one, just send a note to team @ chrisguillebeau .com with the word “Scholarship” in the subject line. We’ll help you get whatever option you need.
On the Horizon
That’s it for now, but I’ll be back Monday at 7am Pacific time. Upcoming topics include: time blindness, dyscalculia (difficulty with numbers and math), and more on adult ADHD (since everyone is asking me about it!).
And maybe a surprise guest or two! Like I said, there’s much more to come. 🎁
Thanks for the mention Chris, appreciate a lot of the other work you've mentioned here as well along with your mission!
Thanks for including me in this edition of Notes from the Community! I'm enjoying the way you look at mental health from a different perspective that what is most commonly shared!