3AM Thoughts
-
What If We Turned Our Overthinking Into Little Characters Instead of Fighting It?
On anxiety, creative self-care, and why sometimes a silly little doodle can help us understand the thoughts running around in our heads. Have you ever been overthinking so much that your brain feels like it’s hosting an entire conversation without your permission? Because, same. One thought is worrying about something that might happen tomorrow. Another is reminding you about something embarrassing you did five years ago. Another is questioning whether you’re doing enough with your life. And another has already imagined approximately 47 different worst-case scenarios that haven’t even happened yet. Meanwhile, you’re just trying to enjoy a peaceful afternoon. Excuse me, brain? Can we please have five minutes of…
-
Can Artists Succeed Without Social Media? I’m Finding Out
An artist’s thoughts on Instagram, burnout, algorithms, and learning to create without the pressure to constantly be seen. Social media can be a wonderful thing for artists. It can help us build communities, connect with other creatives, share our work, find customers, and turn something we love into an actual business. But it can also be absolutely exhausting. Especially when you’re a small artist trying to build something meaningful while competing with algorithms, trends, influencers, and thousands of other creators who are all trying to be seen. And lately, I’ve been asking myself a question: Can artists still find success in the digital age without relying on social media? I…
-
Am I a Night Owl, or Does My Brain Just Come Alive at Night?
3 AM Thoughts From a Millennial Living With Anxiety, Schizophrenia, and a Very Creative Mind There’s something about nighttime that makes my brain come alive. During the day? I’m exhausted. Sometimes I struggle to find motivation. I overthink everything, worry about things that haven’t even happened, and feel like my brain is running a thousand different tabs at once. But then nighttime arrives. Suddenly, I want to write. I want to create art. I want to redesign my website, work on my business, brainstorm new projects, or start something completely random at 11 PM. And I’m sitting there thinking… Where was this motivation six hours ago?! Seriously, brain. We need…
-
I Was Raised to Push Through Everything. Now I’m Learning That I Need to Pause.
On generational expectations, mental exhaustion, burnout, and realizing that what helped previous generations survive doesn’t always help us heal. Lately, I’ve been thinking about something that’s been weighing on me. What happens when the advice you grew up hearing no longer works for the person you’ve become? You know the advice. Just keep going. Push through it. Don’t think about it so much. You’ll be fine. Everyone gets tired. That’s just life. I grew up around that kind of mindset. And honestly, I understand where it comes from. Our parents and grandparents lived through their own challenges. They had responsibilities. Bills. Families. Jobs. And situations where slowing down might not…
-
I Believe in Letting People Be Themselves, So Why Am I Still Unlearning How I Was Raised?
AM Thoughts | Faith, Diversity, Acceptance, and the Complicated Process of Unlearning There’s something I’ve been thinking about lately, and honestly, I don’t know if I’m going to explain it perfectly. But that’s kind of the point of this Substack, isn’t it? Having conversations about things we’re still figuring out, even when those conversations are uncomfortable, complicated, or difficult to put into words. I consider myself a fairly open-minded person. I believe people deserve kindness, respect, understanding, and the freedom to live their own lives. I believe people should be able to love who they love, express themselves, and discover who they truly are. But here’s where things get complicated…
-
We’re Human. We’re Not Supposed to Be Perfect. But We Could Be Kinder.
Maybe the world doesn’t need more perfect people. Maybe it just needs more people willing to treat each other with kindness. I’ve been thinking about something lately. When did we start expecting everyone to be perfect? Perfect lives. Perfect appearances. Perfect careers. Perfect relationships. Perfect opinions. Perfect responses. It’s exhausting. We’re human beings. We’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to have bad days. We’re going to say things we wish we hadn’t. We’re going to misunderstand people, make questionable decisions, struggle with our emotions, and occasionally have absolutely no idea what we’re doing. And you know what? That’s part of being human. But there’s something else I’ve been thinking…
-
The Lonely Life of an Introverted Artist Who Struggles With Mental Health
We love our solitude, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get lonely. Sometimes, we just want someone who understands. There’s something people don’t always understand about being an introverted artist. Yes, we enjoy being alone. But yes, it gets lonely. Very lonely. We can spend hours sitting in our rooms, tucked away in coffee shops, listening to our favorite music, creating something meaningful, or getting lost in our own little worlds. And honestly? Most of the time, we love it. There’s something comforting about being alone with your thoughts, your creativity, and a good playlist. But here’s the part people don’t always see. Sometimes, behind all that creativity, there’s someone…
-
We Learned the Pythagorean Theorem, But Nobody Taught Us How to Adult
The 90s Kid Guide to Things School Never Prepared Us For Somewhere in my brain, taking up valuable storage space, is this: a² + b² = c². The Pythagorean theorem. I learned it in school, memorized it for a test, and somehow still remember it all these years later. Have I used it since graduating? Not that I can remember. But you know what I have needed? How to understand health insurance. How to build credit. How to file taxes without questioning my entire existence. How to budget when everything seems to cost approximately a million dollars. And how to be a functioning adult when I’m basically a permanently exhausted…
-
Maybe This Is My Season of Undoing, Not Doing More
Because apparently, even resting feels like something I need to accomplish. I’ve spent so much of my life trying to keep up. Keep up with work.Keep up with responsibilities.Keep up with my creative projects.Keep up with everyone else’s expectations. And somewhere along the way, I think I forgot how to just… exist. Without feeling guilty about it. I recently came across the idea of a season of undoing, inspired by something Allison Lyons shared, and it really stuck with me. Because what if this chapter of my life isn’t about doing more? What if it’s about unlearning everything that convinced me I wasn’t doing enough in the first place? The World…
-
Being an Adult Is Basically Being a Permanently Exhausted Pigeon
We grew up watching Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide. Too bad nobody made an adulthood version. Remember when we were kids in the 90s and thought adults had everything figured out? They knew how to pay bills, make appointments, cook dinner, manage money, and somehow keep an entire household functioning. I genuinely thought that when I became an adult, all this knowledge would just magically appear in my brain. Like, congratulations! You’re 18! Here’s your official adulthood handbook. Spoiler alert: THERE IS NO HANDBOOK. I’m now 30, and I’ve come to the conclusion that adulthood is basically being a permanently exhausted pigeon. Just wandering around, trying to survive, occasionally finding…