Morning, Dana! I only started using Substack about a month ago, and today I finally made my first post. I’m not really a poet, so I can’t write anything as beautiful as many people here. But reading your piece made me feel something important. Like you said, maybe the most important thing is not getting carried away by the numbers or the platform, but just continuing to create based on our own inner sense of what feels right.
Keiichiro, thank you for such a warm and honest comment. I’m really glad the text reached you in this way.
In art therapy, the act of creating itself is already seen as a meaningful and healing process. If we come to Substack simply to create and share something that feels true to us, I believe that is already enough.
Numbers and comparisons can easily suffocate the freedom of creating — at least that has been my experience. I hope you keep writing in your own way without measuring yourself against others.
Even if you sometimes feel self-critical about what you create, it doesn’t mean that what you share can not be meaningful or beautiful for someone else.😊✨️
So true. I just enjoy having a place to put my creative work without seeking validity. When someone enjoys something I put out it’s like a cherry on top for me.
Thank you for such a warm and light perspective.😊🍒
About ten years ago, I found it difficult to create without having a specific “project” or purpose. But over time I started making small experiments. For example, when I felt sad, instead of baking a regular loaf of bread, I would make a decorative bread. The act of creating and focusing on it would almost always make me feel better.
I try to carry that same perspective into writing as well – although there the ego and perfectionism tend to be much louder.
I like the idea of doing something a little extra (like the decorative bread) versus just the regular. It’s an interesting perspective. I’ve never thought of doing that. Actually, as I wrote that I just realized that in a way, I do. When I’m sad, I put in extra effort to look good. Does that count? Or is that vanity?
Reading your comment, I found myself thinking that the effort to look good you mentioned might also carry a bit of creativity. Choosing colors, scents, or small details can become a small form of expression. And when we’re feeling sad, it feels quite natural to look for little ways to lift our spirits, especially if we enjoy aesthetics.
Hi Dana, thank you so much for such a kind and thoughtful message.I really loved what you said about creating itself being meaningful. That idea actually made me feel a lot more relaxed. I’ll keep writing in my own way from now on. Really appreciate your encouragement.
Thank you for this beautiful exchange. Talking with you, I also remind myself that creativity has value in itself.
Sometimes it feels as if, in today’s public world, only what brings material gain or attention really counts. But in creating, what matters first is staying in contact with ourselves.
And when it comes to your writing – I really appreciate the way you approach people. Your comments often feel like small creative pieces in their own way.
Dear Dana, thank you for your beautiful essay. I smiled reading your musings on historical writers, took a moment to imagine the Bronte sisters gazing at feedback on X on their laptops!
I've been feeling in a similar way and took a break last week, I noticed that I felt calmer for it. The point you raise about urgency as a trauma response is so important, thank you. It just occurred to me also that when we have a conversation in real life, a lot of signalling is non verbal. Here on Substack, none of that is present which can also be stressful, especially for us HSPs.
I always look forward to your posts for their measured, thoughtful and grounded content. Sending you my love dear hydrangea .
Dear Suzanne, thank you. You always seem to pick up on the details that meant a lot to me while writing.
And your image of the Brontë sisters looking at feedback on X really made me smile.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how writers like Dickens, Kafka, or Tolstoy dealt with the questions of creating and publishing, each in their own way. The hesitation, the pressure, the ambivalence toward one’s own work – it’s interesting to think about those parallels between then and now.
And I’m really glad you mentioned the absence of all those non-verbal signals in online conversations. I completely agree that it affects how things are received and can be quite tiring, especially for sensitive people.
Thank you again for this lovely exchange. Sending warm greetings to you.🪴✨️
Such an important message! I came here to write, to read, to find and build community that shares similar deep thinking. That doesn’t mean we should burn out on the way there, racing towards some finish line when intention is the better direction. Finding it more and more important, even in our digital presence, to always move with authenticity, whatever that may look like.
Thank you for these meaningful words. You touched on the core of why I wrote this essay.
When I read your bio, I could feel that original impulse to share the inner colors of your world and connect with others through them. It’s beautifully written.
Thank you for the raw honesty of this post. I've had similar feelings lately myself (also relatively new to Substack). I've been off all social media for over 5 years and coming onto Substack as a way to explore and share my writing felt safe in a way. But that need to perform crept back in — and continues to. I so appreciate you sharing your experience and how you've honored yourself in your journey. I feel empowered now to ask these harder inner questions in my own journey.
The truth is that I’m still figuring all of this out myself.
That’s why messages like yours mean so much to me. They remind me that I’m not alone in this sense of confusion and overwhelm, and they give me hope that I may be on the right path.
Being here should feel like a space for expression, not another pressure in life. Easier said than done, I know — but at least we are asking the questions and trying to find the ways that work best for us. ♡
I agree wholeheartedly. I joined Substack as a way to write and share with others and have people other than myself read what I write and perhaps find value and provide feedback. I wanted to get comfortable with being seen in this way, as my writing tends to come from a very vulnerable, sometimes painful part of me. I can't post every day, nor do I want to, and I find that already some of the people I follow are getting lost in my feed. I really do want critique, not just kudos for what I write. Did it make you think? Did you find yourself responding in a specific way? That's what I want to know. Are you in this with me? I don't always see that happening, though, and it's made me wonder too, about the purpose of posting here. I don't care about reaching tons of subscribers. I want to reach the few who might want to consistently read and interact with my thoughts.
Thank you for every word. I resonate with everything you wrote.
Wanting a genuine exchange rather than a kind of performance – I understand that completely. And what you mentioned about writing from a painful place is, I think, the most sensitive part of being on a large platform like this. It’s a very particular kind of exposure, one that carries a lot of vulnerability.
When there is little feedback, or when it stays on the surface, it can truly be discouraging.
I’ve also spent a long time wondering how to define the kind of connection I’m hoping for here. And your words captured it perfectly: “I don't care about reaching tons of subscribers. I want to reach the few who might want to consistently read and interact with my thoughts.”
Not popularity, but mutual respect. Not being seen by everyone, but by those who truly understand.
I appreciate you bringing up this topic. I have found myself overwhelmed by the subscriber chats, the articles I end up saving to read later when I have time, the true desire to meaningfully interact but simply leaving a like.... there's one person on here who interacts so meaningfully with everything he reads --https://substack.com/@kechan and I am truly in awe of that.
Thank you for mentioning the chats, the saved essays, and that feeling of wanting to respond more thoughtfully. Those things trouble me too.
But I often remind myself that even in real life I wouldn’t be able to have deep conversations with five people in one day – let alone ten. As beautiful as that idea may sound, it goes beyond what many of us can realistically hold.
Kechan truly sounds remarkable, and I’m glad you mentioned him. But I also think it’s important that we respect our capacity and show up in the way we genuinely can – and trust that the right conversations will grow from there.
Those are all valid wonders! As you mentioned in your piece, I also feel drained by the after-thought of publishing, and the urgency of our viral world.
There have been many times that I have thought, "I don't care to be viral, but I do care to be valued."
Your words added value to my day. Thank you again!
I feel like you described exactly what I couldn’t quite put into words.
I am exactly 3 months in to posting regularly on Substack, and I do have a strange exhaustion taking over me, and I think it is directly from being a hyper sensitive person and an introvert. And once again, even if I’m not asking people to pay for it, I am still putting my writing on a schedule, regardless of where my nervous system is at, regardless of where my energy levels are I am making the consistency the key. I related deeply to everything you expressed here.
I’ve never written a book before, and the idea was to build an audience for it because my editor told me that I would need a large social media following to get any sort of publisher to even consider me.
But I’ve had a lot of of the same questions inside, like could I take that level of visibility do I even want it? Like I said in my last comment on your quote from this article, I feel like less is more and if I can show up at a frequency that feels in alignment with my nervous system, regardless of the numbers that feels like a more aligned way to live, even if I don’t end up making a career out of this.
Your insights were immensely helpful thank you so much for sharing this article. 🙏💓
Olivia, thank you for such a thoughtful comment. It really adds an important, lived dimension to this whole question.
My impression is that people with an artistic sensibility often find it especially challenging to navigate a world that seems to offer endless possibilities, yet is also full of paths that lead us away from ourselves.
Continuing on that path without losing yourself along the way requires a lot of strength.
But as you wrote so beautifully in your note — a line I really loved:
“Balancing the body can feel like walking on a tightrope, in a culture designed to disconnect you from your innate wisdom. It takes skill to drown out the noise and listen.”
Yes, thank you so much for writing it! It gave a written dimension to my lived experience.
I get the same impression with creative, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed, and it’s very easy to lose yourself. I think that goes hand-in-hand with also being sensitive.
And yes, I suppose I was saying the same thing in my note. Thank you for quoting that and reading that I appreciate you! ❤️
I just started Substack a few weeks ago. Last night, I felt a tug of discernment pulling at my heart. As a highly sensitive person/creative myself, something felt "off."
It felt like my intuition telling me, "Yes, you're correct. This platform is still similar to the others. Best to lead with your heart."
I was especially struck by your thought that this platform may not be so different from the others. I often wonder whether this dynamic comes from the architecture of these spaces, or simply from human psychology and our tendency to respond to rankings, numbers, and rewarded behaviour.
And the way you mentioned creativity and leading with the heart felt very true to me.
your text encouraged me to finally say something I’ve been thinking about for a long time and the reason why I don’t participate in online life. It seems to me that social media activates the most primitive impulses in us. Self-promotion and the chase for numbers are tendencies we all have; the difference, it seems to me, is that for some people it’s nourishment, while for others it’s exhausting—just as you said.
Many of these platforms were created with the idea of being a medium for connecting people around some purpose, but they have turned into streams of posts full of self-praise. Maybe I’m looking at humanity through a negative lens, but it often feels like whatever we touch eventually turns into a toxic environment.
What you wrote — that self-promotion and the chase for numbers nourish some people while exhausting others — really made me think. It’s an interesting polarity.
I also feel that exchanges like the one we are having here are the reason we feel such disappointment when we see the platform dominated by other tendencies.
It seems to me that the frustration we feel carries a lot of sadness in it — the sense that things are the way they are — and that we have very little power to change them.
Perhaps the most we can do is try to remain faithful to our own values and needs — even if that means staying outsiders.
Thank you so much for your reply—your texts are healing for me.
You always offer an empowering conclusion that doesn’t emphasize differences or divisions, but instead finds a way for us to live in parallel while, at the same time, forgiving ourselves for not fitting in.
Wow, talk about seeing yourself in the mirror. The last couple of days I have been having the same conversations in my circle of friends. Thank you for coming out here and saying this. When I get over 50 emails daily, no offense but I didn't know I was signing up for that when I clicked subscribe or follow, I can't keep up. I try to read them all being fully present with each of them and I just can't do it. It's too much. I had to change how I am here too. I so appreciate it because I really am an introvert!
Thank you for sharing this, Jay. I know you’ve been very present and supportive here, and I appreciate that. I’m glad you’re also trying to find a more sustainable way to be here — I think many of us need that to become the new normal.
Great deep dive into this topic . I really appreciated when you took responsibility for how you received and responded to all that Substack entails .
The key is remembering that it is still a social platform and many are here to boost egos , reach goals of certain numbers and to market themselves. All good, all fair . But it is our own responsibility to stay true to why we may be here. For me it’s a place to share what my whole being creates and share with people that may appreciate, learn , offer solace and grow from it . In real life most don’t understand why or what we write.
But we are human , flawed yet fabulous and we can get lost in the veil of attention.
Ultimately we have to remember who we are and why we write .
Thank you for such insightful reflections. I truly enjoyed reading every part of your comment.
It meant a lot to me that you mentioned responsibility. Even with the kinds of dynamics you described, we still carry the responsibility to care for our own creative core – to protect it, nourish it, and express it in our own way.
As you beautifully said, many of us write because we have to. And that remains our guiding purpose.
Morning, Dana! I only started using Substack about a month ago, and today I finally made my first post. I’m not really a poet, so I can’t write anything as beautiful as many people here. But reading your piece made me feel something important. Like you said, maybe the most important thing is not getting carried away by the numbers or the platform, but just continuing to create based on our own inner sense of what feels right.
Keiichiro, thank you for such a warm and honest comment. I’m really glad the text reached you in this way.
In art therapy, the act of creating itself is already seen as a meaningful and healing process. If we come to Substack simply to create and share something that feels true to us, I believe that is already enough.
Numbers and comparisons can easily suffocate the freedom of creating — at least that has been my experience. I hope you keep writing in your own way without measuring yourself against others.
Even if you sometimes feel self-critical about what you create, it doesn’t mean that what you share can not be meaningful or beautiful for someone else.😊✨️
So true. I just enjoy having a place to put my creative work without seeking validity. When someone enjoys something I put out it’s like a cherry on top for me.
Thank you for such a warm and light perspective.😊🍒
About ten years ago, I found it difficult to create without having a specific “project” or purpose. But over time I started making small experiments. For example, when I felt sad, instead of baking a regular loaf of bread, I would make a decorative bread. The act of creating and focusing on it would almost always make me feel better.
I try to carry that same perspective into writing as well – although there the ego and perfectionism tend to be much louder.
You’re welcome!!
I like the idea of doing something a little extra (like the decorative bread) versus just the regular. It’s an interesting perspective. I’ve never thought of doing that. Actually, as I wrote that I just realized that in a way, I do. When I’m sad, I put in extra effort to look good. Does that count? Or is that vanity?
Reading your comment, I found myself thinking that the effort to look good you mentioned might also carry a bit of creativity. Choosing colors, scents, or small details can become a small form of expression. And when we’re feeling sad, it feels quite natural to look for little ways to lift our spirits, especially if we enjoy aesthetics.
Spot on.
Hi Dana, thank you so much for such a kind and thoughtful message.I really loved what you said about creating itself being meaningful. That idea actually made me feel a lot more relaxed. I’ll keep writing in my own way from now on. Really appreciate your encouragement.
Thank you for this beautiful exchange. Talking with you, I also remind myself that creativity has value in itself.
Sometimes it feels as if, in today’s public world, only what brings material gain or attention really counts. But in creating, what matters first is staying in contact with ourselves.
And when it comes to your writing – I really appreciate the way you approach people. Your comments often feel like small creative pieces in their own way.
Dear Dana, thank you for your beautiful essay. I smiled reading your musings on historical writers, took a moment to imagine the Bronte sisters gazing at feedback on X on their laptops!
I've been feeling in a similar way and took a break last week, I noticed that I felt calmer for it. The point you raise about urgency as a trauma response is so important, thank you. It just occurred to me also that when we have a conversation in real life, a lot of signalling is non verbal. Here on Substack, none of that is present which can also be stressful, especially for us HSPs.
I always look forward to your posts for their measured, thoughtful and grounded content. Sending you my love dear hydrangea .
Dear Suzanne, thank you. You always seem to pick up on the details that meant a lot to me while writing.
And your image of the Brontë sisters looking at feedback on X really made me smile.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how writers like Dickens, Kafka, or Tolstoy dealt with the questions of creating and publishing, each in their own way. The hesitation, the pressure, the ambivalence toward one’s own work – it’s interesting to think about those parallels between then and now.
And I’m really glad you mentioned the absence of all those non-verbal signals in online conversations. I completely agree that it affects how things are received and can be quite tiring, especially for sensitive people.
Thank you again for this lovely exchange. Sending warm greetings to you.🪴✨️
Such an important message! I came here to write, to read, to find and build community that shares similar deep thinking. That doesn’t mean we should burn out on the way there, racing towards some finish line when intention is the better direction. Finding it more and more important, even in our digital presence, to always move with authenticity, whatever that may look like.
Thank you for these meaningful words. You touched on the core of why I wrote this essay.
When I read your bio, I could feel that original impulse to share the inner colors of your world and connect with others through them. It’s beautifully written.
Thank you for the raw honesty of this post. I've had similar feelings lately myself (also relatively new to Substack). I've been off all social media for over 5 years and coming onto Substack as a way to explore and share my writing felt safe in a way. But that need to perform crept back in — and continues to. I so appreciate you sharing your experience and how you've honored yourself in your journey. I feel empowered now to ask these harder inner questions in my own journey.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Ashleigh.
The truth is that I’m still figuring all of this out myself.
That’s why messages like yours mean so much to me. They remind me that I’m not alone in this sense of confusion and overwhelm, and they give me hope that I may be on the right path.
Being here should feel like a space for expression, not another pressure in life. Easier said than done, I know — but at least we are asking the questions and trying to find the ways that work best for us. ♡
There’s so much I’d love to say to this I don’t even know where to start, thank you for synthesizing so earnestly how I and many others feel
You said so much in those few words, and I felt it all. ♡ Thank you, Fadumay.
I agree wholeheartedly. I joined Substack as a way to write and share with others and have people other than myself read what I write and perhaps find value and provide feedback. I wanted to get comfortable with being seen in this way, as my writing tends to come from a very vulnerable, sometimes painful part of me. I can't post every day, nor do I want to, and I find that already some of the people I follow are getting lost in my feed. I really do want critique, not just kudos for what I write. Did it make you think? Did you find yourself responding in a specific way? That's what I want to know. Are you in this with me? I don't always see that happening, though, and it's made me wonder too, about the purpose of posting here. I don't care about reaching tons of subscribers. I want to reach the few who might want to consistently read and interact with my thoughts.
Thank you for every word. I resonate with everything you wrote.
Wanting a genuine exchange rather than a kind of performance – I understand that completely. And what you mentioned about writing from a painful place is, I think, the most sensitive part of being on a large platform like this. It’s a very particular kind of exposure, one that carries a lot of vulnerability.
When there is little feedback, or when it stays on the surface, it can truly be discouraging.
I’ve also spent a long time wondering how to define the kind of connection I’m hoping for here. And your words captured it perfectly: “I don't care about reaching tons of subscribers. I want to reach the few who might want to consistently read and interact with my thoughts.”
Not popularity, but mutual respect. Not being seen by everyone, but by those who truly understand.
I appreciate you bringing up this topic. I have found myself overwhelmed by the subscriber chats, the articles I end up saving to read later when I have time, the true desire to meaningfully interact but simply leaving a like.... there's one person on here who interacts so meaningfully with everything he reads --https://substack.com/@kechan and I am truly in awe of that.
Thank you for mentioning the chats, the saved essays, and that feeling of wanting to respond more thoughtfully. Those things trouble me too.
But I often remind myself that even in real life I wouldn’t be able to have deep conversations with five people in one day – let alone ten. As beautiful as that idea may sound, it goes beyond what many of us can realistically hold.
Kechan truly sounds remarkable, and I’m glad you mentioned him. But I also think it’s important that we respect our capacity and show up in the way we genuinely can – and trust that the right conversations will grow from there.
Those are all valid wonders! As you mentioned in your piece, I also feel drained by the after-thought of publishing, and the urgency of our viral world.
There have been many times that I have thought, "I don't care to be viral, but I do care to be valued."
Your words added value to my day. Thank you again!
Brilliant and absolutely resonates 💖
Thank you so much, Willow. Words like that are music to a writer’s ears. 💖
Aw thank you, i loved reading it. ..and thanks to Olivia for posting it 💖
Wow Dana,
I feel like you described exactly what I couldn’t quite put into words.
I am exactly 3 months in to posting regularly on Substack, and I do have a strange exhaustion taking over me, and I think it is directly from being a hyper sensitive person and an introvert. And once again, even if I’m not asking people to pay for it, I am still putting my writing on a schedule, regardless of where my nervous system is at, regardless of where my energy levels are I am making the consistency the key. I related deeply to everything you expressed here.
I’ve never written a book before, and the idea was to build an audience for it because my editor told me that I would need a large social media following to get any sort of publisher to even consider me.
But I’ve had a lot of of the same questions inside, like could I take that level of visibility do I even want it? Like I said in my last comment on your quote from this article, I feel like less is more and if I can show up at a frequency that feels in alignment with my nervous system, regardless of the numbers that feels like a more aligned way to live, even if I don’t end up making a career out of this.
Your insights were immensely helpful thank you so much for sharing this article. 🙏💓
Olivia, thank you for such a thoughtful comment. It really adds an important, lived dimension to this whole question.
My impression is that people with an artistic sensibility often find it especially challenging to navigate a world that seems to offer endless possibilities, yet is also full of paths that lead us away from ourselves.
Continuing on that path without losing yourself along the way requires a lot of strength.
But as you wrote so beautifully in your note — a line I really loved:
“Balancing the body can feel like walking on a tightrope, in a culture designed to disconnect you from your innate wisdom. It takes skill to drown out the noise and listen.”
Yes, thank you so much for writing it! It gave a written dimension to my lived experience.
I get the same impression with creative, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed, and it’s very easy to lose yourself. I think that goes hand-in-hand with also being sensitive.
And yes, I suppose I was saying the same thing in my note. Thank you for quoting that and reading that I appreciate you! ❤️
I just started Substack a few weeks ago. Last night, I felt a tug of discernment pulling at my heart. As a highly sensitive person/creative myself, something felt "off."
It felt like my intuition telling me, "Yes, you're correct. This platform is still similar to the others. Best to lead with your heart."
Thank you for the validation!
Thank you — your words mean just as much to me.
I was especially struck by your thought that this platform may not be so different from the others. I often wonder whether this dynamic comes from the architecture of these spaces, or simply from human psychology and our tendency to respond to rankings, numbers, and rewarded behaviour.
And the way you mentioned creativity and leading with the heart felt very true to me.
Dear Dana,
your text encouraged me to finally say something I’ve been thinking about for a long time and the reason why I don’t participate in online life. It seems to me that social media activates the most primitive impulses in us. Self-promotion and the chase for numbers are tendencies we all have; the difference, it seems to me, is that for some people it’s nourishment, while for others it’s exhausting—just as you said.
Many of these platforms were created with the idea of being a medium for connecting people around some purpose, but they have turned into streams of posts full of self-praise. Maybe I’m looking at humanity through a negative lens, but it often feels like whatever we touch eventually turns into a toxic environment.
Thank you for saying this so openly.
What you wrote — that self-promotion and the chase for numbers nourish some people while exhausting others — really made me think. It’s an interesting polarity.
I also feel that exchanges like the one we are having here are the reason we feel such disappointment when we see the platform dominated by other tendencies.
It seems to me that the frustration we feel carries a lot of sadness in it — the sense that things are the way they are — and that we have very little power to change them.
Perhaps the most we can do is try to remain faithful to our own values and needs — even if that means staying outsiders.
Thank you so much for your reply—your texts are healing for me.
You always offer an empowering conclusion that doesn’t emphasize differences or divisions, but instead finds a way for us to live in parallel while, at the same time, forgiving ourselves for not fitting in.
Thank you – your words really touched me, especially the part about forgiving ourselves for not fitting in.
Your response feels healing to me too.
Wow, talk about seeing yourself in the mirror. The last couple of days I have been having the same conversations in my circle of friends. Thank you for coming out here and saying this. When I get over 50 emails daily, no offense but I didn't know I was signing up for that when I clicked subscribe or follow, I can't keep up. I try to read them all being fully present with each of them and I just can't do it. It's too much. I had to change how I am here too. I so appreciate it because I really am an introvert!
Thank you for sharing this, Jay. I know you’ve been very present and supportive here, and I appreciate that. I’m glad you’re also trying to find a more sustainable way to be here — I think many of us need that to become the new normal.
Great deep dive into this topic . I really appreciated when you took responsibility for how you received and responded to all that Substack entails .
The key is remembering that it is still a social platform and many are here to boost egos , reach goals of certain numbers and to market themselves. All good, all fair . But it is our own responsibility to stay true to why we may be here. For me it’s a place to share what my whole being creates and share with people that may appreciate, learn , offer solace and grow from it . In real life most don’t understand why or what we write.
But we are human , flawed yet fabulous and we can get lost in the veil of attention.
Ultimately we have to remember who we are and why we write .
Thank you for an article worth reading 🤭
Thank you for such insightful reflections. I truly enjoyed reading every part of your comment.
It meant a lot to me that you mentioned responsibility. Even with the kinds of dynamics you described, we still carry the responsibility to care for our own creative core – to protect it, nourish it, and express it in our own way.
As you beautifully said, many of us write because we have to. And that remains our guiding purpose.