Welcome to Found Notes.
Every week I use found poetry to turn personal notes into poetic insights about living freely, creating bravely and thinking deeply. More than answers, I hope our time together leads you to helpful questions of your own.
I am a historian of self, wandering through the museum of my being.
Here my brave moments hang like paintings on the walls.
Each picture telling a story, not of success but of my trying.
As I walk, I trace my fingers along their frames until they reach the description beneath, the first the same as the last: “Remember, you’re brave.”
Bravery connects.
Bravery is the bridge that connects ‘I wish’ to ‘I did’.
Over the last 8.5 months, more people than I could’ve hoped for have joined me on this newsletter. The growing readership has also meant an increasing amount of affirmation.
At first, I was simply flattered and inspired by the sheer volume of encouragement. Then my attention began to shift as I found myself briefly checking how many likes each post received.
That slight glance subtlety turned into a moment of measurement. Eventually, I found myself expecting a certain number of likes and questioning the quality of a piece if there were fewer hearts than I’d anticipated.
After battling these feelings for months, I’ve discovered that paper-cut moments can cause real harm if allowed to persist.
So, rather than continuing to unsuccessfully ignore what has been made prominent by this platform, I’ve decided to do something I’ve been scared to do for a while - turn off the likes function on my posts.
Deactivating the likes feature wouldn’t be scary if that’s all my choice required. Unfortunately, Substack's current setup requires that I also remove the option for commenting and restacking posts if I no longer want to receive likes on them. This is what I’ve been most worried about.
Connecting with you all has been an unexpected and gratitude-inspiring gift. So limiting our ability to converse around a topic or moment I cared about enough to write on has made me uneasy.
Then, I had a call with , another lovely poet here on Substack. During our chat, she mentioned her fascination with living. The more she shared, the more I realized how my fixation on one little number had led me to feel less alive in my creative journey. With that, I decided to end my dance with doubt and turned off likes.
As soon as I did, I felt the cool breeze of relief move across my being. This gentle, life-giving sensation was the only confirmation I needed. I’d made the right decision.
I still have concerns about my choice but I have curated a life of brave moments for times like these. Moments that help me remember the truth when I look back on them. And the truth is, I’ve never regretted choosing my mental and emotional health over the societal standards placed before me.
Thank you so much for reading. Making this change will affect the way you're able to interact with my work but I’d still love to chat so feel free to shoot me a direct message or respond to this email if you feel so inclined. For those of you on Substack, you can also tag me in any excerpt you share via copy and paste.
Major shoutout to my brother and the always courageous for becoming paid subscribers. Also, thank you to and for blessing me with a week’s worth of coffee which I’ll be enjoying in a mug I designed 😜