Foraging for Soul Medicine

Why I write on Substack

Photo by Martin Podsiad on Unsplash

Please receive this as a letter to you, and an invitation of sorts. If I haven’t interacted with you much yet, I really want to. Or even if I have, the invite is to you, too! So, and this is ONLY if it would also make you happy, I invite you to reach out in whatever Substacky way feels best – an email, direct message, comment on a note or on this post, etc etc.

I’d love to get to know you better. Why are you putting energy into Substack? Is it related to your profession? Are you finding it to be enriching, inspiring, healing – or something else entirely? Is it part of a larger vision for you? What’s been fun and what’s been frustrating?

Here's a little more about me, if you’re interested. And if you’re not (maybe you subscribed by accident or aren’t really feelin’ it anymore) that’s totally fine! 😊

So I started writing on Substack very recently, on February 27^th. My Basic Goodness publication has been a long time in the making - decades of soul-searching and wisdom-seeking, working and loving and stumbling and learning. I’m a wellness coach and a psychotherapist, and over the past few years I’ve been shifting my work and expanding what I do.

After 20 years in the field of wellness and mental health, I also found myself wanting to write and thus REALLY wanting to be part of communities that are exploring what real wellness means, sharing knowledge and tools, growing the collective wisdom, and elevating consciousness.

Like so many other wounded healers, I feel a deeply rooted sense of purpose, to serve by sharing everything I’ve got - the lessons learned the hard way, the healing and transformations I’ve experienced in my own life and those I’ve witnessed in my clients, the painful questions and the magical discoveries.

As Basic Goodness evolves, I want it to feel like a refuge, a little corner of the internet where you can cozy up and escape all the noise, the pressure, and the rush.

I will keep offering simple, practical tools to help us embrace who we are and tune into our own innate goodness. Reminders that we are far from alone in the struggle to accept and love ourselves. And stay tuned, as I hope to soon be offering more interactive opportunities as well!

I spent years navigating life with chronic illness, depression, anxiety, and way WAY too much stress. In my youth, I also battled anorexia—a struggle that took decades to untangle before I finally found my way back to love, appreciation, and peace with my body. But I did find my way back.

Modern life pulls us away from our true Selves—separating us from the belonging, community, and ancestral wisdom we need to feel whole. But we can reclaim those lost connections and rebuild our inner pathways to wholeness. This journey excites me like nothing else!

I’ll paste my note from this past week because it gets right to the point (sorry I’m getting to the point now, at the very end of this letter to you 😉):

I write as a way to forage for the medicine in my soul. And I write for you, dear friend, for the moments when:

🌱 You long to grow your courage, but need some community by your side

🥀 You feel weighed down by shame or self-doubt

⛅ You struggle to accept and honor who you are

💔 Your inner critic grows too loud

🌈 You feel disconnected from your truest Self

🌿 You’re fighting to shed old patterns that do not serve you

It’s OK to need a fresh infusion of support, inspiration, and acknowledgement every single day.

Some of us have to keep patching the pieces together again and again.

You are beautiful.

You are precious.

And you are not alone.