the self-obsession of the personal essay
weaving the self back together, the journaling to personal essay pipeline, and finding The Many in One
1. To be a personal essayist is to dance with self-obsession. It is to write from your own world within, examining yourself in the mirror again and again and again.
2. We close our eyes, go inward, and start typing/writing. Whatever is coming up is meant to come out. We squint at all the memories and ideas and metaphors in our mind’s eye and then we start to paint them for you with words. We flesh out that childhood memory that keeps popping up and wonder, why did inspiration pull me here today? and then explore it some more because nothing is ever random. We feel into the pain points in our body and know that they’re probably connected to something in our external reality that is waiting to be explored, that is waiting to be hugged with words. We plop it all down and worry about connecting the threads later.
3. It’s me me me. But it has to be, because the best art is that which helps the reader see themselves more clearly (which means the writer has first had to truly see themselves, which means quite a lot of self-examination has had to occur).
4. You won’t touch others’ souls if you’re not even convening with your own.
5. In the unavoidable self-centeredness of each piece, I wonder, why was I drawn to writing about myself where as others are drawn to creating novels or mythical worlds that whoosh me away into a different reality?
6. (Probably because I never felt heard and now, by sharing my work, I’m saying I hear you, I see you, I understand the complexity of you and I love every part of it, baby Kris.)
7. Hypothesis #1: The personal essayist is driven by the deep desire to be heard.
8. (And ‘seen’ as well, of course, as every artists does. But I chose ‘heard’ instead because feeling heard prioritizes a message (which feels more connected to sharing writing) whereas being ‘seen’ is more about your identity/needs/emotions being recognized.)
9. As a kid I lapped up journal-culture which was so iconically captured in the late 90s, early 2000s movies with the girl next door sitting in her reading nook in her bedroom looking out the window journaling about her problems as the new 13 year old in town.
10. Hypothesis #2: The journaling baby —> the personal-essaying adult pipeline.
11. Because of the personal essay’s journaling ancestry, it is no wonder that the patriarchy has turned their noses up at this specific art medium, only seeing true writing as a great American novel as they take a puff of their cigar and then grumble a casual racial slur. ‘Oh that isn’t real writing––it’s so ‘emotional’ and just a girl’s journal entry’ when in fact those are the two exact reasons why it is so succulent and why I am magnetically drawn to it.
12. Your journal entries are real writing. They are your roots as a writer. Revere them as such.
13. The journal is feminine, mysterious, lush, secretive yet unrestrained, brutally honest, and naked. The true self lives within those pages and up until I was 24, it was the only place that knew the real me. The painful reality of the incongruence between real me and performing me slapped me in the face when I was playing We’re Not Really Strangers with my friends over Zoom at the start of the pandemic and the card I pulled asked, “do you think the image you have of yourself matches the image people see you as?”
14. I felt the wide gap between ‘me’ and me, like a deep tear in my inner-most core that I had been living with––flapping in the wind of those around me that would sway my personality for the day, or even the hour. Writing personal essays was birthed out of my desire to close said gap. To be the bridge between my true, journaled self and this 2D woman I was pretending to be. I started my blog after that game, which eventually morphed into this beloved Substack, which has become my home of self weaving.
15. Hypothesis #3: The (unconscious and/or conscious) intent of the personal essayist is to weave ourselves back together as we weave ourselves into our art.
16. I sometimes think, wait, this is too much of a journal entry. But then I remember that I would literally pay to read people’s journals. I would pour over a stranger’s journal if I could. It is why when people die, their journals are put on display in museums. (I secretly hope that happens to me). Journal entries are art. We wanna see your guts! *chants “show us your guts! show us your guts!*
17. The best personal essays are the rawness of a girl’s journal entry edited and sharpened with the precision of her sage, older self.
18. But if it is me me me then how will anyone relate with it?
19. The entirety of your experience is universal. To dive head first into me me me is to find The Many in One.
20. A personal essayist is just writing about the human experience as seen through the lens of this particular human. My humanly experience is not unique to me but my story is. We’re all the same and we all like feeling the kinship that comes with reading individuals’ raw, real stories. The details may be a little different than our own but the essence is the same. Every feeling we are experiencing has been experienced by our ancestors and all humans for thousands of years. It is why celebrity autobiographies are such a huge market and why you crave the long messy captions from your favorite artists where they’re just being themselves, where they’re just being another human.
21. Oneness taps on my shoulder when I see that in every instance where I use “I,” it could be switched out for “we” without needing to change the content at all.
22. Hypothesis #4: To write in depth about yourself is a spiritual act that connects you to the universe.
23. My coach Sarita Walsh will share her personal experiences in relation to a topic we’re discussing and will prime us by saying “listen to this story as if it were your own.” And that is exactly how you consume a personal essay. Read this as if it were your own story you are remembering. Even if you don’t write personal essays, read this post as if this were the balm to your specific creative endeavors.
24. To experience art through the lens of ourselves is a given, but to go into the experience of consuming art by acknowledging its omnipresent nature?––that is how you truly be with art. Sit with art as if it were your own.
What message is the universe trying to send you, right now, after reading this piece? What stuck to you? What made you want to grab a pen and stickie note to jot down how it relates to this highly specific thing that you are going through? What felt like yours? 💫
Comment below or feel free to DM me! I would loveee to connect and hear from you + support your creative endeavors. 💚
I hope you enjoyed the above! This is an example of a paid post that I’m now offering…more info below! 💡
~ new substack offerings ~
I’m always 1) looking for ways to improve my writing + 2) investing in my self growth, so I’m excited to start sharing these juicy findings/insights via my revamped Substack offerings!
The FREE option will continue to include 1 personal essay (click here for most recent example) per month.
The PAID option will include 1 personal essay plus 2 extra posts per month (like the one I’ve written above) on all things writing/creative process + other insightful findings via my own self-inquiry/coaching work/research.
It’s only $5.55 per month (which is less than a cup o’ coffee and also the time I was born) and you can cancel/re-sign up at any time. 💃 🕺
I can’t wait to provide more and more value to you all in ways that feel authentic and aligned and fun and bubbling over with sparkly curiosity. 😌
A worthwhile PS - I haven’t figured out the exact thematic buckets for my paid content yet and that’s okay because clarity comes through action and we learn through experience. This is me taking action before things are perfectly planned out and it feels refreshing + scary and also exactly what someone courageous might do (and I am choosing to be courageous nowadays so here we go!). I am no longer interested in hiding my gifts and keeping them to myself. I’m interested in serving others by sharing my gifts with the world. The funny thing is I’m not even super sure what exactly my gifts are, but what I do know is that I love to write and if I show up in my authenticity and with an honest desire to serve others, I can’t go wrong. I hope that in seeing me act before I’m ‘ready,’ you can give yourself permission to do the same. 💞
Happy creating!
xo,
Kristen 🪞