None of this is new, and I am not an expert.

In which I set expectations in order to lower my anxiety.

Athena symbol vintage illustration - Public Domain

I’m not saying these things to be self deprecating. It’s just true. And I like to set expectations up front because I don’t want to disappoint anyone. 

None of this is new, and I am not an expert. 

There. I said it. 

That’s a load off. 

I’ve done a fair amount of public writing in the last seventeen years. I was one of the first bloggers at Johnson & Johnson’s BabyCenter site back in the early aughts. I also wrote for many years on two collaborative blogs — one about marketing and the other about writing — with two separate but equally delightful groups of women. And, on a more personal note, I wrote a biweekly column for my local paper from 2011 to 2020. 

While each of these projects gave me some opportunity to share my own thoughts, this one — Inner Wilderness Unlimited — is by far the most personal while also being the least about me. It’s going to be interesting.

---

There is so much content available to us today. So. Much. Words like avalanche, tidal wave, and tornado come to mind. We are inundated, swept away, and drowned on a daily basis — emails, social media, podcasts, YouTube … you name it. We are ingesting other people’s ideas all the time. 

If I’m honest with myself, I will admit that I often tune into these voices as a distraction. It’s the whole social-media-is-a-drug thing. I suppose I could unplug, but I enjoy hearing other people’s stories and learning new things. As a naturally curious person, having the world at my fingertips is intoxicating (and irresistible). 

I remember when the only way to get new information was to go to the actual library, look things up in an actual card catalog, and then hope the book you wanted was on the shelf. 

I remember when the only at-home research resource was my Encyclopedia Britannica. I can still see the cream-and-green faux leather binding with gold embossed lettering sitting next to my Breyer horse collection on the bedroom shelves my dad built. 

Now, the entire world is literally available on demand with a few taps on a pocket-sized screen that is never out of reach. And it’s not just the world outside our windows; it’s also a multiverse of all the worlds inside other people’s heads.

It’s no wonder that one of my biggest fears about starting this newsletter is that I have nothing new to say. 

And then I remembered — Spoiler Alert! —  there is nothing new to say. 

But that’s okay. It may have all been done before, but there are infinite ways to do an old thing in a new way. 

It’s also oddly encouraging to know that most of us have to hear a thing over and over (and over) before it sinks in. Exhibit A: I have to read a book (even one I love) two or three times before I really remember it. 

And even when something finally does sink in, we often need to hear it a few more times (often in a few different ways) before we are moved to take action. 

It’s one thing to think, “Hey. That’s a good idea. I should do that;” and an entirely different thing to actually Do It. 

---

I am here to give you my spin on some very old, often-repeated good advice in the hopes that — by some cosmic coincidence — this time might turn out to be the one that finally clicks in your brain and sends up fireworks.

I’m going to do this even though I worry that I will be wrong, or say something stupid. I’m going to do this even though there is so much I don’t know. 

The truth is there are and always will be lots of things I don’t know.

And I am definitely gonna screw up. 

I am not here because I have a bunch of extra letters at the end of my name, a secret, or The Answers. My credentials — such as they are — are simple:  a life’s worth of experience writing things down and thinking about them, a commitment to exploring my own inner wilderness, and just enough courage to hit “publish.”

I am here because I am curious about the invisible threads that connect our inner worlds, one to the other, even when we don’t realize it. And I’m hoping this space might attract others who are asking the same questions and on a similar journey. So there’s that.

That’s what I’m here for. 

That’s kind of the whole point.