JUNE CARE MAIL IS HERE!
ICYMI: I started a 🐌 mail club! Why??? Because in this digital world, we spend so much of our time on screens. Lately, I’ve been yearning for the before times.
As a child of the 90s, I remember how excited I got when I received a letter from a penpal or a postcard from a friend on their travels.
Now, as an adult in the age of email, one of my favorite things is to receive something sweet in my mailbox. It’s like a gift from my past self to my future self.
In an effort to spend less time online and find other ways to connect with you, I’m starting CARE MAIL: a monthly 🐌 💌 offering.
Each month’s mail is centered around a theme connected to healing. June is SELF-LOVE. July is PRESENCE. And August is PLEASURE!
What’s included:
❣️Sticker inspired by my memes
🖼️ 4x6 or 5×7 art print of my writing or one of my memes
💌 A handwritten letter including my thoughts and feelings on the theme
❔Something extra! Could be a mini collage kit, mini zine, quote, question.
Cootie catcher and sticker illustrated and designed by @rio.plz
Hope you’ll join me on this new analog adventure ✨
When I started making memes on the internet as Softcore Trauma, I never imagined that I’d one day have my own merch line. I just thought to myself, “maybe it would be fun to make some memes about trauma featuring cute, silly cats I found on the internet.”
Now, 4 years since my first memes, baby has merch! This couldn’t have happened, quite literally, without Rio Romero @rio.plz bringing their illustration, design, and branding skills to the table. I’m also so grateful to the folks at @sunshineshop.la for making this merch a reality.
Why this collection matters so much to me:
Besides my deep desire to bring Softcore Trauma to life, this collection is dropping at a time in my life where I’ve been in a prolonged state of mental unwellness and am beginning the journey of dialectical behavioral therapy.
DBT was developed specifically for people struggling like me. These past few months have been countless days of deep emotional dysregulation and an inability to self-soothe. I cycle through panic, fear, shame, grief, and have been struggling against SI and self-sabotaging behaviors.
As you can imagine, this has made it really hard for me to hustle and the fact that this merch is happening is honestly a miracle that couldn’t have happened without my illustrator Rio and Frank over at Sunshine Shop. This is the magic of collaboration.
Even with the sliding scale that was offered to me, it’s not something I can afford without increasing my income. And so all of the sales from my merch line will be making DBT possible for me.
If you’re not needing any of these guys in your life, but want to support my healing journey, you can send a contribution via the 🔗🔗 in my bye-oh!
And you can support FOR FREE by sharing some love in the comments and helping me spread the word about the collection. I’m endlessly, endlessly grateful for your love and support.
Happy Publication Day, @softcore_trauma ! ❤️🩹
TOUCH ME, I’M SICK, their deeply personal memoir that rejects the stigmas of trauma and chronic illness by fostering queer forms of intimacy and embracing the many ways humans can care for one another, “is medicine” (@kaichengthom ).
Click the link in our bio for more info!
#PublicationDay #MargeauxFeldman #TouchMeImSick #LivingWithChronicIllness #NonbinaryVoices #ComplexTrauma #QueerModesOfCare #SoftcoreTrauma #MemoirInEssays #HystericalIntimacies #NewNonfiction #BeaconPress
Some moods for Friday! Which poodle are you?? And if you wanna contribute to a crowdsourced post, head over to my stories to drop your mood into the question box xoxoxo
Shame can be a survival mechanism: by blaming ourselves for what happened to us, we can keep the grief at bay.
Shame causes us to hide away whatever parts of ourselves we believe make us undeserving of love, care, and compassion.
In this way, shame can also keep us from the thing we need the most to heal: connection.
We cannot shame ourselves or others into transformation. What leads to transformation and healing is compassion.
Again and again, I return to this truth: that underneath trauma is grief asking to be witnessed and held. Which, of course, is so much easier said than done.
There is so much healing we can do on our own, and so much healing to be found in community. This is why I’m starting a monthly gathering for my fellow trauma babies.
At the start of the month, you’ll receive prompts connected to a theme — this month is grief — and then at the end of the month, we’ll gather together to talk through the prompts, address folks’ questions, and hold space for one another to share.
Swipe for more info! xoxoxo
I’m in my LEARNING HOW TO JUST BE ERA after a lifetime of being a doer. Always ready to take action, to find the solution, to do whatever it takes to make the pain stop.
My safety depended on doing. My survival required me to always be doing. Because if I stopped, something horrible would happen. If I paused, I’d have to feel the pain.
Here are some excerpts from my latest essay “on being; or how to not always be doing: learning to live alongside my pain.” Hope these words can help you on your journey towards more presence and healing.
Image credit: Julia Jeffrey
Taking my time but I’m on my way. Because we have to move at the speed of our nervous system.
After packing up and sending off 98 snail mail packages to y’all — thank you from the bottom of my heart — I was so exhausted. And so I gave myself permission to rest.
Now I’m back and the theme for June is SELF LOVE! Maybe that phrase makes you cringe? Maybe you know it’s what you need? Swipe to see everything on offer for next month!
Sticker and cootie catcher designed and illustrated by @rio.plz
xoxoxoxo
P. S. In my state of brain fog I cannot remember the name of this artist. Please tag and I’ll add the proper credit
P. P. S. Shout out to Mary Oliver for inspiring the first slide
Some reminders for you, even if you don’t believe them yet 🪻🌻🌾🌿
Mail club for May has closed BUT the last meme in this series will be the print for June’s mail offering. Head to my stories to drop your email for me — and if the box is gone, you can DM me your email and I’ll add you 🫶
Sharing some questions I’ve been returning to again and again over the past number of months. Yesterday, I shared in my stories that I was having a very high pain day. I felt like in order to “be productive” and “start my day,” I needed to get dressed and move to my desk or couch.
But the reality was that my bed was the most comfortable place to be. And I needed to not be in clothes that weren’t basically pyjamas. What I decided to do was not add suffering on top of my pain.
I’m being going through this too with my anxiety. When I started taking meds for anxiety in 2014, it was such an immense game changer. I could finally fall asleep at night when I got into bed. My intrusive thoughts decreased SIGNIFICANTLY, and I could finally feel like I could take a deep breath.
Over the last six months or so, all of those intense symptoms have returned. My anxiety is through the roof most days. In therapy, I found myself asking “What do I need to do to make the anxiety go away?” And we explored that question. How, in wanting to rid myself of my pain, I was causing myself to suffer.
In a world that causes so much pain, I am committing myself to the practice of not making my life any harder than it already is. When something doesn’t feel good, and I can change it, I’m doing to do that for myself. Even something as small as not forcing myself to finish a book I’m not enjoying, simply because I’m already half way through.
I’ve been thinking about that Mary Oliver quote: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your own wild and precious life?” And I want to offer a rephrase: “Tell me, how is it that you want to be with your one wild and precious life?”
For me, the answer is: kind, easeful, gentle, loving, present. Which means that I am not only letting joy coexist with grief and anxiety, I’m seeking out ways to bring more joy into my life. One of these projects is sending you stuff in the mail! Swipe for all of the details xoxo
Would love to hear your thoughts on this topic! How do you understand the relationship between pain and suffering? What’s one thing you could do today to bring some gentleness, sweetness, or joy into your life?
I think that we’re all feeling A LOT of grief these days — I know that I am. Then I found this silly photo that brought me a lot of joy and it’s a great reminder that we can hold grief and joy simultaneously.
Am LOLSOBBING at the fact that I put fear twice in one slide. Clearly tells you how I’m doing…
It’s my hope that you can swipe to slide 3 and try to give yourself at least one of these things today, as we all try to survive the ongoing horrors: a glass of water, a little nap, daily treat, time outside, hugs with loved ones, hobby time, or some stretching.
And if you’re looking for a treat, maybe you wanna sign up and get some 🐌 mail from me?? Honestly seeing your subscriptions come in has been one of the biggest sources of joy for me as I sit with so much grief. Swipe to the end for all the details 💖
Being in our healing era doesn’t mean that we’re no longer triggered or wanting to default to old survival strategies. Healing is the ability to recognize when that impulse comes up, pausing, and seeing if we can make a different choice.
And, if we do default back into those old patterns, we can offer ourselves compassion and forgiveness, knowing that we’re committed to trying again and again.
Healing is a practice, a process, an unraveling, an unlearning. It’s the ability to hold both/and. I hope you can offer yourself some compassion today 💖
