Hey guys. No photos today because I want to spend all of my time and energy on sitting down and writing this post out.
This is going to be long, but if you can stick through it I would really appreciate it! I mostly need to sit and share/process with you/solve all of the world’s problems with you (kidding on that last one).
You may have noticed (or maybe it’s just so obvious to me that I can’t imagine anyone not noticing), that the last year has been more than just a little bit of a roller coaster for me.
When I reflect back on the last year and a half, I honestly don’t know how I got through everything without breaking at least once.
So many changes, so many emotionally painful experiences, so many things that my brain is still working on processing.
I’ve felt crushed, I’ve felt overwhelmed, I’ve felt happy, I’ve felt sad, I’ve felt optimistic, I’ve felt stressed… in other words, my emotions have been all over the place.
Part of me wishes I would have just taken a break from blogging over the last year… part of me (actually a huge part of me) is thankful for the encouragement I’ve received from you. Many of your kind comments and prayers/thoughts have honestly carried me through some really hard times.
But part of the reason I (sort of) wish I would have just taken a year off is that I lost my blogging voice along the way.
I went from blogging about capsule wardrobes to trying the mommy blog thing to trying to blog exclusively about ethical fashion.
Honestly, if you’re still reading my blog and following along, I just really, really appreciate you.
I will fully admit that I am an emotion driven person, and so in this year of personal turmoil I kind of just meandered my way through blogging, trying to find the voice that (I feel) I lost.
And you know what? More than anything I feel like this year took my voice. It changed me.
It’s caused me to question some of the things that are at the very core of who I am as a person…
in short it left me with a deep, deep feeling of insecurity that has, at times, crippled me and hindered me from living life in the capacity I know I should be living it in.
I don’t know if any of you have experienced something like this, but this kind of crippling insecurity is awful.
It steals your ability to be you, because all you can do is question every little thing about yourself.
So in the midst of all of this I continued to blog, but instead of blogging about the things I wanted to blog about I blogged about things I thought you would resonate with.
Anytime I received positive feedback about something I would immediately decide that I was only going to blog about that from now on! But you can see the problem with that right?
Everyone has different tastes and desires and one person may want to see mama posts and another may want to see more ethical fashion posts, etc.
But because I couldn’t trust my own voice anymore, I just went with what other people were “telling” me to write about.
But now I sit here, a year later and I feel completely burned out by blogging. And not because I don’t enjoy blogging, but because I’ve been forcing myself into a mold I don’t belong in.
BUT, little by little I’ve been recovering from this past year. I’m feeling more confident again.
I’ve been spending more time journaling and praying which has begun to fill me up again.
I’m no longer pumping so my hormones have mostly returned to normal (I’ve realized that I really don’t do well with breastfeeding hormones)… so in other words I can see much more clearly now.
Over the past month I’ve been really digging into why/where things went wrong for me and I came to this conclusion:
I don’t like telling you what to do. Sounds silly, but when I tried the mama blog thing I felt a constant paranoia that someone was going to take my advice and then have a messed up kid. Or this past fall as I’ve really moved into more ethical fashion blogging, I’ve hated feeling like I was telling you to add more to your wardrobe.
I love mama bloggers and I love ethical fashion review blogs… but I’ve come to realize that I’m not meant to write about those things.
So then I asked myself… what do I want to write about and almost before I got that sentence written in my journal I knew:
capsule wardrobes. I miss talking about living with less. I miss encouraging you to make do with what you have.
Because this is still something I struggle with and its still something I care deeply about.
I’ve been trying to blog about adding more to your life when I really want to be blogging about the exact opposite.
Do I still care about ethical fashion? YES! A resounding yes.
But it’s probably not going to be the focus on here anymore.
And that means there will probably be a lot less sponsored posts around here as well. I have really loved working with brands and getting to know the people behind them. I don’t regret that at all. But deep down this past season I’ve known that doing a lot of sponsored posts wasn’t for me, but I ignored it because, well, they pay the bills.
Will I still do sponsored posts? Yes probably… here and there. But they won’t make up the majority of my content. I’m going to be even pickier than I already am.
So with all of that said, here’s my plan:
I’m going to be taking the rest of November off. I’m going to work on some behind the scenes stuff and I’m going to spend time with my family.
Then, if all goes well, I’ll be back the beginning of December with a new format. For the first time in a long while I’m excited about blogging again and I can’t wait to share with you my new direction.
There will be a lot less in terms of bells and whistles, but its what I want to write about.
In other words, I’m getting my confidence back.
So thank you for bearing with me this past year. I honestly really do notice and appreciate your support. I guess, more than anything this just proves to you that I’m an average person who doesn’t have all of her you know what together.
Alright, so this is basically an ebook at this point so I’ll be done. I hope you all have a wonderful November! I’ll still be fairly active on Instagram, so if you want to stay in touch you can join me over there.
I’ll see you in a few weeks!
Until next time,
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