Why I joined Substack

What is Substack anyways?

Substack is an email newsletter platform allowing creators to post freely without the binds of social media.

I joined Substack a few years ago when I first heard about it. I wrote personal posts while I was in the depths of training and navigating life as it was. At the beginning of all things Substack, it was a very basic platform. I did enjoy it in its basic form, but I left and later deleted the account. I found myself sucked back into all things socials.

Jairaj Sethi, Chris Best, and Hamish McKenzie launched Substack in 2017. They had meetings with people they knew who were writing their own newsletters elsewhere, encouraging them to move over to Substack. These same people landed with hella success, and thus, Substack grew.

Nowadays, they have an app so you can join as many newsletters as you like, while they all land in one place. The app includes a chat feature where you can chime in on threads, a podcast section, and the ability for creators to share voice notes and videos.

The app encourages us back into long form, slowing us down and giving us time to dive deeper into topics.

Whatever you enjoy, there will likely be a newsletter on that.

Some of my recent Substack newsletter sign-ups include:

But each to their own, hun.

I’m currently inspiring my husband to dive into the app as he keeps deleting socials but finding his way back on them.

I feel like Substack is a tool to encourage us to scroll more meaningfully. He’s yet to find THE ONE.

In time, I truly believe we will all be finding our way back to more meaningful content, deepening our experiences, and creating relationships with others on a different level from what social media provides.

Hamish has a podcast called The Active Voice. I enjoyed listening to Rayne Fisher-Quann's opinion of social media and what drove her to Substack. A young woman living her social media celeb life in a mould-infested home with very little money as an aspiring writer. How Substack has changed that for her.

There will be many reasons why people start a Substack.

My main reason is to find a place to form meaningful connections with those in my audience. So I can write the words I need to write without being censored. And so those who want to deepen into my space do so with a small energy exchange.

I’m also in a deep relationship with my nervous system. We navigate the day together through a plethora of tools. Every time I open the apps I leave slightly less regulated. Yet when I read a newsletter, I feel inspired, which often helps with my daily regulation.

I love landing in people’s inboxes, but it always feels one way. I want to hear from the readers. It often feels like sharing your thoughts to a BFF and being stonewalled.

It has never sat with me, well, how socials expect you to give and give without feeling held in the receive. You become conditioned to give more because it feels like tumbleweed at times. And when we don’t receive, we feel like we have to keep giving.

I’ve had comments from people before, ‘you keep plugging your workshops’. Yeah babe, ‘cause I have to, like eat and stuff, and your TikTok views don’t pay for shit.

To be able to receive is key. I wrote recently here how working on my ability to receive helps me endlessly.

I became a paying subscriber to newsletters and that lands differently. Knowing I support them in a small way so I can, in return, receive their words commits me IN to the space a little deeper.

I can’t give an exact brief of what this space will look like. But I am excited to be grounded into one overarching theme:

Every month I will be rounding up the month ahead with support on how to deepen the mothering you give yourself. This is through a post, private playlist, podcast and visualisation with journalling questions and practical advice.

It’s the kinda holding we all deserve.

I spent months deciding whether this was the move I needed to make and how it would look physically and visually. I even spent weeks teaching myself how to design the whole thing using Procreate. What looks like a small amount of work took a lot of prep.

Last time, Substack felt like a side hustle. This time, I’m taking my work here, my writing and my community seriously AF. Even popped a ‘You’re a writer, be a writer’ affirmation on my vision board for 2023.

And as I will be a published author in a few short months, I am a writer now.

Writer, vaginologist, mother.

Naomi x

P.P.S. Here’s my feeling it all playlist I’ve been leaning on here and there in the last couple of months.