🤫 Am I A Shitty Friend?

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Dear Ones,

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What’s the paid newsletter about?

This is the first “paid tier” newsletter. I started this new tier because I am starting to mentor for Write of Passage and chaplaincy school. In serving others, I’d like to hold sacred space through being crisp and credible.

In doing so, I’d like to allow myself the space to learn the craft that I admire the most—honest writing that gets as close as possible to the rawness of humanity, where the writer isn’t afraid to be the ass in the story. David Sedaris, Karl Ove Knausgård, Sasha Chapin, Charlie Bleecker.

It’s tough to find such gems in the creator world where authority and identity becomes intertwined*.

Hence, the paywall is more for the “wall” than the “pay”–it’s a place for me to post vulnerable and experimental material.

I don’t promise good prose, but it will be my truth.

Am I a shitty friend?

“How’s things with you Christin? We haven’t hung out in so long. I only know about your ‘life’ through your newsletter!”

I’ve heard at least 3 IRL** friends say that. One ironic thing about making friendship my creator niche—I’ve never been more inaccessible to my IRL friends. In between creator work, being in numerous communities related to said creator work, and Buddhist chaplaincy school…I end up socializing with creator friends most of the time, and IRL friends are neglected.

But that’s not really a good reason.

It’s because I feel guilty. While my creator work has been slowly gaining momentum, it hasn’t been enough for me to sustain myself financially. Most of my friends are financially successful, and I’m still, at age 36, struggling to figure things out. So I don’t feel I’ve earned the right to relax with IRL friends.

But it’s also kind of odd, because I have**figured things out. I fulfilled my lifelong dream of spiritual care as a vocation. Of studying under Gil Fronsdal officially.

I just haven’t figured out how to afford my dream yet. Instead of the usual route of making money first (as many Western spiritual teachers do), I am doing so on a Dream Mortgage. Working on borrowed time.

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Last Friday was my first day at chaplaincy school. Our teachers performed a ritual for us, to demonstrate our role as chaplains in performing rituals for others. They told us to write our obstacle on a small stone, and we took turns passing the stones back to our teachers for a ceremonial burial. In exchange, they gave each of us a little stone heart and a micro Buddha statue.

Our teachers said to give the heart to someone we want to be generous to, and I gave it to my wife. She’s the one who allowed my dreams of chaplaincy school to come true! I just don’t want to be a financial burden to her…

I wrote “judgement” on my little stone. I know that what I’ll be doing is “judging” how well I am doing as a chaplain…but really, it was how well I’ll be able to financially support myself.

During the class, we were paired to discuss what we can do to take care of our own spiritual needs. I reflected to my partner that financial worries have tanked my spirit! I felt I had been too lucky with my last freelancing gigs, and wasn’t sure if I could do it again, with new offerings, in new industries.

This reflection set me free. It wasn’t that I don’t have enough money, it’s that I don’t**trust myself in figuring it out. **

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So now I’m embarking on a journey to rebuild trust in myself. Speaking to friends that have succeeded financially and asking for help. Admitting to friends that this is what’s happening, and scheduling time to catch up. Making sure I am wholly there for them, when we meet face to face.

That’s my truth of the week.

Warm Wishes,

Christin

*Unless one were smart and created an identity around vulnerability, like Charlie Bleecker did…

**Meaning friends I’ve made before my creator journey. Some are part-time creators, most are not!