Hi! I discovered my love for writing during my struggle with chronic illness.
Sweeter Sunday is a weekly newsletter featuring low effort tools, mindsets, and tidbits that enriched my life during a very dark time. My hope is that each newsletter makes your life just a touch sweeter.
Each month, I share longer form, personal essays. For now, find more on my journey below. Thank you for finding your way here.
My journey
My knees ached and my hands shook as I sat in prayer. This had become a habit, pleading with myself, or whoever was listening.
“Please give me the energy to figure out what I want to do with my life. To return to my old self — she was curious, and energetic, and much more hardworking. Or at least help me get out of the house.”
It was 2022 — and I was very sick.
A year before, I got covid for the first time. I was extremely sick, but after two weeks, I thought, “I’m supposed to feel better by now” and “a lot of people had it much worse than I did.” So I went back to work (remotely). The next day, I was in the hospital.
This was the start of a long journey of long covid (and a few other related illnesses) that halted my life for over 2 years.
Out on disability leave, my recovery became my full time job. I took it as seriously as I had taken my job as a management consultant.
I used my precious hours of energy and brain power on research and outreach. I read every article, saw every specialist. Looked for guidance in medicine and astrology and reddit. I removed toxins from my diet and plastics from my home. I did a clinical trial. I tried to optimize, maximize, systematize my recovery.
Basically, I approached my illness the same way I had approached my life before. With precision and obsession and an unrelenting belief that, “if only I worked a little harder” I’d reach my goal.
My intentions were good, but the outcomes disastrous. I grew more and more sick, depressed, and anxious. When you only have a few good hours a day, its a waste to spend them all on routines and practices in an effort to optimize your life. These practices should be a means to an end (your life, your joy, your fill-in-the blank). Not the end itself.
When I let all of this go, when I loosened by grip on my recovery, I actually started to feel better. But I felt a little guilty, like I was cheating. My mindset felt counter to what is preached in so many bestsellers and on hit podcasts.
Here’s what I believe: there is a place for all of that content, but you don’t actually always have to try your hardest at everything. You don’t need to spend every waking hour like a monk or a founder of a unicorn or whoever to have a life worth living. In fact, I think the opposite is true.
I learned a lot. Including a love for writing. I wish I hadn’t had to get sick to learn these things, but the truth is, I did. Shit happens. I want to share what has been impactful to me, the low effort tools and mindsets and stories that made and enriched my recovery.
I don’t want to just optimize life, I want to deepen it.
This isn’t a prix fixe menu, it’s a la carte. Take what works for you. Have some fun.
With sweetness,
Jules
