It’s midnight here in Spain, and I’m headed to Chicago in 6 hours to kick off the wedding week! 

Today I’m spicing up your inbox with 10 quick thoughts on intellect, creativity, and originality.

I’m planning to turn these 10 points into a cohesive piece centered around the impact of regurgitated content all over the internet (but it needs to marinate a bit more). 

For now, if one of these 10 points jumps out at you, I’d love to know.

All you have to do is leave a comment.

10 Thoughts on Intellect, Creativity, and Originality

1. There’s no shortage of regurgitated content across the internet.Instagram is full of quote squares saying the same things in different fonts. 

2. Regurgitating intellectual information is much easier than taking the time to create something original.

3. Critical thought takes energy, but it’s one of the most worthwhile things we can do to free ourselves from societal conditioning.

4. We’re obsessed with intellect, but knowledge is not the same as knowing.

5. To influence someone, help them transcend intellect, and get to embodied understanding.

6. Consuming information until you’re stuffed to the brim, unable to sort your ideas from someone else’s, isn’t good for anyone. Your expression of creativity is needed in the world.

7. In a society where we place so much value on intellect, it’s easy to get addicted to intellectualizing everything.

8. We have to be careful to transcend our intellectual knowledge and integrate the information so that it becomes a knowing and fuel for creation or behavior change. 

9. When we’re willing to go beyond the intellect and enter the realm of embodied understanding, insight, inspiration, imagination, and innovation start to play together. It’s the difference between intellectually knowing it’s good to set boundaries and actually feeling like setting one will support you in getting more of what you want.

10. Intellectual knowledge is easy to copy and regurgitate, but insights and stories are not. 

Did one of these insights jump out at you? Leave a reply to continue the conversation.

xx,

A

Three years ago, on a trip to NYC, I walked into Laura Belgray’s Greenwich Village apartment to find killer art, organized shelves, a beautiful tray of appetizers, and her husband whipping up drinks for me and the other guests.

Do you know what I didn’t see?

Toys littered across the floor, cubbies in primary colors storing battery-operated torture devices, or bedrooms left ready for visiting kids away at college to sleep in.

Given her decision not to have kids, the white furniture and breakable objects sat fingerprint and stain-free.

But before you go wondering what’s wrong with her uterus, here’s a fun fact: she didn’t have kids on purpose–a decision she details with her signature wit and raw storytelling in her recently released book, Tough Titties.

In the collection of personal essays, Laura writes,

“Should I, or shouldn’t I? Rather than a fertility journey, I went through a decision journey. No hormone injections, no husband whacking off in a sterile room…no devastating calls from a physician about unviable embryos. Just years of uncomfortable fence sitting.”

Like Laura, I grew up thinking I’d have kids. A younger version of me once thought I wanted to be exactly like my aunt, who has four kids, all born within two years of each other.

Now, that sounds like my worst nightmare.

Turns out mothering an entire dorm hall of college boys away from their progenitors for the first time was enough for me. “Mom” helped these boys learn to do basic things like laundry and encouraged them to eat more than hot pockets and Jimmy Johns.

At 32, I’ve never experienced the phenomenon known as baby fever, where you seemingly start to see, smell, and desire all things baby everywhere.

Most of my friends have.

When I tell people I don’t have the ticking clock, I’m usually met with a response of “Just wait. You will.” as if there’s something wrong with me for not having the urge to share my body with a tiny human for nine months and my home for 250 more.

As Laura writes, “No one ever said ‘if you have kids.’ They said, ‘When.’ It wasn’t framed as a choice but an ordained ‘someday.’”

When I was 27, riddled with pain from endometriosis and considering all my options to address the stabbing sensations I felt in my uterus monthly, no doctor–even the female ones–trusted that I didn’t want kids. I was always “too young” to know for sure.

This begs the question, at what point do we become old enough to know for sure?

Is it only when our eggs are no longer in prime time? Are we to be trusted, then?

I’m married to a man who is total dad material. I know this because he has fantastic relationships with all three of his grown sons.

Shockingly, it was easier to convince my now-husband, who loves his children but doesn’t want more, that I didn’t want kids, than to convince any of my female friends.

It’s high stakes for a man–who’s certain he doesn’t want kid–to marry a woman still in her “prime birthing years” who says she doesn’t want to make babies.

Yet, he trusted me. So why don’t my female friends?

I’ve come to learn one thing that gets in the way of acceptance is that they fear I’ll never experience the love that comes from being a mother. Or that without some connection to my mothering essence, I’ll never achieve wholeness as a woman.

It’s why I learned to adopt terms like “Plant Mom” or “Dog Mom.”

Or, so I’m not instantly labeled as the unsafe woman who has no idea what she’s doing in a group of new moms, I learned to keep on hand phrases like,

“I can’t want to be an aunt.”,

“I love kids; I just want to be a role model to other people’s kids instead of having my own.”,

“Professional aunt, no kids.”.

All of which are true, but why are they even necessary?

I like kids, but that doesn’t mean I want them.

And as Laura writes, “No one has to defend their decision to have kids, only not to.”

The message around a baby surprise is usually, “Little Johnny is the blessing we didn’t know we needed,” which may have an ounce of truth but really functions as an essential rationalization for all the sleepless nights.

The general sentiment is that kids will improve your life. I’m not convinced that’s the case because even less talked about than women not wanting to have kids are the women who regret having kids.

Admittedly, knowing if I’m making the “right” decision is not always easy. Very few women I’ve come across in my life have intentionally made the choice never to have kids.

We rarely see stories celebrating childless women boldly going after other dreams.

To see Laura coming out owning the decision to be “happily child free” is immensely freeing.

Her writing lends perspective from someone who has been there to the question that has always been the hardest for me to answer, “What if you’re missing out? What if you regret it?”

In her popular piece for Elle following the release of her book, Laura shares,

“While the party line is that “you don’t know true love until you have a child,” I’m deeply content with all the love I have in my life, which feels true enough for me. I love my family, my friends, my husband, our life together. And oh, how I love my free time fiercely and unconditionally. You might even say as a mother would. But please don’t.”

Life is about choice.

When we forget we have a choice, we fall into prescribed paths, walking the thickened grooves so many have walked before us, never stopping to question why. And then we wonder why we’re not happy later on.

Stopping to question, “Do I really want kids?” has been one of the greatest gifts I could have ever given myself.

Birthing a child is an experience.

I’ve got plenty of other experiences to collect–ones that involve carry-on travel without waiting for strollers and five bags, king-sized bed hotel rooms, no alarm clocks to get the kids ready for school, and conversations with my husband about things other than the activities scheduled for the week.

I feel okay missing the baby train.

Pre-P.S. You’re reading day 22 of my 32 days of insights, inspiration, and instigation. (Very informal title). Get the full scoop here. ✨

I’ve decided to avoid learning “should” in Spanish. 

Our house has no swear jar (it’d be full real fast). Instead of policing swear words, we’ve banned the word “should” from our conversations.

So there’s really no point in me learning it in Spanish.

Should is a far more damaging word than shit.

“I should start going to Pilates.”

vs.

“I want to start going to Pilates.”

Do you feel the difference between the two?

The first one starts from a place of failure and ambiguity. 

Why “should you” go? Do you even like Pilates? When are you thinking of picking up this new habit? 

The second sentence actually communicates something—a preference. 

The weight of walking around with endless shoulds on our shoulders gets heavy. 

There are the shoulds we tell ourselves:

• “I should do the laundry.” 
• “I should work out.”
• “I should be more bubbly.”

And the shoulds we hear from others:

• “You should stay with us when you come visit.”
• “You should go back to school.”
• “You should wait and see who else you may cross paths with.”

A handy antidote to shoulds is first being aware of how often you say “should” to yourself and others. 

Then, a practical way to shed the lingering shoulds is to reframe them into preference statements.

When you reframe shoulds into preference statements, you give yourself direction for an action you can actually take. 

Swappin a should to a desire or preference helps us eliminate unnecessary demands on ourselves. And, it helps us move forward more purposefully.

“We should go grocery shopping today.” becomes → “I’d like to go to the grocery store at 1:00 pm today.” 

The first leads to analysis paralysis and a flood of possibilities, “Okay, should we do it before or after lunch?” “Should we go together?” “Should we run other errands then?”

The list of follow-up questions goes on and on. 

Not to mention, it doesn’t do a good job of honoring the other person’s preferences. It puts a should on both yourself and your partner/friend, whereas “I want to go to the grocery store today. Do you want to come with me?” leaves room for a much more productive conversation.

Or in business…

“I should be writing weekly.” 

becomes → “I want to start writing weekly because I want to share my musings and connect with more people.”

Or,

“I should have a social media presence.” 

becomes → “I’m actively choosing not to post on social media right now because it doesn’t feel good for me.”

How much added pressure is slapped on your plate because of looming shoulds?

Try turning them into preference statements to liberate yourself. 

xx, Alyssa

P.S. Today’s topic comes from a guide/mini-book I’ve been writing all about Dropping the Shoulds. Want to know when it’s done? Have a genius idea for a better title? Hit reply and let me know.

Pre-P.S. You’re reading day 21 of my 32 days of insights, inspiration, and instigation. (Very informal title). Get the full scoop here. ✨

“I don’t know which way to tell the story.” 

“Do I reveal what I was thinking, or do we keep them in the dark with suspense?”

These are the types of questions littering my mind like scooters litter city streets as I’ve been drafting the script for my wedding ceremony this week (the countdown has reached single digits now 🎉).

Like photography, the lens you pick changes the focus of the scene. 

And there’s always more than one lens to choose from.

For example, the main character in my book could experience a tense scene with her wildly handsome but seriously addicted to work husband in any number of ways:

“And then he walked out of the room, leaving me on the couch thinking he’d decided the conversation was over.”

—

“And then he walked out of the room, his steps already diffusing the tension.” 

—

“And then he walked out of the room. My heart started to race as I felt the familiar pangs of abandonment, wondering when he’d come back. Previous me would have followed him to the room. But this version of me, the one who’s aware of her nervous system, remembered to breathe. In… 2, 3, 4; Out… 2, 3, 4.”

How we perceive a situation kickstarts a chain of reactions and responses that can end in wildly different outcomes depending on the initial lens we took. 

That’s why I love to ask, “What else can this mean?” when I start to notice myself feeling defensive.

Our minds lie to us all the time. 

They love to come up with one meaning for a situation and run away with the storyline until we’re convinced that what happened had to mean that one thing. 

There’s rarely only one way to tell a story, though. By asking, “What else can this mean?” we allow ourselves to explore other explanations for behavior, thus allowing for more compassion, understanding, and connection. 

Our gut instinct is to take most things personally, but other people’s behavior often has nothing to do with us and everything to do with them. 

The first story or explanation your mind comes up with doesn’t mean it’s the truth. What else might it mean?

xx, Alyssa

Pre-P.S. You’re reading day 14 of my 32 days of insights, inspiration, and instigation. (Very informal title). Get the full scoop here. ✨

Do you want to sit outside?”

“Not really.”

That’s pretty much how it goes every time Geoff asks if I want to get a table outside.

As much as I’m sun-obsessed and need to be walked by 3 pm or there’s a high risk of me being unintentionally grumpy, I really hate eating outside—mostly because of the wind. 

I despise the moment when I’m about to take a bite, and then my hair inevitably blows right in front of my fork, and I’m no longer eating steak tartar; I’m eating steak tartar and some hair.

The wind and I have a love/hate relationship that’s rarely 50/50. 

It’s usually 20% love you for cooling me down when the sun is blazing hot, 80% why are you forever sweeping my hair and olive tree pollen into my face?

Some people, like Geoff, don’t mind the wind at all. 

I resist it. 

But I also find it curious that “Colors of the Wind” was one of my favorite Disney songs growing up, and I still find myself humming it around the house randomly.

And the fact that Geoff and I are getting married in the windy city (Chicago) in 16 days. (eek!)

I have a sneaky suspicion I’m supposed to learn something from the wind.

In an attempt to stop resisting it so much and find the lessons, I started making a list describing wind:

• It can be a propelling force or feel like a wall. 
• It carries words when we speak them. 
• It offers momentum but stirs up a significant amount of dust along the way. 
• It cools for comfort but can cause immense discomfort when you forget to pack a windbreaker and end up freezing your 🍑 off.
• It’s symbolic of change and transformation (remembering this always adds more points to the love side of my love/hate equation). 
• It’s soft and feminine while also might.
• It powers flight.
• Inspiration comes to me in whispers that feel like small gusts of wind.

Some people are naturally and inexplicably drawn to water, others find their metaphors in fire, some resonate with earthy phrases like “being grounded,” and then there are people like me who experience air as a prominent theme in life. 

Life repeatedly demonstrates to me there are keys hidden in our resistance that can unlock aspects of our growth.

We chase answers in the outer world, but there’s much we can explore in our inner worlds. 

Inner space exploration will forever be more interesting to me than outer space. 

Self-inquiry is the gift that keeps on giving. 

It allows us to evolve. We’re taught to shy away from self-inquiry and instead look to systems, places, and people to see why we feel the way we do or to understand our problems, but that only leads to more suffering. 

The world would benefit if we focused more on being inner cosmonauts. 👩‍🚀

What whispers do you hear in the wind? 🌬️

xx,

P.S. For those into astrology, I’m a Taurus. It’s abundantly apparent I’m an earth sign when you walk into my house and see all natural textures and colors: linen, stone, wood, and my favorite interior accent color—green. 

My moon and midheaven signs are both air signs, though. (What that means specifically might as well be Greek to me, but if you’re into it and have more context, my inbox is open).