A monthly letter
There are times when reading begins to feel fragmented.
Insight appears, resonates — and then dissolves again into the pace of daily life.
Returning to the Self is a monthly letter for readers who want a slower, more coherent way to engage with this work — without pressure to keep up, perform insight, or move on too quickly.
It gathers together the writing that has taken shape here over the past weeks and offers it back as a single point of orientation — so you can sense what belongs to you, and enter at your own pace.
What you’ll receive
About once a month, you’ll receive a letter that includes:
- titles and brief excerpts from newly published essays
- a small amount of context on how these pieces speak to one another
- occasionally, a short reflective or grounding offering that accompanies the themes
The essays themselves are long and meant to be read slowly.
The letter doesn’t summarize or simplify them — it simply helps you find your way in, and choose what to enter now.
There is no sequence to follow, and no expectation to read everything.
The nature of the work
This writing returns, again and again, to early emotional environments — and to the intelligent ways we learned to protect ourselves within them.
It explores how protective strategies form: perfectionism, vigilance, people-pleasing, emotional numbing — and how these same strategies often continue into adulthood, long after the original conditions have changed.
Here, rebuilding a sense of self is not framed as improvement or self-optimization.
It happens more quietly — through sustained attention, recognition, and learning to stay present with what once had to be managed or avoided.
Motherhood, symbolic reflection, and small embodied practices appear throughout the work — not as separate topics, but as places where these psychological themes surface most clearly in lived experience.
Who this tends to resonate with
Many readers arrive already thoughtful, already reflective — and often tired.
Tired of advice that asks for more effort.
More urgency.
More visibility.
More fixing.
If you’re comfortable engaging with ideas on your own — following what resonates, leaving what doesn’t — this correspondence may feel like a supportive way to stay connected to the work.
A place to begin: The Protective Self
When you subscribe, you’ll receive The Protective Self: a seven-part reflective journal exploring common protective strategies — such as perfectionism, numbing, and people-pleasing — as intelligent responses to earlier conditions.
It’s offered as a companion to the essays: something to return to alongside the writing, or in moments when a familiar pattern quietly tightens again.
Not a solution to apply — but a way of meeting yourself with more understanding and less force.
An invitation
If this way of engaging with the work feels right, you’re welcome to subscribe.
You’ll hear from me about once a month — with a clear sense of what’s new, and ample space to enter it in your own way.
With care,
Mina