I recently graduated college with a Bachelors in Journalism.

This is a long and emotional journey to come to a close—my core journalism education started in the field when I was 15.

I wrote and edited for a nationally recognized high school newspaper and won awards I’m still proud of. Since then, I’ve written for over five publications and reported on everything from bees to budget cuts in anywhere from Eudora, Kansas to Los Angeles.

Here are 10 things my journalism experience taught me about life.

1. An interview is just a conversation.

I can interview anyone, anywhere and really that just means…I can talk to people. The word ‘interview’ is loaded with unnecessary pressure (both on the interviewer and the interviewee). Have a conversation, we are all people at the end of the day.

2. Stay curious.

This is especially applicable to people / stories / jobs that don’t look like you or familiar to you. Curiosity eliminates ego and it invites learning. More friends and less angst with this one.

3. Ask the “hard” questions.

These are usually the questions you really learn from. My mom always says ‘everyone has a voice, it’s a muscle not everyone exercises.’ Ask one hard question every day and it won’t feel so hard anymore. If not for you, do it for the voices that are suppressed.

4. Listen first.

Oh, the things we would learn if only we would listen. A good journalist can learn a lot from simply keeping their mouth shut and their ears and eyes open — everyone could.

5. Let there be silence.

I am a professional silence killer. Journalism taught me that silence is where the important stuff tumbles out, it just needs a second. Wildflowers grow in the cracks and so do the details of stories and people.

6. Know your stuff, don’t know it all.

Do research beforehand. If you know the stuff you should know, people will take you more seriously and as a result, might share more with you than they planned. Just remember, you don’t know it all.

7. Get to the point.

Be honest with yourself, and write in a way people can understand. I like to apply this to everything in life.

8. A firm handshake and good eye contact can go a long way.

There’s a thing about first impressions when you interview people. A reporter is typically either viewed as intimidating or an uninformed outsider — not without reason. A story is a big responsibility, and many interviewees see that you will never be them.

Eye contact says ‘I see you’ and a firm handshake says ‘I’m a professional.’

9. Question the authority.

We grow up in a system that trains us to not question authority, to do as we are told and to believe in it. In certain circumstances, sure! In most? No.

Look for the authority’s “why” wherever you are and if you can’t find it, ask. If you feel like a pain in the ass, you might be getting somewhere.

10. Believe in what you’re doing or quit doing it.

I feel lucky to have learned this one early. Journalism isn’t a millionaires gig and “news never sleeps” meaning, you’ll be working a lot so you better believe in it.

Frankly, everyone could use a little more of this. I think we’d have a lot more people doing what they were meant to do anyway.

While I’m not continuing a career in traditional journalism, I’ll always be a storyteller. These are lessons I will never forget.

P.S. If you’d like to contribute and be a part of the Soul Craft family, our doors are always open! Simply comment down below or on the Submissions Guidelines post. We would love to have you on board!

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10 things journalism taught me about life was originally published in Soul Craft on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Where is a place you feel whole yet unfinished, and vulnerable yet safe?

I journaled that question one morning at a yoga retreat and it unintentionally became a riddle, minus the witty answer.

After writing it down, my place that came to mind was what my family called the Uppie — the finished attic in my childhood home.

It was a room the length of our house with a low triangular roof. At one end there was a stage with black and white checkered floors, and at the other end my uncle built the frame of a house with a bright blue halfway door, my schoolhouse. Between the two ends was open space and a block of a TV with VHS tapes.

It was the ultimate dreamspace.

By the time you made it at the top of a steep and narrow staircase to the Uppie, you could be anything you wanted.

I was the investigator, the teacher, the mom, the writer, the ballerina, the talkshow host — the list goes on.

Bottom line was — in this space, imagination was everything, creativity was encouraged, crying was natural, laughter was loud, and the only rule was that there are no rules.

If I stop to think about how many places make me feel the same sense of wonder and comfort today, I can only think of my yoga mat.

Yoga is about a lot of things, and one is showing up with your spirit as is.

I step onto the mat and a layer of blubber slips right off of me, I’m suddenly light and comfortably “naked.” Nothing else matters except here and now. And, I almost always walk away feeling freer and effortlessly creative.

The Uppie was like that too. I could show up sleepy, smelling like metal with sweat or wild with energy to be weird. I could wail or sing, I could teach a class of imaginary students and laugh at myself out loud.

I was whole yet unfinished and vulnerable yet safe.

“Creativity lives in paradox: serious art is born from serious play.” — Julia Cameron

Now, I get this.

When we let ourselves play, we tap into a more raw version of ourselves, one that doesn’t know to squash our dreams and be how others want us to be. In yoga this is called the “inner child.”

I’ve done yoga as part of my spiritual practice since I was 14, I only recently realized that this was the same age my family moved and we parted with the Uppie.

Play and spirituality are feeders into and off of one another, and this is how we unearth authentic creativity both big and small. Finding a place to rediscover your childish self is important.

The headspace I cultivate when I step on my mat is simply where I’ve learned to rediscover parts of myself that I’ve gradually shut down over the years, we all do.

With a few tactics (I list below) I’m able to cultivate that same headspace off the mat.

Three things I do to create my internal playroom

1. Eliminate “no” from my vocabulary for a set time

“Yes” is important because “anything” is possible and in order to create unusual “wild” things you need a “limitless” mindset. I’ve quoted the keywords to an abundance mindset—something children have.

Research shows that our brains don’t respond well to negatives. Redirection works better than dwelling on what not to do because likely, you will do just that.

2. Utilize what’s in front of me, even if it’s not much

When you’re a little kid, you use what is right in front of you without even considering that you could have something else or something “better.” I made potions from grass and mulch, didn’t you?

This mimics the idea of gratitude—to acknowledge and appreciate what you have big and small. This is a grounding exercise because while we look at a bigger picture we simultaneously put our feet in the present reality.

3. Incorporate midday play

Young children are above all, present. Here and now is what’s goin’ down. Tomorrow? Kids don’t wait for tomorrow.

They play in small moments of the day all the time, recess happens so kids can “get the wiggles out.” Those wiggles don’t go away, adults just squash the urge to do what they feel. If you’ve convinced yourself that you “don’t have the time,” it doesn’t take more than 2 minutes. You have the time.

P.S. If you’d like to contribute and be a part of the Soul Craft family, our doors are always open! Simply comment down below or on the Submissions Guidelines post. We would love to have you on board!

Soul Craft Submission Guidelines

If you’re new here and would like to gain unlimited access to hundreds of similar stories, be sure to sign up to become a Medium member. You’ll also have the opportunity to write stories of your own and earn for them! You can become a member by clicking here.

Authentic creativity requires two things we don’t take seriously enough was originally published in Soul Craft on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Oh, what it means to be free.

It’s to be entirely me,

without worrying about you,

and what you might see.

Oh, what it means to be free.

It’s sharing why I love the smell of wet cement,

and staying in on a night they all went.

It’s breaking the rules by loving what I do,

instead of finding a common complaint,

and knowing the relationship between “cool” and “boring,”

because the life I live, will be without restraint.

It’s looking at life with curious eyes, instead of envy and spite,

because everything that happens in this blip of time,

is the path, we so badly want to be “right.”

It’s shaking hands with my fears,

and laughing my real laugh.

It’s walking barefoot through streams,

and believing in stars over graphs.

Oh, what it means to be free.

It’s realizing that judging you, was really just me,

protecting my bad habits and hiding in the weeds.

All I want to feel is what it means to be free,

To be entirely me,

without worrying about you,

and what you might see.

Oh, how it feels to be free.

“I” might be you. This poem is my take on a mindset that takes daily practice and lots of repetition. Read it, hear it, write it, believe it. Rinse and repeat!

What it means to be free was originally published in Soul Craft on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There are days I sit and wonder ‘what’s the point in me writing?’

Everyone’s a “writer” today. So, is my writing value added or internet word vomit? This is a frequent internal debate I have. Any creative can relate to this, it doesn’t have to be your career.

The generation of mass content production and self-declaring whatever-you-want-to-be on the internet makes it easy to lose track of my “why.” With a box of Cheez-its and my third cup of coffee at my home office, I decided, it is value added.

What I always come back to is the number of stories I hear that end with people being and feeling misunderstood or unseen, or both.

Broken families, discrimination, lost friendships, hate crimes, ended lives — many of them stem from some sliver of feeling that way. And they guarantee a ripple of those feelings in their wake.

Humans are intricately different and also, one and the same. The bottom line is that we are all made of complex emotions and opinions, and then stories that make those make sense.

What’s something you’ve heard, watched or read that moved you?

It can be a podcast episode, a line from a movie, even a caption. Sometimes all it takes is one line to shock us in a way that gives us an instant feeling of being seen or understood, even though what stares back at us is not a person.

It’s possible that I’m writing this more to tell myself than to tell anyone reading this but, c’est la vie. I write to feel and to invoke feeling.

These kinds of stories can’t be manufactured by robots, they are made by people who are shaped by tragedies, miracles and the everyday mundane.

My hope with sharing raw personal stories is that it makes someone feel something. And there is always the chance that nothing I write will be read or move a soul.

But, there’s also a chance that it does…

I’d rather live writing myself deep into the unexplored ocean to pursue helping people feel understood, or have a laugh, or think about a new perspective than die wading in a shoreline littered with untold stories.

When you feel in doubt, hike to find your “why.” Even if it means hiking through lonely dark forests, do it. Never let doubt overcome the creative in you because that will always be yours and the world needs it more than it will ever admit.

Wabi-Sabi

For those of you who may not know, there’s a Japanese Philosophy,

They call it: Wabi-Sabi.

It’s hardly translatable, but what we know is stable:

There is beauty in faults and complexity.

The perfectly imperfect surrounds our daily life,

And flush us with reasons to accept failure without strife.

Most often, we deny them, and cry our salty tears,

But in success, we look back, to find after failure,

We are here.

I’ll give you an example of what it means,

To experience and love, the Wabi-Sabi dream.

It’s old stained wood, instead of shiny slate floors,

And cracked pots left cracked, to show it’s aged and worn.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say,

And maybe when we seek the beauty in what doesn’t go our way,

The Earth is telling us to see,

That perfectly imperfect is the way it should be.

Buried deep in our minds there is a place,

Where we concoct our feelings and process the dysfunction we face.

Hidden in wrinkles of family and quirks of friends,

We may find that with imperfection, there is no end.

What it takes is the mindset,

That flaws can be an asset.

That life cannot be wholly beautiful without mistakes and troubles,

For how else could we see the simple joy in children chasing bubbles.

They say it takes a quiet mind, to value muted beauty.

That’s because a quiet mind has space to accept its rustic duty.

Like seeing a life in leather that’s worn,

And through listening to stories, to mend hearts that are torn.

Our life is a sort of cache, of memories and dreams.

The two can be confused, when we are ambitious enough to see,

That a dream can become, reality.

We believe in what we know, and we know in what we believe,

That’s because we trust in what happens, but only subconsciously.

What Wabi-Sabi says, is that consciously appreciating, the simple forms of joy,

May come with challenges and barriers we wish to destroy.

In a world competing for perfection, this philosophy reminds,

That there are days when clouds are more perfect than warm sunshine.

And when the thunder sends your pup running under the bed,

Remember the days when fears were like cobwebs caught up in your head.

So, do your work and be kind to your friends.

Tell people when you love them, so that they don’t forget.

Not every day is perfect, just breathe when you are stressed.

If you let it into your life, Wabi-Sabi will do the rest.

Read here to learn how scary it was to write this anti-poem & accept the Fear Challenge.

#poetry #antipoetry #wabisabi #japanesephilosophy #fear

How does fear relate to internal freedom? My fascination with this all stemmed from writing my anti-poem: Wabi-Sabi.

“This is VdaisyB, Kansas City native, Angeleno wannabe,” I opened my radio talk show this way every week at Loyola Marymount University.

One morning, in that tiny room with sound boards and record labels, I sat with a girl who called herself “G.”

I invited her on because of the energy I felt when I met her just days before. Yes, I am that person.

While the details are a bit fuzzy four years later, I remember she was from China. She’d been attending boarding school in California for four to five years before college began, facing catty girls and puberty without her home and family.

Being on her own was nothing new, and it showed. She fearlessly radiated joy. Her magnetic energy was unusual and it made me want to be as proud to be me as she was proud to be G.

We trickled into a conversation about art and how I write and she sings. We met somewhere in the middle at spoken word poetry — something I listen to and she knew much more about than me.

Conveniently, she was hosting a poetry slam in a few days. This should not have come as the shock that it did for me.

Two things I don’t (or didn’t) do: poetry and poetry slams. She insisted I perform a piece at the event. I browsed my mental inventory of excuses before blurting out ‘yes.’

And I’m so glad I did.

I considered canceling the night before when I had three unfinished and less-than-poetic poems. And yet, I found myself leaning against an unstable wooden stool reading this Wabi-Sabi poem in front of a decent-sized crowd the next evening.

Comforted only by the smell of croissants and London Fogs from the Lion’s Den next door, I read my poem with sweaty hands.

What I realized in my brief two minutes on stage was that I had this set definition of myself —a definition I was breaking by being on stage that night. Think of it as a list of do’s and don’ts. ‘I do write, I do not write poetry. I do read, I do not read my work out loud. I do fun things, I do not take big risks like being vulnerable in crowds.’

I’d unconsciously built a pretty picket fence of rules around me to protect some emotional self that feared judgment and change.

This was an odd realization being at a university halfway across the nation from home where I didn’t know anyone. I’d previously considered myself somewhat fearless, to be honest.

The way I felt reading out loud was similar to the fluttery, light, tickle my stomach and arms feel when I jump off of a cliff into a big body of water.

I was swing dancing with Fear, having a soiree with Uncomfortable and welcoming Risk into my home we call heart. I realized that Fear is a great partner to swing dance with, Uncomfortable makes a soiree quite interesting and Risk is a fun house guest as long as she doesn’t overstay her welcome.

It only takes one experience to tear down one picket on that fence to realize how walled in we can be. We build fences to protect our fears and we end up shutting down opportunities, punishing ourselves for considering that things might just work out.

We so often kill the fire before it’s aflame.

That energy I loved and wanted that G had (and still has) was from her ability to let herself be uncomfortable. She was fearlessly radiating joy because she wasn’t so busy punishing herself out of fear of what others might think of her.

I call myself a writer and I shudder (still) at the idea of my work being read aloud to an audience. So, this is for those of you who have a beautiful voice but shudder at the idea of singing. And those of you who don’t know what you do yet, it’s worth trying new things to find out.

What G did for me, I’d love to do for you. Give it a shot because this big waspy “internal freedom” I speak of is a vast concept that’s much better when felt yourself.

The Fear Challenge

1. Write down five things that scare you.
2. Pick two that you can physically do.
3. Do one.

Share this with someone who you think needs this, deserves this, wants this, or pretty much anyone you think of.

The WABI-SABI POEM.

Her glasses magnify her eyelids coated in a buttery yellow shadow with large sparkles. They match her yellow earrings and yellow mock neck sweater—easily noticed at first glance.

Seated at the bar, we attempt to order from the waiter at the same time, stuttering to allow the other to go first. It’s clear he assumed we are eating together. She orders coffee, I order O.J.

I scribble in my journal, occasionally looking up to note the Kansas-proud decor in Lady Bird Diner.

I debated treating myself, even passing the diner once before parking. I put enough quarters and dimes in the meter for only an hour. Forgot about the meter anyway.

We each get our food, my chocolate chip “one lonely pancake,” as the menu lists, with two eggs and toast and for her eggs, bacon and toast, with a side of avocado.

“Could you pass the syrup?” She asks as though we eat breakfast next to each other every morning. I pass the syrup wondering if she’ll destroy the savory scrambled eggs. She pours a sticky puddle and dips her bacon in it. Makes sense.

I scribble and chew.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what are you writing?”

Nosy, but I do that too.

I wipe the chocolate chip pancake from my chin and chuckle.

“I reported on a pancake breakfast in Eudora this morning, so these are just notes for the story I’ll write later today.”

Her curiosity about my notebook at the bar turned into crafting 101—we both love crocheting and painting, neither of which we are especially good at. Neither of us knows whether we are classified as morning people or night owls because of our unhealthy habit of being both.

Plates clink and coffee spills and the waiter asks how we’re doing. We chime together, “great thanks!”

She comes from a cookie-cutter suburb in North Chicago with a twenty-minute drive to the nearest mall. She loves mob movies and has watched the Godfather eight times, but never all in one sitting. Around Christmas time the movie plays 24/7 and her dad always turns it on at different times. Her dream is to create sustainable packaging for local businesses, and she hopes to retire on a farm where she can help rehabilitate ex-cons with the affection of cows and chickens (only maybe on the chickens).

Even though it’s every Gen-Z’s dream to be out West, she plans to go somewhere like Delaware — a place where she can really build a life, but close enough to a big city to access adventure.

“Bottomless coffee” is written in bold at the top of the menu, and bottomless it is. The waiter doesn’t let her coffee dip below the top of the handle before he fills her mug to the brim again.

She takes sugar and cream, and I don’t think she once saw him refill her mug because her eyebrows furrow each time she found her coffee a shade darker.

One parking ticket, two hours, seven creams, and 12 empty sugar packets later I introduce myself.

“I’m Daisy by the way.”

“Alexxus.”

Two lonely pancakes turned into, well, just two pancakes. All it took was a little bit of syrup.

September is the new January — I read an article about this and loved the idea, fall deserves a fresh set of eyes just as any new year does, plus a little reflection never hurts.

Page one of my journal: January 1, 2020, New Year’s Mantra.

“When the world seems unkind — persist.

When I am tired — persist.

When I feel unsuccessful — persist.

I will become mentally stronger, forge on.”

I am fascinated by mental strength and the power of the mind. But, 2020 watched me write that down and gave me the finger.

On the next page, I’d written this: “Indeed, our research has led us to conclude that one of the most reliable indicators and predictors of true leadership is an individual’s ability to find meaning in negative events and to learn from even the most trying circumstances.” — Warren Bennis & Robert Thomas (from the book Mental Toughness).

I could never have anticipated the irony and value in these two pages being the first consecutive notes in my 2020 journal.

In February, I was faced with a group of girls, acquaintances at most, who projected their self-hatred and anger on me. 10 against one.

The words uttered in that hour of chaos all supported one idea that had no resolution from the very start, I made sure to ask. The idea: My energy is a problem. A room full of people watched with anticipation. The circle of angry girls closed in on me, it all came back to the way I stand, the reasons I am definitively a complete bitch, and the ways in which I “ruin the room.”

It’s taken me six months to write those words down (a fraction of the nasty claims) without bursting into tears. You’re either thinking I’m dramatic and sensitive or that what happened must’ve been deliberate and personal.

I am typically a person who “doesn’t take shit” as they say. That day I did. To this day, I don’t know what changed or why I reacted so calmly. All I know is that I sat there and swallowed foul, untrue decisions they’d made about who I am, without even really knowing me!

Of course, there are always two sides to a story. Some read 10 against one and think, power in numbers, effective, revealing. Others read 10 against one and think bullying, threatening, inhumane. Some might feel that those girls were entitled to feel that way about me, and others would feel that everything they said in that fashion was a projection of their own character.

When the world seems unkind — persist.

I listened. I knew those claims were not true to me. I watched the girls’ anger and their hype for each other’s anger. I listened as a few boys tried desperately to speak up for me. And then I burst into uncontrollable tears. From there I heaved and cried and shuddered and squeezed my eyes as shut as possible. I wanted to disappear.

I couldn’t control my body purging with revulsion—an anxiety attack.

Someone retrieved my best friend, Abi, who took my hands. She hadn’t been in the room for any of the chaos but yes, she dared to approach the emotional wreck of a raisin on the floor, shriveling out of self-preservation. I felt like a circus animal.

She squeezed my hands tight, her eyes bright red, tears rolling down her cheeks as she told me “We are going to be okay. We are going to get through this. We are going to be okay.”

Those words still bring me to tears. She felt every ounce of hurt and fear I felt at that moment, I understood. And I was lucky. When I finally mustered the energy and courage to sweep up the confidence I’d dropped and my pride that had shattered, I emerged from the room with swollen eyes, still shaking.

When I am tired — persist.

The next day I took Courtney (my guest) and Abi to breakfast. I smiled and laughed and I couldn’t tell you one thing we talked about that day — the whole event replayed in my head. But I swore to keep going.

Abi asked me to talk about it. It all started again, the crying and barely breathing and there, my shards of pride and confidence fell out of the pocket I’d shoved them in the night before.

That’s when Abi took over the role that I formerly played myself — warrior, taking no shit. She became my shadowed self, the part of me that was hiding, the part that loves me. She told me what I needed because I couldn’t tell myself. We involved the police. We involved my parents. And I wouldn’t have done it, we did it. The “we” is important and lucky.

Interview after interview, we cried each time. “Persist!” they told me. I recounted the same traumatic moments I’d already lived once. We sat together in the school therapist’s office filling out papers detailing our sanity and cried to a 70-year-old woman who knew nothing about me outside of the mess I’d presented her with.

Nothing but a little setback, persist.

I signed the college version of a restraining order against ten girls feeling deserving and guilty of everything that had happened. Then I slept at all of the wrong hours, Abi watched. I slept all day and threw up my empty stomach all night, Abi worried. I cried when my professor asked how my day was going and avoided talking to anyone about it, Abi hurt.

Is this persisting?

When I realized that many of the people I considered friends wanted nothing but to forget it happened at all, I mimicked it. I swallowed tears in gulps and supported their way of “coping” with the discomfort of it all.

When you feel unsuccessful — persist.

This is an ugly version of the bold and honest person I am. I was shedding the wrong way, pulling my shell over me to make others comfortable. And I only cared to notice when it was hurting Abi, not me.

I thought this for a long time. When people are unkind, persist. When you are tired, persist. When you feel unsuccessful, persist. It’s exhausting and oftentimes, wrong. As time went on, my persisting was numbing me to my life. I was so unresponsive to my emotions and bitter towards the people around me because it must be their fault, I persisted!!!

Six months later I picked up the book Untamed, written by Glennon Doyle, and read this: “I did not know, before that woman told me, that all feelings were for feeling. I did not know that I was supposed to feel everything. I thought I was supposed to feel happy.”

Thank GOD. We aren’t just supposed to forge on all the time?!

Tears of relief poured out of me in the same immediate, purging fashion that they had that horrible night in February.

I will become mentally stronger if I own everything I feel.

I don’t always enjoy that I feel things so deeply because it seems counterproductive to my own life. But if I learned anything in retrospect, it’s that persisting doesn’t mean pretending. Forging on isn’t always the answer. Feeling everything is important. Taking a break to process feeling is what makes people mentally tough. Forging on without understanding how you feel doesn’t make you a leader it makes you not-human.

I unfollowed people on social media and more importantly, in real life, and started a journey on my own to feel everything again. Here I am, feeling everything and finding value in negative events and trying circumstances.

“Pain is not tragic. Pain is magic.” — Glennon Doyle