I'm not listening to anyone this year
The one where I'm reading more fiction, unfollow 400 Instagram accounts and expand my understanding of healing
Between the age of 10 - 16 ( could be 11 and 16, these are rough numbers because I have bad memory), I used to go to my local library every week. I would come home with three to five books that I devoured until the following week, when I would take them back and borrow another pile of books.
They were always novels, I remember that really well.
And they were so random. My parents never checked what I was reading. I was always the good and responsible child, left to my own devices.
The selection was hilarious: I read romance novels by Danielle Steel, family dramas, thrillers by Mary Higgins Clark (I used to love those), classics like Moby Dick, impossible stuff like ‘Dead souls’ by Gogol, mostly because I saw it on Gilmore girls and novels written about animals. I was a country potatoe who grew up on a farm.
I was hungry for stories. I was hungry to escape my small village life. My not fitting in anywhere. My loneliness.
When I was 17 I became a Christian. Even though I grew up in a strict evangelical home from birth, in case you didn’t know, in these circles you ‘become’ a Christian by consciously converting, making a choice, ‘giving your life to Jesus’ by speaking a conversion prayer. It’s up to people personally when they make that choice - though it’s questionable how much of a choice it is, when you have been indoctrinated with the same message of fear for decades.
But that’s not today’s story.
After handing over my life to Jesus I started reading more christian literature, and over time, stopped reading fiction altogether.
In my twenties I diversified a little and added more self-development, self-help and therapy literature to my repertoire, but would only read a novel a year or every other year, if at all. Even after leaving Christianity that didn't really change.
I didn’t even notice this until about three years ago.
For the best part of twenty years I have treated myself like a project that needs constant improvement. First it was because of christianity and needing to become ‘more like Jesus’ and then it was because of therapy, becoming aware of my wounds, my healing and evolution.
A few weeks ago I said to a dear friend that this year will be my year of no podcasts and no books, other than fiction.
This will be the year of listening to less opinions, thoughts and ideas by others.
And listen to more of my own wisdom that comes through when I reduce the influences in my life.
I unfollowed 400 instagram accounts at the end of last year. And unsubscribed from the podcasts that I actually never listened too. I donated books I never finished or didn’t enjoy. I deleted numbers from my phone that had been in there for years, unused.
I am consciously working on reducing the noise in my life, in my head. I want to hear less of others and more of me.
Not because I am unteachable.
But because there is a season for everything.
I have been a sponge for a very long time now. I have been actively ‘working on myself’ and my relationships for decades. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.
When you have that moment of ‘waking up’ there’s no turning back really.
You start seeing construction sites everywhere. And that’s good and important. I wouldn’t want to live on autopilot.
Self awareness is annoying because you can’t turn it off. Which is why it’s kind of great too.
It’s crucial to dig, unpack, understand yourself and others better, change unhelpful behaviour, become a more wholesome version of a human, intentionally choosing the life you want.
And a lot of these things I learned not only through my own questioning, but through other people. Books. Strangers. Friends. I desperately needed that season. We all do. If you haven’t done that work, I highly recommend it.
But this is a different season for me: