Author: marisavictus

Who’s the real victim, when your Deprivation Curiosity kills your Interest Curiosity?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 6 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

You’ve probably heard the saying “There’s a thin line between love and hate.”

But…

Did you know there’s a thin line between curiosity and fear?

In Chapter 6: Curiosity: The Secret Doorway, MB describes how we are born as inquisitive, creative babes. When we’re kids, we explore the world and ask questions like mini scientists.

But then we get used to coloring inside the lines.

The structure and culture of our society indoctrinates us to abandon our free-flowing creative impulses.

It’s in the way we are taught to follow the rules; the left-hemisphere-dominant ways in which we are educated; and the way our institutions favor hierarchies and reward competition.

Sadly, for most people, our anxiety ramps up the older (and more socially indoctrinated) we get. Anxiety hampers our sense of safety and dampers or prevents our curiosity. And our interests are relegated to the back-burner or abandoned entirely so we can focus on winning socially, gaining approval, following rules, and getting promotions. Climbing up that ladder until we retire, and we suddenly realize our lives have passed us by.

In other words…

We’re indoctrinated to listen to and address our fears, more than follow our curiosity or creativity.

We think this guarantees we will be “successful,” but as MB hilariously illustrates, coloring inside the lines and doing what’s “expected of us” can fail — miserably:

In the early 2000s, Peter Skillman tested how well different teams would perform as a group on a creative task: to “build a freestanding tower using several sticks of dry spaghetti, one meter of string, one meter of masking tape, and a marshmallow.”

Kindergarteners out-performed adults by a mile. Especially when compared to business school students, who were far “more focused on social anxiety,” like speaking up in the “right” way, to not offend their peers. Following social norms and taking an overly rational approach is what ultimately caused them to fail. Meanwhile, the kindergartners launched themselves into the task, full steam ahead, without worrying about what their peers might think. They allowed their creativity to flow in all its messy glory, all the way to the finish line.

Why the difference? Turns out…

There are two types of curiosity:

• “Interest curiosity comes from a sense of wanting to know, the way children want to know what will happen if they put crayons in the toaster.”
• “Deprivation curiosity is a worried need to know that stems from lacking enough information to feel safe.”

We’re all born with a high level of Interest Curiosity, but our society conditions us to exhibit less and less Interest Curiosity until Deprivation Curiosity becomes the norm or even the default for us.

⭐️ Has that been your experience, growing up?

It certainly has for me. My childhood was filled with ample Interest Curiosity. But the older I got, the more pressure there was to perform academically, the more Deprivation Curiosity began to take hold.

Based on the way our society’s structured, that transition feels inevitable. When there’s pressure to perform and get a good score on anything, our education system focuses our attention on meeting set criteria to be competitive and get the A.

But, it also becomes easier to lose that sense of excitement, creativity, and flow that comes from pure unbridled Interest Curiosity.

Deprivation Curiosity vs. Interest Curiosity

Viewed from this lens, one can clearly see that the adults in the experiment suffered stagnation because of the former, while the kiddos were propelled to success by the latter.

Lesson Learned!

Understanding the difference between the two invites us to be deliberate about the type of curiosity we can choose from moment to moment.

But, BEWARE!

MB points out how insidiously society can dissuade us from our natural inclination to be curious and be deliberate about devoting time to pursuing our creative interests.

To illustrate her point, she tells a wonderful story about how she had her own “Interest Curiosity” maligned in a not-so-subtle way, when she was diagnosed with ADHD and the practitioner said, “It means you have an abnormally interest-based nervous system…. It means you pay more attention to things that interest you than things that don’t.”

Of course, the practitioner offered to help her “overcome [her] learning disability,” for “several thousand dollars.”

It’s true, we do need to be able to focus on what we dislike — pretty much every day — to take out the trash, weed the garden, pay the bills, and function in our society.

But, I agree with MB that…

At a fundamental level, having an “interest-based nervous system” is not problematic. It can be our North Star.

We can work with our minds, bodies, and emotions — instead of struggling against them.

We can choose to use our interest-based nervous system to navigate closer to who we truly are, encourage us to build upon our strengths, and pursue our dreams.

Our interest-based nervous system can show us how to live fulfilling lives.

Indeed, as MB states, her interest-based nervous system “feels like a navigation tool, one that’s always guided me into life situations that feel meaningful….”

I wholeheartedly agree, because it’s the specific interests that we have that makes us special, unique individuals.

What’s more, MB says…

Our interest-based nervous system can be a cure for anxiety.

As she puts it, her “interest-based curiosity is the doorway leading me out of anxiety and into creativity. It has helped me solve countless real problems in practical ways.”

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ For our private Journaling, when you reflect on your life, do you experience a good amount of Interest Curiosity? Where? At work or outside of work?

⭐️ How do the two — Interest Curiosity & Deprivation Curiosity — feel different for you, in your emotions, in your physical body, in your ability to not only learn, but to experience enthusiasm, excitement, and joy?

⭐️ Do you want more Interest Curiosity in your life? Could you do it by exploring something creative?

Are you as ready as I am to leave your

Deprivation Curiosity in the dust?

To embrace your Interest Curiosity,

each and every day?

To live a much healthier & fun life,

full of unbridled joy & creative flow?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you break free…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safety in ourselves by being the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can soothe, nurture, & love the Creative Self inside all of us.

The Interest Curiosity in me honors & respects the Interest Curiosity in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Who wins, when the Left and Right Hemispheres of our brain duke it out?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 5 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 5: Activating Your Creative Side, MB takes us on her own Wild Toad Ride, filled to the brim with creativity. She decides to take an entire month to paint and ends up painting non-stop, to hilarious (and envy-inducing) effect.

⭐️ Wouldn’t you just love to take an entire month to focus on just your Creativity?

Sounds like luxury, right?

No wonder. We all know what it feels like to deny ourselves the time to be creative because we have “better” (often more left-brained) things to do, like MB did all those years focusing on her studies at school and work.

I saw myself in her.

In her years of suffering because she believed she had to do the sensible thing and meet expectations all of the time. I, too, have lived my life this way. And felt the immense joy when I finally carved time out of my schedule to dedicate myself to my Creativity, most of all when I started to write my creative writing series, THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES, and published Obsidian: Birth to Venus.

I’m finally going to publish the 2nd book soon. It’s taken me a while, so my inner Toad’s eager and excited to get it done!

💌 Send me a Direct Message if you want a FREE Advance Reader Copy of Book 2, ’cause I’m putting together a Launch Team now.

⭐️ What’s your Wild Toad’s Ride? Have you let yourself loose before?

⭐️ Or, are your days still dreary with endless, uncreative To Do’s?

What I love most about this Chapter is the realization that we are all “Creatively starved.”

It’s not something unique to me or to you. All of us are deprived — through our societal conditioning — of the ability to spend time creating, without feeling some level of guilt.

Like creativity is somehow less-than the “real work” we do to pay the bills.

As if spending time honoring our creativity is a “waste of time.”

When, in reality, creativity can be our Saving Grace.

In a world full of stress and strain and struggle, our creativity can activate the Right hemispheres of our brain, switching our Anxiety off.

As MB states, “Creativity is the opposite of anxiety.”

Literally. At the physiological level of the brain.

Like the Left hemisphere of our brain that tends to enter Anxiety Spirals when the left amygdala’s triggered, the Right hemisphere of our brain has the capacity to enter Creativity Spirals when the right amygdala’s triggered, too.

The best part?

It doesn’t need much to turn our Creativity Spiral on.

We don’t have to experience some magic strike of Creative Gold.

We needn’t write some magnum opus, compose a symphony, or craft a masterpiece in our minds to get the Creativity Spiral going.

Nope.

All we need is a small amount of curiosity to get our Creative juices flowing.

The ball’s not that hard to roll.

But the conditions do have to be right, for us to go on a Creative Journey or to learn anything.

As MB states, according to one view of the brain developed by education, our nervous systems are always asking three questions, in this order:

1) Am I safe?

2) Am I loved?

3) What can I learn?

Learning happens only when we can answer the first two questions with a “yes.”

No wonder she preceded this Chapter 5 with Chapter 4’s invitation for us to try Dr. Richard Schwartz’s IFS therapy.

If our Managers and Firefighters have run amok, 1 and 2 are likely a “no.”

Our Managers often scare our frightened Anxiety Creatures even more, or make us too disciplined and too rigid to create.

Likewise, our Firefighters’ usually maladaptive efforts to keep us safe don’t work. At least not in the long run. On some level, we know — deep down — that we aren’t at ease so, of course, we don’t feel safe.

And, it goes without saying, when you have Exiles, you don’t feel loved. You feel so unloved that you literally ostracize parts of who you are. You keep Exiles separate from the rest of yourself.

We can gain a greater sense of wholeness if we work to unify our separate IFS parts.

But, that isn’t the only way…

Diving Straight into Our Creativity Works & Has Extra Benefits.

Thinking has its place. But words have a downside too:

As we learned in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, the Left hemisphere can “show us only half the world [because it is] unable to see or acknowledge anything but its own perceptions….”

In contrast, MB says, the Right hemisphere sees everything: “It’s aware of all our perceptions, not only creative ideas but also the logical, analytical thinking that happens mainly in the left side of the brain.”

Let’s Put It to the Creative Test

MB invites us to think of an issue we’re facing, something that would normally cause us anxiety.

Then take out a piece of paper. Write our name, as we usually do, from left to right.

But instead of using our words to journal all the pros and cons using our Left hemisphere, we can activate the Right hemisphere of our brain by writing our name again — but, this time, write its mirror image horizontally.

And, if we really want to get fancy, we can write the entirety of that upside down, as if the whole thing’s being reflected vertically, in a mirror.

I tried it.

My Conclusion? The Creativity Spiral’s better.

When stressful thoughts entice me to engage in rumination or an hour-long CBT session, I can save myself the mental and emotional bandwidth, by just writing my name, a word, a picture. Even a scribble or doodle works.

It creates that space — however brief — between the anxiety-inducing stimulus (whatever F.E.A.R. that’s facing me) and my response.

After doing this a few times throughout the week, I notice my first response isn’t my go-to, knee-jerk, reaction to launch into my standard left-brained, wordy analysis anymore.

The Creative act gives me a momentary respite from my tendency to analyze, argue, solve, and make sense of absolutely any thought that passes through my mental landscape.

Instead, I can simply take a few moments to be. To create. To exist in the here and now — without the story.

The way I used to when I was a carefree kid.

It doesn’t last forever. But, could it?

MB goes so far as to say…

“Your whole life can be a happy childhood.”

Sounds hard to believe, but I know I’d love to live like that.

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ For our private Journaling, give the Creative Test above a try.

⭐️ Did it work like magic for you, too?

Are you as ready as I am to leave the F.E.A.R. Zone, and let our Creativity Spiral spin us free,

to live a much healthier & fun life,

full of childlike joy & creative flow?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you break free of anxiety by entering your own Creative Flow…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safety in ourselves by being the Creatives we are meant to be.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can soothe, nurture, & love the Creative Self inside all of us.

The Happy, Creative Child in me honors & respects the Happy, Creative Child in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

We are not 1 Self, but many. Are you ready to feel peace, to experience life as a Unified Whole?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 4 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 4: The Creature, United, I loved learning about the multitude of “Yous” inside of us.

And, thankfully, how normal it is for the different parts of us to be at odds with each other most, if not all, of the time.

As usual, MB made me laugh at her anxious “if I do,” anxious “if I don’t” self. I’m all too familiar with that whiplash.

Lucky for us, there is a pathway to freedom:

MB invites us to integrate all the various parts of ourselves using parts psychology — specifically the “Internal Family Systems” model of therapy created by Dr. Richard Schwartz in the 1980s.

In IFS, we can understand our psyche as a resourceful conglomeration of distinct identities inside of us that can be divided into 3 categories:

• Exiles,
• Managers, and
• Firefighters.

Exiles are the “pain containers” that our psyche’s banished, to protect us from being overwhelmed by our psychological pain. Often, Exiles resemble our younger self, or selves, that are frozen in time, stuck at the ages when we experienced pronounced emotional pain or trauma in our lives.

Managers keep us on track by being virtuous, telling us to be good boys and girls, to obey cultural rules. To work hard, be kind, and do what society expects of us.

Firefighters care most about stopping our Exiles from experiencing pain, even if it’s accomplished with maladaptive means, like avoidance, distraction, addiction, and tantrums. Firefighters do whatever they can to give our Exiles a momentary semblance of peace. No matter how temporary that band-aid might be. No matter how much it might derail our lives in the long run.

Ultimately, our Managers and Firefighters are stuck in Anxiety Spirals that keep our Exiles in hiding. Which prevents us from being able to give our Exiles the comfort they need, so we can reintegrate them and experience peace as a unified whole.

What’s so great about IFS Therapy?

I see IFS as a promising methodology for understanding ourselves because it does not pathologize our often competing internal interests.

The solution isn’t to malign our Managers or Firefighters that only want to keep us safe.

Instead, we can get curious. We can ask our Managers and Firefighters to step aside, so we can get to know our Exiles, and find ways to show all our parts the compassion, understanding, and empathy they need to feel safe, freeing us to live a happy, healthy, and successful life.

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ What are your thoughts about the IFS approach?

• I’d heard of IFS in the past, but I’d never tried it before.

⭐️ For our Journaling this week, do you want to give IFS a try?

• I tried it. Journaling IFS is eye opening and also kinda funny to put words to paper in different voices. Thankfully, no one gets to read our private Journaling (unless we want them to)!

⭐️ Can you use one of the Amygdala-Whispering Methods (see the list of AWMs from Ch. 2) to help you feel calmer?

• To regulate my nervous system, and bring me back to a state of calm, I used:
• MB’s AWM (the “Sigh”): my go-to method (meditation)
• MB’s AWM (“Move”) specifically, I chose: Yoga with pranayama breathing.
• Plus, my faves: Dancing & Singing.

Overall, the combination worked wonders and showed me —

Yes, IFS works well, to heal the most anxious, fearful, and protective parts of me.

Are YOU ready to listen to the many Selves inside of you,

to experience peace, as a Unified Whole?

Do you have a “safe place” and/or a “safe person”

who can help you to realize that every part of us

— all of our Managers, Firefighters, and Exiles —

want & need to be soothed, nurtured, & loved?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to be a safe person to help you…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell us what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what surfaces, what worked, what didn’t, what you’d recommend and, maybe, what you don’t want to try again.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safe places & be safe people.

Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.

Together, we can sooth, nurture, & love every Self inside of us.

The Whole Self in me honors & respects the Whole Self in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

The 5 F’s are NOT our BFFs. They’re our Frenemies. But, how can we break up with them?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 3 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 3: When Anxiety Creatures Get Stuck, we learn about the Defense Cascade:

The 5 Fs

1. Fight
2. Flight
3. Freeze
4. Fawn
5. Flop

These 5 often knee-jerk responses might’ve served our survival in our evolutionary history, but they now fail to serve our best interests.

How Familiar Are the 5 Fs to YOU?

I’d heard of the first 4 before, but “Flop” was new to me. The idea of just doing nothing. Laying on the couch. Avoiding tasks altogether. Giving up early or before you even start. Not trying as an (ineffective) safety mechanism. I considered them all different forms of avoidance, but I love knowing that they’re good examples of “flop.” The term’s a quick mental reminder that inaction can be a stress response, too.

Meanwhile, “Fawn” reminds me of the common scenario when we suddenly morph into a proverbial “doormat,” saying yes when we really want to say no, and doing whatever people ask of us when, really, we’d rather impale our eyes with a hot poker. Just so we don’t “hurt anyone’s feelings.”

Some people spend their entire life learning how to get rid of unhelpful patterns of behavior like that.

Seeing MB describe many different examples creates some distance, helping us to see how Defense Cascades don’t serve us — despite the false stories our Anxiety Spirals might be telling us.

The 5 F’s Are NOT our BFFs. Most of the time, they’re our Frenemies.

Defense Cascades can take over in unhelpful situations — situations where we need to show up for ourselves and others — when we’re on the job, dating, and/or navigating relationships with our friends and family.

But, when the Defense Cascades take over, it prevents us from handling life’s challenges.

Worse, our Defense Cascades can turn into full-blown Anxiety Spirals, where the left hemisphere of our brain tells us a story to justify our unhelpful behavior (the Defense Cascade itself).

As we learned in Ch. 2, the Anxiety Spiral tells us a false story that frightens our amygdala even more, and the left hemisphere of our brain not only weaves this story with “logic” that sounds true, but also fails to acknowledge facts that can disprove the false story.

As MB puts it, our left-hemisphere loves to “fight” both real and imagined threats in these two ways: “(1) [coming] up with explanations that justify our feeling of fear, and (2) [figuring] out ways we might take control of the situation.”

Overall, the Anxiety Spiral makes it more likely that we’ll fall into the same unhelpful pattern (the same Defense Cascade) in the future.

How can we break up & back away from our Frenemies?

We can “decode” our false stories in a “safe place” with “safe people,” whether that’s with a therapist or with our own introspective practice, like Journaling with our Highest Self.

Take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ For our private Journaling, let’s describe a Defense Cascade of our own. Describe one scenario that’s been troubling you.

⭐️ What’s your typical response: fight-flight-freeze-fawn-or-flop?

⭐️ What’s the story that your Anxiety Spiral tells you, to “make sense” of your Defense Cascade?

⭐️ Is that story accurate? Is it true? Or could it be false?

⭐️ If you continue to believe in that story, are you more or less likely to exhibit the same Anxiety Spiral in the future?

Do you want to abandon your Defense Cascade?

Do you have a “safe place” and/or a “safe person” who can help you to decode your triggers, and /or to release your unconscious dependence on a Defense Cascade?

👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to be a safe person to help you…

Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell us what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.

Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safe places & be safe people.

Together, we can support each other in our healing journeys.

Together, we can abandon our unhelpful Defense Cascades & avoid Anxiety Spirals.

The Safety in me honors & respects the Safety in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

Share

Leave a comment

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

I drew our inner Creature & made a Coloring Page, just for YOU!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Let’s go, 2026!

On Monday, we’ll be in our STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT ☕️🍵 , so we can jump back into the deep dive of our Book Club selection — BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

⭐️ In the meantime, let’s share our New Year’s Resolutions for 2026!

⭐️ What are you looking forward to?

🥳 For 2026, I’ll be…

Leaning into my VICTUS Method to THINK-DO-&-BE my way to becoming the Creative I choose to be on this amazing Attorney-to-Creative Journey I’m on.

That means I’ll be dedicating more of my time and attention to creating everything I LOVE:

♥️ creative writing,

♥️ books,

♥️ art,

♥️ music, &

♥️ singing!

For a long time, I’ve wanted to QUIT what no longer serves me. It’s why I wrote this poem, urging us to QUIT what’s wrong for us, to reclaim our POWER and be AUTHENTICALLY YOU!

It’s important for me to do this in a way that’s healthy & balanced.

That’s why my goal for 2026 is to focus more on my intuition.

To slow down enough to go inward.

To make choices that are in alignment with who I am & who I aspire to become as a Creative.

⭐️ Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

Are you headed in the same or different direction?

What do you hope to accomplish? Personally? Professionally? Creatively?

How can you accomplish your goals in a healthy & balanced way?

🥳 No matter what we choose, let’s remember we don’t have to do it alone.

We’re all on the same journey: Life.

And life needn’t be full of non-stop struggle, stress, or anxiety.

Instead, I’m looking forward to applying the lessons we’re learning in Martha Beck’s book to…

Calm our frightened inner Creatures, using our magical Creative abilities.

Most importantly, our ability to

🔮 Love, 🔮 Soothe, & 🔮 Nurture

ourselves & each other.

🎨 In that spirit, I drew our inner Creature & made this Coloring Page, just for you! 🖌️

Please feel free to print it out & color it in, to ring in the New Year, and decorate it with any other words you wish to write in, to guide & empower you in 2026 & beyond!

I hope you enjoy this fun & artsy gift, and I wish you peace, comfort, & creativity, as we continue our Creative journey together.

Hope you all have a very Happy & Healthy 2026!

The Creative Creature in me honors & respects the Creative Creature in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

Right now, we’re doing a deep dive (one chapter per week) on BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

It’s really opened my eyes to how left-brained dominant I’ve been, and it’s motivated me to lessen my anxiety by activating the right hemisphere of my brain with my creativity. It’s only been a few weeks and I feel much calmer and more centered now.

Hope you’ll join us in the CHAT. It’s a warm and welcoming group!

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Or, do you tend to use force?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our newest Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 2 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

Why don’t we get scared & return to a state of calm, the way prey can do — in minutes — after they escape a lion in the Savanna?

We’re human. We’re supposed to be smart. Yet, returning to a state of “rest & digest” isn’t what we do. When our version of a lion gives up, walks away, and disappears into the tall grass, the left-hemisphere of our brains can still send us into an Anxiety Spiral, locking us in a state of perpetual fight-flight-freeze-or-fawn, with its endless rumination and list of what-ifs.

It’s not our fault, though.

It’s society.

In Chapter 2: Anxious Creatures in an Anxious Culture, MB lets us off the hook…ALMOST.

Yes, Homo sapiens are intelligent, but our society’s conditioned us all to be stressed out, to have a Scarcity Mindset, and to worry (as if worrying could ever keep us safe).

Worse, our society and culture is heavily biased toward left-hemisphere thinking. So much so, “[We’ve] been trained to believe that thinking is superior to experiencing.”

Beyond that, anxiety’s contagious. Other people’s anxiety has the ability to launch us into an anxiety spiral, too.

Yup, our entire society’s drowning in anxiety. Because our lives are unnatural.

Our lives aren’t shaped by the rhythms and cycles of nature.

Our work culture tells us in implicit and explicit ways that we have to be anxious to be productive and successful.

Whether we want to or not, many of us have a pyramid model of success where we have to scramble and fight to be one of the few at the top.

No wonder we fall prey to the false fears (the False Evidence Appearing Real) that our left-hemispheres concoct.

The only way out is to remember: Anxiety lies! Contrary to what it tells us, we will NOT be any safer if we worry about everything endlessly.

But, how can we back away?

Is it possible to not-engage, when our society romanticizes “The Way of the Warrior”?

And our left-hemisphere loves to “fight” both real and imagined threats in these two ways: “(1) [coming] up with explanations that justify our feeling of fear, and (2) [figuring] out ways we might take control of the situation.”

That warrior mentality’s built into our minds.

And, if we look closely, society also encourages left-brained methods to fix our anxiety. Like therapy that focuses on describing our trauma, dissecting and analyzing it, again and again, instead of calming or soothing our frightened inner self. Which — surprise, surprise — only makes us more anxious.

Ultimately, trying to fight our anxiety does not work, and making us “wrong” doesn’t either.

Reframing’s helpful.

As MB clearly states, “When you feel anxious, the primal creature at the core of your brain is working exactly as nature intended. “

YES, our brain’s doing precisely what it’s supposed to do!

But, how can we make peace with its existence, when its being there can feel downright terrible?

Acceptance is the answer.

It helps to make friends with it. To see our frightened inner self like the anxious animal that it is.

And MB’s got the perfect name for this part of us that needs our love and care: The Creature.

It’s the fearful, often wounded, inner part of us that needs to be held, nurtured, and soothed.

Not backed into a corner. Doing that can make it (over)react with its claws out, growling loudly, not quieting down.

MB invites us to take the far kinder — and more effective — approach:

To become our very own Amygdala-Whisperer.

Like a Horse Whisperer who can understand, embrace, and utilize the subtle and gentle language that horses prefer, we need to use the language our anxious inner Creature prefers, to tame the fear center of our brains, the amygdala.

By using these 6 Amygdala-Whispering Skills:

1️⃣ SIGH — breathing out with a long exhale slows our heartbeat.

2️⃣ SOFTEN THE FOCUS OF YOUR EYES — when we soften our eyes, we let our amygdala know it’s okay to relax.

3️⃣ LET YOUR ANXIETY CREATURE MOVE — sometimes the worst thing we can do for our anxious minds is to try to force stillness in our bodies. Letting it out, physically, helps.

4️⃣ ACCEPT YOUR ANXIETY CREATURE — trying to force ourselves to not be anxious increases our reactivity. Letting ourselves be, no matter what we’re feeling, gives our emotions room to breathe and allows the anxiety to pass.

5️⃣ MURMUR, HUM, SING, OR CHANT — ever felt your throat tighten or your voice go up in pitch? Both are signs of anxiety. Allowing our voice to embody a calmer, lower pitch helps to relax the throat and the mind.

6️⃣ DEPLOY KIND INTERNAL SELF-TALK (KIST) — talking yourself down from the proverbial cliff is easier when you embody your wiser, Higher Self. Give yourself reassurances like, “You’re okay”; “It’s all right”; “This too shall pass”; and feel better fast.

The beauty of these 6 methods is that we get to drop into our bodies in an accepting and relaxing way, which automatically allows our minds to rest — without having to force our way out of an Anxiety Spiral using left-brained methods.

GOT ANXIETY?

Activate the right-hemisphere of your brain, to toggle the left-hemisphere off.

Experiencing peace in a state of right-hemisphere bliss is all we have to do.

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

️⭐️ Do you want to commit to trying one of the 6 Amygdala-Whispering Methods above? Set aside any preconceived notions you might have before giving them a try, and note what happens.

⭐️ ️For our Journaling, let’s describe an Anxiety Spiral this week. Describe how we’d usually handle it, using a left-brained method (like CBT, perhaps)?

️⭐️ Then become the Amygdala-Whisperer you know you can be. Use an Amygdala-Whispering Method instead of your go-to method. Was it just as effective as your left-brained approach, or maybe more so?

️⭐️ How do the two approaches (L-brained or R-brained) feel in your body? Which is better at reactivating your Parasympathetic Nervous System, so you can get back to enjoying a state of calming “rest & digest”?

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help keep you accountable?

Together, we can nudge ourselves away from the left-hemisphere, and whisper our way into the right.

👭 If so, in the Comments or in the CHAT, tell us what you’d like to accomplish this upcoming week so we can all support & cheer you on.

Are you ready to conquer your Anxiety, by being CREATIVE with me?

Then,

Let’s TRUST in the Right-Brained, Amygdala Whisperer inside all of us.

The Creative Amygdala-Whisperer in me honors & respects the Creative Amygdala-Whisperer in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Do YOU know the difference?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our newest Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 1 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In Chapter 1: The Nuts & Bolts of Why We Go Juts and Want to Bolt, MB distinguishes between anxiety & fear.

Fear is a surge “meant to hit hard, get us moving, and then disappear…. real fear tells us what to do while giving us the speed and strength we need to do it.”

Unlike fear, anxiety “is more like being haunted. It pulls our attention inward to worrisome thoughts and fantasies, away from our actual physical situation in the present.” Often offering nothing constructive to point us in the right direction. And, ironically, anxiety can increase even in situations where we are safe.

Is your anxiety switch stuck in the “On” position?

We like to think that us humans are the superior species and, in many ways, we are at the top. But, most of what we think and do is actually driven by our emotions — not necessarily reality.

It helps to know the anatomy of the Beast.

Fear and anxiety originate in the two almond-shaped amygdala, one in each side of the two hemispheres of our brain.

But the two hemispheres affect us in strikingly different ways.

According to MB, the left hemisphere of our brains tends to react to every threat in two ways:

“(1) it comes up with explanations that justify our feeling of fear, and

(2) it figures out ways we might take control of the situation.”

Problem is: we can go overboard.

Unlike other animals, our brains have the capacity to go beyond remembering the information we need to survive. It can also generate verbal stories about what we’ve done or need to do. And our imaginations can go wild, expanding upon our stories, real or imagined.

What’s more, our anxiety can make these thoughts seem perfectly logical and reasonable — even if they’re not. And the more we get stuck in a state of anxiety, the more those thoughts churn, over and over, in a terrible feedback loop that travels from the neocortex to the amygdala, making us anxious once again.

It’s that double arrow (or triple or quadruple arrow, etc.) that really gets us. If we’re not careful, bad thoughts turn into an anxiety monster feeding frenzy. Especially when our brains experience it all, as if it’s really happening. This is what MB aptly calls the “Anxiety Spiral.”

️🙋‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏾‍♂️ Raise your hand if you recognize yourself in this description.

Sadly, I do. 🤣

MB tells us a funny and frightful story about her and her friend having survived close encounters two leopards. Followed by a long list of all the ways their anxiety could’ve caused them to worry and catastrophize what else could go wrong. You can quickly see how such anxious thoughts would drive any person mad.

It sounds ridiculous in the context of a one-off encounter with a leopard.

But, the sad thing is: it’s common in the context of our everyday worries — about our work, our home, our health, our relationships with others, our relationship with ourself. The endless list of what-ifs goes on and on.

Should we use force? Or make friends with our foe?

Every human on earth knows what it’s like to try, try, and try again to muscle our way out of an anxiety spiral. After all, forcing works at least some of the time.

But, many times, it doesn’t. As MB points out, our brains are evolutionarily programmed to have a “negativity bias” that overemphasizes the negative threat because doing so will give us the best chance to survive.

What’s worse, the left-hemisphere of our brains has a tendency to ignore any facts or evidence that might threaten or disprove its version of the “truth.”

The right-hemisphere bypasses the Anxiety Monster.

We can take advantage of the right-hemisphere of our brains that’s less about logic and analysis, and more about perception, emotion, and intuition.

The right hemisphere can ground us in the here and now.

Via our senses.

Or it can use our imaginations to transport us to another place or time — one that’s much more relaxing and emotionally-regulating.

Either way, we get to experience some respite from the anxiety spiral that the left-hemisphere wants to trap us in.

Do it well, and we loosen its grip. Making space, so we can let reason in.

The key is to notice fear once it arrives, and take corrective (creative) action, as soon as our thoughts begin to grow into an “Anxiety Spiral.”

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ Do you think you’re left-hemisphere dominant? Or do you stay mostly in your right-hemisphere?

⭐️ For our Journaling, let’s reflect on our past week. Can we identify a time when we let our worries spin out of control, into an Anxiety Spiral?

⭐️ What’s the likely cause? External pressure (like societal/familial/peer pressure, or a work-related performance evaluation)? Or, perhaps it’s something internal (like feeling we don’t have enough time, or feeling unworthy or unlovable)?

⭐️ Come up with one or two Creative methods to end your specific Anxiety Spiral. Imagine yourself stuck ruminating in that anxiety, and rate your anxiety level. Now, give your Creative task a try. Rate your emotions after. Did you notice any improvement?

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help keep you accountable?

Together, you can commit to applying your chosen Creative method to quit your next Anxiety Spiral.

A simple note to tell a friend, “I was anxious about X, so I did Y today,” may be just what we need, to remember we can use our Creativity to kick our Anxiety Spirals to the curb.

👭 If so, in the Comments or in the CHAT, tell us what you’d like to accomplish this upcoming week so we can all support & cheer you on.

Are you ready to conquer your Anxiety, by being CREATIVE with me?

Then,

Let’s TRUST in our Right-Brained Capacity to rescue us.

The Right-Brained Creative in me honors & respects the Right-Brained Creative in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Is it even possible?

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our newest Book Club selection! This week is our Introduction to BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

In the Intro, MB sets the stage by reminding us of the reality we live in: a post-Covid world inundated with so much change and upheaval that it’s given anxiety a new name — “the inner pandemic.”

According to the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the exponential rise of anxiety is due to “exposure to anxiety-provoking world events.” That was true when it was published in 2018 and, in true Martha Beck fashion, one can only laugh “Hahahahaha!” at how much better it was back in 2018, compared to our levels of stress and anxiety today.

Yet, hope is not lost.

We’re in good company.

Even as our fears about the pandemic have eased off, the number of people suffering from anxiety disorders is in the hundreds of millions. Yup, it’s “the most common mental illness in the world.”

MB gets it. Since childhood, MB has had the dubious distinction of suffering from debilitatingly high levels of anxiety. But, she persisted and succeeded despite it, by studying the social sciences to understand the mind and alleviate her constant and severe sense of unease.

This is quite the accomplishment, because when she first began her studies, academia taught her the prevailing theory at the time: that our brains were “fully-formed by the age of five.”

Lucky for us, that turned out to be false. Many years later, new technology allowed neurologists to prove otherwise: that our brains are malleable and can rewire themselves throughout our lives, via neuroplasticity.

In fact, MB’s favorite Tibetan monk study proved that long-time meditators have “unusually dense tissue in the brain regions associated with happiness, compassion, and calm.”

You can almost see MB crying tears of joy, as she screams, “YES!”, she’s so excited to have found one monk in particular who “spent his whole childhood battling crippling anxiety and panic attacks.” MB simply can’t contain her excitement, she’s so happy to have hope that, as she put it, “…I could fix my brain…. I believed the way to peace was already inside me. I just had to find it.”

What I love about this approach is it doesn’t depend on external factors that we can’t control.

The locus of control is INSIDE of us.

What better way to heal ourselves & break out of our anxiety cage?

And I love how she calls this practice “the Art of Calm.” It’s not some rigid protocol, but a creative process that enlivens us, awakens our artistic spirit, and automatically strengthens the calming areas of our brains.

My favorite part?

The Toggle Effect: we can stand up to our anxiety, after all.

Contrary to the belief that it’s hard to escape our anxious minds, there’s scientific “evidence that shows a kind of toggle effect between anxiety and creativity: when one is up and running, the other seems to go silent…. [It’s] all about using creativity to calm… anxiety.”

You mean, we don’t have to beat ourselves with sticks to get our mean Inner Critic and anxious Monkey Minds to calm down?!

We can feast on sweet artsy carrots and enjoy a state of inner peace?

Yes, MB says we can, if we remember the 3 Important Things that changed her life:

1. Our society teaches us to unconsciously activate, spin, and accelerate the “Anxiety Spiral” in our brains.
2. As society makes us more anxious, we make it more anxious, in a never-ending vortex of suffering.
3. Anxiety can’t be ended; it must be replaced.

She’ll show us how to practice the Art of Calm in the next 3 sections of the book: The Creature, the Creative, and the Creation. Personally, I can’t wait!

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ Does this resonate with you?

⭐️ For our Journaling, let’s begin by rating our anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10 (being highest), and see how our rating changes as we go through the book.

⭐️ Have you heard of the toggle switch before? Or noticed it in your own experience?

⭐️ Do you feel calmer when doing something creative?

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help keep you accountable so you can commit to applying the lessons in this book, or to accomplish another Creative task?

👭 If so, in the Comments or in the CHAT, tell us what you’d like to accomplish this upcoming week so we can all support & cheer you on.

Are you ready to conquer your Anxiety, by being CREATIVE with me?

Then,

Let’s TRUST in our CREATIVITY!

The Peaceful Creative in me honors & respects the Peaceful Creative in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Subscribe now

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

Let’s walk the Creative Path together.

Hello, my lovely friends!

In the lead up to Thanksgiving, I would like to take a moment to reflect and be thankful for my Medium & Substack community!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Medium & Substack are the creative home that I have been searching for for most of my life.

As somebody who knows ZERO Creatives in real life, Medium & Substack have been my go-to source for meeting other Creatives.

I’ve made so many friends here & I can always rely on Medium & Substack to inspire me, broaden my mind, expand my perspective, and grow my creative practices.

As 2025 comes to a close and Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s are fast approaching…

I find myself asking, “What’s the best way that I can use my Creative Voice to serve others?”

Here’s my answer:

We are living in a world filled with so much divisiveness. Many of us are depressed, stressed, and anxious. We are constantly struggling to survive, not thrive.

Often our Monkey Minds will not stop the mental chatter that keeps us down, and our Inner Critics can be downright mean.

That’s why I’ve devoted my VICTUS Newsletter: Synergy of Science & Self, and my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, to help us come together so we can get rid of our Limiting Beliefs in a supportive and uplifting setting. To break free of the mental, emotional, and therefore physical cage many of us are trapped inside.

Because I know how horrible it can feel to NOT be your Authentic Self.

I was not my Authentic Self for far too many years because I was scared to embrace Creative Work.

Many of my Posts go into detail, describing how societal pressure tried to stamp it out of me.

But, my body kept the score. I suffered from debilitating migraines, depression, and anxiety.

Until I’d finally had enough and declared, “NO MORE!”

I knew my life would change when I decided once and for all to go on this Attorney-to-Creative Journey.

Yet, I could never have imagined how immensely happy and fulfilled it has made me.

I am now more at peace. Not perfect. But, significantly better. Healthier. Happier. At ease in my own mind and body.

I’ve finally come home.

I now have a creative place where I can share my creative writing, nonfiction writing, artwork, and music.

A place where I can be seen, validated, and celebrated for being exactly who I am: a Creative!

Most importantly, I get to meet & see myself reflected in other Creatives like you.

It’s so very healing.

And exciting to have found fellow Creatives who are interested in studying books in so many different fields to promote our collective creativity. So we can geek out together and cheer each other on our respective journeys.

Climbing the Creative Mountain of our dreams can be daunting.

The landscape can be treacherous at times, and our mental and emotional fortitude can certainly waver.

But, we can always trust in and be grateful for each other, for daring to dream and for daring to do it together.

I am grateful to have found such a warm and welcoming community of Writers, Readers, Artists, Musicians, and Healers to walk this creative path alongside me.

So, THANK YOU for reading, engaging, & Subscribing!

I look forward to learning & growing with you, and wish you & your family a very warm and relaxing Thanksgiving.

Please join us in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵,

on Monday December 1st, when we start our deep-dive into our next Book Club pick —

BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, & Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.

The Thankful Creative in me honors & respects the Creative Community I have found in you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Medium & Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.🌸

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!

What to LOSE + What you’ll GAIN

In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (“JC”). This week is WEEK #12 of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron: Recovering a Sense of Faith.

In Chapter 12 (the last Chapter of The Artist’s Way), JC gives us her wisest advice as she prepares to part ways with us: she reminds us to guard our Inner Artist by fortifying our self-belief.

We must not fall prey to the doubters and so-called “well wishers” who claim to want the best for us, but ultimately prevent us from seeing what’s possible, because of their own fears, limitations, and lack of imagination or vision.

This can be tricky. Other people’s “advice” can be inviting and, due to our own fears, appear like the truth.

Especially if we have a tendency to believe that art must be “productive,” like an assembly line that starts at Point A and ends at Point B.

Art is more likely to be created on a circuitous path, with many stops and starts. And dull, seemingly lost meanderings.

JC reminds us, yet again, that this is NORMAL.

We must have FAITH in ourselves to persist until the artistic process bears fruit.

But how?

It all comes down to FAITH.

Faith in ourselves.

How can we foster faith in our Self?

(1) We can LET GO:

❌ Ignore the naysayers who whisper mean nothings in our ears.

❌ Abandon the myth, the lie that society tells, that we’re supposed “to be dutiful and then die.”

❌ Beware our own self-sabotage.

❌ Relinquish control.

❌ Stop putting up roadblocks, simply because we’re too afraid to let go of our need for certainty.

❌ Realize that “I don’t know” can cause confusion, but not-knowing is not a sign that we should give up.

(2) Instead, we can DO this:

✅ Embrace a state of Receptivity.

✅ Welcome a sense of Mystery.

✅ Trust in the creative process.

✅ Celebrate the bright flash of inspiration when it comes to us.

✅ Have the courage to admit what our dreams are.

✅ Have faith to trust in what we want.

✅ Trust our own inner guide.

✅ Remember that we aren’t meant to be dutiful, we’re meant to dream, to “be bountiful and live,” and when we pursue our dreams wholeheartedly, the “Universe will always support [our] affirmative action.”

✅ Remember to treat our Inner Artist like the Inner Child s/he is. Be gentle!

✅ Remind ourselves that our artistic flow “will be characterized by spurts of abundance and long spells of doubt, when our supply dwindles to a mere trickle.”

✅ Accept that ideas are “brainchildren” that, “like all babies, should not be dragged from the creative womb prematurely.”

✅ Don’t elevate our creativity to Capital A, “Art.” By placing art on too high a pedestal, we serve the ego, but quash our imagination with too much seriousness.

✅ We can foster more creativity with play, festivity, and humor.

✅ Devote ourselves to Creative Recovery. “We must get serious about taking ourselves lightly. We must work at learning to play.”

✅ So much so, we reach “escape velocity,” that critical point when we can overcome our greatest fears and our Creative Self can finally blast off like a rocket.

Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:

⭐️ Does this resonate with you?

⭐️ Have you fallen prey to the pitfalls listed under the “Let Go” list?

⭐️ If so, how can you transition to the “Do” list, instead?

⭐️ If you look back on your 12 weeks of Journaling, how do your Morning Pages reflect your growth?

⭐️ What lingering concerns do you have? Can you find ways to be gentle and nurture your Inner Artist, to grow alongside you?

⭐️ Do you plan to continue your Morning Pages and Artist’s Dates?

👭 Do you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help keep you accountable so you can commit to accomplishing a specific Creative task?

👭 If so, in the Comments or in the CHAT, tell us what you’d like to accomplish this upcoming week so we can all support & cheer you on.

Are you ready to BREAK FREE, by being CREATIVE with me?

Then,

TRUST IN WHO YOU ARE!

The Faith & Self-Belief in me honors & respects the Faith & Self-Belief in each of you,

Marisa

⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️

We can find solutions, together!

Please join us in my

This is a special group for Writers, Artists, & Creatives like us, to have deep conversations about the Books that we choose, so we can implement what we learn, and unearth our truest, most Authentic Selves.

It’s the perfect way to

Share Our Recipes for Happiness:

🔮 Have fun together;

🔮 Share our triumphs;

🔮 Vent from time to time — we’re human after all!

🔮 Take a lighthearted approach to private journaling & Artist’s Dates; and,

🔮 Grow the CREATIVE GENIUS inside all of us! 💐🌺🌷🌸🌹🌻🌼

Share Our Work (allow our True Self to be Seen):

🚀 With Notes Boost Challenges (NBC), we can share our favorite Notes of the week.

🚀 And, when we’d like, we can share our Works In Progress (WIP) and/or Final Posts, Music, & Art…whatever we’re proud of!

🚀 So we can Like, Comment, and/or Restack each others’ work to…

Share Our Joy (experience Connection with a kind & supportive Creative Community):

🙌 This is how we can come together, to grow through our own individual efforts, and feel the support of a kind & supportive Creative Community, too.

🤗 If that sounds good to you, then join us & say hello!

Join Marisa Victus’s subscriber chat

Come join us in the STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT! ☕️🍵 !

Looking for a regular place to help boost each other’s Notes & Posts every week?

I host Notes Boost Challenges (NBC) every Friday in my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT.

Feel free to share your latest Note or Post of the week, so we can Like/Comment/Restack yours & you can do the same for others, so we can all GROW!

Pull up a seat & come to our comfy & cozy Creative CHAT! Here’s to the Creative CHAT for me & you! 🎉📚🥳📚🎉

Subscribe if you want to see where this Creative Journey can take us!

BONUS — Did you know that all SUBSCRIBERS can read the 1st Book of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES (OBSIDIAN: Birth to Venus) for FREE?

READ THE SYNOPSIS

Together, we’ll explore all the ways that we can 10x our life — mind, body, & soul.

We’ll learn the scientific, physiological, and psychological reasons why we are the way that we are. And…

We’ll combine that understanding with simple, active practices that will supercharge our self-improvement & give us unstoppable self-belief!

When you SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK, you’ll gain access to these 2 resources:

(1) Every week, you’ll get my free Non-Fiction Newsletter on Substack, entitled Marisa VICTUS: Science of Synergy & Self; and,

(2) Every day, you’ll be able to entrain your brain — the quick & easy way — with my daily Mindset & Meditation (M&M) practice.

I’m building my own Mindset & Meditation (M&M) Community, so we can all invest in our truest, most Authentic Self.

🌸 Every day, I write ✍️1 handwritten✍️ M&M (Mindset & Meditation) Note.

🧘🏻‍♀️If you want to grow with me, repeat these daily affirmations like I am.🧘🏻‍♀️

🙌Let’s entrain our brains to adopt these empowering beliefs.🙌

Plus, if you’d like to see me succeed (or flop 😂) as I practice in public,

(3) SUBSCRIBE to my free YouTube Channel!