Hi there! Buon giorno! Saludos! Coucou!
Welcome to The Messy Human. I’m touched you are here. Shall we safari together, in search of gentle personal growth, self acceptance, play and connection? ❤️
I'm Marisol. A writer, multi-disciplinary nerd, and frequent goofball.
I like making stuff that’s beautiful, inspiring and functional. I’m also a figure-outer, always learning, connecting-dots, creating order, and making meaning. ✍🏼🌲🧘🏻♀️🌎🏄🏻♀️
I’ve had multiple careers, from fashion design to corporate strategy. I hold a bachelors and a masters in Economics and have forgotten more Spanish words than I can count. 👗🏢📈
My why
I’m a recovering over-doer, over-thinker & perfectionist.
People have asked me if I'm actually messy. "You seem on top of things," they'll say. Yeah. I’m messy.
I’ve been hurt by dates who blew me off. I’ve been backstabbed by a colleague and publicly thrown under the bus by an EVP. I’ve daydreamed revenge plots and screamed in the bathroom at work. I’ve succumbed to stress and buried myself in bed with bad TV. I’ve been terrified my team didn’t respect my leadership, and snapped at them as a result. I’ve cried out of selfish grief when a friend told me she was pregnant. And I’ve continued to push myself to be better, do more, and grow.
Through my efforts, I learned a great deal about myself and other people, plus psychology, brain science, spirituality, leadership, and beyond.
Yet no matter matter how much *growing* I did, I kept encountering things that threw me off, and I’d experience big, messy feelings all over again. 😭🤬👿😱. Often enough, I’d react emotionally instead of responding mindfully, like I’d learned.
WTF was wrong with me?
One day it hit me. I’m always going to be human.
And - this is a big one - being occasionally messy is an inescapable part of being human. It’s a cycle we must embrace. 😌🥲😂 Everything gets better once we do. This is the practice I want to bring to you.
My perspective
I’ve come to believe in a more gentle approach to doing, achieving, and growing.
We owe it to ourselves to be gentle about our humanity, even though our culture tells us to grow faster, do more, suck-it-up, grow-up, glow-up, and oh yeah, be happy or bust.
After all my years of doing, exploring, and learning, I reached the conclusion that to grow and find deeper joy and satisfaction, we need to shift from achievement culture to something more humane, sustainable, and holistic.
What it is
This newsletter is called The Messy Human because you cannot transform into your most wonderful self unless you allow yourself the grace to be human and the space to be a bit of a mess sometimes.
Everything I offer here is about working with your own humanity instead of against it.
I look for research-backed practices that help us human better, but without beating ourselves up over how we’re doing.
Modern scientific research and ancient wisdom are converging on the idea that you do best when you embrace your innate human needs, feel your feelings, pay attention to your instincts and intuition, and let natural human rhythms direct your life. 🧬🙏🏼
This newsletter explores all that, offering essays to share purposeful practices, revealing research, and relatable reflections on living whole, raw, and real.
Want to read more about my Messy Human philosophy? Check out this post here.
Who it’s for
Tired of working so hard to keep it all together? Sick of endless effort? I got you.
Ready for a more easeful, self-accepting way to navigate the hard times and hard feelings that we all inevitably face? Come get a hug.
Are you already on a gentler path, ready to engage with a community of Messy Humans? This newsletter is yours too.
Let’s be messy together! 💐💝🎁
How we’ll hang
It’s my goal to be your playful guide, inspiring your transformative potential while I also tackle my own shit.
In this newsletter I share what I’ve learned (and am still learning) about finding our way with less pain and shame, less stress and anxiety, and more of the rich fullness offered in the human experience.
I share practices for healthy humaning, ideas for handling emotional pain, ways to grow with more ease, and what I hope are thoughtful perspectives. I want my essays to offer comfort through the rough times and inspire you in new ways. 🤗👯♀️
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Check out the archive anytime at marisoltrowbridge.substack.com
Meantime, I look forward to getting to know each other.
Warm hugs,
-Marisol
