Substack Nursing Homes??, Tay-Tay & Breathwork 🧘‍♀️

hell on a hen named jennie (<- unsure of what to put there, obviously)

You’re reading Swearing Life Lessons which comes out on Wednesdays. Fuck.

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Have you ever dreamt about success and then gotten the tiniest-micrometer-on-the-ruler forward but divided by 2 (which means twice as little progress made but I’m bad at math so my math calculation might be different than yours whoops don’t care) and then felt panicked AF by said success?

Kind of like how I panic when I have to schedule a meeting in a different time zone:

WAIT. IS IT FORWARDS OR BACKWARDS??

Ok. Backwards. 2 hours. got it.

SHIT. If I think it is backward, does that mean it’s actually forward?!

cant.mess.this.up.again.

I got this!!!!

*2 seconds later*

Fuuuck. I forgot, what time do I have to do it in again?!?!?

😭😭😭😭

😂😂😂😂

The time zone struggle is real.

ANYWHO. Back to what I was ORIGINALLY SAYING.

Do you know what I mean about desperately wanting success, and then “getting it”…and FREAKING THE HELL OUT?

For example, now that I’ve got like, well, a lil handful of people who’ve engaged and liked and LEFT COMMENTS on my newsletters (thank you, to the most wonderful humans ever to have humaned who’ve left comments 🥹) I find myself in this STRANGE place of PANICKING. To call it strange would be to mislead you into thinking it’s strange for me to panic. That would be untrue. Glad we cleared that up. 😂

These are the thoughts I think:

→ MY GOD THESE ARE SOME NICE HUMANS I MUST PUT OUT A BETTER AND BETTER NEWSLETTER EACH TIME BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT!!!

→ 😳😳😳 what if I never write an “entertaining” or “interesting” or “relevant” or “insightful” newsletter ever again????

→ IS THERE A SUBSTACK NURSING HOME FOR WRITERS WHO CAN NO LONGER WRITE AND AM I ONE BAD NEWSLETTER AWAY FROM IT??

→ now that I’ve got people who read my shit, and like it, I must never under any circumstances ever, everrrrr let them down because that would be more shameful than letting your bra straps show circa 2006 and 12-year-old Megan in a culty religious home.

→ WELP THAT’S IT. I WILL NEVER HAVE ANOTHER GOOD NEWSLETTER IDEA AGAIN, MIGHT AS WELL GO PREP MY TOMBSTONE NOW!!!!!!

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Anyone else ^relate? 🙈

HELL ON A HEN NAMED JENNIE. I really worry about this. 😂

And think I think about Tay-Tay. How on earth does she handle the pressure of being so massively successful?!?!?!

I’d either be convinced my dynasty had one foot in the grave and writing my musical eulogy (THE OLD TAYLOR CAN’T COME TO THE PHONE RIGHT NOW, I’M WRITING MY MUSICAL EULOGY) or— I’d be consumed with the numbers and charts and any new bitch to the block would be my public enemy number one.

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Just this week, someone whose writing I really admire SUBSCRIBED to my newsletter and I went through 52 emotions in 5.2 seconds flat ranging from jubilation to ‘OH MY GOD, THEY’RE 1,000% GOING TO UNSCUBSCRIBE AS SOON AS THEY SEE MY NEWSLETTER POP INTO THEIR INBOX THE FIRST TIME!!!’.

Tbh I still haven’t yet gotten over ^that feel. PERSON WHO I’M TALKING ABOUT WHO HAS NO IDEA WHO I’M TALKING ABOUT, IF YOU’RE READING THIS NEWSLETTER AND HAVEN’T YET UNSUBSCRIBED (WHICH AGAIN, YOU WON’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE) I HOPE YOU DON’T HATE THIS. 😂

(((And to everyone else reading this… I hope you all don’t hate it, too. 💛)))

BUT, if you DO hate my newsletters, imma eventually be all right because I have… breathwork.

excuse me while I scrub the tire marks off the asphalt after ^that abrupt left turn segue I just threw at you

Yes, the “lesson” into today’s Sweary Life Lessons is all about the magical powers of BREATHWORK.

Feeling stressed about the day ahead? → Breathwork!

Hate your job? → Breathwork!

Wishing you could stop being a scared little bitch? → Breathwork!

Feeling panicky about “success”? → Breathwork!

I was first introduced to the magical world of “breathwork” about 6 years ago and have been doing it on and off ever since. Emphasis about the “on and off” part and spoiler alert, life is better when I’m doing it. 😂

AND - because I’ve been such a good girl and on a great daily morning breathwork kick lately, I believe the breathwork gods smiled on me and enlightened me with a cute lil “suggested youtube video” that I happened to click even though I hate being told what to do, suggested videos be damned and lo and behold NOW I’VE BECOME OBSESSED THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS WITH THIS NEW BREATHWORK CHANNEL/METHOD OF BREATHING.

To be clear, I become obsessed and unobsessed easily sometimes, so I reserve the right to move on to other breathwork in the near future. But right now, this breathwork bangs.

The “new” method I learned about is the Buteyko Method of breathing where basically you… breathe less.

SO FASCINATING. Of course, I’ve done loads of “slow breathing” and “longer exhales” but never a method so singularly focused on BREATHING LESS with amazing scientific reasons behind it, which I will be getting into precisely ZERO detail over because, well, math AND science are not areas I excel in and I know without a doubt I would get angry trying to relay it to you in a coherent manner because that would involve me researching it and reading it 17x over and still not getting it correctly conveyed and I’m just going to avoid all of that by saying you can take my word for it, or — go and google it yourself. 😂

BOTTOM LINE:

If you’re feeling stressed about life or jobs or kids or dishes or the pressures of being “successful”… BREATHWORK, BABY. 🙏

Maybe you’ll hate it! How exciting would that be? I want to know those details! Or, maybe you’ll have a transformative experience! I want to hear about that, too!

DO YOU BREATHWORK? 👀

I want to know!

-M

p.s. - this is your reminder to live your best life, and keep going despite the fear of failure or pressure to perform. You do you, baby, breathing your way into the life you love.

p.p.s. - Here’s the video I watched that enlightened me to the above-mentioned breathing method. I also really like this style. And here’s another fabulous resource, you can do virtual classes, I’ve joined her membership on and off before, 10/10.

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Hi, hello! You just read Sweary Life Lessons were I, Megan, try and impart deep or not so deep life lesson(s) to you in the only way I know how: blasphemously. To be clear, any “life lessons” I pontificate on, are very much things I need to learn myself.

And here’s even more detail you didn’t ask for.

I have challenged myself to write 3x weekly during the month of June as a way to normalize failure to myself, and well, others!

You see, fear of failure normally paralyzes me from the brain down and I never publish anything that I truly love or brings me joy. So for the entire month of June, I’m free-ing myself to write whatever the hell I want, and if it “fails” who the flip-flop cares!! It is an experiment.

So, if you want to give me feedback on this lil experiment of mine, I would be ever so grateful. Drop a comment and let me know if you like this kind of newsletter. Comments such as “it was more boring than Hillary’s ass” or “I feel alseep with my eyes open” are perfectly acceptable forms of feedback. I welcome it all.

Shank you for reading.