Why does praise make me cringe?
This issue's another tasting menu for your finely-honed feelings palates.
But first, some big news.
As you may remember, last year Big Feels was part of a boot camp program for creative entrepreneurs (that's a thing apparently!) run by the State Library of Victoria and ACMI.
It was incredible. The boot camp helped us get clearer about what we were trying to do with this strange and tender thing we've stumbled into. It honed our plans for how we want to keep changing the way the world thinks about big feelings. And it also led directly to the creation of our card-carrying membership, a small but significant step toward making Big Feels something we can focus on and still, you know, eat foods.
Sustainability woo!
The big news is... we've been selected to be in the Very Exclusive Second Round of the program. This means we'll spend the next 3 months having awesome intensive mentoring, and even an office space (that's no longer just our couch!!) to help us continue growing this little feelings baby.
Heck yeah.
What does this mean for me, you ask?
Long term it means, basically, MOAR BIG FEELS!!!
Meanwhile for the next 3 months it means: watch out for more little experiments we'll be running, to find new ways we can support y'all with the whole 'life + feelings' equation.
There'll also be chances to directly shape where we go next with this club of ours, through surveys and one-on-one phone chats with me and Honor. In short, it's your chance to tell us what you want from us. (Just tell me what you want from me! I WILL BECOME THAT THING!!)
(*Ahem*)
Some of these little tests will be just for card-carrying members for now (OOOH WELL AREN'T THEY FANCY THEN), and some will be available to all y'all right away.
Click here to see all the great teams doing the program with us, plus a pic of Honor and me doing our best to look like Serious People Who Definitely Don't Work From Their Couch Now.
(Who even are we anymore.)
And now, on with the tasting menu...
Two courses today. Two pieces you may not have seen. One on why it's so damn hard to believe it when people praise you, and the other, a treatise on why we sometimes feel lonely, even when we're surrounded by friends.
Why compliments make me cringe, and how I've learned to accept praise
What is it about praise that’s so hard to hear sometimes?
You know the drill. You do something noteworthy, like cooking a meal for your friends, or getting on stage to do a talk. Assuming things go okay, your friends or colleagues tell you a bunch of nice, encouraging things afterward:
“This meal is delicious!”
“You did great up there!”
And suddenly you feel uncomfortable.
So what’s that all about? Why can’t we just let praise sink in?
---> Read the whole thing here over on Tiny Buddha. (We're on Tiny Buddha people!!!). OG BF Clubbers may recognise this piece from a past newsletter, but it's been spiffed up with a whole new ending that I think is actually a bit lovely.
Why do I feel lonely, even with my friends?
When you’re sad or scared a bunch of the time, it’s hard to feel like you belong anywhere. Even with the people you're closest to, there are just so many ways to question whether you really fit in.
Do your friends have their lives just *that* much more together than you do?
Are they all naturally gifted hosts who love having people over (always with the perfect spread)?
Or maybe it’s not that your friends are all doing better than you. It’s just that they don’t seem to get so completely knocked about by life’s ups and downs.
(What are they, wizards???)
In this piece, we take a look at one practical thing I decided to do with that pervasive feeling of unbelonging (with surprisingly good results).
---> Read the whole thing here. A long-time BF clubber called this maybe our best issue yet. (Also, how did it take us almost 50 issues to finally include an Allie Brosh reference?? The picture above is from one of her webcomics, which remain among some of the most devastatingly on-the-money stuff ever written about big feelings.)
