Choosing Our Inner World
Yes Yes Advice Column
🪟 Registration is open for QUILT CAMP September 5-8 in Cedar, MI. Sunset swims, radical quilt lectures, and improvisational patchwork. Housing right next door to our classroom space, up the road from my house. Presented by Green Door Folk School. Use code QUILTCAMPWAITLIST to access the webpage - 10 spots total / 8 spots left
🪞 Tomorrow Sunday June 29 12-4EST in Landscapes : CAVE DAY where we write for four hours together in the zoom room
🪡 My first solo show The Quilt As Archive opens July 12 5-8 at Cedar North. I will also be hosting community sewing hours July 7-11 from 1-3 pm at the gallery to work on a group raffle quilt. Free + drop ins welcome, no sewing experience required and sewing machines provided.
Welcome to Yes Yes - my advice column tucked into the Monday Monday newsletter.
I write to you from a dreary morning in Northern Michigan. It has been overcast much of the days with pops of glorious sun. I have been throwing my body into the water as much as I can, sharp in the way that Lake Michigan is most of the year, but baptismal in the way I long for.
Today’s question is right in line with what I am thinking about as I explore domestic partnership for the first time in three years and prepare for my first solo show.
If you have a question for the next Yes Yes Advice Column you can ask it here. It’s anonymous and you are welcome to ask professional and personal questions.
I am not a therapist and I have no training in advice giving. I am an artist, a writer, and a teacher of creative practice with a devotion to how we live. These are my opinions, my best shot at hope, and what I know from 37 years on the planet. As always, may you hold a gentle spirit while reading, take what you like, and leave the rest. Let’s dive in!
Dear Cody, this is a question about aloneness and valuing your own work and journey. As a recovering codependent, I really struggle to choose myself and my solitude over whatever else is happening (my partner wants to watch a show? morning pages can wait - the simplest of examples). The problem is I’m finally at a point where I’m tired of not choosing my inner world and ideas and can feel the frustration with myself building. Part of it is I avoid time with myself and stillness so I’m glad for the distraction, but part of it might also be that I don’t value my own mind enough to want to dedicate time and space to what comes from it. How do I get unstuck from this place and move towards creation?
Dear reader,
First, I want to say: you are not alone in this. In fact, I am right there with you today. Even people who appear deeply committed to their practices and inner worlds still struggle to choose themselves when the tiny, everyday invitations to drift arrive—a partner asking to watch a show, a notification blinking on a phone, the gentle pull of “just one more thing.” It’s tender work to notice this pattern, and it sounds like you’re at the exact, uncomfortable threshold where real change begins: tired of your own avoidance, curious about the “you” that’s waiting in the quiet. In 12 steps we see “I was sick and tired of being sick and tired”.
What you’re describing—hesitating to choose your ideas and inner world—is not just a problem of discipline. It’s a problem of belief. You are used to your time being available to others because you’ve taught yourself that their needs are more valuable than your curiosity, your thoughts, your small ideas trying to find shape. It can feel scary to spend time alone with your mind, especially when it’s been easy to dismiss it. But the only way to learn to value your mind is to spend time with it. Like any relationship, intimacy is built through repeated attention. From reading your words, I have no doubt you can do this. I have no doubt you can make a trimuphant return to self.
A place to begin might be to lower the stakes. Your “solitude” does not have to look like a perfect, candle-lit morning of journaling or four uninterrupted hours of work. It can be five minutes on the porch with your coffee and your thoughts. It can be a note you write to yourself on your phone while your partner is brushing their teeth. It can be deciding to write your morning pages even if your partner is watching TV next to you. The point is not to wait for the perfect, conflict-free moment but to choose small, consistent moments that teach your nervous system: I am going into my inner world now and it is safe here.
You can also remind yourself that choosing yourself in these small moments is not a rejection of others. It is an act of love, both for yourself and for the people you care about, because a life where you are in constant avoidance of your own mind eventually builds resentment. This is what I am experiencing right now. My friends want to hang out with me and my reaction is “I wish everyone would leave me alone to quilt”. This would be an indication that I am not filling my solo time well. When you value your ideas and give them air, you become a better partner, friend, and artist—not because you are performing for others but because you are no longer leaking your energy in every direction except inward.
The frustration you feel is a little flicker to show you the way out. Let it move you toward small choices this week: five minutes, one sentence, a tiny note toward your idea. You do not need to wait for permission. You do not need to feel “ready.” You just need to begin, imperfectly, and then begin again tomorrow. This is how we move from avoidance to creation, from disinterest to reverence. It happens slowly, in the smallest of choices, until one day you look up and realize you have built a life that chooses you back.
Moving toward creation is a worthy effort. You don’t have to do it alone. Co work with friends, curate an art show, make a zine. Find a container to channel your magic and go toward that.
You are doing great dear reader, you got this.
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