What if your biggest breakdown became your creative breakthrough?

Maya Sarin didn’t plan to become a poet.

Her journey began in beauty marketing. And she wrote consistently but never quite found her voice.

Then illness forced everything to stop.

In that stillness, something changed. Poetry emerged from fragments. Healing became creation. And the beginnings of her book were born.

In this conversation, Maya shares how trauma reshaped her relationship with creativity, why she learned to collaborate with the divine instead of forcing inspiration, and what it really takes to transform personal struggle into art that resonates.

Highlights

Illness can redirect your entire creative path.

Maya thought creativity was linear.

Put in the work. Get the inspiration. Achieve success.

When that didn’t happen, she felt like she was failing.

“Before I got sick, I had a very different relationship to creativity. I thought it was very linear. I thought if you just put in the work and the energy consistently, then you would get the inspiration and you would get the success. And when I didn’t see that happening, I felt like I was failing.”

Then her body forced her to stop.

Sometimes the universe interrupts our plans and we are forced to evolve.

Creativity is collaboration.

Maya discovered something most of us resist.

The best creative work doesn’t come from grinding harder. It comes from learning when to step back and let inspiration flow.

“I now see creativity as much more cyclical. Some days you’re meant to rest. Some days you’re meant to create. And I see it as a collaboration with spirit or the divine.”

She stopped trying to force words onto the page. She started trusting the process instead.

The result was poetry that felt authentic, healing, and deeply connected to something beyond her individual will.

Boredom is where breakthrough lives.

In a culture obsessed with constant motion, Maya found her creative breakthrough in deliberate quiet.

She learned to embrace boredom instead of fearing it.

“Part of my process is making time for boredom. and it’s so hard, you know, just sitting there essentially doing nothing. and I find for me it’s just easy to step outside of the home environment and just be outside, among the trees, among the birds, and just… be still. And that’s actually where a lot of the inspiration came for the book.”

Maya’s experience challenges our addiction to busyness.

Sometimes others see things we don’t.

Maya didn’t even recognize her fragments as poetry at first.

“Looking back… I didn’t even identify them as poems. I didn’t know what it was. I just kept writing without thinking, okay, this is the first poem of my book and this is gonna be the last... It didn’t unfold that way for me.”

It took less than a year to write the entire collection.

But recognizing it as a book? That required other people.

Friends and early readers saw the potential and provided the external validation that motivated her toward publication.

Recognition led to momentum.

Once Maya committed to publication, everything accelerated.

From winning a scholarship in November to launching her book took less than six months.

“It’s actually less than six months from deciding to publish to now. And I wouldn’t recommend the short timeline.”

Her rapid progression shows what happens when you’ve been doing the internal work.

When you slow down, creativity teaches you to collaborate with the divine, and community helps you recognize what you’ve built.

Things can happen quickly because the foundation was already there.

Closing Reflection

Maya reminds us that our greatest creative breakthroughs often emerge from our most challenging moments.

Her journey shows what happens when you stop fighting your natural rhythms and start collaborating with them.

If you’re navigating your own creative transformation, share your story in the comments.

How do I differentiate myself from everybody else?

What can I pull from my story that makes me stand apart?

And I ask myself.

I check in with myself on this question often enough.

Well, maybe, yeah, every.

Every quarter or so.

How.

How do we tell our story in a way that is truly unique?

And then extracting those valuable pieces, pieces of or nuggets of our story, and then figuring out how we want to present that in a meaningful way?

So we all have unique stories, we all have unique journeys.

But what is really, truly the essence of who you are in your story?

Welcome to Standout Authors Unbound, a space for writers who refuse to disappear.

This is where you can share your work without shrinking, softening, or polishing yourself into something safer.

I'm your host, Kevin Chung, and I created this series for authors writing from lived experience, from the margins, and from places the system often overlooks.

We'll talk about voice, visibility, and building a writing life that honors who you are, not just what sells.

Let's get into it.

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Standout Authors Unbound.

And today, I'm happy to interview Maya Serene.

Maya was actually an interview I had in a written form last year on Substack.

So now we're getting a chance to talk about her book that she released.

So, Maya, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and some of the stuff that you're doing?

Yeah, sure.

Thank you, Kevin.

Thank you for having me.

It's great to connect virtually.

So, yes, My name's Maya and I'm the author of the publication called justice on Substack.

And it's where I read about creativity, spirituality, and healing.

I share poetry and personal reflections and insights from my healing journey after illness.

And my book is an extension of that, and it launches tomorrow.

And I'm just excited to be chatting with you about the book and the process and how the evolution of the creative process throughout the journey.

Great.

Yeah.

So we chatted a little bit, and when we did, you said you were working on a book.

So I'm so glad that you are finally at the point where this thing is coming out and you can.

You can see it in other people's hands because that's, I think, always a special moment.

Can you talk a little bit about what you were doing up until this illness affected you and how.

How that really changed your thoughts on creativity?

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, my background is in beauty marketing, and my creative flair really shined through content strategy and writing blogs and articles within the beauty space, talking about beauty science products and trends, largely And I've been a lifelong writer, so I've always been drawn to the written world word.

I have, I think, created seven or eight blogs and newsletters since, since I've been in college.

And so yeah, I've always been a writer.

And three years ago I became ill and that sort of interrupted everything.

My days were, were limited to basic functioning, sleeping, rest, getting, getting the necessary treatment that I needed and you know, the creative process, productivity, everything came to, to a drastic halt.

And it wasn't until I entered recovery about a year later that I slowly, slowly started to get back into the creative process.

And at first, you know, it, it came in the form of like random thoughts, fragments, things I just started writing down that helped me, that helped me start to process the trauma.

And you know, eventually later on I identified that work as poetry.

And so I had never written a.

Written poetry before.

I had never even read a poetry book before my illness.

So this came as a huge revelation for me.

And you know, over time as I, as I wrote these, these poems, I realized that, hey, you know, this could, could become a book.

And I also felt a calling to share my journey in effort to help others that may have gone through what I went through or to help anyone who is going through a major life transition in their life, be it illness, be it loss, be it personal growth or any form of transformation.

I love that because we, people just feel like we're in our own little worlds and we can let ourselves get trapped in this like our own thoughts.

So I love the ability for you to really help people with, with your message and show them that even though something devastating has affected you, you can make your way out of is possible.

Even though it's like hard as hell.

Right.

And no, you wouldn't suggest it to anybody, but if you are going through a process like that, it's like important to know that people have made it through the other side.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about your creativity before, for this incident and whether or not you've gone back into that or how that has evolved or gone away?

Sure, yeah.

Before the illness, I identified creativity with just sitting down to work, you know, day to day.

I didn't.

Well, I looked at it largely in a linear fashion so that.

Sorry, in essence it would.

That there would always be energy and inspiration available to me if I remained committed enough or consistent enough.

And at times when I felt the outcome wasn't there that I wanted then I perceive that to be somewhat of a failure or that perhaps maybe I Wasn't good enough in, you know, whatever task or whatever creative project that, you know, I was working on.

And that has the.

My approach to creativity has completely flipped since.

Since the illness.

And it's become a little bit layered, I would say so.

Well, first off, I now see creativity as a collaboration with spirit or the divine, however you'd like, like to call it.

So a larger force has a hand in our creative output and our job is to keep our creative wells full and create enough space within ourselves to receive that inspiration.

So there's a lot of awareness around that.

And the creative process for me has become quite cyclical.

So before the illness it was productivity driven and now it's, you know, some days are for creative output and some days are for rest, for stillness, for.

For creating space.

And it is challenging to do that in today's environment.

When we're go, go, go when we have our jobs, full time jobs, we have, you know, so much going on.

It takes a lot of effort to do, to do that.

Yeah.

I think society has conditioned us to be constantly productive.

Right.

That's just the message you have to.

If you want to succeed, you need to work all the time.

Don't leave any gaps for rest or any of those things.

And you know, once you're done with work, maybe you work some more at home.

Right.

No one wants to do that.

So I think it's important for everyone.

Even if you're in a creative space and your job is creativity, I think there it is also super important to rest because that's something that your brain actually needs in order to, to find the connections, to work in the background, to do the things that we take for granted.

Because we, we can't see it.

We can't see the process.

Our brain is just doing stuff.

So everyone needs to incorporate some form of like rest.

Restlessness is also kind of interesting for creative people.

Like how do I let myself be still or inactive or be bored?

Right.

We don't like to be bored.

We can be gratified.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

No, part of my process is making time for boredom.

And it's so hard, you know, just sitting there essentially doing nothing.

And I find for me it's just easy to step outside of the home environment and just be outside among the trees, among the birds and, and there's, you know, be still.

And that's actually where a lot of the inspiration came for the book.

Sometimes I would receive, you know, lines of poetry sort of as downloads instantaneously.

And you know, I just go immediately when I Got back home and I'd write it down.

And it's.

I've realized over time how critical that quiet time is.

Whereas before there is this certain.

There isn't that awareness, largely, at least I didn't have that awareness.

And so, like I said, when I didn't achieve what I wanted to achieve, creativity.

Creativity can't pronounce creatively.

You know, I looked at.

I looked at that as something wrong, that there was something wrong, or that that was a failure.

And now it's about, you know, now, today, if I am not feeling like I have the inspiration, I will read tarot to know exactly where I am.

Creativity creatively.

I will make time.

More time for meditation, more time for stillness, you know, and.

And other things, and go outside, as I mentioned.

And so it's.

It's.

It's just a completely, completely different approach to creativity.

Yeah, I think we can.

Usually when we're looking for creative inspiration, we're actively doing things to find it.

Right.

We'll go out and watch a movie, or we'll go and read a book, or we'll go and do whatever it is.

But sometimes the best inspiration will come, like you said, when you're actively not doing anything, you'll have that moment that's like, oh, that's it.

Right?

And then you go and you run.

You either write it on your phone or you go back to your computer and you start typing or painting or whatever your creative thing is.

And when we do that, when we allow ourselves that space, we can find those moments of inspiration that probably never would have come if we're trying to actively seek it.

Absolutely, yeah.

Can you talk about the first poem that you officially decided was one of your poems and how it has evolved since that first poem to how you're kind of approaching it now?

Yeah.

Looking back, I didn't.

Well, first off, I didn't even identify them as poems.

I didn't know what it was.

I just kept writing without thinking, okay, this is the first poem of my book, and this is going to be the last.

And I.

It just didn't happen.

It didn't unfold that way for me.

It's just that over a period, I would say less than a year is.

It took me less than a year to write the manuscript.

And I. I guess I just realized that I had fulfilled what I needed to fulfill in terms of releasing, processing, and sharing my.

My learnings.

It just re.

I just reached a point where I was like, okay, I think.

I think I'm done.

And then only after that did I think of making it into a book or turning it into a book.

And also, as I mentioned earlier, you know, at that time, I really felt compelled to share it, share the journey.

You know, one of the things I want to do is I want to take my book and go to the hospital and hand it to people.

And like, I was here.

I hope you can find some inspiration in these pages.

A spark, something, you know, and it's for anyone who is.

I can talk about this later, you know, who the book is for.

But, yeah, it wasn't a very linear process in terms of creating the book.

I just.

Because I. I didn't know it was going to be a book.

Yeah.

What was the moment that you were like, oh, this could be a book?

Because if you have all these ideas, they could be just for you to go back to and look at at some point.

But when did you think it was something that could help inspire others?

Yes.

I also got some positive feedback from a few friends and family that I had.

I had shared some of my writing, and it was actually their words, in part that gave me the motivation to.

To, you know, start thinking about publishing it.

And.

And as I mentioned earlier also, it's just like this.

This quiet truth was just rising within me.

It was like, okay, you gotta.

You just gotta put it out there.

Yeah.

I think sometimes we need the permission of others.

Even though we.

We know it could help others, we're like, I don't know, you're my friends and family.

What?

You're just saying that to be.

Whatever.

But I think the first time you hear somebody you don't know say something positive about your work, that's like the moment of, oh, wow.

Yeah, this could actually make some sort of impact.

So I think if we're in this process of, should I release this thing?

Should I not release this thing?

Is it good enough?

Is it not good enough?

It's always good to get some feedback outside of the people that you directly know, because those are the people who will support you, probably for the most part, without having to ask them.

But I think honest feedback from people that you don't know is super important in the creative process.

And that's why I think a lot of people share their work, especially written stuff on something like substack, where you can get direct feedback.

Is this good enough?

Do people resonate with it?

Is this something that has meaning to other people that I don't really know who I might meet online and become friends with because of the way this connects with them?

Right.

Yeah, and a Substack's a great incubator for ideas and testing content and your, Your voice.

But yeah, I had ARC readers as well, and I got some early feedback from some other readers.

And once I received that feedback, I really felt, okay, I made the right choice because, you know, all of us, we don't really know how it's going to land.

How, you know, is it going to resonate?

And we have, we have certain reservations about also being seen and being judged and.

But as creators, you know, we, we all, we learn to work around that because not putting our work out there is.

Is even more detrimental.

It's detrimental to our being, to our health, to our.

To everything.

Right.

We need to get our words, thoughts, everything out there.

It's like how we survive, what we.

How we live.

Yeah.

What, what was the process like from turning your ideas from, like, things that you just wrote down, Like, I don't know where you wrote them down, but in this place, and transforming it from that into the, the end result of.

The book, I. I opened up a Google Doc.

So that's how I first started jotting down fragments and thoughts.

And yeah, I forgot to mention mention this earlier, but a dear friend of mine gifted me the artist way.

And many of us on Substack are very familiar with Julia Cameron's work.

And that was a very, very powerful tool which transformed my relationship to the creative process.

And a lot of what I mentioned earlier about creativity being a collaboration with spirit or the divine, that book largely helped shape that viewpoint.

And so when you go through her book and her exercises and her readings and you do daily morning pages, suddenly things start to take shape.

I would say probably faster, clearer, more fluid.

And so those fragments and thoughts started turning into what I eventually identified as poems.

And then the manuscript, over time, was refined three times.

Last fall, I wanna.

I found out I won a scholarship that was offered from an indie poet named Rachel Clift.

And she helped me bring the book to life, the book design, the final editing and things like that.

So,.

Yeah.

Did you go out and seek the help or were you connected through somebody you knew?

Or what was the process of turning it from the ideas into getting the help you needed to turn it into an actual book?

Yeah, I sought out the early editors to let them, to ask them, you know, give me your honest feedback.

Can you help me edit it?

And then when I won the scholarship, that was through a formal process.

I simply applied to it.

And once I found out last November, I committed to a launch timeline.

So it's actually less than six months from deciding publish to now.

And I wouldn't recommend the short timeline.

I know that sounds very fast.

It is.

And yeah, it's also given certain constraints that I've had in terms of cognitive capacity and energy and things like that.

It's been a very interesting experience, but very rewarding, of course.

But yeah, that was largely the, the process.

Yeah.

What were some of the most difficult aspects of the book production process?

Like any part of it, from writing to actually finding a publisher and all this stuff to.

And what were some of the more enjoyable experiences to balance that out?

Because everyone needs to see both sides of like the process to know everything that goes into it.

Well, outside of the shorter timeline, I would say.

Few challenges I would start with are.

It's.

It's a. I.

Well, I didn't personally anticipate the amount of.

Of work that it would entail, so I'm a marketer.

But marketing a book also is quite different and.

And you really have to put yourself out there.

You have to get in front of the camera.

So I feel for me personally, I didn't do that until now when I'm launching right when I could have done it earlier in my journey.

But the process looks different for everyone.

You know, for me, I think I didn't necessarily feel ready to share my story.

It's taken me a little bit.

I know again, it looks different for everyone, but I. I just have some reservations around being seen and coming into the spotlight.

I was in hermit mode for, for two years after the illness and it took me a bit of time to kind of feel like I was ready to do that.

And you know, it's.

Launching a book is also very entrepreneurial.

You're doing everything.

You're doing sales, you're doing marketing, you're doing ops, you're doing the editing, you're doing the back end, the metadata on Amazon, you know, it's.

It's just the whole gap.

Everything.

Yeah, your social media posting, social media content creation.

So it's, it's a lot.

So I think there's just a lot of moving parts.

And if you do have a publisher, which I so mine self published, but I do have.

Because I won the scholarship, I've obviously had help.

But if you do go the traditional publishing route, I do believe there is some marketing help.

However, it's largely up to the author to promote the book and market the book.

It's been a great, amazing.

I mean a big learning curve.

It's been a very rewarding process.

Like I Said it's really entrepreneurial and if you like that, then this, I mean, you're gonna love book publishing.

My background is entrepreneurial, so for me it's a great match.

I like to work on multiple things and, you know, create a plan from scratch and work from the ground up.

So I would say that's been just a really rewarding part of the experience for me.

And also when you re.

When you get your first copy of the book and you hold it in your hands, it's, it's quite, it's, it's a really special feeling to see that tangible thing.

You know, sometimes you don't believe it's real until you're able to hold it in your hands.

And I'd say that's one of the best, best feelings that I've, I've ever had.

Amazing.

Yeah, I think, I mean, it's such a special process, especially if you self publish and do.

Because you're part of like every single aspect of this thing.

You essentially put your, your whole like heart into this product and just seeing it as is a special thing because of all the work and dedication and all that.

Because I think many people will give up some somewhere along the way and only a certain amount of people make it all the way through.

So it's always commendable.

Regardless of what would be traditionally considered a success or not success, we all define our own version of what that means to us.

So just having it for yourself could be the success that you're seeing or having other people see in their, in their hands, that could be a success to you.

So know why that you want to get into it and don't let like the sales numbers or some sales goal detract you from the fact that you've done something important, especially if your message is something that is going to inspire other people.

Um, what was your.

Since you said you have a background in marketing, what was your plan for this?

I know it's coming out tomorrow, but what did you do leading up and do you have plans for after?

Yes, I, I am actually still refining the marketing plan even though the book launches tomorrow.

So I'm revisiting who the audience is, you know, the content pillars, you know, how do I structure the content around the book, the identity around the book and, and you know, who it's for and what people can expect and things like that.

And so.

But having said that, I left out certain pieces of like a 360 marketing plan.

Like events, for example.

I haven't even looked at events and usually Events go hand in hand with the launch, especially around the launch date.

Right.

You have an author launch event in a bookstore, or your own private event, or, you know, you do readings at bookstores.

The possibilities are sort of endless.

But I.

The way I looked at it was I need to focus on things for me personally that are less of a lift.

So less of a lift, but perhaps a wider reach.

So energy, cognitive capacity, which I mentioned before, those things for me are top of mind.

So I don't want to burn myself out and exhaust myself in the process.

So I'm working within certain constraints that I currently have.

And do I want to do events?

Yes, but later on in the summer, you know, I'm going to start to look at it now.

But yeah, I've just been focusing largely on digital, like substack, Instagram now threads, you know.

So it's largely been on the digital space.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's really important for everyone to know that there's nothing that you need to do.

People will tell you you need to host a physical event, you need to do readings, you need to do all of this stuff.

Yes, those are helpful things.

But if you don't want to do them or you don't have the capacity to do them, I don't think they would be a success because you're not putting your full effort.

People can feel the energy.

All of these things go into the factors of all the stuff that you're doing.

Even if you say digitally, people say TikTok is the way to grow or whatever it might be.

If you don't like doing those videos, you're not going to have like the kind of traction that you want to see.

So it all depends on, like, what your capacity is, what you like to do and all those sorts of things.

And don't let anybody tell you you need to.

You can and you have the option to choose.

Unless you're signing a contract and dedicated to something, obviously there's restrictions to that, but figure out beforehand what makes sense for you.

Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Can you talk about who the book is for and how you kind of figured out what that audience would be as you're going through the whole process.

So the book is for anybody, largely speaking, anybody going through a.

A significant life transition, whether that's grief, loss, sorry, loss, trauma, like illness, personal growth.

It's for anybody who might be contemplative, introspective, maybe on the spiritual path.

Anybody who is sort of going through a.

An identity.

How do I want to say this?

Maybe not identity But a rebirth of some kind.

And in that rebirth or shedding of old skin, there's a lot of uncertainty.

And so I hope that this book meets anybody who is in that space with a little bit of comfort.

And so the book is largely about alchemizing grief and pain and waking up to a new self and a new world.

And so it covers three sections.

It takes a reader from three stages to right after the diagnosis, to turning inward and facing fear and grief, and then slowly over time, blooming into this new new self, which then leads to an awakening.

And so there are spiritual themes in the book.

Other themes include self discovery, self reclamation, transformation, renewal.

But overall, it's a very, very positive book, I think.

You know, while it is about illness, it's about coming out on the other side, coming out stronger and being reborn in a sense and, you know, looking at everything in an entirely, entirely new light.

That's.

That's great.

That's such a good message.

I don't know how much of that.

I'm sure there's a bunch of that out there, but being personal with your stories is the way that you connect with people.

And if you're trying to write to like the masses, that's definitely a way to approach it.

But I love that you, you know exactly who you're trying to reach and how this could help them through their journeys.

And it's always important to have that when you're writing anything.

It could be a book, it could be an article, it could be even like a thread, like one piece of thread, like who's this for and why you're doing it?

So it's great that you have figured out for now who those people are going to be.

Obviously that can change and evolve, especially as you contemplate whether or not a second book or whatnot makes sense.

Or if you want to do something else and repurpose, there's always that option too.

Couple questions left.

Who are some other standout authors that you want to give the spotlight to?

Well, that's a great.

That's a great question.

Yeah, there are a lot of writers I admire on Substack.

Well, first I'd like to mention a few poets.

One is Ash Kilback of Poetry Outdoors.

Let's see.

The other is Cassie Wilson.

She writes a great publication in the Elements.

Both of these are very much nature based, elemental type of poetry.

Ashtok's or shares a lot of Mary Oliver's poetry and then writes her own version of her poems or her take on it, which is.

Which is really great and really creative.

So, yeah, those.

Those two poets on Substack really are I admire personally and I, you know, actively follow their work.

Another author on Substack I'd love to mention is Olivia Wickstrom of Petal and Earth, and she's done a remarkable job on Substack.

I mean, I look at her platform, and it's very inspirational from a sense of the ground that she covers, that the content that she covers, her life in France, her process of around creativity and what she calls stepping into your main character energy.

So.

Oh, and also she talks about how to grow on Substack.

So she has these, like, three buckets of content that she covers, and she just does it in a really, really impactful way.

And she's also done a great job of growth, of growing her platform on Substack in just one year.

So she's another great author who I know personally and I've spoken to, and she's a wonderful, wonderful person, too.

Awesome.

I think that's one of the benefits of becoming part of a community, is that you get to meet so many people that are doing amazing things.

And it's not where we're not trying to do this all alone.

We're really figuring out, like, who's out there trying to do the work and making impact on the world.

So that way we can help raise each other up and they can help raise you up.

Right.

It's not just us trying to do everything alone.

I think communities super important in this, like, creative journey that we all want to aspire to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What is some advice that you would give to authors who want to stand out?

Great question.

On Substack specifically or just in general,.

However you would like to just talk about it?

Yeah, I think because we live in a world today that is extremely noisy.

You know, there's just so much out there vying for our attention.

The question I always ask is myself, is how do I differentiate myself from everybody else?

What can I pull from my story that makes me stand apart?

And I ask myself.

I check in with myself on this question often enough.

Well, maybe, yeah, every.

Every quarter or so.

But how.

How do we tell our story in a way that is truly unique?

And then extracting those valuable pieces of or nuggets of our story and then figuring out how we want to present that in a meaningful way?

So we all have unique stories, we all have unique journeys, but what is really, truly the essence of who you are in your story?

So that's.

I guess that that would be my advice is to really hone in on that and don't be afraid to be unique and weird and just completely yourself, unabashedly.

Just, you know, put yourself out there and be the real you, because you'll always find the right people that will resonate with your work.

Yeah.

I think when we tried to cater our stuff for as many people as possible, we lose that ability to connect with people on a.

On a deeper level because we're like, oh, you should do this, or whatever.

But when it's based on our own unique experiences and the people who have also gone through something similar, we obviously are not going through the same thing, but the similar experiences, you.

You connect with those people even more because you know, you're.

You have a shared experience that affects everyone.

Right.

So always figuring out what it is that you've done or gone through or think about and how does that really connect with other people's.

Great advice.

Do you have a challenge that would help people discover those unique nuggets or at least the way that you've approached it?

From my point of view, it does take a bit of bit of work.

You have to be ready to ask hard questions.

And I think this goes hand in hand with self inquiry, inner work.

You know, just sitting down and being honest and open with yourself and whether that looks like asking questions through journaling, whether that's sitting down and meditating on questions that you have or answers that you're seeking or.

Yeah, it's an inward journey from my point of view, because in order to extract the true essence, I think, of your experience, you do have to spend quite a amount of time with yourself to get deeper, I think.

Yeah.

And I think the best way to do that is like test a bunch of different things and see which process makes the most sense for you.

Right.

Because the way that works for you or me might not work for everyone else.

Right.

So figure out what it is that you need to do.

It could be ask yourself questions.

What I do is I have a daily calendar and I fill out like five different questions every day based on my experiences of what was like challenging, what was the success on the day, what were some surprising things.

So that helps me process all the stuff that happens every day.

And I can go back and look back at any point in time from the last.

I think I've been doing it for a year and a half to two years at this point and see, oh, what was I going through and how can I.

How have I evolved?

Or what questions was I asking myself at this time to really reflect and figure out how I'm going through life and whether or not it makes sense.

Yeah.

And you can go back and see those patterns.

Right.

Which is very illuminating.

And it shifts our perspective when we can see the evolution, but also what tends to keep cropping up and that's how we internalize it and then sort of hopefully integrate it over time, you know, if we kind of change our behavior or change our approach to something.

But yeah, that's what you do is great.

That's a powerful process.

Yeah.

Otherwise we will.

We will forget.

I'm not going to remember.

If I looked back at last year this time, what was I doing?

I have no idea.

But if I look in my.

I use notion for it in my notion and I look at today's date last year, I can see exactly what was happening while I was going through and kind of reflect what was it like to go from that point to where I am now?

And it did.

It.

Was I successful in the things I was thinking about or doing in order to.

To kind of do what I want to do?

Right.

Yeah.

This has been great.

I know you have to go soon, so where can people keep up to date with all your work, your book and all that stuff?

Yeah, so my.

My publication on substack again is called Just this.

And so, you know, you can subscribe to my newsletter there.

My website, mayaserine.com you can learn a little bit more about me there.

My book Ultraviolet, which launches tomorrow, is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, other major retailers.

And yeah, this has been.

This has been great chatting with you today.

Yeah.

Thanks again for coming on.

And we got to do it virtually this time instead of unwritten form, which is a different take.

So I loved it.

It is, yeah.

All right, thanks, everyone.

All right, thank you so much.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're an author thinking about voice visibility or how to show up without losing yourself, you can learn more@outout authors.com to listen to past episodes of Standout Authors Unbound, head to standout authors.com unbound.

If you know someone whose story deserves more room, share this episode with them.

And if you want to keep the conversation going, you can find me on Instagram and Creative Business.

Until next time, keep writing, everyone.