You’re Not Lost - You’re Becoming: Luna Westish on Identity, Curiosity, and Creative Courage

What if the life you’re building isn’t about perfection… but about curiosity?

In this deeply honest and expansive conversation, Rachel sits down with author, traveler, and creative soul Luna Westish to explore identity, reinvention, and what it really means to become who you are—on your own terms.

From leaving a high-control religion to navigating parenthood, neurodivergence, and creative expression, Luna shares a powerful story of self-discovery that will resonate with anyone who has ever asked: Who am I now?

This episode is a reminder that you don’t need a complete roadmap. You just need the next right step.

🎙️ We talk about:

•  Rebuilding identity after major life shifts 
•  Why curiosity is more powerful than judgment 
•  The truth about perfectionism (and where it comes from) 
•  Neurodivergence, creativity, and self-acceptance 
•  Why you don’t need permission to call yourself a writer, artist, or leader 
•  The healing power of storytelling—especially through fiction 

And of course, we dive into Luna’s novel Meet Me at the Ruins, a reflective, cross-genre story about identity, belonging, and love.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, boxed in, or unsure of your next move… this episode will gently crack open the door.

Purchase the book (also available on Amazon): 

https://bookshop.org/a/115025/9798986371665

Social Media Links:
https://www.instagram.com/lunawestish
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576278556728
https://www.tiktok.com/lunawestish

Author website:
www.lunawestish.com

Non-fiction writing:
https://www.medium.com/@allisonbishins

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Joy Unfiltered. I'm Rachel, and this is a podcast about joy.

unknown 0:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Not the shiny performative kind. Not the everything happens for a reason kind. This is joy as a strategy. A way to stay steady when life feels loud. A way to stay human when things are hard. A way to lead, love, and live without burning out or checking out. Some episodes will be just me. Some will be honest conversations with people who have lived their way into a deeper, truer joy. No fixing, no bypassing, just real stories, real tools, and room to breathe. Let's get into it. Well, welcome back, or welcome to Joy Unfiltered. I am Rachel, your host, and I have another delightful guest with me today. So let me introduce them. I have Luna Wedish, and she they are a wanderer, coffee drinker, traveler, plant enthusiast, and parent. In another life, Luna NamdePlume writes about environmental issues, disability, and her ex-cult experience on Medium, which features with features in publications like Illumination and Better Humans. Raised in a high-control religion where she was expected to excel in everything, Luna is relearning to enjoy doing things imperfectly, like watercolor painting, that, and mending clothes. She lives abroad with her partner, Tween Teen, and Rescue Pop. That household must be very delightful. Luna, she her, they them, is neurodivergent, queer, and disabled. So welcome to Joy Unfiltered. I'm so glad you're here today. Thank you so much for having me here. Yeah, absolutely. And you don't have to tell us exactly where in the world, but where sort of in the world are we talking to today?

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, I'm talking to you from Mexico today. So I travel internationally with my family full-time and we are currently in Mexico.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Lovely. I love that. I love that. So lots to unpack even from that brief bio, but would love to have you give us a little bit of a history where you or how you got to where you are today, and then we'll we'll get a little more in depth as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Well, um, do you have like eight hours? Because we can multiple episodes. That's a long story. Um, I grew up in uh in a cult. Um, we call it a high control religion, uh, but it was a cult. And um uh, you know, sort of had this drive um that was instilled in me like through a lot of cult experiences, but also kind of who my parents were to just like excel and work really hard and like make something of myself. And so all these ideas that I had of things that I wanted to do when I was younger, like be a writer or a photographer, my parents wrote off as being like not appropriate for somebody in their church, and I was discouraged from doing anything creative. So I went um to uh graduate school for urban design, which is sort of like architecture but at a bigger scale, um, which uh was really because I didn't know what else I wanted to do with my life. I was in this like really in-flux period, and I had applied to uh this uh graduate school abroad because I had fallen in love with this Scottish guy when I was um studying abroad, which is very loosely the basis of the book that I'll talk a little bit more about. And so I applied to graduate school. But by the time I got in, we had broken up. And so I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't know if I should study abroad, I don't know if I should like go work. Um, and I ended up deciding to uh study um graduate school in London and uh met my now husband, who's also from the US. And so um we uh, you know, moved back to the US and I worked in environmental policy for a long time and climate change policy, doing like really wonky, you know, climate change scientific reports and things like that. And when I had my first kid, I was like, oh, I do not want to work 60 hours a week anymore for like $45,000. And so uh I was like, I don't know kind of who I am or what I need to like do with my life. And by this point, I had left the church. And so it was really like a little bit of a rewriting process of like, who am I and what do I want out of life? And I became a small business owner, and so I run several small businesses for about 15 years and kind of still dabble in some environmental stuff, but I don't, it's not like really my, you know, my my job anymore, but I still do some environmental advocacy and things like that. But a few years ago, um, I was uh I homeschooled both my kids, um, kind of coming out of the pandemic. We were like, we decided to move abroad, and then we thought, oh, well, our kids will go back to school at some point, but it actually really served them very well to be homeschooled. So we're still homeschooling. And um, one of my kids was doing some creative writing classes, and they were like, I want to write with you like once a week at a coffee shop. Like, could we do that? And I was like, Of course we can do that. That's amazing. So we started writing together at a coffee shop once a week. And within a couple of weeks, I was like, Oh, I really have like a story going that I'm like really happy with, I'm really excited about it. And within like even I would say like a month or six weeks of these once-a-week sessions, I was like, Oh, I have a I actually have like a book brewing here. And I had never really thought of myself as like a creative writer. I had done a lot of nonfiction writing about cults, about business, about environmental stuff, this climate change and things like that. And so it was a little bit of, you know, that shift of like, oh, like who am I? And again, like what do I want out of life? And could I be a writer? And like, if you write, are you a writer? Or do you have to like do something with it to become a writer? So it was a little bit of a of a mentality shift. And I started publishing my book. It's called Meet Me at the Ruins. Um, I started publishing it on Kindle Vela, which actually no longer exists. And I was posting short chapters episodically, and I was actually making money on Kindle Vela, which was amazing. So, like here I am, my first novel. At the time, my husband had just published a book, and at one point I had actually made more than him, on than he had on his like published book. And I was like super stoked, and it was really great feedback to like hear from people as I was developing it. Um, and I also got some really great like contacts for beta readers and things like that out of like the Kindle Vella community. Uh and so once I had, you know, some some months of this writing under my belt, I was like, okay, I have like a whole story here and I'm really excited about it, and I'm really pleased with like how it's going. And so again, what does that mean? Like, do I want somebody to read it? Do I want everybody to read it? Do I want it available online? Do I want it available in paperback? Do I want it at libraries? Like what am I hoping to get out of this? Because I'm a very like, um, I tend to be like kind of laid back in my career. Like, I'm not super ambitious. I don't want to like, you know, run an environmental organization. I'm like, I'd rather be a consultant and like work when I want to. Like I have kind of this. I work I started working when I was 13 and I've had like several careers. And so by this point, I'm like, I just want to work on projects that I love sometimes. Like I don't want a ton of responsibility. So I queried for a while and I'm happy to talk about that process. It was really interesting, and ended up deciding to self-publish last year and um self-publish Meet Me at the Ruins across several different platforms, which allowed it to be available. Like if you go into your local bookstore, you can order it, but you can also get it on Hoopla and Libby, which was a big goal for me, was to be able to for people to be able to get it for free because that's how I like to consume books. I read a lot of books through Hoopla and Libby. So I really wanted other people to be able to access it in that way. So I've had this very roundabout way of getting to to uh publishing my first novel at 42. Um, but uh I wouldn't trade it for anything. Like it was uh, I feel like all of that experience and and parenthood and everything just you know rolls into the writing and um shows up in unexpected places.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

I oh my goodness, so much to unpack here. So thank you for I'm like furiously writing down notes of as you are talking, such good stuff. So I want to make sure that we kind of touch on a couple of things. One, um, I want to know what it was like for you to go through that process, that self-discovery process. Um, you brought that up a couple of times so that there were a couple of key moments in your life where you went through the process again. And I think one of the things that that caught me with that is that I think a lot of our listeners have gone through that at some point. We all go, not all, not gonna assume, but most of us have gone through some sort of who am I? But for you, it happened a couple of times during your life. So I'd love to hear kind of how that, I don't necessarily have to tell what, but how that experience was. Maybe are there tools, are there things, is it was there a process that you went through, or or is it a little more in retrospect that you are looking back and saying, Oh, there were a couple of times I rediscovered or reimagined or redesigned my life?

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Yeah, I think that the first time I had to really do this was when I left the church. I was about 22. And at the time I didn't know that it was a cult. So I was leaving the church of my family, which was hard enough as it was. And I was excommunicated by a lot of people that I had uh grown up with, and for a long time I didn't talk to several members of my family for having left. Um, and so that was a real um kick in the head. Like, okay, these people that are supposed to love me unconditionally don't. They don't want to be, you know, part of my life anymore because of the choices that I'm making, which are like not bad choices. It's not like I'm like, you know, doing drugs and like getting thrown into like a Thai prison, like I just left the church, right? But for them, that's that was worse. That leaving the church was worse than you know getting thrown into a Thai prison. So um I had to sort of be like, who am I without the support of my parents, which is always, I think, a really hard, um, really hard uh position to be in for those who I I know that have been through similar processes, like having to figure out who you are without the like literal support of your parents, but also without like really having any kind of financial um like uh like cushion, right? Because a lot of times as a young adult, as like a 22-year-old, like your parents may be able to help you out in certain situations, and I had lost that. And so it was like, oh, I am fully on my own, not just like financially, but also emotionally. Like I don't have anywhere to go home to for like Christmas. And so, like, what holidays do I want to even celebrate? Like that was so there were like all these different questions that sort of came up when I was like 22. And then I had several sort of like iterations in my career where my career like changed and shifted, and that all felt quite organic. But when I um became a parent, it was like, oh, well, the thing that I was doing, I literally physically can't do that anymore. I literally physically cannot be in an office at a computer 60 hours a week, but also I shouldn't have to be to like have a career and feel satisfied. And so um the idea of having a small business was meant to be temporary. Um but my first child didn't sleep. And so when the opportunity to go back to work like six months later and nine months later and 12 months later and all these different months later came up and like some good jobs and good pay and everything, I was just like, no, like I don't feel capable of being like a full human with like a whole brain in the office right now. But I'm actually really glad that I uh like couldn't do that because then it sort of launched me into having a small business and really taking it seriously, and which eventually turned into doing small business consulting and um running events uh for women and non-binary folks that were like about um finding support networks in your own community and and building connections and things like that. Uh and then about five years ago, six years ago, I found out that the religion that I left when I was 22 was a cult. And it was like a whole uh new opportunity to just like strip myself down to the bare pieces and figure out who I actually was, because a lot of the attributes that I actually thought were like really positive things, like a hard work ethic and like kind of perfectionism and all these different things, turned out that they were really deeply rooted in the cult ideology. And so it was like, okay, if even the good parts of myself, like I know that a lot of the bad parts of myself, like internalized homophobia and fat phobia and racism and all these different things that I had to deal with coming out of that system, I know that the bad parts of me, a lot of them, are rooted in the cult. But to to think about the fact that some of the good parts of me were also rooted in the cult was actually even harder for me than knowing that the bad parts were. Because then it's like, okay, well, if I take away those good things, like what is inherent to me? And that was a really hard thing. So to answer your question about like, are there tools? I think for me, the biggest tool is like setting your ego aside and just being like, what without any expectation of like money or ambition or um praise? If all those things were set aside, like what would I want out of life? Like what kind of life do I want to have? Do I want a quiet life? Do I want a big life? Do I want to travel? Do I want to write? Do I want to work for myself? Do I want to run an organization? Do I want to run for office? You know, all these different things. And I think that then you kind of have to add the ego back in a little bit and be like, okay, now acknowledging that we all have different kinds of ambitions, like my, you know, one of my ambitions was to like have a family. Um, like adding that back in, then like what do I want? Does that still line up? And what's really interesting for me as a writer is that like I have zero ambition to be like a New York Times bestseller, like on the Today show. Zero, no interest. Like, I don't want any kind of fame. I have no interest in like fame or notoriety. Um, I didn't even like really love the idea of doing like book signings. I'm like, I just want people to read and enjoy the book. And I understand that like book signings and the today show would obviously be amazing and more people could read the book. So I understand the sort of push-pull there. But for me as an author, it was much more about like the satisfaction of completing the story, the satisfaction of learning the process of publishing, the satisfaction of it being published and being read by some people and being available at libraries. And so um, I think you have to kind of, well, for me at least, like a tool, the tool is self-reflection. And then, but also that's really, really hard to do if you're in a situation where you are working and or working and commuting like 50 to 60 hours a week. That kind of self-reflection is really difficult. And as a parent, that kind of self-reflection is almost impossible for me to do at home. So for me, it's like taking a journal and a book and like a like a thermos of coffee and like going to the beach that's an hour away, like far enough away that nobody can call me and be like, where are that they have AIDS? Do you know what I mean? Like that's a really hard thing, I think, as a parent to always be on call, even when you're supposed to have time to yourself. So for me, it was going somewhere either for the day or maybe like an overnight and just journaling. And I remember there was this one point a few years ago, after I had learned that um uh this church was a cult, where I wrote down like all of the things that I've I feel like I've accomplished in my life, whether they were like small things or big things, and then all the things that I wanted to accomplish. And I could not believe how long that list was of things that I've accomplished in my life. I think, especially as people who are raised as female in the United States, because that's my personal experience, we are taught to be in it um overly humble, and we are taught to like not take account of our successes and our achievements and to really like downplay all of those things. And so it was really interesting to see this list of things that I felt like I had achieved in my life. And I was like, if if if I were done now, like I would be okay with that. Like this is a lot. Like I'm really proud of all the things that I've done, all the different types of things and different uh, you know, relationships I've nurtured or you know, kids that I've raised by that point. And so for me, like being by myself away away from the house with a journal where I can write about like what I want or what I want to sometimes people recommend like writing what you'd like to feel like rather than the things that you want to do, but what you'd like to feel like in your life, and that was really interesting for me. Um, so for me personally, the tools are solitude and quiet and a journal and self-reflection, but also being um willing to like let go of the expectations that you had for yourself or that other people had for you. Because I think if you can't let go of those things, you're never going to be able to really like transform into who you truly want to be. Um, you're always going to be some version of this person that they expected you to be. And so you have to really be willing to shed a lot of layers of what you thought you were and who you thought you were, even if those some of those things are positive, like high achievement or perfectionism or different things like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yeah, and I think a couple of things that that you said that really struck me, um, and and making it a little more uh not that your story isn't relatable, but not all of us have been brought up in that organized, well, religion like that, right? Um, but or the cult as as as you name it. Um, but all of us have some sort of limiting beliefs, right? So using those tools that you said about questioning, about letting go of your ego, about letting go of expectations, whether they be from um a cult or whether they just be from your parents or from what society says, being able to let go of that. Um I I think that is something that is fully relatable in your suggestion then of one of the ways to do some of that self-reflection is journaling or free writing or you know, putting down those things. And I love that you pointed out that because I think that's helpful too, not just writing what you want, but how do you want to feel? And that then maybe can lead you to some other places. The other thing that you brought up that I thought was super interesting um was this um downplaying our our successes, right? And I and I really believe that yes, part of that is societal, right? Or from wherever we are, but our brains also do that to us. And our brains and the whole our whole brain chemistry is about normalizing where we are. So if we're on this journey of, okay, I want to get to this next level, I want to get to this next level. Once you get to this next level, that becomes your new norm. And then you do something else, and that becomes your new norm. And all of a sudden, your new norm becomes something here because your brain is like, oh, that's just what you do. You're just an author, or you're just like this. Whereas 10 years ago, you would have been like, that would be the coolest thing ever, is to write a book, right? So our brains also play against us in terms of being able to stop and celebrate and find joy in some of those successes. So, um, but society also puts those on us again. So to use that process of journaling to identify, right? And then figure out what you want to do. Because first you have to figure out what is somebody else's expectations and what are your own wants and needs, right? And then to be able to.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

I agree with you to some extent that our brains do that. But one of the things that like literally changed my life was learning that men don't do that. So men, there's like studies that show that men will put themselves up for a promotion even if they don't have the expertise to do so. Whereas women will not put themselves up for a promotion unless they have expertise in that area. And women, this is true across like all sorts of different um industries and uh different levels and things like that. But often women won't even put themselves up for a position, even if they have expertise. And so what happens is even starting in high school is that um women or young women, girls are expected and conditioned to maintain like straight A's and even go for like extra credit. But boys are told that like a C plus or B minus is totally fine. And there's literally studies on this that like even starting in school, women are conditioned to believe that we have to be like the best, but that even at our best, somehow, like we are not equivalent to men in the middle. And there's a book um uh all about this that includes like statistics and and reports and stuff like that called Mediocre. And it's all about how like corporate America is run by mediocre men. And uh that's not a a jab at any particular man running anything, but just that the our system like rewards mediocrity in men and actually to some extent like um punishes success in women. And I have been through. Like in my the career part of my life, there were so many times that people were like, Oh, you're competent, like you know what you're doing. We're gonna give you extra work. No, we're not gonna pay you more. We're just gonna give you more responsibility and extra work instead of hiring someone else. I have been in that position so many times. And I have also been in positions where I was hired for a job and paid like $10,000 to $15,000 less than a male employee who technically had a higher position than I did, but did like 40% of the work that I did. And so, like, yes, maybe there's a little bit of brain chemistry going on there, but there's so much cultural conditioning about what women are capable of and also like what level of expertise women are expected to maintain, that I think that it's really hard to separate that out and say that that's like that that it that it's just your brain, right? Like I'm not trying to argue with it, I'm just saying like so much that we get told in our lives that I think it overrides any natural brain processes that we have about like what we want and what we could do and what we're capable of. Like, for example, somebody had to like like sort of prod me into saying that I was an author. They were like, but you wrote a book, and I'm like, Yeah, but like I'm writing. They're like, So you're a writer, and I'm like, Yeah, okay, I guess I'm a writer, and they're like, So you're an author, because you wrote a whole book, and I'm like, Yeah, like it took me so long, but like how many men do you know that would just be like, I wrote a novel, I'm an author. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's just it's such a different way of being uh a different set of expectations that we have um as people who were raised as women. I identify now as I'm binary, but like I was obviously raised um to be part of that sort of gender. So yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Well, and it's interesting you say, and and I do agree with that too. It's not one or the it's not one or the other, and it is super complex. And I love the what you just brought up again, because it um you said it if you write, you are a writer. I mean, it's so interesting because I say that to I used to be in the fitness or still kind of am in the fitness industry, and people are like, Oh, I'm not a runner. I'm like, did you go running today? Like, yep. I'm like, then you're a runner. Doesn't matter if you've done a race, it doesn't matter if you've done anything, and even if you haven't done anything, if you've written anything, you are a writer. So to be able to claim that. So I like that you have just said it and claimed that and give other people the okay, yes, okay. If you have written things, you are your writer. Your writer. Just claim it and say it out loud, right? Just say it out loud.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

I know so many amazing artists who don't consider themselves to be artists because they've never sold anything. And I'm like, that is not the definition of what an artist is. An artist is somebody who creates. So if you are creating something, you're an artist. If you're carving cool designs into your sourdough bread, you are an artist. But we are so slow to claim those, like, um claim those uh titles for ourselves. I think because we see them as achievements, when really the way that I like to look at it is that it's like it's a process. I am in the process of being a writer. I am in the process of being an artist, I'm in the process of being an author. So it took me a while to figure that out for myself, to figure out that I was limiting myself by not calling myself a writer or an author. That those that was like, yes, that was coming from a whole lot of expectations, but it was also something I was choosing. And that's hard because a lot of times, like the like other people put you in boxes, but then we stay there voluntarily. And I think that like my adult life has been figuring out like what boxes was I placed in, but then how have I contributed to staying there? And is there a way out? And that can be really difficult. Like for me, even like my gender identity was a process of figuring out like what is coming from me and what is coming from like my upbringing, what is coming from current external social pressures, and like how am I contributing to staying in the spot that's making me feel uncomfortable? And like, how do I actually get out of it? And so I think that there's uh so many different times in life when we are in these boxes. And I think that having a curiosity about um your place in that with the ability to assign yourself responsibility without assigning blame or shame is such a rare um capacity because it's been shut down for us over time. But I think that if we can be more curious about our life and about the world around us as well, if we can be more curious about um why we're where we are, why we think that we don't deserve more money than we're currently making, or why we should have to work 60 hours a week. Or to put it in like a more relatable perspective, in the United States, you cannot rent a one-bedroom apartment in any state working less than 2.5 minimum wage jobs. 2.5 full-time minimum wage jobs. So 100 hours a week at a minimum wage job, whatever that local minimum wage is, that's how much you would have to work to afford a one-bedroom apartment. So in that case, if you're working 60 or 80 hours a week to survive, that's not on you. That is very much on our system, on the choices that we as a country have made on. But at the same time, there are ways that we can say, okay, are there ways that I can step out of this? Like, is there a way that I can make more money than I'm making now? Or shift. Maybe I work one job and then I do something on the side, like running my own business, or we a lot of people are opting out and moving out of the United States right now for this exact reason. Like people who have maybe social security disability or retirement where their money is not going even 40% of where it went, uh, sort of in terms of like strength, like from a few years ago. So I'm not saying like uh when we're in a box or when we're in a sticky situation, it's it's our fault. That's very much not what I'm saying. But it is, I think, really helpful to be able to like kind of step out of yourself and say, even though the situation is really crappy, what choices am I making to stay in it? And sometimes the answer is not none. And a lot of times the answer is a lot. A lot of things that I'm doing are keeping me here in this system. So how do I step out of it? And that can be really scary, but I also think that it's not something we're encouraged to do very often. And so I'm here today to encourage people to do that scary stuff and to be able to see the responsibility that you have in your life for the things that are staying the same even though you don't want them to, without feeling shameful or guilty about those things, because a lot of the choices that we make are we're conditioned to make, right? So I think that a lot of times when you're talking about like self-help or um, I don't know, career shifts and stuff like that, people are like trying to assign or inherently assign shame and guilt to transitions or like somehow I was doing something wrong. And that's not how I see it. I think that you can have this like really clear-eyed view to like, I have a responsibility in this, but that doesn't mean that like I have to feel shame about it or guilt or that there's nothing I can do to change it. And that I think was really releasing for me. Like, I think every time I've gone through the sort of like revolution of who I am, I've been able to do that with a little bit more clarity and a little less shame and a little bit more like being attuned to like what's inherent for me rather than like what's on you know external to me. But it's I mean, I'm 43, so it's not like I'm saying, oh, this is super easy, just go do it. Like, no, it's taken me years and years and years and multiple opportunities and a lot of privilege, frankly, to be able to go overnight somewhere and journal. Like that's a privilege in and of itself. Having somebody to watch my kids is a privilege, like being able to work not full time if I don't want to is a privilege. So all of these things, like like people are like, Oh, I'm so impressed that you published a book. And I'm like, Yeah, well, I was working part-time and my part-time work kind of shifted and I wasn't working as much. So, like, I had time. Like, if you're working a 50, 60 hour a week job and you're struggling to get in writing time or publish your book, of course you are. Of course you are. Like, are there ways that we can build some creativity into our days and get a little bit more time? Of course. But like, that's not on you. That's the system that we have created. And so when people are like, oh, I I've always wanted to do that, and it's like, okay, but how much, how much do you work and how long is your commute? And like, of course you're exhausted at the end of the day, and of course you just want to like hang out on the weekends and see friends or watch TV. Like, of course, that's not lazy, that's like recuperation for like all the things that you're expected to do during the day.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Right, absolutely, absolutely. But I love the word and I wrote it down too, and you said it a couple of times about curiosity. So when you're in those difficult situations, whatever they might be, to just be curious. And and you said too not to, it's not about self-blame, it's not about any of that. It's but to ask the questions of yourself and be be curious and think, and because curious curiosity doesn't their judgment plays no plays no part in just being curious and asking the questions and trying to, and it doesn't mean that you're gonna have all the answers. And I mean, I'm 53, right? And I still feel like I'm going through different iterations of my life and still wanting to be curious about oh, is that huh? I wonder why I do it this way. Like, not a judgment, but why did I behave this way, or why is this part of my life not not behaving the way I wanted to behave, or why why you know, why are these things, or any new situation, just to be curious? You talked about um, you know, doing creative things like watercolor painting or things. Okay, that actually scares me a little bit doing watercolor painting. Not that you do it, but just to do it. But if I approached it maybe with some more curiosity about, oh, I wonder what that would be like, you know, that would serve me well, and I'm served the listeners too about any situation that they're in or any new situation they're gonna be in. Let's just let's just approach it with curiosity rather than you know, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be fearful and you should that that is easy, but it is a way to start to approach things.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

I think uh one of the things that I I don't know if this is inherent to me or this is something I've developed over time, but I see everything now, and I don't know that this has always been true, but I see everything now as a learning experience. So if you approach watercolor as something that you should inherently be good at so that you can like show people and prove that you're good at something, of course that's going to be scary. But if you approach it from a learning experience of like, do I enjoy this? What does this do for my brain? What does it do for my body? Does it like still my body or does it cause some agitation? Um, like for for me, knitting, like I enjoy knitting, but I always do this thing with my shoulders where I end up getting migraines because of the way that I'm holding the knitting. So I can't knit anymore, even though I enjoy it. So like I think that if you just approach things from like a like curiosity and from a learning experience, you will it's you will experience life differently. I was I had an interview, I don't know, 10 years ago or something, and they were like, Can you tell us about a failure that you've had professionally? And I was like, No, not because I've never not been successful professionally, but because I've learned something from every single one of those experiences. So to me, it can't be a failure because I learned something. Now, maybe that's a little bit of a defense mechanism, like I don't want to call myself a failure, but like I haven't sold as many books as I wanted to, but to me, that's not a failure because I have learned so many things about the book world, about um book friends, like making book friends, about myself, about my tolerance for risk in business, about the things that I'm good at and the things that like maybe don't come naturally to me. Um, and so if you approach writing or um watercolor or like running or any of these things, it's just like this is something I would like to learn about, it feels different. I think it reframes our interaction with whatever that is. And so I think that like whatever happiness and like joy that I have in my life is is in large part due to that framing. And I approach parenthood the same way because it is so easy to feel like as a parent, you are doing everything wrong. And I joke to my friends, if you're doing everything wrong, then actually you're doing everything right, right? Because like you don't know. You don't know if being like super strict in this one moment is gonna have long-term consequences, or if being really loose in that moment and not having any consequences for someone's behavior is gonna have long-term consequences. You don't know what the consequences are of like homeschooling or switching schools or moving, any of these things, you really don't know. And so I think that if you approach parenthood the perspective of like, I am learning as I go, no one taught me how to do any of this, and so I'm just gonna see what I can do and see the results, like almost like a scientific experiment, right? Like I'm gonna try and see what the results are from different strategies. I feel like parenting is a very different experience for me now with that approach than when I was a young parent and I thought that there was a right and a wrong way to do everything, and I was fearful all the time that I was gonna do things wrong, and I had so much anxiety, like the post postpartum anxiety, but I still have it. I still have that postpartum anxiety. Like I still have like waking nightmares of my kids like dying in a fire. Like, I don't know if that's ever gonna go away for me. Like, I'm gonna be like 90. My kids are gonna be like 65, and I'm gonna be like still having like these, you know, sort of uh dreams. Like, I don't know how else to explain them, but sort of like waking dreams of of something bad happening to them. So it's not like I don't have the anxiety anymore, but it's like okay, but like I'm not gonna cause them to die in a fire, like something bad could happen, but like it's not coming from me. Like all that I can control is the stuff that's coming from me, right? And so um I think that I have a lot less stress in my parenting journey now because of that. And now I have an 11 and a 14-year-old, so there are like new stressors, right? But I think approaching it from that perspective of like this is my experience as a learning experience as a parent, but they're also 11 and 14, all they're doing right now is learning. So, like, what if we just like if they do something wrong the first time and we like punish them massively for making a mistake, then they can't continue to learn and make like small mistakes and learn about themselves and learn how to you know respond to their peers or respond to pressure or respond to you know the different um expectations on them if we don't let them make you know some of these smaller mistakes. So I think if if you think about it like do you expect your children to be perfect all the time and to like know exactly what they want to do and know exactly how to do it? No, I would hope not. We let them grow and we let them change and we let them learn. So I think if we apply that to ourselves and give ourselves some grace, then that creates space for us to examine and be curious and and have like some emotional space. And there have been times when I had no emotional space for self-reflection. And I think that's okay too. Like, I'm just like, you know what? I am not going to therapy right now. I'm not gonna deal with any cult stuff right now. I'm not gonna like I'm not even gonna deal with my chronic issues. I'm just gonna like stop taking my supplements and stop going to the doctor for like a couple months to see what happens. Like, I feel like that's okay too. And that's also part of the learning experience, is like then you come back to it and you can you can be like, okay, what did I actually need out of that? Maybe I do need some of these supplements, and maybe I do need to see a therapist, but maybe I do intense therapy and then pause, or maybe I do therapy once a month. And so I don't think that it's natural to like be constantly curious and constantly examining. It's totally normal to have these like ebbs and flows in the same way that at least for me, curiosity, I'm sorry, creativity ebbs and flows. Like I have periods where I'm so creative and I'm like writing, writing, writing, and then I'll be like, I don't want to write. And I'm like, okay, I'm just not gonna write. I'm not gonna try and force it. Whereas, like, the you talk to like writing teachers, they're like, you have to write every day for 15 minutes at five o'clock in the morning before everyone wakes up. And I'm like, no, that does not work for me. I know enough about myself at this point to know that that doesn't work for me. And so I think that there's a real like joy in listening to your rhythms and like the seasons uh in your body, like it's really hot where I am right now. So, and but it's also winter, so like it's like hot, and I've also had the flu on and off all winter. So I felt really unproductive, and I was starting to kind of get on myself about that. And I was like, you know what? Why don't we wait until it starts raining? And then I'll see like how I feel because I think that this is a seasonal thing, and it started raining this week, and I do feel so much better. Like, I don't feel so crummy all the time, and so for me it was, you know, at least in part, this heat. So I think that it's if we if we let ourselves listen to our uh rhythms and sort of our like internal clock and internal schedule, it can allow space for creativity and curiosity. Um that that otherwise wouldn't be there.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Because balance, I think, I think in that whole thing while you were talking, that whole that whole balance word is a complete misnomer unless you look at your life in totality. Like, yes, there's probably in totality your life had balance, but it didn't look like it had balance because sometimes it's more important to be parent or create writer, or it's more important to you know take care of your physical body, sometimes spiritual body. And that could be, you know, those rhythms could happen with within a single day or within a year or within a decade, right? So we need to, I love how you said too that for me, joy brings that listening to listening to our bodies, listening to our emotional, our spiritual, our mental bodies, and honoring what our bodies are telling us. Um so I think that's I think that's beautiful. I do want to, um, before we kind of run out of time, I want to talk about your book. So I want to know a little bit about, because you alluded to it a little bit at the beginning about what it was about, but it is a novel. Um, so tell us a little, tell us a little bit about Meet Me at the Ruins.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Yeah, so uh Meet Me at the Ruins is about a neurodivergent college student uh studying abroad in Scotland in the early 2000s, when we would very much not have called them a neurodivergent college student. So this is somebody who is grappling with ways that they feel weird or awkward or like different from other people, but also in this space of like when you're doing solo travel, it often offers you an opportunity to do some self-reflection and creates almost like a new persona for yourself. And so she's really struggling with like uh not who she is inherently because she's like pretty chill at that, but like who she is in relation to other people. And so that's fairly reflective of my journey as well, where like I don't really struggle with any kind of sense of like who I am, like, oh, I'm not good enough, but I definitely struggle with like sometimes I'm in a group of people and I'm like, why am I here? Like what am I supposed to say? Like, what is the expectation here for like this interaction? And somebody a couple of years ago, I mean, this is like at the beginning of I don't know, like uh like uh talking about neurodivergence on on like TikTok and Instagram, and someone said, like, it's not normal to like if someone tells you a story to then tell them a story about your life. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? What? What? What? What? Like, I was like, no, that cannot be right. Like, that is always my instinct. That's how you relate to people, that's how you get to know people, and somehow that's not normal. That makes me weird, that that's like my instinct. And so I was like, uh, a lot of the book is um uh like little reflections on neurodivergence and feeling socially awkward, but she's also exploring love and lust and her new city, and she's like uh not a very good student for the first time in her life, and so, like so many of us have had, like she's just this period of sort of exploration and trying to figure out who she is in the context of like the people around her and what she wants out of life, and um it's uh kind of a love letter to Edinburgh, which is where I studied abroad and fell massively in love with it. And I actually got the opportunity to go back with my kids last year, which was amazing. Um, and uh yeah, so it's uh it's cross-genre, it's not like one thing. So if you really like romance novels, this might not be your jam. Um it's very romantic. There's a love story, but it's not, you know, doesn't follow like the tropes and the convention of a typical romance story. Um it's like more sort of lithic, like upmarket. So one of the uh early, like maybe not like stellar uh reviews that I got was like there like not as much stuff happened as I thought there would. And I'm like, yeah, but that's kind of like that's the genre. Like if you're expecting a romance where it's hitting certain you might be a little surprised by the pace, but like that's that's the pace that you know, pace of life and it's messy and it's wolf and it's contemplative. So um that I I realized after writing it and publishing it that like those are the kinds of books that I enjoy reading, the ones that are cross-genre, they don't necessarily follow specific, you know, beats or like where the denouement has to be and you know, things like that. Um, and so yeah, I sort of accidentally, or maybe on purpose, in the back of my brain, wrote like the type of book that I like to read, which are you know sort of more complicated um stories about people, right? So that's what it's about. It's not just it's not just trying to get to like the happy.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Well, and what a what a lovely a couple of things. What a lovely way for you probably to go through some self-reflection. I mean, so personally, it must have been such an such a um is not the right word, such a um, it was a journey, I'm I'm certain, for you to go through that writing. Um, and don't, you know, isn't it easiest to write from what we know and what we like? I mean, I think that that is again the um the journey of most entrepreneurs, right? We are we are living out the things that we wish somebody had given to us before or that we want to continue to be a part of. So what a what a great um you know, what a great role model you are being as well as an entrepreneur and a writer and a small business owner to say, okay, this was my stuff, this is how I did it. And I am being curious about how I can share this in um in a new way. So in a fiction way rather than a nonfiction, because you could have written you could have written a fiction book about it, right? Like you could have written a memoir about the things that you went through, but you decided to um be curious about it and write it, write, write about it in a new way.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Uh and I have long used nonfiction writing as a way to metabolize some of the crappier things that have happened in my life and like how to grow from them. But it was really fascinating to me how fiction writing ended up doing a similar thing for me, that like through creative writing, I could put my characters in situations that I was in or that like I had seen friends be in, and then write them out of that situation in a way where they are victorious or where they have harm come to them and how the people around them respond in a supportive way or a not supportive way. And so it was really interesting for me because I did not expect so much of me to come through in this novel. Like it was just like, oh, this is like very loosely based on my story, and it is like the things that happen in it like are not actually things that happen to me. But a lot of like little plot pieces are situations like in college where I was sexually assaulted, but like uh in this in the story, there's no sexual assault, but there's a period where she feels cornered by a guy and the thought process that she's going through, and then trying to explain it to a male friend of hers of like what she was feeling and how even though physically she was not trapped, she felt that way. And like that was such an interesting moment for me to like metabolize several situations I had been in in college where like I could I would not have called it sexual assault. I was never touched, but I was very much put in a situation where I did not consent to. And so that was so interesting to like um uh metabolize some of these harder things that have happened in my life and some joyful things too, um, but like through these characters, and then like do they have the same reaction that I did, or did they have the same support system that I did or not? And so that was all so fascinating to me that like creative writing could be as much a process of healing as nonfiction writing. And I don't know why that surprised you so much, but it just did. I just wasn't expecting it. It wasn't like why I was writing, but I'm so thankful that I got to work through some things and also really like working to understand my own neurodivergence in a deeper way than I had ever really gone before, where you know, Margot is not me. She has a sort of a more deep social anxiety than I do. Her anxiety is a little bit different, but sort of thinking back on some experiences that I've had where like you just feel like an outsider, you feel like you're not meant to be there, or you feel like you don't know how to interact in a situation. And so working through some of those things in this has allowed me to like uh almost like acclaim and um and uh like become more friendly with my neurodivergence and like more okay with it and just being like, this is just how I was built, y'all. Like this is just how I was built. Like, can I work on it? Can I mask? Of course, I can do all of these things, but like also maybe we just need to be okay with the way that we're built. And like you said something earlier, and I was thinking about um uh behavioral patterns. Like, I can do anything for like six weeks. Like the conventional wisdom is like you, if you do something every day for six weeks, it is a pattern and you will be able to do it for the rest of your life. I will do something for about exactly six weeks, and then I'll just be like, Nope, I'm done. And I it's so fascinating. I always thought something was wrong with me. And then I learned that like that's actually really common with neurodiverse people that like it's kind of this all or nothing where like you're actually really good at like uh let's say like not eating wheat, but then after like six weeks, you're just like peace out, like I'm just gonna start eating wheat again. Um, and so uh allowing myself that space to like be not what other people expect in terms of like creating habits. Like I go to physical therapy and they're like, you need to do these exercises at home. And I'm like, no, I will not be doing these exercises at home. Like, you need to work on me while I'm here and give me the best treatment that you can, acknowledging that I have been doing physical therapy off and on for like 15 years, and no, I will not be doing those exercises at home. Like I know this about myself, and I am unapologetic at this point. And so I have a really amazing physical therapist who's like, okay, I will work on you while you're here and I will not expect you to do things at home. And uh it's amazing to just have that validation of just like seeing me for who I am and like what I'm capable of. And it's not that I'm not capable of doing those exercises, but as you mentioned, like, okay, I can do those exercises. What falls off my plate? Like making dinner or taking my dog for a walk or working or sleep or you know, like uh having some quiet time in my day, like whatever it is, something has to fall off if I'm gonna do those exercises. And I've just gotten to the point currently, whatever sort of season I'm in, where I'm just like, I am not doing exercises at home. Like, I'm sorry. I'll I'll stretch, I go for lots of walks, all sorts of things, but I'm not doing physical therapy exercises at home. And so I think that like for me to be um writing creative fiction about uh a neurodivergent character has really helped me to um like come to positive terms with my own neurodivergence and be a lot less apologetic about it. And I I would say if anything, if you take anything from this uh interview, like we as uh people who were raised as women, like in the US, like in Western culture Western culture, I realize that that's a weird way of phrasing it. Um we should not be apologetic about who we are and what we want and the fact that we change and the fact that we would like to change. And I think that there's so much that has we have been told uh that we should apologize for or hide. And like I would just entreat you, like what are you hiding? Like what are you what are you hiding from people? What are you scared to tell people? What do you are what are you scared to want? What are you uh what do you dream of like when you do have a moment of quiet and um uh just embrace that and that it's not like it's easy, it takes a lot of practice, but it's basically a muscle if we don't start exercising that muscle of curiosity and letting go of other people's expectations and knowing that like your needs might conflict with other people around you or other people's needs, and that as a parent and person somebody in a family, that's super hard. But we if we are unwilling to like have any discomfort or have anything materially change, then we are we can't change. And so I encourage people to be like, what am I uh sitting on? Like, what am I waiting for? What am I hiding? And like what do I actually want? And if we can um do that and and and sort of like lessen, like maybe we can't get it out of the box, but maybe we can like knock one of the walls down, right? And then you can like see the ocean on this side. And then like in a couple of years, we we can knock down the other side. Like it's not this immediate process of like suddenly you're quote unquote fixed, it's just how can we take steps um within the amount of time and energy that we have at this particular point in life to move towards what it is that we want. And I love the phrase the next right step. Like, what's the next right step? That's all you have to do. Like you're you don't if you want to be an author, like you don't have to think about publication. All you have to do is just like at some point when you feel like it, you can sit down and write. Or if you don't feel like writing, you can draw a picture of your characters, or if you don't feel like doing that, you can maybe work on your arc, or you can voice type into your phone, right? Like there's so many different ways to get to being a writer, being an author, whatever it is that you're interested in. And all you have to do is the next right step. And that's all honestly, there's all that we can do. Like the, you know, we can we can make uh a hundred steps, but like stuff's gonna go wrong in there, right? So like all you can do, all you can focus on is that one next right step. And for me, uh seeing that next right step as a as a learning opportunity, when you layer those two things together, you can get a lot out of whatever you're doing, even if you never finish your book, even if you never become, you know, a working artist. You can still learn so much about yourself and um get a lot of joy and contentedness out of those experiences if we shift a little bit the way that we think about them.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

I love that. And what kind of a great place to end thinking about being curious, being open to what that's that next step might be. I think that frees us all to one, be complex, you know, think about it. So notice, and then take some action on that, on that notice thing. I have enjoyed this conversation so much, and there are so many things that I know that we could get into. I would love to invite you back at some point to talk a little bit more about writing, um, talk about some of the other notes that I have scribbled here. But for right now, would love to know how if people want to like I want to get this book, I want to know more way more about the things that you are doing. Where do they where do they find you?

SPEAKER_01 54:21

You can find um links to everything at www.lunawestish.com, l-n a w e s t I s h dot com. But you can also google lunawest dish and you'll find me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Blue Sky. Um, all sort of like different, a little different angles depending on where you are. And you can buy Meet Me at the Ruins pretty much anywhere. Like you should be able to walk into an independent bookstore and order it. Like it's probably not gonna be on the shelves. If it is, send me a picture because that would be amazing. But um you can order it from most bookstores in the United States. You can even order it from bookstores in like I think Canada, the UK, and Australia like should be able to order it for you. Um, but it's also available on Amazon. And my favorite is bookshop.org. If uh you've never shopped there, they um donate a portion of every sale to local bookstores. So if you like to shop online, but you want to support your local bookstore, that's a great way to do it. And then you can also get meet me at the ruins. Um, I think basically anybody who has a hoopla account should be able to download the ebook. And then on Libby, if your library doesn't have it yet, you can actually request it. And they've been uh libraries are pretty good if you request books about um bringing them in. And then eventually there will be an audiobook, but it's very slow right now, so uh don't hold your breath, but it will happen at some point. Um, so yeah, anywhere books are sold, you can order it, um, but you can also get it from your library. You can ask your library to um get it in stock. And um yeah, that's where you can find me.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

That is great. And I will be sure to put all of those links in the show notes. Um, so make sure you go and get the book, follow all of the amazing things that you are doing. And also, if you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and share this episode with someone else who needs to take the next right step. Just do it, do it, do it. So do that. And remember, Rachel from Joy Unfiltered, from my heart to yours, I am celebrating you today and every day. So have fun, live well, enjoy.