journaling through expansion with pixiewithpens

A special guest essay

hi! my name is pixie, the artist known as pixiewithpens. i’m a painter-poet-creative chaos goblin based in gothenburg, sweden. i run a substack blog/newsletter (blogletter) called creative chaos goblin club and a membership for artists called anti-perfectionist art club. i love starting a club. (please join my clubs?)

i’ve been graciously invited here by dylan to talk about how my journaling helps me stretch and expand. i’m currently in a season of working hard to make my art a viable income, because the other option is a life of crime and my chronically fatigued ass does not have the stamina to outrun law enforcement. to achieve this i’m trying new things, like pitching myself to local businesses and posting flyers around town!

one way my journaling supports me in this moment is by simply giving me a place to name the wild mix of emotions with the help of an emotions wheel. (surprised how many of my feelings are rooted in anger!) and i try to remember to not just intellectualise, but also feel where feelings sit in the body and let them move through it.

(side note: pretty much all the skills i’m about to name here i’ve learned from ashley trabue, so i want to recommend reading our moodmilk interview with them and entering the ashley-verse if you vibe with the philosophy she shares there.)

another practice i’ve found helpful is to imagine my future self reassuring current me on the page: i help a lot of people and make a lot of money, i feel safe receiving money, i make money being my authentic self. imagining and verbalising this as my future reality makes it feel more doable to take the action steps needed to get there.

i don’t believe in ~manifesting~ in a nonsense the secret toxic way. i do find it fun and comforting to daydream about the life i want. that can also be scary! owning my desires feels tender and risky. journaling is a way to practice that in a safe place.

i’m also using journaling to reassure my past self, who is terrified about taking big swings (like emailing interior designers with sleek beige websites who look like they would have bullied me in high school). i’ll write: it’s ok, 14-year-old pixie, it’s safe to be perceived. no one had your back then, but i got you now.

as i’m taking a lot of action to reach my goal of making a living wage (to start with), i’m being my most competent and badass self. this triggers a nervous part of me, who needs reassurance that i am also loved and worthy in the moments when i’m not those things. that i accept and love myself when i’m weak and fatigued and, to put it bluntly, disabled.

of course journaling can’t undo all the trauma i’ve accumulated by being considered undesirable to capitalism. but pushing back against that ideology helps. telling myself a different story about my worth helps. i don’t have to continue relating to myself and my disabled body in the same disdainful way capitalism relates to it.

that trauma is also why i have conversations with money in my journal. although money is just a concept, it’s a concept i have a relationship to, and that relationship needs repair in order for me to show up how i need to in order to get paid.

most of this is way too tender to share, but here’s a recent spread from my journal of me thinking out loud around existing and becoming.

my to-do list has since improved (and nicotine is back on the menu because unmedicated adhd was making me too miserable). and for my metrically challenged friends in north america, over here we write date/month/year, because that makes sense. sorry lol.

if you’re wondering why i’m journaling in english despite being swedish, the answer is that my inner monologue is in both languages, and i use a chaotic mix of both in my journal. i figured i would share one where i used english as a gift to my fellow nosy bitches. ♡

for me, journaling is a way of having my own back. sometimes that means being gentle with my past self and holding them. sometimes it means projecting forward and imagining my future self reassuring current me. writing to and from every imaginable pixie helps me integrate all the disparate and contradictory thoughts and feelings into one complex, dazzling whole.

that’s all from me (for now…), thanks for reading, and thank you, dylan, for having me!

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the artist and the art

i call myself a creative chaos goblin because i refuse to pick one medium or niche, or tone down my love of saturated colours to be more palatable. unmasked audhd creativity, baby! my membership is called anti-perfectionist because i’ve had to battle the urge to “get things right” and “get a good grade” in order to reach a place of creating with pleasure. i believe making art is our birthright as human beings, and that it’s important to insist on our humanity in this inhuman system, especially in the age of so-called AI.

subscribing to the stack is free, the art club is $24/mo and gets you weekly meetups of supportive communal art making, parallel play/body doubling style, and one playful sketchbook workshop every month. no experience required, all skill levels welcome! we meet sundays at 9 pm CEST (3 pm EDT). read more and join here!

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