Dear Mind: On Holding Two Streams (Part 2)

Makari | The Notebooks: From Her Journal — Letters to Self

Jul 11, 2025

What did I mean by:
"Because you and I both know I can be very good at keeping the peace between competing parts of me—but not always good at naming what those parts really need."

What I mean is this.

I recognize this pattern in myself, the way I’m skilled at managing internal conflict through a kind of quiet, diplomatic smoothing-over. I’m less skilled at the deeper work of understanding what’s really driving that conflict—the part where I have to sit still and listen.

I’m good at the management part. Keeping all my different desires, responsibilities, and selves from erupting into open warfare. I can soothe the crying streams. I can keep things calm and functional.

But I’m beginning to see something else.

This peacekeeping might only be surface-level.

The work for me now is naming what those parts really need. And that requires me to stop managing long enough to listen. To truly hear.

What do my stories actually need from me?
What does my day job actually need?
What do I actually need?

It’s the difference between being a skilled mediator who can get everyone to stop fighting, and being someone who can discern the best way forward—the solution that actually works.

I’m realizing now that my strength—keeping internal peace—might also be my blind spot. Sometimes my coping mechanisms become the very walls that keep me from understanding myself.

And when I do pause to listen, I hear my creative self saying:
It doesn’t just want to be soothed.
It doesn’t just want to hear, shh.
It’s waiting for me to say:
I will carve out a sanctuary for you.

I hear my working self saying:
It doesn’t just want to be quieted.
It’s waiting for me to say:
I see your fear of losing stability, and I respect it.

And maybe—just maybe—what I really need
is to stop being so good at holding the streams apart.

And finally ask them what it would mean
to let them run together.

Maybe.

Lexicon

Here’s what these words mean in the way I’m using them here:

Need → what would make me happy

Creative self → the one who does something new to me, for me

Working self → the one who does what keeps my body fed, sheltered, and accepted by others

The work → what emerges through working or creating, an act of meeting what is needed

This entry is from The Notebooks — an ongoing series of reflections, drafts, and in-process ideas. ✍️

Kirenya

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