Long time no Wednesday post 😅 but that kinda, sorta changes starting today 🥳
Before I get into the reason for the change, I need to say that today’s post builds on my last two posts, Karibu 2026 and 38½ Years Young, so if you have not read them yet, you should definitely do so before continuing.
Now that you are all caught up (lol), I am sure you noticed in 38½ Years Young that I really do love me some Dr. Andrew Huberman 😍, seeing as I wrote about not one, not two, but three Huberman Lab podcast episodes in the post: What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health, Goals Toolkit: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals, and Master the Creative Process | Twyla Tharp.
I started listening to podcasts in earnest in July last year as I was doing Dry July and wanted to immerse myself in sober content to really get me into it. After July, I expanded from sober content to self-help, which is kind of ironic because while I am not a fan of self-help literature at all, I clearly have no problem with self-help podcasts 😅
I turned to self-help podcasts because I took a deliberate break from therapy in the second half of 2025 after realising I was using it as a crutch. In T Is For Therapy, I wrote that a therapist is not there to fix your life for you but to provide the necessary tools to help with your healing. Somewhere along the way I stopped taking my own advice 🤦♀️ but after hitting rock bottom in June for the third time in just six months, I decided to be more deliberate with my healing. How? By opening my toolbox that I had been building through years of therapy, rolling up my sleeves, and getting to work!
After making that decision, the Universe decided to help a sista out by sending an interest in podcasts my way. Leaning on world-renowned experts to understand myself and my patterns has been nothing short of life-changing (Dr. Gabor Maté FTW!), because as I said in 38 on 3.8:
Every human being has recurring patterns in thought and behaviour, and they are often why we keep getting the same results—especially the ones we do not want. 38 is an invitation to examine what behaviours, habits and patterns no longer serve me and to begin changing them. What do I need to let go of? What do I need to do differently? What wounds from my past do I still need to heal?
I have been working on getting my shit together, one day at a time, ever since turning 38 on 3.8 and, by every meaningful measure, I have moved from identifying as a person in crisis to one in recovery. Hence in the penultimate paragraph of 38½ Years Young I wrote:
While centering myself will definitely be a lifelong commitment—because life changes, and my center will change with it—I am confident AF in my center right now. At 38½ years young, I am more than ready to finally “throw things off” and really fucking go for it with my Big Five.
Now I am fired up to see where “throwing things off” will lead me now that my mental health is the best it has ever been. Because, as I learnt from The Mel Robbins Podcast episode How to Find Your Purpose & Design the Life You Want, there is a ton of evidence showing that anxiety shuts down creativity. And, even though there are not a lot of studies about this, the inverse can be said to be true and creativity shuts down anxiety.
I have lived with three anxiety disorders for decades now, but the pandemic turbocharged my anxiety to new heights. It explains why I was most creative with the blog in 2018 and 2019, putting up 41 and 63 posts respectively. 2018 is especially impressive, as those 41 posts were written in a span of about four months 💁♀️💅. In 2020 I put up 46 posts, and in 2021 I posted 13 (coincidence, promise 😅) blogs before taking a deliberate break in May. And I have never been the same since. I put up a total of 16 posts that year, two(!!) in 2022, six in 2023, and another two (!!) in 2024.
Looking back, I can see how telling it is that I only put up two posts in 2024. But I spent most of that year deliberately disengaged from reality so I did not make that connection until last month when I was working on a list of the number of blogs I have posted. Hell it did not even register that I had only posted twice in 2024 until I saw the list with my own eyes. There was improvement in 2025 as I put up 17 posts last year, but 2025 was my rock-bottom year so do not equate the 17 posts with an improvement in my mental health, as that was unequivocally NOT the case.
So the fact that this is my third post of the year speaks volumes about my current mental health. More so because it is my first intentional Wednesday post since before my first deliberate break in May 2021. When I started my blog on August 22, 2018, Wednesday posts were sacred and I stuck to that schedule for nearly three years until I took a deliberate break in May 2021. With the exception of monthly Guest Post Wednesday, Mental Health Month in May featuring other writers, and taking planned time off from the blog in January 2020 and 2021, I showed up every Wednesday during that time.
After the deliberate break in May, I shifted to posting only when I had something meaningful to say. In theory, this was a very mature and intentional decision about my blog and my craft. In practice, it meant no filler posts, which is great. And absolutely zero consistency, which is less great. Especially for an audience that had been trained by 2018 and 2019 to expect me every Wednesday like clockwork.
But just because I am here this Wednesday does not mean I will be here every Wednesday like I was from 2018–2020. This is not me announcing a triumphant return to regular Wednesday posts. As I shared in 38 on 3.8, I want to move in a different direction by getting paid for my writing. I do not earn anything from the blog, and since readership has steadily declined over the years, my new strategy is to monetise my writing by submitting to publications that pay in addition to entering writing contests. I will still write here, because Lwile the Leo is a big part of who I am, but I now plan to save my best work for these publications and contests since some, if not most, of them do not accept work that has been previously published on blogs or social media.
That said, I do plan to be considerably more consistent because, as James Clear said in his Huberman Lab podcast episode Best Ways to Build Better Habits & Break Bad Ones (yes yes, I am obsessed with Huberman, I know):
Consistency enlarges ability, right? And so by being more consistent, you enlarge your capacity to handle more. You enlarge your ability and broaden your skill set. You build your base of strength to handle the harder thing later. To be consistent means you show up on the days when it’s not perfect. In many ways, I feel like that’s the only place that you gain an edge. You know, the easy days, everybody works out on the easy days. Everybody does it when they feel good. Everybody does it when they have time and energy and capacity. It’s who is doing it when it’s not optimal. That’s the only place that you gain separation. And so figuring out ways to show up even when the circumstances aren’t ideal, even if it is less than you ultimately hope to do, ends up being a real win.
Consistency enlarges ability. Enough said!
So expect to see read a lot more of me this year, and I will not be sharing just the main character moments in my life, like I did after my deliberate break in 2021. Because those moments do not happen on the regular, and waiting for them can mean I publish two posts in a year, or two hundred. Either outcome would be very on brand, honestly 😂😭 For real though, I will be writing a lot more (just nowhere near the numbers for 2018, 2019 and 2020), even if the only people reading are my husband and my friends Kare and Tabby 😂😭
Last December I stumbled across that comment on the Instagram promo for Twyla Tharp’s Huberman Lab podcast episode and it was a major contributor to the blueprint for how I wanna roll from now on. I have always considered myself a creative person, and now that my anxiety is the lowest it has ever been, I want to take full advantage of that and see where my creativity leads me in 2026. I have a routine that is working well for me, though I am still tweaking it here and there. But even as I refine it, I am deliberately prioritising spontaneity just as much as routine, because while consistency fuels productivity, spontaneity fuels creativity. And you can be damn sure I am making space for both, because:
This becomes even more important when you take into account habituation, the word used to describe when life becomes too routine. I first heard of the word (and its opposite – dishabituation) on The Mel Robbins Podcast episode How To Make Your Life Exciting Again. The episode’s guest, neuroscientist Tali Sharot, defines dishabituation as “resparkling,” a process of breaking routine to consciously pause, reset, and re-appreciate life, which increases happiness and helps identify areas for change. She says that simple actions like changing your routine, taking a new route to work, or introducing variety can disrupt the brain’s tendency to ignore familiar, consistent stimuli.
One way I am dishabituating my life is by striving to do at least one new thing a month. In January 2023, I had a transformative heart-to-heart with my former MD as I was feeling stuck in my career. A chat pencilled in for 30 min generously grew into a 90 min treasure trove of gems. One gem I never stopped thinking about? She keeps life exciting by doing something new every week.
That little gem has been calling my name ever since. I have been toying with copying her, but instead of one new thing a week, mine would be one new thing a month because 1) I ain’t got no MD money 😂😭 and 2) I simply do not have that much energy 😂😭 Truly, I am such a homebody it hurts 😫 But my intention for 2026 is to curate a life that brings me JOY to celebrate in December *cue the Joy Bringers signature tune*. I am not one for tears of joy (tears of sadness and anger are more my thing 😅), but come December maybe I will even shed a few happy tears looking back on all the intentional joy I have brought into my life.
All of this to say, I am committing to one new thing a month, because New Year, New Me, and all that jazz. And I gotta say, January set the bar wayyy high with its firsts 🤩🙇♀️ And lucky for me, I have a fantastic partner-in-crime for this and will not be dishabituating my life by myself because my husband is an adventure lover AF! In 2025, our firsts were a Standup Collective show, a getaway to Sweetwaters Serena Camp, a pottery class at Kuzi Pottery Studio, and a visit to the Museum of Illusions.
The best part? Other than the Serena getaway, every single one was a surprise date 😍 so clearly I can trust my man to whip up a few firsts for me this year 😌 But I am all-in on my ✨Becoming Era✨ so it is important for me to be intentional about curating my own firsts, rather than simply relying on my husband to do so for me.
That said, if you have any recommendations, please let me know in the comment section because while I am intentional about curating my own firsts, a little help never hurt nobody 😅
One last thing before I go: I am looking to diversify the podcasts I listen to now that my mental health is the best it has ever been (I genuinely cannot stop saying that, because MAJOR FLEX 💁♀️💅). I mostly only listen to Huberman Lab, The Mel Robbins Podcast, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, and The Diary of a CEO, not because I am obsessed with the hosts (Huberman aside), but because I badly needed the self-help content.
But now that (say it with me) my mental health is the best it has ever been, I want to move away from self-help to… anything else, really. Especially “lighter” podcasts, because while I love me some Huberman, I listen with the intensity of Rory Gilmore in one of her classes because his podcast is very science-y. After all, he is an associate professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. So when I listen, that is the only thing I am doing…well, except maybe driving, and even then only on familiar roads.
For everything else, like walking to/from the gym, cooking, or when I just need a break from Huberman’s “classroom”, I prefer lighter podcasts. So please share your favourites in the comment section. I am all ears and ready to take notes like Rory herself.
Lwile the Leo 