70. "She Read It Out Loud for the First Time Ever" — Lexie on Shaking Hands, Survival Patterns, and the Book She Almost Didn't Write

About this episode

Lexie shares her journey of overcoming anxiety to release her debut poetry collection and reads a poem for the first time.

Two years ago, Lexie almost cancelled this call. She sat in her car in the summer heat, shaking so hard she could barely hold her phone. Her co-workers had to take her to lunch first just to keep her from backing out. Today she's releasing a debut poetry collection this summer — and in this episode, she reads one of her poems out loud for the very first time. We talk about what two years of nervous system level identity work actually looks like from the inside — the shifts that sneak up on you, the survival patterns that quietly run your creative life, and what it finally felt like to stop keeping parts of herself in separate rooms. In this episode: The moment Lexie volunteered to speak publicly — twice — after years of being the one who'd rather disappear into the walls What it meant to keep her faith in a separate compartment from every other part of her life, and what changed when she stopped Why she believes her writing isn't hers — and how that realization is what finally let her write the book The poem she wrote near the start of this work, about a time she didn't want to be alive — read out loud for the first time ever What she'd say to anyone who's scared to make the…

People in this episode

Host: Chelsea Bartell-Smith

Guest: Lexie

Topics covered

• poetry
• mental health
• identity work
• survival patterns
• creative expression

Keywords

• poetry collection
• mental health
• identity
• creative life
• survival patterns

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Oder Prayer Before Art

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