What I Learned After NOT Posting on Substack for 2 Months

This is what happened when I stopped trying to be consistent.

Zingy Zen is a weekly newsletter dedicated to exploring the deeper truths of life. Each edition blends personal essays and stories, offering practical insights rooted in ancient wisdom and philosophies that hopefully inspire you to live more consciously.

Hey you,

It’s been a while.

I’m back to writing, and I can’t help but notice a slight awkwardness, like talking to someone close after a long time. But I also know that you and I are familiar. We know each other beyond small talk, so this strange feeling is only temporary and fleeting.

I didn’t plan to vanish. I didn’t schedule a “break.” I just… stepped back. Logged off. Let silence take over. At first, I thought it would just be for a week, but days turned into weeks. Weeks into almost two full months.

It wasn’t exactly because I ran out of things to say. It was more about needing to hear myself again beneath all the noise. Beyond that constant chase for validation.

Let’s be honest, even the best of us hope for a good response, a “fair” number of likes, comments, shares, and praises when we hit Publish. And then we sleep, quietly hoping to wake up to a little dopamine rush of notifications for what we wrote. Noticing how this pattern was affecting my mood, I decided to pause. To reflect. To listen inward.

I’d been posting here for a year without a break. Active on Notes, interacting, engaging, enjoying it, well… most of it. Until it started to feel like a task. Something I couldn’t ignore or escape. Because if I did, I feared I’d lose the progress I’d made, the community I’d built, and this little corner on the internet where I’ve shared so much of my world.

It gradually hit me. Even when I love writing, sharing, and connecting with like-minded souls. I was feeling tired. Not tired of the words, but of the world around them.

The pressure to show up.
The invisible race to be relevant.
The subtle addiction to numbers, stats, and "how it’s performing."

This overwhelm crept in like a quiet fog. A feeling of, What’s the point of saying more? Do I even want to say more? I started feeling disconnected from the very thing I loved. Not because writing lost meaning, but because the digital noise got too loud.

So I let myself step away.

And in that space, I realized something simple: the pause is also a part of the process.

Creatively edited image using Photoshop techniques. 2021. Before AI.

During this break, I allowed life to take over.

I travelled with my family to some beautiful locations and some religious ones, without the pressure to turn it into something “meaningful” for the Stack. Spent some time at my parents' house in Pune. Ate the best “Italian pizza” in India (no kidding). Went on a picnic by the lake, surrounded by lush green hills engulfed in misty fog, far from the city. And then, the day we were supposed to leave for another short trip, we woke to the news of a relative’s passing.

I came home to witness the fragility of life and to hold space for others in their grief. Here’s the thing. I can write about life, death, and everything in between, but living it is a different experience altogether.

Reading philosophy and ancient texts doesn’t take away the pain.
Not all of it, at least. But it does help me hold it with a little more patience, awareness, and empathy.

Being aware. Being human. Without trying to bypass it all with “wisdom” takes more courage than anything.

I realized I needed to be, Not Just Write

These past two months were a return to stillness. I gave myself permission to just be.

To not always be productive.
To reflect.
To be a witness to life, to illusion, to the parts of me still learning to let go.

Not hustling to be the “best version of myself” or trying to do it all. There were no big revelations. But there was space. And in that space, I remembered I don’t always need to be seen to be evolving. I can grow inwards, quietly at times.
Stepping away from the race is sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do.

Above all, the most important thing I reminded myself of is,

No one cares!

No one cares if you stop posting for a while or disappear altogether. People might think about you for a day or two, but they move on. That’s the way it is. Especially online. Embracing this truth is not pessimistic; it’s real, practical, and freeing. To understand that I’m just a tiny, tiny part of a group of millions of amazing writers on Substack is liberating. It takes away the pressure to be perfect and allows me to be real, more human.

And so I’ll continue to write,

Because I love writing.
Because the fire never really went out, it just needed tending.
Because writing, for me, was never about going viral. It’s always been about connection.

About sharing my inner world, the one I kept hidden for most of my life.
About telling the truth of what little I know.
And if even one person feels less alone reading these words, it’s worth it.

I’m not here to chase consistency at the cost of authenticity.
So yes, I might go quiet again when I need to protect my energy or refill my spirit.

But for now, I’m here.
And ready to start over.

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P.S. Over the past two months, I also immersed myself in something I’ve been drawn to all my life: Vedic Astrology. And I went deep. It opened up a whole new way of seeing life while also shattering some presumptions I had around modern astrology. I’ve been learning… and unlearning. I may start sharing about it here, or maybe create a new space entirely focused on astrology. Either way, you’ll hear more soon.

With love,
Sonaa

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