REAL TALK WITH DANIELLE - What the F&@% is this Blog About?!

I’ve been reflecting on my blog title. What am I talking about when I talk about real talk? When I started this blog, I said I was going to talk about whatever I feel like. So in that sense it seems kind of like an open journal. But I know this format can be a little flimsy for readers. So I Googled “How to Blog” and learned that the typical blog post usually has a main topic or a target audience.

Oh, shit.

I’ve written about so many different topics already! And my target audience is... people? I feel like I’m back in freshman year of college when they told us writing an essay does not have to be in 5 paragraph format. What will I do without my beloved rules?

The thing is, I have always been a person with many interests. So it’s very hard for me to talk about just one singular topic. For example, I know if I were to post about baking, I would feel like I’m really missing writing about mental health. Or if I blogged just about singing, then I would want to write more about travel.

After giving this a lot of thought, the main topics of this blog focus on the arts, mental health, and travel. I could talk about so many things within each of these categories:

The Arts

Writing: This blog is my most current project and I honestly have no idea where it’s going. I just like writing a lot. A few months ago, I was directing a musical that I wrote, and I’m hoping to return to editing it one day. Many people also don’t know that I’m writing a fantasy novel. I’m about 100 pages in, and it’s the piece that keeps grabbing my attention. While I travel, I plan to write a lot of that book.

Music: I’m taking singing lessons again, and it’s one of the highlights of month. (Shout out to Alex Zeto at One Voice!) I’m completely fascinated by how the voice works. I also teach voice and guitar on Saturdays, which was a total fluke 3 years ago when I started, but is now something I’m very passionate about. I also play piano, guitar, ukulele, and I’m learning how to play drums. I write songs and play at open mics. I’ve also been recording music with my husband and we play together a fair amount. There is just so much under this category, that it could be its own blog (See the dilemma?!)

Baking: I love to bake and decorate - Mainly cakes, brownies, and cookies. I literally watch videos of decorating techniques in my spare time, and then try to recreate those decorations. It’s definitely a self-soothing hobby for me. I do it a lot when I need to de-stress. I also post a lot of photos, so if you’re not following already, hit me up on the gram! @daniellepinals

Okay, okay, so there’s a lot to talk about within the arts... but what about...

Mental Health:

Being a Therapist: I have learned a ton in the last 4 years working in mental health. I’ve worked in addictions, eating disorders, and psychosis. All of the places I have worked have been a fairly high level of care, and I’ve learned from many different schools of thought. For example, my graduate degree was heavily focused on how to treat mental illness from a medical perspective. We learned about medications and neurology. But a lot of my most recent training was looking at mental illness through a trauma lens (which I prefer) because it feels more understanding of the person I am helping versus the illness I am treating.

Private Practice: Since I got my license in June, I’m able to work in private practice which was the goal since getting a degree in mental health counseling. I absolutely can’t wait to be in private practice. I love the idea of being my own boss and managing my own business and doing therapy sessions with people.

Trauma: It never sounds right to say this, but I love talking about trauma. For me, it’s the crux of mental health issues. I think that everything that has happened to a person really influences their worldview. For me, there is nothing more interesting than how someone came to their belief system and why they behave in a specific way. More often than not, trauma comes into play, and has a huge impact on people’s experience of being in the world. Working through this is like putting the pieces of a puzzle together. Hard and vulnerable work, but endlessly fulfilling.

And then there is the adventure of a lifetime that I’m about to embark on...

Travel

Planning: Friends... I booked all of our travel for New Zealand on Saturday, and I am READY. I can’t wait to be in New Zealand hiking Mt Doom or frolicking around Hobbiton. I am stoked! We are also booked for the first half of Australia (which is on fire right now?) and I can’t wait to see the koalas and dive The Great Barrier Reef.

Leaving Home: I love sharing tips for travel and my experiences as I prepare to leave. Selling our stuff has been a long, hard haul but worth it! We’ve made almost $1000 selling things from our little 1-bedroom apartment. We probably will have to donate what we can’t sell, but I am feeling less and less attached to my things. I know that the travel memories are going to be so much richer than any value I have from holding onto these items.

Actually Traveling: I feel like I’m living in a dream. I’ve been planning to do a 6 month RTW trip since I was 13 years old. For 13 years, this trip has been, “That thing I’m going to do someday.” But we are literally 3 weeks away, and I don’t think the reality of that has hit me. Every time I have traveled it has been life-changing and I have learned so much about myself. I can only imagine what it will be like to do that for 6 months, and I’m excited to write about those changes and share it here!

*Cue screeching noise*

Pump the brakes. Let’s go back to where we started - I write a little bit about all of these topics every few weeks or so. Are these my official “blog topics”? Does this mean I have to change the blog title? Am I the traveling, artsy, mental health counselor? The musical therapy witch flying around the world on her broomstick? (Like Santa, but instead of toys, I share songs about self-care). 

There is one other factor here... Some feedback that I’ve gotten recently is that I talk about the things nobody else wants to talk about. This is not the first time I’ve heard this about myself. Since I was a teenager, people have been telling me I’m a person who “doesn’t bullshit” or “can talk about problems” or “is just real”. Sure, there are tons of blogs about the arts, therapy, and traveling. While those topics are fun and important to me, I think what I’m really writing about are the lessons I’ve learned, the changes I am going through, and the goals I have.

And if I’m being honest, I think that is what identifies the readers who I hope will be interested in this blog. People who are over the shallow discourse of our usual day to day. People who are interested in the nitty gritty. People who are hungry for the hard stuff. The stuff nobody wants to talk about. The stuff where we really connect to each other.

I don’t just want to talk about singing the high notes. I want to talk about the physical anatomy that is used to produce that kind of sound. I don’t just want to talk about “depression is hard”. I want to talk about why so many people have been through very specific traumas or grew up in extreme environments that led to feeling this way. (And what to do about it now!) I don’t just want to talk about how beautiful Italy is. I want to talk about how I thought I was going to get proposed to in Florence once upon a time. How I returned to Florence, and wrote a song about how black and white my world view used to be, and how it feels like I can see in color now. I’ve always been this way. Curious and caring. I think it’s really hard to be an adult living in the 9-5 world, and have the mental capacity to dig deep. But I can’t not be this way. And I don’t want to be any different. I want to ask the hard questions and work through what’s really going on. That’s what I’m about. That’s what Real Talk is about.

“Can you feel me now
That I'm vulnerable in oh-so many ways?
Oh and I'll never change”

-Maggie Rogers

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