Kelly Field

How we inherit ways of seeing ourselves—and mistake them for the truth. TL;DR: Many of the painful beliefs we hold about ourselves are the result of other people’s opinions. This essay explores what happens when we mistake those voices for our own. A few years ago, after a particularly intense Ashtanga practice, I was standing in the changing rooms of a sheeshy yoga studio – looking like a saturated dishcloth – when I overheard two women talking about me. Or rather, about how much I was...

The art of disappointing people without abandoning yourself. TL;DR:According to Gabor Maté, if you're not a bitch, you might get an autoimmune disease. Whether or not that's true, his provocation raises an important question: what happens when we become so organised around other people's needs that we lose contact with our own? A reflection on self-sacrifice, belonging, boundaries, creativity, and the cost of abandoning ourselves in order to keep everyone else comfortable. At a conference...

The New Loneliness and How Modern Life Leaves Us Emotionally Unseen Do you feel as though we are all becoming more isolated from one another? I have found myself thinking about this a great deal lately. How many of us now spend more time alone, more time behind screens, more time moving through lives that feel increasingly individualised, pressured, and emotionally self-contained. Entire days spent disappearing into laptops and phones. Conversations reduced to message threads, voice notes,...