Any time I write about a worry that shoots through my mind, and post it on the Internet for all to see, I worry again that people will feel the need to reassure me. It’s a bit of a weird mental cycle which sometimes stops me from getting vulnerable. But if I’m at the point of writing about it, I usually decide to step forth anyhow.

As most of you know, every month I post an article in my newsletter The Listening Ear.  And it case some of you haven’t noticed, most of these articles are about counselling — particularly the client experience. I recently reviewed my article archive and noticed that about 2/3 of them are under the category “therapy and you.” Excessive or welcome? I’m not sure I know the answer to that!

After all this musing I then mused a little more, wondering if I could apply the Goldilocks principle to analyzing my article cannon: if article volume is like porridge volume, is it too much, too little or just right?

For obvious reasons, we can cross ‘too little’ off the list. It’s not typical for solo counsellors to have upwards of 175 articles on their website, no matter the topic. But the ‘too much’ vs ‘just right’ is excruciatingly difficult for me to discern. And that’s a reflection of the way my brain works.

‘Too Much’

Google Misadventures

It hadn’t occurred to me that my blogging might be ‘too much’ until Google sort-of-told me-so. After over 10 years of being seated on the first page of a ‘counselling Vancouver’ search, I found myself on page who-knows-where. It was weird and I asked my web developer to investigate. His best guess was that Google suspected that I was “keyword stuffing”, having written so many articles on the topic of counselling. And to write about counselling as much as I have, you’d have to repeat that keyword a billion times. Hmph. I guess Google never heard of relentless writing about multiple aspects of the same topic out of sheer interest and a desire to help. Oh well.

Volume

And yeah, as I mentioned before, there are a lot of articles – articles add up when they’re written over the course of 15 years at one a month. Apparently I still have something to say!

Neurodivergence

‘Too much’ can be a loaded topic for a lot of neurodivergent people, as many of us have been told that we’re ‘too much,’ at various points in our lives. And, I will acknowledge that there is at minimum a “muchness” to my neurodivergence, as it brings with it an insatiable drive to focus on areas that interest me.

This means that I have an almost irrepressible need to follow my interests—particularly psychology and even more specifically, counselling. It’s like I took my biggest takeaway from grade 8 English—“write about what you know”—highlighted it, bolded it, italicized it and added, “write about what you know and love with no end point in sight.”

It’s not uncommon for neurodivergent folks to want to know how things work and why, and I am no different in this regard—only that I’ve historically applied this ‘how’ and ‘why’ to the counselling process.
And yes, this drive gets channeled into blogging which also marries well with my love of routine (aka my monthly posting schedule), and my reluctance to break routine. I find routines comforting: a practice of regularity in an ever-changing world.

Boredom

But what is deeply interesting to me just may be boring to others, particularly if I write about multitudinous aspects of the same topic. I get that and I wrestle with that. Unfortunately I have the opposite problem: writing articles about mainstream but important topics like boosting self esteem is generally boring to me even though they could be of great value to others. So maybe boredom should have gone under the ‘not enough’ category (sigh).

‘Just Right’

I’ll cut to the chase and say that there may never be a ‘just right’ for me that lines up with the ‘just right’ of my readers. And I have to accept that. Of course this goes against all the “rules” of blogging and may actually relegate me to fringe blogging territory. Or maybe Google has decided that already.

I would like to argue, though, that ‘just right’ article writing could be better for the reader than if I try to write about things that don’t interest me, because:

1. My writing will be genuine. I don’t know about you but I hate fake, generic therapy articles that sound like they were written by AI (maybe they were!)
2. My writing will reflect what’s on my mind, which could be helpful to you in determining counselling fit. When I’ve been searching for a therapist in the past, I don’t just want to know about what they do, but who they are. Is this someone whose thoughts I can relate to? Do I get a sense of them is a person and would I feel comfortable sitting down with them in a counselling capacity?
3. Writing about what I’m interested in fuels ongoing learning. When I’m engaged with what I’m writing about, I often do additional research, which leads me to studying related topics. Why is this important? Besides helping to keep me and my practice current, I also learn about new information and resources that I pass along to clients.
4. I don’t get bored and peter out. I sense that one of the biggest barriers to long-term blogging is boredom, particularly if article-writing is centred on writing about things that are of minimal interest to the writer.
5. I want to connect with my readers. Thank you to all who have trusted me over the years to support you and to those whom I haven’t met yet! I am so grateful to do this work!

Further Reading

The book link on this page is an Amazon Associate link; if you choose to make a purchase through it, I may earn a small commission, at no cost to you, which goes towards funding my public low-cost counselling resource lists. Your support means so much. Thank you!

Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed For You
by Jenera Nerenberg (2021)

One of the first books that started my neurodiversity journey. The neurodivergent author focuses on neurodivergent women, who have traditionally been ignored in neurodiversity research and practice. A great resource for women who suspect that they might be neurodivergent as the book presents information about a number of neuro-variances that readers can learn more about or reflect on personally. Recommended.