What Happens When a Sensitive Soul Finally Stops Code-Switching

A guest post from Mel Moseley on spending years creating in fragments—and what shifted when she found a space that could hold all of her at once

This month on HUSH, we’re exploring the specific loneliness that comes with being a sensitive soul creator. While extroverts thrive on the attention and have that loud charisma and charm that blend easily with virality, us quiet-sensitive “weirdos” tend to shy away from the noise and get lost in the void.

This week I bring to you a guest post by Mel Moseley.

Mel Moseley: Finding My Humans in a Room I’d Never Been In

I didn’t know I was looking for them.

That’s the thing about belonging—sometimes you don’t recognize the shape of what’s missing until it shows up. I’d spent most of my life collecting communities like other people collect hobbies. AA meetings. Theatre companies. Polyamory groups. Sex positive organizations. Artist circles. Each one held a piece of me, but none of them held all of me. I was always translating parts of myself, code-switching between versions of Mel depending on which room I walked into—performing belonging, but never fully being a part of.

Then Ryan sent me a text about The Creator Retreat.

I didn’t even read the description. I just thought, well I’m a creator and Ryan is awesome, so why not? I filled out the application. I had no idea at the time that “creator” has a specific meaning in SubstackLand. I didn’t even have a Substack at the time. In fact, I had never been on Substack.

Somehow, I got accepted into the founding cohort of twenty people. When we had our first Zoom meet-and-greet in February, I felt that familiar flutter of anxiety in my chest. Published writers. A documentarian. International speakers. A healer. A doctor. Who was I in this room?

But within a few weeks, none of those credentials mattered.

What mattered was the Thursday morning rhythm of showing up. What mattered was TeriLeigh’s gentle insistence that I talk to my water before drinking it, even though my inner-scientist rolled her eyes at all the woo-woo. What mattered was Alex’s voice guiding me through a Yoga Nidra—a practice that quieted my body and lowered my anxiety. What mattered was Ryan’s steady presence, that same energy I’d felt when we first met at a retreat and walked to the honeysuckle-covered gazebo and he’d said he was going to juggle while his friend read poetry for the Saturday talent show—the best kind of nerdiness in my humble opinion!

These humans got it. They got the mess. They got the sensitivity. They got that you could be deeply spiritual, witchy even, and still need your lab coat on, still need to see results, still need proof that the woo-woo actually works.

They got that crying doesn’t mean you’re broken—it means you’re alive.

The Creator Retreat gave me permission I didn’t know I needed: to just lie down and listen.

Just be.

I started saying yes to everything they suggested, the same way I’d done in early sobriety. Take the suggestions. See what happens. So I talked to my water. I created a sankalpa tied to my breath. I learned the MOZI Method exercises. I found my grandmother tree—an old, gnarled oak at the top of the hill on our property in Fiddletown where I can sit with my guitar and feel witnessed without being watched. Just yesterday I buried a hummingbird Shadow had triumphantly brought as a gift. I held a quiet ritual that reminded me of this circle of life and honored that delicate creature. Without this community, I wouldn’t be creating important personal moments like that—moments that fill up my metaphorical cup.

When Kyle offered Theta Healing sessions, I thought it was absurd. We’re going to sit on Zoom and go up past the moon on a beam of light and ask for healing from some plane where Creator/Higher Power/Whatever hangs out?

But I did it. And something cracked open that I didn’t know was stuck. I asked for healing around not deserving love unless I was useful, and I felt it lift from my body. Not intellectually—I physically felt it leave. The parasite that I called my alcoholism—this voice in my head that tells me it’s fine if I have a drink despite my protests—was removed and hasn’t come back since.

That’s what this community gave me: permission to try seemingly ridiculous things and discover they work. Not only do they work, they improve my life exponentially—a world that was full of stress and anxiety has shifted to slowness, quiet, and centered reflection. And as all of that was happening, my creativity was turbo-charged!

This wasn’t a professional networking group. This wasn’t a mastermind telling you what you should do in order to succeed on Substack. This wasn’t people showing up with their best faces on, performing success and polish.

This was a group of sensitive souls creating with integrity, learning to work with our finely-tuned nervous systems instead of against them. Learning that our sensitivity isn’t a flaw to manage but a gift to claim.

Every Thursday morning, I show up to a Zoom room where I can be the theatre artist and the mosaic maker and the recovering alcoholic and the polyamorous woman and the person who talks to water and the skeptic who still needs her lab coat. I don’t have to translate. I don’t have to code-switch. I can claim my place as a witch in a lab coat. I can just be Mel—messy, curious, vulnerable, evolving Mel.

The magic isn’t in the tools, though the tools work. The magic is in being witnessed without judgment. The magic is in watching someone else try something that sounds absurd and report back that it changed their life. The magic is in the safety to experiment, to fail, to cry, to laugh at ourselves, to hold contradictions.

The magic is in finding people who understand that you can be both playful and have depth. The truth is that play can be profound. That you can feel all the feels and still function. That crying at the drop of a hat isn’t weakness—it’s your nervous system being honest. And a laugh is just on the other side of tears.

I’ve learned more about writing in these ten months than I learned in any workshop or class. But that’s not even the point. The point is I’ve learned how to gather all my scattered selves into one room and let them speak to each other. The point is I’ve found humans who celebrate that I’m both a witch and a scientist, both spiritual and skeptical, both soft and fierce.

The point is, I’m not performing belonging anymore. I’m just belonging.

Sometimes the most important invitations come from someone you barely know. Someone who juggles while a friend reads poetry. Someone who sees something in you that you haven’t quite claimed yet. Someone who hands you a key to a room where you can finally stop translating yourself.

I walked into The Creator Retreat not knowing what I was looking for.

I found my humans. I found my rhythm. I found my community.

Being a Creator is about being comfortable in solitude, and for sensitive souls, it can be an exhausting practice of code-switching, showing up in different spaces as different versions of yourself, and never quite being able to bring your whole self into any one room.

HUSH, in partnership with The Creator Retreat is hosting a Community Gathering for Sensitive Souls who feel the feels of creating alone.

Thursday, January 22, 2026 at 12pm EST

We don’t have an official agenda, lesson, or webinar to share. This is just a safe space for us weirdo creators to commune and share together. We’ll talk about self-isolation, hyper-independence, and what changes when we create inside a safe container where we can be witnessed and supported.

Bring your tea, your tender truth, your introvert self exactly as you are.

We’ll bring the glitter.