💌 Welcome! Our Guiding Principles

We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to learn a bit more about us and our work.

Hi! Welcome to the As You Are newsletter.

We sincerely appreciate you taking the time, wherever you are in the world, to come to this platform and learn a bit more about us and our work. As You Are is a space we’ve wanted to create for a while now. Its first iteration was a project we left unfinished while we attended our respective universities and learned a lot about ourselves, our passions, and how we want to show up in the world. Despite the hiatus, we’ve always had a hunger to come back. After long conversations about what it was we wanted to create together, this platform, our Substack, is one we feel excited about and ready to share with you.

To be completely transparent, this project still has a lot of room to grow - which is exactly why we are excited. While we are so proud of what we have to offer, we’re even more excited about the potential for what we can build together in time. However, as that growth happens, there are a few principles we’re holding close. Yes, this is the part where we actually tell you what the **** we’re all doing here. 

1. As You Are is first and foremost a storytelling platform. Through intimate interviews with each other and some amazing participants, we hope to cultivate open conversations that leave us all feeling a bit closer. We don’t shy away from vulnerability but celebrate it as a means to connect people. At the same time, we believe that we all know our own stories and experiences best, and invite you to engage with them with curiosity and willingness to learn. 

2. Here, we make space for change while welcoming and accepting people for who they are in this very moment. Our work, including our interviews, stories, and reflections, capture our experiences and outlook in a particular moment in time. But who we are today may not resemble who we’ll be, how we’ll speak, or what we’ll believe six months from now. So we implore you to extend grace, compassion, and understanding to every story shared here. Vulnerability is not easy, and having access to someone else’s intimate thoughts is a privilege. 

3. Lastly, we’re not quite sure if a truly safe space exists but ultimately, As You Are is a community. We believe that in community, we have a duty to support one another in being brave, but an even greater duty to default to compassion when things get hard. 

In short - We’re here to chat, share our thoughts and experiences, and welcome the stories of many other beautiful and brave people. We hope the things you find here will spark conversations, and invite reflection and curiosity into your life.

Thank you again for being here. We are so excited to share our work with you.

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An extra thank you to all of those first participants in the project, who truly embodied the power vulnerability has to connect us all. We hope this next iteration is something you can feel proud of. You have inspired us beyond what you know and we appreciate all of you dearly.