Misseducated

4 Lessons From 4 Years Since I Quit My Job

Dear Wonderful Reader,Tuesday, March 17th, 2026, marked 4 years since I freed myself from the shackles of my corporate job. Four years is a decent chunk of time. For the same duration as my undergraduate degree, I’ve been frolicking around Mexico City, perfecting my Spanish and waking up every day to the joy of being alive. How have I survived without a regular paycheck? And, more importantly, have I learned anything that’s useful to you?It has been mostly a dream, but this quit-my-job-aversary comes at a particularly difficult time. I’ve barely made $2,000 this quarter, not even close to my personal OKR of $15k. Selling some of my index fund investments to pay my rent makes me feel like I’m failing at being an adult. Then again, I did take six months off client work to launch my second book, get it funded on Kickstarter in just 12 days, and get featured in The New York Times. Still, it’s hard to see the beauty in all that I’ve accomplished when reality is currently kicking my ass.As you know, last week I was hit by a family emergency, causing me to fork out a couple thousand dollars more to fly to LA and say goodbye to my grandmother, who it seemed was on her deathbed. I sat with her in the hospital for five days as she went through a heart operation, reflecting on life in a mortal-imperative kind of way, while somehow helping to nurse her back to health. It was a close call. Not every day is sunshine and roses.Sometimes those deeper, existential questions irk me. Am I really that much better off than before I burned my New York 9-5 life to the ground back in 2022? However, all it takes is a five-minute conversation with another software engineer who hates his life to knock my own sense back into me. I’ve definitely made the right choice.I’m definitely not in the same place in this “creative career” as when I started. My direction is clearer and narrower in a way that’s motivating. I have a product to sell. I have workshops to teach. My path has a lot more shape, but it’s not easier. In fact, I’m still suffering. Yet I am following the advice of Graham Weaver, from my favorite episode of Lenny’s Podcast:“Life is suffering, so make sure you pick something worth suffering for.” That’s how this feels right now. It’s a lot of work, but I’m much happier doing this than sending Sean a stupid, boring spreadsheet. (If you remember, in my corporate tech career, I worked with more men named Sean than with women on my teams, lol).Here are four lessons I’ve learned in my fourth year of freedom.A second date? 🫦1. Money still doesn’t really matter.Yes, I’m a hypocrite. Aside from keeping the lights on and paying my rent, I still believe that money doesn’t really matter to me in my life. Through much self-reflection, I’ve learned that making money for money’s sake means nothing to me. I only make money to fund my creative projects and have control over my time. I couldn’t give a s**t about owning a home. Sometimes I wish I had a bit more disposable income to travel, but that’s about it.At the same time, the highest highs of my life cost next to nothing. Creating The Intimacy Journal in the second half of last year was pure creative bliss. Designing the pages, curating the erotic poetry, I had never felt so alive as I brought that book to life. Same with meeting up with a special group of incredibly talented poets and writers in Mexico City. Reading my work to them, experiencing their work, and feeling held creatively is absolutely f*****g amazing. Enough said.Send this to a fun, creative friend 🚀 2. There are doers, and there are dreamers.The other day, I was talking to a guy who planned to sell shoes from Mexico in the US.“What shipping service are you using?” I asked him.“Well, we haven’t actually done it yet,” he said, “We’re just developing the idea and exploring our options right now.”Huh, I thought. So he hasn’t even really faced the issue, which is shipping stuff from Mexico to the US. He doesn’t know that Correos de Mexico, the Mexican postal service, isn’t permitting anyone to send more than a postcard. He doesn’t know they just digitalized their system and charge a s**t ton more to send anything? Got it.Something that continues to carry me through these years is that when I say I’m going to do something, I do it. Many people stand around commenting that what you’re doing is cool and that they’re doing it too, but then they don’t actually do it themselves.You also don’t realize how much you will grow through this whole process. I look back, and I’m like: oh s**t! I fulfilled 99% of the orders on my Kickstarter campaign. I hosted those workshops. I’ve done a lot of things, actually. And I’ve learned a lot, too. If you’ve been doing the things, you probably know a lot more than you think you know. By doing anything, you’re already way ahead of someone who hasn’t done anything at all. The same thing goes for reading books. A lot of people don’t read any books these days. Even if you just read one page of one book, that’s infinitely more than someone who just goes around saying how much they’d like to read more. Everyone talks a big game. When someone tells me about their dreams, but they aren’t actively doing them, I tune out. But when someone is doing something, even if they suck at it and they’re failing, I respect them.3. Always be selling. Show, don’t tell.If you bump into me on the street today, I am carrying 2 copies of my latest book, The Intimacy Journal. I have one sample copy and one copy in a gift-wrapped plastic sleeve. Why?Well, when people ask me what I do, I don’t tell them; I pull the sample copy out of my bag and show them. I read them a line or a short poem, I show them the pages that I designed myself, and I tell them the story of how the book came about. I’m really proud of my book, and I think it’s beautiful. So I enjoy watching people interact with it for the first time.What happens after that? Unexpectedly, they often want to buy one! And that’s when I sell them the gift-wrapped copy. This doesn’t always work, but I’ve sold about 42 copies of my book this way, which is about $1,250 USD in revenue for me (over a month’s rent!). Plus, people often add a little tip. It’s nice to have some extra cash on me. At times, it can get a little exhausting, and I feel torn or guilty if I’m not carrying copies of my book wherever I go. But I did sell 4 copies at my friend’s Christmas party. In fact, the last thing I did in 2025 was sell a copy of my book to a lovely gay man at a New Year’s Eve Party. Neat, huh? I keep track of how they pay me (Cash, Venmo, PayPal) and the currency they pay in (GBP, USD, MXN, EUR).This is a true story: when I was a teenager, my family lived on the same street as the esteemed English fashion designer, Sir Paul Smith (he was knighted by The Queen years before). I only saw Paul Smith on my street a couple of times because he wakes up at 5am every day to go swimming. But one time, I ran into him and asked how he was. He immediately said to me,“I’m excellent, thank you. I’m just picking out the furnishings for a new shop we’re opening on Albemarle, in Mayfair. You might like to go check it out.”His words left an impression on me. He’s perhaps the most famous designer of men’s clothing in the world. His clothes are on billboards. He has shops in Tokyo and on Melrose in LA, and he’d been designing collections at Paris and Milan fashion week for longer than I’d been alive. As a 16-year-old girl, I wasn’t exactly his target demographic. And yet, here he was, imploring me to check out his new shop on Albemarle. I never forgot that he said that to me. And believe it or not, I did visit that new shop a few months later. And I liked the furnishings.You’re not an obnoxious guy standing there with a big sign that you’re flinging around at a car depot. Don’t do anything tasteless. But if someone asks you what you do, or what kind of things you write, it’s about 1000x cooler to show them a beautiful book that you’ve created yourself than just about anything else.4. Focus on one thing at a time.One thing that has changed my life in the last year was deciding to focus on only one project: The Intimacy Journal. The world is a wide, complex, and distracting place, and each of us only has a limited amount of energy each day. When you work on 5 different projects, that energy is spliced out in 5 different directions. It leaves you too discombobulated and distracted to rise above the noise. And you need to do everything you can to rise above the noise because you’re competing with everyone else for people’s attention. If you put all your energy into one project, you have a chance of breaking out of your little bubble of people and reaching escape velocity.Yes, I still wrote the odd article and kept up with my newsletter every week. But I concentrated all my energy into the journal. The launch. The Kickstarter campaign. The printing. Yes, I became a significantly simpler and boring person, but everything was more defined, and I found I made a lot more progress faster. My friends came back from the summer holidays, and I already had the first printed sample of the book to show them! A project like The Intimacy Journal is like a pillar. Once I got this book done, it opened up so many other revenue streams, including workshops, collaborations, podcast interviews, books, and audiobooks. I got a photo o...

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No Money, But I’m Rich

Mar 1700:08:40Tap to summarize

Dear Wonderful Reader,The money dwindles in my bank account. My grandma is dying. I have to sell my investment stocks and ETFs to pay for these flights. Hit by a “family emergency” when I have the least wiggle room. I gave up my Soho House membership, which in hindsight seems like an irresponsible and pretentious expense. Today is also my four-year anniversary since I quit my job in New York to pursue this creative life. I’ve spent 95% of my days since then extremely happy. No regrets. Yet two books published, workshops being taught, a feature in the New York Times, and a mention in Vogue isn’t much comfort when my client pipeline is dry.This is a hard moment in my journey. Yet, I still have you, my lovely reader! Thank god you’re still here. We’re all still here, somehow. Today, I have something special for you. It is one of my favorite images. It is an image that sustains me in these difficult moments of life, and being a human on this planet. I wrote it when I returned to San Francisco from my friends’ betrothal. A former tech minion, I have seen the bridge many times. But something about that day was different.Thank you for the opportunity to edit this and give this a little more love and polish. I will keep this in mind when I get on a plane tomorrow, and sit at my grandmother’s bedside. Things are hard, but this is keeping me going. This is a gift. This is my gift for you,Love,TashSend this to someone you love 🩵 ✨The Golden Gate - Friday, October 3rd, 2025 🌁 On Sunday, I was sitting in a quiet, dimly lit cocktail bar with an old friend. She’s very rich now. She told me she’s going to have five children, but not give birth to any of them herself (surrogacy). Now, that’s money. She’s getting engaged to her equally wealthy partner. Together, for her engagement ring, they’ve found an extremely rare jewel that naturally changes color with the light. If it’s a yellow light, the jewel is dark green and brown. If it’s a normal light, it’s purple and pink.I chuckled to myself as she told me this story. Living in Mexico City as a writer, I don’t have even close to that level of wealth. Yet I smiled to myself because I think I feel just as rich. Earlier that same day, I had gone to Crissy Field in San Francisco with the rest of the wedding troop. It was the final send-off before my friends’ honeymoon in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As I sat on some picnic blankets on the grassy sand, and munched on the last of the feta salad, and cookies, and ham, and chips, I looked out over the Golden Gate Bridge.I had never taken a good look at her from that angle before. Of course, she’s a she. I found myself turning away from the bustling group of millennials and gazing at her. I looked at her long and hard.If you’ve been to that part of the world before, you know how insanely windy it is through the Marin Headlands. But she stood there. Unwavering. So tall. So strong. So majestic. Her goldenness was a burnt umber, crimson, brick-colored. It is funny to realize that I always thought of her as golden herself, not thinking that it’s the place she inhabits. But the light there is golden too. It’s just enormous. The swell of the bay in green-blue-grey waters. The clouds dipping through her, spreading out into pools of sunshine over the grassy banks of land behind her. The smooth hills glowing. Her curved nature hanging perfectly still. Straight upright. Unflinching. There.Looking at her, I felt myself expanding. I felt I saw myself in the somewhat distant future. I’ve made it. I am taller than I am now. I have grown beyond in ways that my current little human self cannot even imagine. In the future, I am taking up space. I am moving. I am powerful. I make an impact. This is all culminating in something. I’m going somewhere, even if I don’t know where yet. Even after a week of stress and dealing with the printers and fear and self-doubt and worry, despite the treachery of the waters surrounding her, and the giant freight-bearing boats that passed beneath her, and the roaring, unrelenting wind, she stood there. Graceful. Whole. She had stood there all these years. Made a small scratch in the greatest force of erosion of all: time.That’s all to say, I laughed when I recounted this all to my friend. Here she was, chasing a rare stone around the world for her engagement ring, and I just sat on a beach and looked at a bridge for an hour. My riches were free. I was just as transformed, just as inspired, just as contented, just as driven, and moved. It was moving, that experience. Maybe I saw something of myself in her, that bridge. Maybe at times she might underestimate herself, whereas anyone looking at her could easily see her excellence, how exceptional she was. Or maybe she knows her worth. Through her very existence, she is strong. Her strength, in that sense, is never to be questioned. Her talents a given. Her energy, immense, radiating out from all aspects of her everywhere, as she let the giant waves and ships pass beneath her like it was nobody’s business. Choosing not to lower herself to small problems that were literally beneath her. And the space she took up. The space that was meant for her to inhabit. So anchored and grounded by nature. I felt grateful to just see her, to receive her energy.I couldn’t look away.💌 ✍️Come back soon!Listen to my grandmother’s story on the Misseducated Podcast: More Stories about my Grandmother from Misseducated 💌 ✍️ Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

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A Poetic Invitation to Face Our S**t

Mar 500:07:20Tap to summarize

A Poetic Invitation to Face Our S**tMarie Ida Sequence: Writing Prompts to Love Our MothersHello Wonderful Reader,The mother-daughter bond is just about the last thing I wanted to share about this week. I only wanted to give you a taste of Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven because next week we’ll be working with another poem by her in a “Fantasy”-themed Intimacy Writing Workshop (which I’m very excited to teach!)I found her poem “Marie Ida Sequence,” and I liked it. But once I sat down to illustrate, I got the message: she’s talking about her mother, their resemblance, and her love for her. Her mother, Ida-Marie, who died of uterine cancer when Elsa was only 19 years old. Her mother, who had suffered from mental illness and spent time in a sanatorium in Stettin, Germany (theartstory.org). Her mother, who had been stuck in an abusive, violent relationship with her father, and contracted syphilis because of him (Elsa blamed her father for her mother’s death).I’m not going to lie, the complexity of it makes me feel a bit better about myself. I’m going through a difficult time with my own mother. I am trying to accept her for who she is, while she cannot do the same for me. My boundaries are met by her silence. I’m still an afterthought in her web of family gatherings, always wanting everyone to be close while still not really knowing what closeness means. It’s f*****g complicated, and not fun to think about.Still, the clear images in the poem captivated me. The slate-green eyes, the copper hair. Maybe that’s what writing is about sometimes. Facing the dark s**t. Processing the stuff we’d rather not look at. In fact, in the research from UT Austin that I base my workshops on, they say that there are more mental and physical health benefits from writing about your most traumatic and difficult experiences than from writing about neutral topics.So, here’s to facing our s**t.Love,Tash💌 ✍️Join my next Intimacy Writing Workshop!Theme: Fantasy 🧚✨Next week on Thursday, March 12th, I’ll be collaborating with the wonderful sex-positive podcast, Honeydew Me, for an evening of writing about our intimate fantasies. We will be using a poem by Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Join us!Marie Ida SequenceBy Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927)(Gesture of soul—action-:architecture —evolutionary)I.Mine flaunting dress—mine copper hair—Thou—purple—dark— — Slate iris— forehead wide. Mine lips—as shaped and chiselled after thine— The nose is not—mine nose is aquiline— like tower—thine is short,Thine hands—so imminently lovely— Frail—faintly dimpled—tapery fingertips— To worship—they are not the hands of me— Nor chaste as thine ponder mine lips.Mine scarlet heart—mine slate-green eye— copper-sprayed star— Are thine—profound—! —Learned mine eyes what never thine eyes lit— ! Desire incarnate—erected fit Cradle for thine soul.Nay—fundamentally I am thine root— Gyrating dizzying and high Upon that bloodcrest—mating a galoot Of steel and flame—making thee die.Source: The Little Review, 1920. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵The edition of The Little Review where “Marie Ida Sequence” was published. Send this to a friend who should have been born 100 years ago 🕰️Four Prompts To Go Deeper ✍️For 20 minutes, write a memory, a reflection, a letter, or whatever comes:Explore the physical similarities you have with your mother, and what they say about you.Inspired by: “Mine lips—as shaped and chiselled after thine—” Write about your most vivid memory of your mother.Inspired by: “Cradle for thine soul.”Write about the ways in which you and your mother will always be interconnected.Inspired by: “fundamentally I am thine root—“Write about what you wish you could say to your mother but can’t for whatever reason.Inspired by: “(Gesture of soul—action-:architecture —evolutionary)”Elsa herself! Image courtesy of ArtCuriousElsa von Freytag-Loringhoven herself was an exceptionally interesting woman. I don’t have time to go into it too much here, but give her Wikipedia page a read. Her “elaborate costumes both critiqued and challenged the bourgeois notions of feminine beauty and economic worth. She adorned herself with utilitarian objects like spoons, tin cans, and curtain rings, as well as street debris that she came across.” (Wikipedia) Yes, spoons are jewelry, friends. I hope this invitation stirred something deep within you and inspired you to process it, as hard as that may be. Which writing prompt resonated with you the most? Let me know. I read and respond to every DM I get!Sending love,Tashp.s. I’m sharing more updates on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. Follow me!💌 ✍️Can we have a second date? 📅 🫦 Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

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The Ultimate Guide to Decentering Men

Feb 2400:30:30Tap to summarize

Introduction“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” — Irina Dunn, 1970I heard about the movement of decentering men on TikTok. With zero expectations, I decided to try it out for a month. It was October 2025. I was sick of dating apps and about to publish my second book. I’d been single for three years, but this was something different. I’m here to tell you everything about it and share all the reasons why I’m never going back.I wrote this article to give us, women, a blueprint for how to be the main character in our own lives. Our mothers and grandmothers couldn’t teach us this; they depended on men (financially) to survive, and had to center them accordingly. This article is not about hating men; it’s about unlearning the ways that the patriarchy has trained us to prioritize making men happy. This pressure comes just as much from the women in our lives (aunties, influencers, our mother), as from men. After all, it was my mother who let my brother get away with never doing the dishes after dinner.Starting this process for the first time scared me. I was worried that if I stopped trying to date men, I was giving up on my dream of becoming a mother. Yet as I began to decenter men, I realized that my idea of motherhood was purely a fantasy. Facing the reality of motherhood, those statistics scared me much more. In this article, I will cover everything I’ve learned from the internet, economists, and my own experience, so that you can decide whether decentering men and trying it for a month to start is right for you. Let’s begin!🌞What does it mean to decenter men?Decentering men means focusing on our own needs, desires, and dreams rather than prioritizing men’s feelings or validation. We believe our needs matter just as much as a man’s needs. We take our dream jobs, move to our dream city, and live fully without waiting to be “chosen.” If we do want a relationship, we believe the right man will support us in being our fullest selves. We are complete without a man, marriage, or motherhood, and our life choices, careers, and bank accounts reflect that. We respect other women’s decisions without judging them harshly either way.In our lives, we can decenter men in big ways, such as by staying single forever, or small ways, such as following feminist creators on Instagram over trad wives. We seek content that promotes our right to choose, not content about women being controlled or subservient to husbands. It’s okay to want marriage and babies, but decentering men helps us see our people-pleasing tendencies and assess whether we’re getting a good deal. We only give what we are able and willing to give.Why did I start decentering men?I started decentering men just before I turned 31; the same age my mum was when she gave birth to me and became financially dependent on my dad forever. I had been living independently, yet, like many women, I felt that constant, sneaky, underlying pressure to “find a man” so I could have babies one day. The “manxiety” haunted me from coffee shops to house parties to bars (all the meet-cute spots). I’d built an amazing life for myself, and was about to birth my second book into the world. Yet, deep down, I believed I wasn’t enough without the stamp of some dude’s approval. I listened to Raye, wondering what the hell was taking my husband so long to find me. I had swiped through a million men (probably) in my dating app “career.” But as my thumbs ached, I considered a new possibility:“What if I just…gave up? Well, not forever. Maybe I can just give up trying to find a partner for a month and see what happens.”So that’s what I did.How to Decenter Men while in a RelationshipNegotiate a Better Deal“I can’t mop the floor with my uterus.” — Professor Corinne Low, Having It AllFor women in a heterosexual relationship, centering your man can have devastating consequences. Of course, it’s okay to care about your man, but you still need to take your own feelings and needs just as seriously as his.In her book Having It All, Dr. Corinne Low, professor of Economics at The Wharton School, points out that while women have gained economic and job equality since the 1970s, men have not faced similar pressure to take on household and childcare chores equitably. This leaves many heterosexual women with two full-time jobs: their day job and housework (plus childcare). The reality is shocking: “Women in heterosexual marriages who are the primary breadwinners do almost twice as much cooking and cleaning as their male spouses” (Low, 2025). Gay and lesbian couples do not face the same inequities in the home, by the way. It’s gender-based b******t.Low challenges us to ask ourselves, “Am I getting a good deal?” Essentially, in your relationship, are your needs prioritized as much as your male partner’s? This could mean advancing your career, getting enough leisure and sleep, balancing household chores, protecting your happiness and wellbeing, managing commute time, and maintaining social support. The list goes on, and Professor Low wants to make sure you are not just happy, but ideally optimizing your personal utility on what matters most to you. She suggests you plan time in your schedule for leisure, whatever brings you the most long-term joy and fulfillment. Is it a massage? Brunch with the gals?To test this, Low suggests asking yourself: if you got a job opportunity in a different city that would give you a 50% pay increase, but it required your partner to take a 20% pay cut, how would you decide whether to move? A woman decentering men would advocate for moving. Or if one of your kids is sick, how do you decide who stays home? Decentering means demanding a balanced household.Please, whatever you do, don’t give up your apartment that’s a 15-minute commute to your work because your male partner is quitting his job and going on a “find-himself” sabbatical. Don’t get spun up in his chaos. And if you find yourself wondering whether to prioritize your career or your husband’s, Low encourages us to imagine that the gender roles were flipped. Would he ever give up his apartment for your sabbatical?If your male partner remains useless around the home, and you’re sick of your job, commute, and living situation, “It might be time to renegotiate the deal.” (Low, 2025)Send this to a friend whose partner needs to do more chores 👀How to Decenter Men while Single* Pick your starting time frame.I recommend giving it a month to see how it goes. You can always extend if you’re enjoying it.* Prioritize yourself and your close friends.Delete the apps and stop dating. Decentering men means not trying to find a partner at all. For example, I stopped flirting with the random guys at parties, hoping they’d sleep with me. Instead, I’d catch up with the person I came with and deepen my female friendship. If a man talks to you at a bar, that’s fine, as is getting introduced by friends. But you’re not putting yourself out there. You can still prioritize platonic friendships with men, the gays, and the theys.You can also dress in a way that doesn’t revolve around the male gaze, because you no longer give a f**k. Wear what makes you feel happy, exuberant, comfortable, and loving your life. Try to disentangle what you think you should wear to please men versus what you actually want to wear. It’s a thornier topic that I’ve written about before, but it’s worth paying attention to.* Prioritize your schedule and your needs.In a life where your needs matter, prioritize your gym classes, sleep schedule, mental health, self-love, and prep time for work meetings. This is easier said than done, because if your life has been anything like mine, you may struggle to identify your needs. Growing up as the eldest of four children, I rarely owned anything that was just mine, and I internalized that my needs didn’t matter. Three years of therapy and two years of regular ACA meetings, a 12-step program for Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, have helped me learn to identify my needs and believe they matter (and that’s improved my self-esteem).Decentering men is about respecting your own time, energy, and space, not bending over backwards and screwing up your night of sleep for someone who probably sucks and won’t commit. Noticing our feelings is crucial; they alert us when our needs are being compromised or boundaries are crossed.Try to do regular feelings check-ins: “What am I feeling right now?” You can and should be feeling multiple things at any given time. Use a feelings wheel to identify your emotions in the moment, or even do a needs check-in: “What do I need right now?” I could write a whole other article about this, but if you’re interested in learning more, I recommend reading The Loving Parent Guidebook. The book will teach you how to be your own loving parent, including things like: </p...

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An Erotic Invitation to the Moon 🌙

Feb 1000:05:04Tap to summarize

An Erotic Invitation to the MoonMoonrise: A Poem & Writing Prompts for Secret AnticipationHello, Wonderful Reader,Today, I’ve chosen a special erotic poem and writing prompts for you to explore secret anticipation. So grab a pen and paper, set aside 20 minutes to journal, and let’s get started.MoonriseBy H.D. 1886-1961Will you glimmer on the sea? Will you fling your spear-head on the shore? What note shall we pitch?We have a song, on the bank we share our arrows— the loosed string tells our note:O flight, bring her swiftly to our song. She is great, we measure her by the pine-trees.Source: Poetry Foundation. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵ShareSend this to a friend who likes poetry 📜ShareFour Prompts To Go Deeper ✍️Write about the anticipation of waiting for a lover to arrive.“Will you glimmer on the sea?”Write about a time when you stayed up all night with someone.“on the bank / we share our arrows—”Write about the music, meals, or delicious things you made with a partner.“We have a song,”Write about a place in nature that expanded the depth of your love.“She is great, / we measure her by the pine-trees.”About H.D. (1886—1961)Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Her father, an astronomy professor, hoped she would become the next Marie Curie, but she chose poetry instead.In 1911, she set off for a short trip to Europe with Ezra Pound, and only returned to the United States four or five times before her death. Openly bisexual with many lovers (including the novelist Bryher), H.D. became a leading voice in the Imagist movement, whose poetry focused on sensuality, precise images and emotion.In 1933, she traveled to Vienna for analysis by Freud, hoping to process her trauma from WW1, her paranoia about the rise of Adolf Hitler (!) and her sexuality. Freud encouraged her to write about her traumatic experiences, advice which shaped her work. Decades later, we now know that expressive writing about our more personal experiences is good for us and genuinely aids healing ❤️‍🩹.Here are other quotes by her that I love (source here):“...if you do not even understand what words say,how can you expect to pass judgementon what words conceal?”“Words were her plague and words were her redemption.”“Writing. Love is writing.”Send this to someone who likes writing, please! 🙏ShareHire me for an Intimacy Writing Workshop! ❤️ ✍️After my sold-out workshop at Soho House, I am now looking to teach intimacy writing workshops to women’s groups, writer’s groups, corporate ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) and wellness communities. If you organize a group like this, or know somebody who does, please reach out! You can respond to this email, comment, or send an email of your own to misseducatedtash@gmail.com. I can’t wait to hear from you!I hope you enjoyed this invitation! Reply and tell me: which writing prompt resonated with you the most? I read and respond to every DM I get!Sending love,Tashp.s. I’m sharing more updates on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. Follow me!💌 ✍️Can we have a second date? 📅 🫦 Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

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An Erotic Invitation to Loving Too Much

Feb 400:05:01Tap to summarize

Hello Wonderful Reader, Today I’ve chosen a special erotic poem and writing prompts for you to explore your too-muchness and wild expansiveness. So grab a pen and paper, and let’s get started. Desert Pools By Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933) I love too much; I am a river Surging with spring that seeks the sea,I am too generous a giver, Love will not stoop to drink of me.His feet will turn to desert places Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,Where stars stare down with sharpened faces From heavens pitilessly blue.And there at midnight sick with faring He will stoop down in his desireTo slake the thirst grown past all bearing In stagnant water keen as fire.Source: Poets.org. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵Four Prompts To Go Deeper ✍️I’m going to be honest: not everything about this poem resonated with me. I couldn’t figure out who she was talking about when she said “His feet.” Was it Love’s feet? Or was it her ex-boyfriend’s feet? I guess we’ll never know.The rest of the poem might be about loving someone who didn’t realize how awesome you were. Still, the line that really sang to me was the first one:“I love too much; I am a river”🌊So delicious. So juicy. So, I’ll keep it simple.Describe yourself as a river. Where do you flow? What animals and plants grace your waters? What are you like?“I am a river.”Write about someone who was too small to handle you and your capability of loving them.“I love too much;”Tell me about your sheer expansiveness and limitless power, realized or imagined.“Surging with spring that seeks the sea”Write about someone you were devoted to, yet who never gave you the pleasure or care that you deserved.“I am too generous a giver,”About Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)She was an American lyric poet who was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her 1917 collection, Love Songs. I featured one of her poems for the “Awakening” chapter of The Intimacy Journal. I like that she uses rhyme to brew momentum in her poetry, but it’s not predictable all the way through. Here are my favorite quotes from the mystery poem I featured in the journal: “And that for you love held no hint of shame; My eyes caught light from yours, within whose flameHumor and passion have an equal share.” “Your great eyes widen when you talk of love, And darken slowly with a fair desire.”I hope you enjoyed this invitation! Reply and tell me: which writing prompt resonated with you the most? I read and respond to every DM I get!Sending love,Tashp.s. I’m sharing more updates on Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn. Follow me!💌 ✍️ Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

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An Erotic Invitation to Captive Love 💔

Jan 2700:04:32Tap to summarize

Hello Wonderful Reader,Today, I’ve chosen a very special unpublished poem and writing prompts for you to explore the power of forbidden love. You’ll discover why the poet never published this work in a second. So grab a pen and paper, and let’s uncover some of your juicy secrets…Evanescence(unpublished, 1920s)By Angelina Weld Grimké (1880 – 1958)You are like a pale purple flower In the blue spring dusk . . . . . .You are like a yellow starBudding and glowingIn an apricot sky . . . . . .You are like the beautyOf a voice . . . . . .Remembered after death . . . . . .You are like thin, white petalsFalling And Floating DownUpon the white, stilled hushing Of my soul.Source: Aphrodite’s Daughters: Three Modernist Poets of the Harlem Renaissance.Your 4 Writing Prompts on Forbidden Love 🩵Write about any secret lovers you haven’t told anyone about.You are like the beautyOf a voice . . . . . .Remembered after death . . . . . .Write about a fragile love that the world tried to take away from you.You are like a pale purple flowerIn the blue spring dusk . . . . . .Write about falling for someone you weren’t supposed to.Falling And Floating DownWrite about the small miracles that brought you and a forbidden lover together.“You are like a yellow star”The Backstory 📜Uncovering the unpublished poems of Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958)I first heard of Angelina Weld Grimké while researching for The Intimacy Journal on poets.org. I discovered that she was a journalist, teacher, playwright, and poet, and an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance, but much of Grimké’s intimate poetry remained unpublished during her lifetime. Why? Well, works like this week’s featured poem from the 1920s, “Evanescence,” were about same-sex relationships. This was culturally forbidden at the time. I ended up featuring two of her poems in The Intimacy Journal, because it was impossible to pick just one!Diving deeper into erotic poetry, I found a book that centered on Grimké’s work, called Aphrodite’s Daughters: Three Modernist Poets of the Harlem Renaissance. This was written by Professor Maureen Honey, who recently retired from The University of Nebraska-Lincoln after a 40-year career!She is 80 years old, and naturally, I sent her an email.This is what she responded:“I’ve written a lot about the Harlem Renaissance, and Grimké was its premier poet...her published poetry numbered about 40 pieces, I think, while the unpublished is the most erotic…I accessed the unpublished work from reading her journal, held at at the [Moorland Spingarn Research Center at Howard University], and in correspondence between her and her father, her closest female friend, Tessa Lee, her young classmate/friend/neighbor Mary Burrill, and many others...there is no published collection, which is a shame. I could put one together, and would love to, but I’m retired...I’ve got copies of Grimke’s poetry in alphabetical order in files I kept from my office...Again, thank you for contacting me, Tash, and do let me know how your newest project comes along. Good luck!”It seems like somebody needs to publish these poems! 😂Photo from a 1923 publication, when she was 43 years young.A Quick Update From Me 🚀When I’m not sinking my teeth into some juicy, erotic poetry from the 1920s, I’ve been working on setting up my online storefront, which should be done this week. In the meantime, if you want your copy of The Intimacy Journal, DM me on Instagram. Plus, next week, I’m giving my first external paid workshop at Soho House in Mexico City! I’m terrified, but in a good way. I think we will have the workshop inside, not by the fabulous pool, unfortunately:I hope you enjoyed this erotic invitation! Reply with your reflections. I’d love to hear them.Sending love,Tash💌 ✍️More From Misseducated 💌 ✍️https://misseducated.substack.com/p/an-erotic-invitation-to-your-bodyhttps://misseducated.substack.com/p/what-is-it-like-to-orgasm-on-psilocybinhttps://misseducated.substack.com/p/on-dating-mexican-menhttps://misseducated.substack.com/p/how-to-be-shamelessly-sexy Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

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An Erotic Invitation to Forbidden Love

Jan 2000:05:50Tap to summarize

Hello Wonderful Reader,Today, I’ve chosen a very special unpublished poem and writing prompts for you to explore the power of forbidden love. You’ll discover why the poet never published this work in a second. So grab a pen and paper, and let’s uncover some of your juicy secrets…Evanescence(unpublished, 1920s)By Angelina Weld Grimké (1880 – 1958)You are like a pale purple flower In the blue spring dusk . . . . . .You are like a yellow starBudding and glowingIn an apricot sky . . . . . .You are like the beautyOf a voice . . . . . .Remembered after death . . . . . .You are like thin, white petalsFalling And Floating DownUpon the white, stilled hushing Of my soul.Source: Aphrodite’s Daughters: Three Modernist Poets of the Harlem Renaissance.Your 4 Writing Prompts on Forbidden Love 🩵Write about any secret lovers you haven’t told anyone about.You are like the beautyOf a voice . . . . . .Remembered after death . . . . . .Write about a fragile love that the world tried to take away from you.You are like a pale purple flowerIn the blue spring dusk . . . . . .Write about falling for someone you weren’t supposed to.Falling And Floating DownWrite about the small miracles that brought you and a forbidden lover together.“You are like a yellow star”The Backstory 📜Uncovering the unpublished poems of Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958)I first heard of Angelina Weld Grimké while researching for The Intimacy Journal on poets.org. I discovered that she was a journalist, teacher, playwright, and poet, and an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance, but much of Grimké’s intimate poetry remained unpublished during her lifetime. Why? Well, works like this week’s featured poem from the 1920s, “Evanescence,” were about same-sex relationships. This was culturally forbidden at the time. I ended up featuring two of her poems in The Intimacy Journal, because it was impossible to pick just one!Diving deeper into erotic poetry, I found a book that centered on Grimké’s work, called Aphrodite’s Daughters: Three Modernist Poets of the Harlem Renaissance. This was written by Professor Maureen Honey, who recently retired from The University of Nebraska-Lincoln after a 40-year career!She is 80 years old, and naturally, I sent her an email.This is what she responded:“I’ve written a lot about the Harlem Renaissance, and Grimké was its premier poet...her published poetry numbered about 40 pieces, I think, while the unpublished is the most erotic…I accessed the unpublished work from reading her journal, held at at the [Moorland Spingarn Research Center at Howard University], and in correspondence between her and her father, her closest female friend, Tessa Lee, her young classmate/friend/neighbor Mary Burrill, and many others...there is no published collection, which is a shame. I could put one together, and would love to, but I’m retired...I’ve got copies of Grimke’s poetry in alphabetical order in files I kept from my office...Again, thank you for contacting me, Tash, and do let me know how your newest project comes along. Good luck!”It seems like somebody needs to publish these poems! 😂Photo from a 1923 publication, when she was 43 years young.A Quick Update From Me 🚀When I’m not sinking my teeth into some juicy, erotic poetry from the 1920s, I’ve been working on setting up my online storefront, which should be done this week. In the meantime, if you want your copy of The Intimacy Journal, DM me on Instagram. Plus, next week, I’m giving my first external paid workshop at Soho House in Mexico City! I’m terrified, but in a good way. I think we will have the workshop inside, not by the fabulous pool, unfortunately:I hope you enjoyed this erotic invitation! Reply with your reflections. I’d love to hear them.Sending love,Tash💌 ✍️More From Misseducated 💌 ✍️https://misseducated.substack.com/p/an-erotic-invitation-to-your-bodyhttps://misseducated.substack.com/p/what-is-it-like-to-orgasm-on-psilocybinhttps://misseducated.substack.com/p/on-dating-mexican-menhttps://misseducated.substack.com/p/how-to-be-shamelessly-sexy Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

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An Erotic Invitation to Your Body

Jan 1300:01:52Tap to summarize

Send this to your lovely, literary lady friend 🫖 📚Hello Wonderful Reader,Welcome back to Misseducated! I’m Tash, and today I’ve chosen a very special erotic poem and writing prompts for you to explore nature and your body, and how they interconnect. So grab a pen and paper, and let’s get started.North WindBy Lola Ridge (1873 – 1941)I love you, malcontentMale wind—Shaking the pollen from a flowerOr hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.Blow on and over my dreams. . .Scatter my sick dreams. . .Throw your lusty arms about me. . .Envelop all my hot body. . .Carry me to pine forests—Great, rough-bearded forests. . .Bring me to stark plains and steppes. . .I would have the North to-night—The cold, enduring North.And if we should meet the Snow,Whirling in spirals,And he should blind my eyes. . .Ally, you will defend me—You will hold me close,Blowing on my eyelids.Source: Poets.org. This poem is in the public domain. 🩵Send this to your friend who has a thing for lumberjacks 🪵 👷‍♂️Here are your four writing prompts:* Write about your sick dreams that you might be too ashamed to tell anyone about.“Blow on and over my dreams…Scatter my sick dreams…”* Start with any of the phrases that use ellipses and write your own story about what you wish the wind would do to you.“Throw your lusty arms around me…Envelop all my hot body…”* What would you have tonight if you got your way?“I would have the North to-night—”* Take features that you find attractive in your partners and pair them with your favorite places in nature.“Great, rough-bearded forests…”Send this to your hottest writing friend ✍️About Lola Ridge (1873-1941)She was an Irish-born New Zealand-American anarchist and modernist poet, and an influential editor of avant-garde, feminist, and Marxist publications. I featured one of her poems for the “Nostalgia” chapter of The Intimacy Journal.Keeping the love flowing...(A quick update from me)Ever since I created The Intimacy Journal, I have become OBSESSED with erotic poetry written by women. Many works are in the public domain by poets who lived around a hundred years ago. When I read their work, everything clicks for me. I’m really enjoying the process of sharing and illustrating their work. It’s poignant. It’s dreamy. It’s delicious. And, it’s hot! I’m excited to see where this takes me.I know that some of you still want your own Intimacy Journal. Sorry that I have been slow to set up my online storefront since we finished the Kickstarter campaign. I’ll hopefully have that up and running in the next week or two. In the meantime, please respond to this email or comment if you want your copy, or DM me on Instagram.I hope you enjoyed this invitation! Reply with your reflections. I’d love to hear them.Sending love,Tash💌 ✍️It would be nice to see you around sometime!More From Misseducated 💌 ✍️ Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

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Whose Shame Are You Carrying?

Dec 1700:07:37Tap to summarize

“I’m not enough,” I think to myself, as I pass a couple in love on the street. “I could never have a relationship like that. I’m not worthy. Even if someone liked me, they’d just get bored eventually and move on.”“I’m not enough,” I think to myself as I hit publish after writing an article all day. “I should have 5,000 subscribers by now. Then maybe my voice would matter.”Discover a more shamelessly sexy world 🌎 ✨“I’m not enough,” I think to myself when I am mentioned in The New York Times. “That’s not a real feature. It’ll only count when I get a full-spread in The New Yorker.”“I’m not enough,” I say to my therapist, trembling and crying in front of my computer screen. It is right on the surface of my psyche, and in many ways, it is fundamental to who I am.Each time I achieve something, the goal post is suddenly flung out further in front of me, unreachable again. I do my best to achieve, achieve, achieve. Yet I metabolize my accolades and awards before I even get a second to enjoy them.My therapist tells me to work on my anger towards the adults who failed me in my childhood (who will remain anonymous). I know I feel angry, but I don’t know how that relates to this core belief about my self and my worth.That evening, I sit down on the crumpled corduroy green chair in my living room. I scroll back through the last three years of my text messages and rummage through decades of my memories. Those voices say to me:“Everyone thinks you’re a bad person.”“You’re so selfish.”“If you think I’m favoring them instead of you, it’s probably because you think your work isn’t enough.”I remember that last phone conversation. I saw red and told that person I needed a break from them. Then I didn’t speak to them for almost three months.I realize that since I started therapy, even if I didn’t believe I am enough, I’ve been acting as if I am. I’ve been telling people not to treat me disrespectfully anymore. I’ve been telling others that my needs matter and my feelings are real. When people say things to try to tear me down, I don’t accept their insults or tolerate their behavior. I stop believing outwardly that I deserve to be shouted at. But these most subtle and insidious beliefs are different. People bury them way down in there: a parent, a teacher, someone you trusted in your childhood to take care of you.I pull out my journal and delve deeper into this filth and arguing over the years. Then a new idea suddenly pops into my head. Maybe it was never about believing that I wasn’t enough. Maybe this other person is projecting their own pain and feelings of worthlessness onto me. Reinforced hundreds of times through our arguments over the years. Perhaps this is more about them, their opinions, and judgments of themselves. Perhaps this has nothing to do with me.Something in me is changing. Deep down inside myself, I find this large, jagged shard of glass, black and glinting. I wrench it out of me. I cut open the parts of me that had tried to heal over and around it. This monster, this cancer that had never been mine. I will not carry it around anymore.I look up from my text messages, and in my journal, I write: These are projections of low self-esteem. It has nothing to do with me or my worth. I’ve been carrying their belief about themselves as if it were a belief about me for decades.I look up at the clock. It is 11:47pm. In 13 minutes, it will be December 5th, 2025, my two-year birthday in ACA, my group therapy program for Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families. It has taken me two years of deep self-reflection and analysis to yank out that shard of glass. The new, empty wound leaves a void inside of me, slowly healing.In our next session, my therapist asks me what I am going to do with this information. I tell her I am not sure. Yet over the next few days, things begin to reveal themselves and unravel. The load I am carrying feels lighter.“I am happy for them,” I think to myself now, when I’m at a party, and I see a couple. “Look at them, so deeply in love.”“What a beautiful book I have made,” I think to myself when people ask me what I do, and I pull out a copy. “I can’t wait to mention the designs, inspired by the architectural details of Mexico City.”“It’s amazing!” I think to myself now, when I receive my first payment for books I have sold. “I can pay at least a couple of months of my rent!”“They must be hurting,” I think to myself now, when someone says something vicious to me. “This is unacceptable and has nothing to do with me.”Perhaps the difference is only in my mind, but it does alter how I see the world. I realize I do not want to be living any other way. That this life, of writing and creating, my chosen life in Mexico, is the best life for me. Art. Architecture. Writing. Poetry. Film. Flowers. This is a real and beautiful way to live. I have conviction. I have pride. I feel like I am getting closer to the woman I have always dreamed of becoming, sitting in that beautiful office with the white walls, the ornate plaster fastenings, and the tall windows. And an Eames chair or two.The people in my childhood who tried to keep me small and break my spirit are dead to me now. I do not wish they were dead, but I am not waiting for them to die before I let myself live. I am living now. Not entertaining their viciousness. Not playing it low and small so that I don’t threaten them with my brightness.Some core beliefs about ourselves take 31 years to change. Four years of therapy. Two years of reparenting myself in ACA. Two years to wrench out that shard of glass. But here I am, in Mexico City, writing, creating, living the life I’ve always dreamed of. I am enough.💌 ✍️Send this to your most shameless friend! 🚀The Top 5 Misseducated Articles of 2025! 💌 ✍️Come back for more later! 💌 ✍️ Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

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All episodes

4 Lessons From 4 Years Since I Quit My Job

No Money, But I’m Rich

A Poetic Invitation to Face Our S**t

The Ultimate Guide to Decentering Men

An Erotic Invitation to the Moon 🌙

An Erotic Invitation to Loving Too Much

An Erotic Invitation to Captive Love 💔

An Erotic Invitation to Forbidden Love

An Erotic Invitation to Your Body

Whose Shame Are You Carrying?