Village Voice

CAN WE JUST BE HUMAN AGAIN? And Is Healing Becoming Your Full-Time Job? | Village Voice Podcast with Alli G You can be deeply self-aware and still completely exhausted. In this episode of Village Voice , Alli G unpacks the weird reality of modern healing culture: burnout disguised as productivity, self-awareness turned into performance, and the pressure to become an “optimized” human before you’re...

VILLAGE VOICE PODCAST Fuck Shit Up Friday: Grace for the Mid Versions of Ourselves This episode is a caffeine-fueled reminder that being human is messy as hell. We talk shame, bad choices, emotional spirals, and the difference between accountability and turning yourself into a permanent crime scene over one rough moment. Inside this Friday note from the Village: “name it, don’t shame it” giving yo...

I disappeared for a minute because, honestly? I’ve been pissed off. Not in a dramatic “burn my life down” kind of way. More like… disappointed. Tired. Watching people slowly lose their ability to hold nuance, humor, softness, contradiction … all of it. Everybody’s either performing enlightenment or performing outrage, and somewhere in the middle we forgot how to just be people together. VILLAGE VO...

I’m baaaaackkkkkk. Took a couple weeks off, damn I sure needed it, and my goodness I missed this. So we’re not easing in. We’re going straight into it. Shame. How many of us have some…. By the way it’s your favorite blind authors birthday week, which always puts me in reflection mode. Looking back at the year, everything I did, everything I didn’t do, all of it. And it’s wild how fast that turns i...

Can we call it for what it is? Let’s talk about the fallacy we keep lying about… that “fear of failure… “ “I’d try the thing but I’m scared of failing.” “I’m just a perfectionist.” “Maybe later.” Sounds reasonable. Polite. But we are old enough and getting better at having real convos so I’m lovingly calling bullshit today. Most of the time it isn’t fear of failure at all. It’s fear of what happen...

Here’s the truth: That critical voice? It’s not you. It’s an impersonator you’ve listened to for so long that it started sounding real. Inside this episode: I share a joke that somehow turns into a sharp breakdown of anxiety, identity, and the voice in your head that keeps trying to sabotage your momentum. Why self-doubt feels convincing (and why it’s not) How internalized criticism becomes your “...

Presence isn’t the same as connection. I reread an old essay called You Forgot About Me. It’s about the quiet moment when your life clears its throat and reminds you that you’ve been living in the glow too long. Not burnout. Not disappearing. Just recalibrating. Silence isn’t a threat. Sometimes it’s rehab. If you’ve been running on airplane mode, this one’s for you. Get full access to Alli Gatlin...

🎙 Blinded with Insecurity In this episode of Village Voice, I read an essay I memorized… because I’m blind and I can’t visually read my own formatting. Essay- “The Words I’ll Never Read.” What I Cover What it’s like building a writing platform without sight Navigating Substack by sound instead of vision The irony of coaching writers while using assistive technology Why trying to “fix” insecurity c...

The Violence I Carried Was Never Mine is a reflection on surviving childhood abuse, the invisible inheritance of an abuser’s voice, and the quiet, unglamorous courage it takes to unlearn what was never yours to hold. This is not a story about rage or revenge. It’s about recognizing how survival habits turn into identity, and how reclaiming your voice often happens in small, ordinary choices no one...

Some of us weren’t raised to become ourselves, we were raised to be manageable. Quiet. Small. This Village Voice essay is a raw return to truth: burning the survival costume, reclaiming instinct, and choosing the real you. Written & Read by Alli Gatlin THE WOMAN I WAS NOT RAISED TO BE I was not built by the people who were supposed to shape me. Built in the wreckage of everything they broke. I was...

This episode is a real time riff on radical curiosity. Not the polished, self help kind. The kind you actually reach for when you’re spiraling, overthinking, or stuck in the same damn conversations with the people you love. We start with the question most of us avoid: What if you’re wrong? What if your belief isn’t the best version of it? What if your life could actually get better? Wouldn’t that...

I want to talk about radical curiosity. Not the cute, casual kind. Not “huh, that’s interesting.” I mean the kind where you’re almost excited to be wrong. Because being wrong isn’t a failure. It’s proof that your world just got bigger. This is the Village Voice. I’m Alli Gatlin — your Menace of clarity — home of the the Written Identity Podcast. The place where we talk perspective, journaling, ide...

VILLAGE Voice- Episode 3 Hello. This is the Village Voice. And it’s the first Friday of the new year. No fireworks. No damn lists. No resolutions. And there is zero pressure to start fresh. I’m not here to hand you a strategy for the year. I’m not here to tell you how everything is supposed to go. I just want to talk for a couple minutes about something small. So small you might think, that’s fuck...

🎙️DID GWEN HAVE IT RIGHT ALL ALONG🍌? 🎙️ Shit is bananas B A N A N A S And honestly what a fucking relief it was to revel in banana peels and welcome over 1000 new Members to the village. New friends to writers, new humans that just want to EXIST- & CLEARLY EAT BANANA BREAD. I will take this as our VILLAGE CUE FOR 3 things- 1- please have a healthy snack today feed your body 2- let things unfold i...