Reading · Limitless with Karin

A tough headline, I know.

But the journey of declaring that truth to myself made me return to my ‘why’ when it comes to being a writer. A truth I remembered in the quiet space of my own soul, from spending several months fully in my life rather than constantly documenting it, from stepping away from the platform that held a lot of promises for a full-time writer.

I want to preface—this essay is something far greater than just Substack. It’s about life. It’s about your why. It’s about returning to your own soul’s rhythm. And, more importantly, it’s about only doing things if they truly make you feel alive and no longer negotiating with yourself if it’s anything less than that.

It was February 2nd, 2013 when I opened my Notes app and wrote my first real poem. If you asked me what pulled me to start writing, I would say it was God, though I didn’t know it then. Letting my soul speak was a quiet declaration to myself that I came here to be an alchemist, to offer language for what many of us feel, and that I would someday fulfill the dreams I once had as a little girl.

My only intention with writing was to better understand myself. Beginning at the age of 16, I returned back to that exact Note—writing poems, jotting down thoughts, documenting who I was, what I saw, what I felt, and who I was becoming.

Every word I wrote was purely for me. I never felt seen, but I began to see myself. I believed I was too much, but the complexity and vastness of my words revealed to me that there never was such a thing. I was experiencing a lot of emotional pain, but turning those experiences into poetry allowed me to change the meaning of them.

My creative process was simple: I only opened that specific Note when I genuinely felt something moving in me. It was always during or after some lived experience that made my insides swirl with an overflow of emotion—joy blended with grief, heartbreak mixed with love, fear combined with excitement. But I only actually wrote anything when it was the passionate flow of divinity (though I didn’t have language for it back then) that was doing the writing for me. I never forced it, never had a cadence, never had a strategy, never was attached to any outcome, never forced myself to do the thing that I loved the most, never thought about where it would eventually go, never considered the words ‘authentic’ or ‘performance or ‘truth’ or ‘algorithm’. It was 2013, remember? None of that had entered my consciousness yet.

Time and space ceased to exist in my writing process. Sometimes I’d write on the bus to my high school, other times it would be in my childhood bed under the covers. When I lived in New York City, I wrote poems and prose with tears in my eyes in the back of a yellow cab, pretending I was Carrie Bradshaw and feeling iconic at the fact that in certain ways, I was. But I also wrote many whilst walking through SoHo, or in the halls of the Metropolitan Museum after staring at Woman in White by Picasso, or in the courtyard at Fordham University in-between classes, or in my 400 sq. foot dorm room overlooking Lincoln Center, or on the beach in Croatia, Greece, and Mallorca, with my family and friends a few feet away.

There was no thought in those poems and prose. I’d experience life, God would speak to me, and I’d quickly type it all out. A force much greater than myself was being expressed through my tiny body. I’d then read what I wrote, feel a sense of relief, and then stare at the words in awe, questioning what just happened. Where did that come from? How did I know that?

Writing was my first inexplicable experience with God and my Notes app was my church—a safe space, a portal, a communion.

And then nearly 7 years later, I began sharing my words on Instagram. I then wrote and published Beauty in the Stillness, where half of what was published derived from that Note I began in 2013. And then in 2024, I wrote The Unlimited Power Within You during my chronic illness healing journey, where the book became my lifeline. But then a few weeks after sending my final manuscript to my publisher, I felt a great loss. I tried to bypass the grieving period of finishing that book by writing my first feature film and also starting my Substack—which felt like a breath of fresh air from Instagram.

Finally, I thought to myself. I can share what’s on my heart, in long form, in real time, and write about my lived experiences in unpackaged ways whilst having more fun with my craft, telling stories about what I’m seeing, experiencing, feeling, witnessing, remembering, that people will properly absorb rather than scroll past.

And it was exactly that. My process was the same as the one I had in my Notes app and in my journals and with my books. I told stories no one else could tell because only I lived them. I wrote about my spiritual awakening, my healing journey, my divine encounters, my perspective of this world, my expansion of consciousness, the journey of me writing my feature film. My body of work evolved as I did, but I was in love with it. And more importantly, it was through consistently writing on Substack that I became more in love with myself, my own soul. Substack became an altar for me to understand my light, stand in it, honor it, and to reveal it.

Then, I got laid off from my corporate job in December 2025. No longer just a passion project or a side-hustle, I decided to go all in on my calling. And I specifically went all in on Substack. I read another writer on here talk about how ‘you have to treat your Substack like a job if you want to grow and make money,’ and so I trusted that guidance. It seemed promising, right? I lost a six-figure salary and was trying to figure out how to make a living doing what I loved and Substack was “the platform” for writers, so I buckled up.

Everyday, I went to “work.” I developed content pillars because that’s what I was told to do. I set a cadence for each day of the week. I also committed to 3-5 notes. I then shared every essay on my Instagram to drive traffic. I put a paywall behind certain pieces because not everyone could hold what I was sharing, and because I was told that’s how to make a living doing what you love. Stop playing small, take up space, yada yada yada.

Now, I’m a Projector in Human Design, but I began operating like a Generator. In hindsight, I was meant to do exactly that. I was rebuilding my new foundation from scratch, and it is because of all of the hard work from the last 6 months that I was able to take a step back all summer and reconvene with myself (not that I had the financial security; I just had unshakeable faith that I would be okay).

Because I’d be lying if I said everything I shared this year was fun, and playful, and magical. I forced certain flow states (ironic to use those two words together, I know) and told myself I was feeling alive doing it. I was crossing off a weekly check-box rather than checking in with myself.

But, I didn’t allow myself to complain because 2025 Karin’s prayer was answered—to be a full-time creative. I was standing in the exact moment I had been working towards throughout my adult life, only to ask myself: is this it?

Deep down, I knew it wasn’t.

I slowly grew my audience, but I slowly eroded my passion. I left my corporate cage and entered the Golden one: Substack. And while I am proud of the body of work I created this past year, I am not proud of how I felt while I created them.

Simultaneously, however, I wrote and finished my third book, When Nothing Makes Sense: Finding God in the Gap Between Prayer & Answer, in March 2026. The experience of writing that book was holy. I have never experienced the depth of transcendence as I did whilst writing it, and I still can’t find the words to describe what I felt when I wrote the last sentence in it. I, myself, had an out of body experience. And so, witnessing the difference between that journey and the one I was forcing to have on Substack at the same time, revealed to me what Divine flow really is, and what it’s not. But, I was still trying. Still hoping that I could thrive on this platform through consistency and effort.

NOTE: Limitless with Karin Hadadan is entirely reader-funded, which is exactly why I can write it the way I do—no sponsors, no performing, no writing for the algorithm. Just me, writing what’s true, guiding others to raise their consciousness to align with their soul, supported by the people it reaches. If this has ever met you somewhere real, or transformed you, becoming a paid subscriber is the most meaningful way to keep it going.

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This past June, I experienced the greatest heartbreak of my life. Never, not once, in my 14 years of writing, thought that there would come a time where I would fall on my knees in my kitchen and say: God, I don’t want to do this anymore. I hate writing. Even me typing that sentence now breaks my heart because I remember it so vividly.

Now, I knew in that moment that it wasn’t the truth. I wrote every single day in my journal, letting my stream of consciousness rip post-meditation, feeling alive at what came through me. But perhaps it was 6 months of low-grade survival and exhaustion coming to a head from constant output (despite my body feeling the best it’s ever felt, the exhaustion was less in my physical body and more so in my heart).

Or perhaps it was how I’ve been walking with a blind-fold on since December 3rd, and simply trusting God all year without any true certainty of what it’s all leading to, knowing that in order to walk the path of one’s destiny, one must solely follow the heart. Or perhaps it was a frustrated ego lashing out because all of that hard work led to little recognition and less than 100 paid subscribers while others were making six figures in annual revenue by writing about how to grow on Substack rather than anything actually valuable, or transformational, or creative.

God, I don’t want to do this anymore. I hate writing.

My soul would never say that, because writing is how my soul is expressed in the physical. Writing is how Divine love moves through me, so how could I fall out of love with the very thing that lets my soul speak?

But that breakdown in the kitchen was my wake up call. I hated that feeling. And yet, my next thought was, “Maybe if I write a Substack essay about this, I can turn this into something helpful for someone else.” That’s how infiltrated my brain was. Everything was immediately through the lens of ‘content’ or helping others before I helped myself.

All summer, in between Europe and New Jersey, I’ve been intentionally undoing everything I’ve learned in order to return to that pure state of creation before all of this—before it became my life’s work. But it’s harder now. Knowing I have an audience, knowing my soul’s purpose and role in this period in time, knowing God is calling me to transmit what others cannot, and knowing that people look up to me. Well, the thought of someone reading it is inherently present. It’s hard to forget that.

When I was in France for 3 weeks at an artist residency from June to July, it hit me. I finally understood why I love writing books so much, why my soul has expressed itself in three different ones within three years. When I’m writing a book, it’s truly just me, God, and my words. No audience in mind. No outcome to think about. No new format to compare my structure with. I spend my time with it, I let myself experience life through the thesis of it for as long as I need to.

There’s a level of craftsmanship that maintains when you’re working on a piece of art that isn’t meant for the online world, because you know that what you’re birthing will live much longer than you ever will. And because of that, there is so much more intention that goes into it, so much more time and patience and grace and love.

But on Substack, it’s instant. There’s this inherent nature of knowing that you will publish, and it will be seen, and then you will need to promote it in order to grow it. You edit accordingly. You refine the subtitle. You make a pretty header image. You pick apart the essay and turn a few strong snippets into bite-sized notes. Into digestible excerpts to promote on Instagram. And we all do it. We format things properly to make them look more editorial, we add graphics to spruce it up, we package up our words so it stands out in the algorithm.

But if we’re being honest with ourselves—do we really want to spend that much time curating? Should every thought turn into a Substack note? Should every weekend adventure turn into a photo dump? Should every experience we have be an essay that gets lost in the archive? Maybe for some, but not for me. Anymore, that is.

During that residency, I also made a promise to myself: I will only write if I feel alive doing so, rather than forcing it just because I'm at a writer’s residency. All the challenges and expansion I went through this year prepared me for that moment. All of the other writers were raving about how they wrote 1,500 words each day, while I was expressing how the only flow state I was in was through conversing with the trees and birds and my higher self.

But, it felt like a win because my morning pages were full of Divine downloads and I was back in my Notes app. I slowly and effortlessly started to write my next book, typing poems whilst on a walk, as I’d sit under a tree, after a soul-led conversation with a fellow resident. Oh my god. Where did that come from? I finally felt the freedom from all of that noise and mental chatter, and accessed the same awe and wonder I had when I was 16.

When I returned home to New Jersey after five weeks across Europe, I knew that to hold onto that freedom, I couldn’t slip back into my old ways. So I went offline for a little over a week in July—every platform, Substack included—to reconnect with myself.

And in that short window, while I was receiving immense clarity from within, Instagram became a catastrophe of yellow-font carousel templates. The AI police descended onto Substack, and thousands of IG creators suddenly migrated over—all of it adding even more noise to the platform I’d already stepped away from.

I eventually returned to Substack at the end of July. I scrolled, but my body rejected it—and it has rejected it ever since. The whole frequency feels off, gimmicky, argumentative. I scrolled again yesterday for “research” and saw the same essence of the same words from dozens of different writers—all raving about how Substack feels so much better than Instagram. Is that really how you want to use this space?

Ironically, every platform is the same at this point. It’s mostly just noise—I wrote a whole piece on how we’ve all lost the plot because very few artists are creating from the only place it’s supposed to be created from—the soul. Substack just doesn’t feel like it did in 2024. But what I took away from all of this was: Oh, wow. Thank God I stepped away. I really have been ahead of the curve all year.

It felt like a God wink. Karin, you were never meant to be consumed by the old game because you never were playing it, which is why it was never going to work for you and hasn’t been working for you. Keep playing on your own court and trust divine timing.

And so that’s the question I’ve been asking myself across the board: how do I want this to go? What is the role of Substack (and all other platforms) for me? What cadence allows me to express myself in the highest possible light without diluting my sense of self, my passion, my joy? What environment does my writing, my voice, my wisdom, actually thrive in?

Offline, offline, offline.

I started to imagine what it would be like if December 2025 Karin were next to me right now. A whole new chapter was about to begin for her, one that seemed promising, one that she had been working towards and praying for all her life. If I told her, “I fell out of love with writing…but don’t worry, we’re back together now, stronger than ever,” and began to explain to her how that happened, I don’t think she’d understand. I think if she knew that back in December, she likely would’ve looked for another corporate job because how could she handle the momentary loss of her first love?

But then I’d tell her about all of the rich experiences that allowed me to write so much. That the fact that I even had that much to say is proof that I lived so fully. And that the heartbreak was just another portal to remember why I'm even a writer: to reorient myself and others through the Divine love that courses through me.

And so here’s what I want to leave you with.

All year, I tried so hard to make Substack a strong pillar of my business. I really wanted it to work, and maybe in some future season it naturally will. But if it does, it’ll only be because I let it grow from the right place, in a way that’s actually sustainable for me and not at the cost of my joy. But I now feel so blessed it didn’t become a best-seller while I was writing 5 essays a week, because that would’ve led to burnout, to me struggling to walk away from the abundance of it, to probably 10 more identity shifts I frankly did not want to put myself through, to having less energy towards creative projects that light me up.

I see it as a blessing, because it was. So if you’ve had a similar experience this year—something you wanted to work out but hasn’t—express gratitude, and start funneling all that energy toward wherever you know it’s meant to go, into the places and spaces that are the right environment for your light to shine. You will be amazed at how seamless it can be once you simply decide.

We aren’t meant to know what’s coming, or why we are being called toward or away from certain things, or what’s on the other side of the moment we are in. Because if we did know—the challenges, the breakthroughs, the levels we’d need to rise—we likely wouldn’t keep walking forward. But that’s the thrill of it. This entire 6.5 month experience of me leaving corporate to be a full-time creative has been wild. I had several identity shifts throughout the year that expanded me tremendously. I didn’t know who I was when I wasn’t writing, but simultaneously, I’d second guessed everything I put out. Is this ego or soul? Is this from overflow or for validation?

But it all led me to realize how deeply I care about what I put out. It led me to understand my integrity and my devotion. Because the fact that I was even overthinking it that deeply was proof of how pure my intentions have been, how I really don’t want to mess this up. It also helped me train my ego to work for me instead of against me. And that? That’s a freedom most people never touch in their human life.

Truly, go offline and be in your life. I’ve had the greatest summer of my life and I didn’t write or post the highlights because it didn't matter. Sharing it, documenting it, before I was ready, would’ve taken the richness right out of it. Keep your life sacred. Hold onto your memories for yourself, and yourself only. Savor the preciousness of each experience. Spend more time creating your desired reality and experiencing it in the present, rather than curating it or consuming other people’s articulation of theirs—yes, even on Substack.

It was from being, experiencing, playing, wandering, reading actual books, exploring, connecting, and savoring the precious moments within the chambers of my own heart, that I accessed the deepest inner peace I’ve ever felt. Not once, not momentarily, but consistently all summer long. And that depth of inner peace is what will lead to the next phase of my life’s work.

If you feel that writing is your soul’s calling, if you came here to be an actual writer and not just a content generator, start taking it offline. I cannot stress this enough. Think longevity. Think long-term body of work. Think legacy. Start funneling the energy you pour into scrolling or writing notes into the book, the feature film, the TV show that you’ve been putting off (my PORTAL app was built to help you do exactly that). Because if Substack or Instagram disappeared tomorrow—where would your writing live? If everyone’s a Substack writer now, what kind of writer are you? Do not create for social media. Create, and then share your art on social media. And take time learning what the difference is for you.

And if writing isn’t your thing—if your soul speaks through paint, or a lens, or a business, or a song—the same is true. Take it off the feed. Make the thing that outlives the scroll. Let your soul shine where it’s actually meant to. Because I promise you this—the fulfillment I feel when someone reads one of my actual books is a different thing entirely. No amount of instant gratification compares to a message from someone describing their full-body experience of a story I told across 300 pages, that took years for me to live and write, that took them a few weeks or months to engage with and process. You deserve to experience that depth of fulfillment, too.

Do not rush your life’s work. I wrote this essay expanding on this idea, based on John Steinbeck’s process of writing East of Eden. But what I now know is that there is a divine timing across every idea we have. The thought of writing this essay came to me in June, during my breakdown. I didn’t act on it. I lived my life. I marinated in my thesis. I experienced the ups and downs. I traveled. I took a step back.

If I wrote this back in June, it not only would’ve been premature, but I also would’ve missed out on several proof points that deepened my thesis that unfolded through the course of time. I also wouldn’t have written it in the frequency that I now have, because I first had to descend in order to ascend.

Trust the divine timing of every idea you have. Honor it—for yourself, and for the people you serve—and let it ripen. Nothing true is ever early, but what is meant to move through you will, at the exact moment it’s ready to land.

Substack made me fall out of love with writing

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