I hope it OK to write to you by your first name only.
I almost cried when I heard the part of you wanting to shut this down! But I kept listening. (Oh legally blind and my computer reads to me.) Thank you for sticking with it and us! When you disappeared from the public eye a few years ago I was so worried about your health both physical and mental, which I see as one your complete health.
Please know those of us that are here. Have come to hear what you have to say. We want to hear YOU Evanna Lynch! We are some of your biggest supporters and fans. Yes we met you while you were embodying Luna Lovegood but we stayed because of you, Evanna Lynch! Thank you for sticking with us and continuing to write.
I guess I've had my head in the sand for the past couple years or longer because I did not know you had written your memoirs. I have just download it the Audible copy of it with plans to listen to it this summer once my semester with my masters degree ends. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to hearing your memoirs. But I also know that it will be a hard listen for me as I to struggled with eating disorders.
Please do not let your inner critic win! Trust me, I know that's easier for me to say then for you to do as I have one too. In fact, I am fighting that inner critic right now as I write a paper for my masters degree. Thank you for opening up this incredibly personal channel to yourself for all of us to learn from.
Thank you Lori, this is such a warm and generous comment, I felt it! 🥹 sorry for the jump scare, I definitely won’t be deleting Substack. Just need to have some soothing tea & chats with my inner critic over the next few weeks as I adapt!
Cheering you on for your masters, that is amazing! 🥳 And thank you re the book, but of course look after yourself if it’s upsetting you, especially while you’re under stress already! Xxx
I really enjoyed your letter once again — your words come to life as I read them, and I must admit that reading it just once is nowhere near enough. My heart froze when you mentioned you might delete your Substack — please don’t do that. I truly appreciate your unique way of writing; you’re a rare human being with a huge heart.
Your courage to open up only shows how remarkable you are. Thank you so much for your words and for sharing your recent experiences with us.
I’m extremely critical of myself, and I admit my inner critic doesn’t give me a single day’s rest — he really needs a holiday! Still, I’m trying to deal with it better, may God help me.
What a beautiful comment, thank you Luiz! ♥️ Give your critic some boring admin to do and tell him to sit back and relax while you’re working things out, his services are not needed everywhere all the time!
Please keep being our pen friend Evanna! You write so beautifully and it’s always comforting to read these letters at the end of the week. It’s definitely reassuring, as someone who agonises over a text sent to a trusted friend, to know that I’m not alone in feeling vulnerable.
I appreciate so much the transparency with which you write. I was inspired by your journey to do what my therapist has been asking me to do for a while and that’s share my own story and hold space for others who have had similar experiences to my own. Well I started my own Substack and after only three posts felt the exact same way! I felt like omg I have to delete all this before anyone reads it! My inner critic told me it was unpolished and unprofessional and simply not things we talk about. So far I have left it up and I’m hoping to write so more but for today it is enough that it still exists and the inner critic hasn’t stopped me yet. Thank you for sticking it through on this journey ❤️
There are so many things I’d like to respond to woven into your writing (my own inner critic is currently screeching up a storm, but I am pointedly ignoring her). The obvious, of course, is that I’m very glad you’re not abandoning SubStack.
Less-obviously, I am both impressed by & somewhat envious of your [renewed] command of Appropriate Eye Contact. I realised, when finally able to stop shielding after the pandemic, that my ability to human (convincingly, at least) had been utterly decimated by not having to interact with others other than at hospital appointments, where my [in]ability to human properly was rather less of a concern than bits of my body apparently finding it hilarious to find novel ways to malfunction. It is increasingly easy to find people willing to understand autism; & constant masking doesn’t do wonders for anyone - but I miss being able to blend better. Admittedly, now having to use a wheelchair to leave my home has rather ruined any ability I had to slink through life unnoticed; but I am still resolved to try to relearn my peopling skills. Adaptive sport is easier - lower expectations, as it were: I am expected to be awkward, uncertain. So obviously I’ve decided to seek a bigger challenge. What could possibly go wrong with taking an Irish language evening class? (Well, my inner critic has an entire list, naturally, but she routinely loses the absolute run of herself as well as being slightly less than no fun, so I am resolved to ignore her). Your posts are what have at last tipped me to have the confidence to finally determine I WILL sign up, so thank you.
One last thing, before I am swept off by the frankly bean sí-like wailings of my inner critic as to the matter of my raging idiocy to have so much as contemplated commenting, much less actually writing & posting this - your memoir was remarkable, a truly compelling read. Thank you.
Alice, I love this!! I’m so glad you tuned out the screeching and commented anyway.
I hear you on all this, it is so much easier and more comfortable to stay at home and not feel the strain of sticking out a mile but meanwhile your life is passing you by! I ALWAYS have this anxiety when starting a new class and usually slip in late in a corner to avoid the feelings. However, I went to a cold water immersion class this week and I was so scared that I had a little cry in the sauna which led to a very beautiful conversation with the teacher and hopefully a connection that will develop. Normally I would have kept it in and dashed out the door before making eye contact but I’m so glad I didn’t.
What I mean is, Irish class: you got this! Tell that bean-sí to shush 🤫
It is, these days, easier to tune out her screechiness. I can only assume having two VERY vocal cats has helped. Well, & time, a certain amount of determination, & what can only really be described as the utter surreality of being older than my mother ever got to be. (Sorry, it feels disingenuous to leave that last out; but I’m aware it is horribly awkward for people to [feel they have to] respond to. Not that I introduce myself to people with “hello, my mother died very suddenly when I was 10 & it has shaped my entire existence since” but as conversations far more often than one might expect lead to the choice to either lie [even if only by omission] or to say so… well, to say the first half of it, anyway, I’m not QUITE so divorced from all sense of how to interact with others as to voice the latter part… Anyway, having inflicted that awkwardness here, please know that I’d never expect a reply to a comment let alone to a reply to a reply so please don’t think I’m trying to fish for a response or for sympathy or… anything, really. I just weighed the importance of that particular piece of truth & realised I had to inflict The Awkward in this instance).
Vastly more importantly than the preceding paragraph though: that is AWESOME about how things at your new class fell out. Just in case you need the reminder: it is brave to let yourself be vulnerable like that. Brave & indeed admirable. I really REALLY hope things continue to go well with the course & with teacher - & I hope the course is helpful.
Staying at home with my cats - they decided as kittens they were having none of this “outside” lark - is indeed always terribly tempting. Especially as there are invariably people who live in the internet with whom to interact should I wish for a conversation with someone who uses actual words. But the weather is glorious here today so I feel a wee [st]roll is in order this afternoon.
i'm sure you've heard this a thousand times before, but Luna Lovegood was one of the main reasons I was able to survive my high school; I was bullied and an outcast, and seeing how an amazing person like her was an outcast as well got me through so much, so thank you ❤️
P.S. one of my most prized possessions is a Luna Lovegood wand
Evy, reading this I was reminder of a quote that says something along the lines of ‘we are not told that bravery feels like fear’ - and I just want you to know that seeing you being brave by continuing to follow your instinct rather than giving in to the inner critic inspires me to do the same. So right now I am going to go back to living the life I want to build rather than allow my thoughts to tell me I can’t.
Looking forward to hearing more of your internal processes and sending you well wishes in the meantime x
Ooh I love this way of seeing it, I’ve never heard bravery defined that way but it resonates. Thank you so much for sharing Aivlis, and I’m so glad you’re also facing down your negative thoughts! ♥️💪
Thanks for writing your letter. It is interesting that you were in Ghent. I'm planning a rail trip in late May to visit eco-towns in Europe, for an imagining a better future project, and Ghent is on the list. It would be interesting to hear if you have any tips of places to visit in Ghent.
Ghent is so beautiful! I didn’t have much time to explore the city as I was there for a convention so I just ‘ambled’ in my spare time but the city is so picturesque that that was enough for me. But I can recommend Soul Kitchen as the best vegan restaurant I’ve tried in ages! 😍 Just note that many places are closed Mondays and Tuesdays there.
Your project sounds super interesting and I actually didn’t know Ghent is an eco-town. Hope you get to go!
Thanks Evanna, I shall look out for Soul Kitchen in Ghent. I try to support vegan restaurants on my travels (as well as enjoying the food!) I'm also going to Freiburg im Breisgau (which I think is the vegan capital of Germany :-)) and Ultrecht. I'm hoping to get some inspiration for my small imagining a better future project which has been running for about a year - https://art2imagine.org/online-exhibition/
> The train from London St Pancras to Brussels is 2 hours and 5 minutes
I'm guessing, since you've lived in LA, that you realize how weird it sounds to American readers that Brussels is closer to London by train than DC is to New York. :)
Thanks for sharing your vulnerability. As a sensitive person, I totally understand the inner critic. It’s a blessing and a curse as we feel the two extremes much stronger than the average people. I am also going to a critical stage in life and it’s been long. Although I always believe in my talent and mission, sometimes the reality in life + the inner critic still make me feel fragile. After reading your blog, I feel more at ease, it’s the sensitivity that makes us feel the very basic existence of things and use it for us. I think probably it’s a choice to believe or to fall. I know I won’t be beaten up, so Lobster, it’s just one and one round of growth to prepare myself for that good version in order to accomplish that mission.
Yea I’ve been following you way before Dancing with the Stars. And I will be following you for whatever you grow to. Thanks for continuing inspiring me throughout these years.
I feel every word of this, Shirley, thank you! 🙏🏻♥️ You are so eloquent. I’m so pleased the blogs help you feel at ease.
I was thinking that lately while reading a book, that some artists’ inner critics are much quieter. It was such a dodgy paragraph in an otherwise fantastic book that I thought ‘how on earth did they get this past the IC?’ 😅 but ultimately I was so glad that they did! Equally I think there are tons of people with much louder critics (lord help them) who cow them into silence and that does nothing for their spirit, in my opinion.
I love this so much! It is such a comfort knowing I'm not alone in thoughts that arre much similar to yours. As a young mom with a teenager getting ever closer to adulthood. I am struggling so much with having to find my individual self again. It has been nothing but challenge after challenge and insecurities that I thought I tackled years ago are rearing their ugly heads again. So I very much love the concept of doing the things that scare you and make you uncomfortable. It has become my moto of sorts!
Thank you, Cynthia! I also thought I’d faced enough challenges that the feeling of constant discomfort at trying new things would not be so aggressive but I’m beginning to think you have to be half asleep to not feel a lot!! Isn’t it exhausting 🥲 am so glad you’re embracing it! ♥️
Have you also experienced some days being better than others? I know for me on the more difficult days I would much rather be half asleep. It absolutely gets very exhausting! As for embracing it, I am doing my very best at doing just that but some days I know I have to do the challenge even though all I want is to hide out in my hobbit hole! A good thing I try to remember when I hit a struggle point is looking back at an older version of me and recognizing that that version could never do the things I'm doing now. Helps me to see growth and to look at it a little differently. ❤️❤️
Evanna,
I hope it OK to write to you by your first name only.
I almost cried when I heard the part of you wanting to shut this down! But I kept listening. (Oh legally blind and my computer reads to me.) Thank you for sticking with it and us! When you disappeared from the public eye a few years ago I was so worried about your health both physical and mental, which I see as one your complete health.
Please know those of us that are here. Have come to hear what you have to say. We want to hear YOU Evanna Lynch! We are some of your biggest supporters and fans. Yes we met you while you were embodying Luna Lovegood but we stayed because of you, Evanna Lynch! Thank you for sticking with us and continuing to write.
I guess I've had my head in the sand for the past couple years or longer because I did not know you had written your memoirs. I have just download it the Audible copy of it with plans to listen to it this summer once my semester with my masters degree ends. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to hearing your memoirs. But I also know that it will be a hard listen for me as I to struggled with eating disorders.
Please do not let your inner critic win! Trust me, I know that's easier for me to say then for you to do as I have one too. In fact, I am fighting that inner critic right now as I write a paper for my masters degree. Thank you for opening up this incredibly personal channel to yourself for all of us to learn from.
Thank you Lori, this is such a warm and generous comment, I felt it! 🥹 sorry for the jump scare, I definitely won’t be deleting Substack. Just need to have some soothing tea & chats with my inner critic over the next few weeks as I adapt!
Cheering you on for your masters, that is amazing! 🥳 And thank you re the book, but of course look after yourself if it’s upsetting you, especially while you’re under stress already! Xxx
Thank you so much for taking the time to write back to me!
Hi Evanna,
I really enjoyed your letter once again — your words come to life as I read them, and I must admit that reading it just once is nowhere near enough. My heart froze when you mentioned you might delete your Substack — please don’t do that. I truly appreciate your unique way of writing; you’re a rare human being with a huge heart.
Your courage to open up only shows how remarkable you are. Thank you so much for your words and for sharing your recent experiences with us.
I’m extremely critical of myself, and I admit my inner critic doesn’t give me a single day’s rest — he really needs a holiday! Still, I’m trying to deal with it better, may God help me.
Wishing you a lovely weekend.
What a beautiful comment, thank you Luiz! ♥️ Give your critic some boring admin to do and tell him to sit back and relax while you’re working things out, his services are not needed everywhere all the time!
Hope you have a lovely weekend too 🌻
Please keep being our pen friend Evanna! You write so beautifully and it’s always comforting to read these letters at the end of the week. It’s definitely reassuring, as someone who agonises over a text sent to a trusted friend, to know that I’m not alone in feeling vulnerable.
Ohhhh you beauty-full + brilliant human - cheering you + your truth + your words + your big beaty heart on ALWAYS!
I hear you on the vulnerability AND I love to read your heart - thank you for sharing her + yourself with us all!💋
Thank you Lisa, you get it!! 💗🌸🌹thank YOU for showing the way to embracing alllll the feelings 🙃🥰
I appreciate so much the transparency with which you write. I was inspired by your journey to do what my therapist has been asking me to do for a while and that’s share my own story and hold space for others who have had similar experiences to my own. Well I started my own Substack and after only three posts felt the exact same way! I felt like omg I have to delete all this before anyone reads it! My inner critic told me it was unpolished and unprofessional and simply not things we talk about. So far I have left it up and I’m hoping to write so more but for today it is enough that it still exists and the inner critic hasn’t stopped me yet. Thank you for sticking it through on this journey ❤️
Amazing, Hope, keep going!! ✍️ and this - the way you have just encouraged me to keep showing up - this is how you must talk to your inner critic! 💪
There are so many things I’d like to respond to woven into your writing (my own inner critic is currently screeching up a storm, but I am pointedly ignoring her). The obvious, of course, is that I’m very glad you’re not abandoning SubStack.
Less-obviously, I am both impressed by & somewhat envious of your [renewed] command of Appropriate Eye Contact. I realised, when finally able to stop shielding after the pandemic, that my ability to human (convincingly, at least) had been utterly decimated by not having to interact with others other than at hospital appointments, where my [in]ability to human properly was rather less of a concern than bits of my body apparently finding it hilarious to find novel ways to malfunction. It is increasingly easy to find people willing to understand autism; & constant masking doesn’t do wonders for anyone - but I miss being able to blend better. Admittedly, now having to use a wheelchair to leave my home has rather ruined any ability I had to slink through life unnoticed; but I am still resolved to try to relearn my peopling skills. Adaptive sport is easier - lower expectations, as it were: I am expected to be awkward, uncertain. So obviously I’ve decided to seek a bigger challenge. What could possibly go wrong with taking an Irish language evening class? (Well, my inner critic has an entire list, naturally, but she routinely loses the absolute run of herself as well as being slightly less than no fun, so I am resolved to ignore her). Your posts are what have at last tipped me to have the confidence to finally determine I WILL sign up, so thank you.
One last thing, before I am swept off by the frankly bean sí-like wailings of my inner critic as to the matter of my raging idiocy to have so much as contemplated commenting, much less actually writing & posting this - your memoir was remarkable, a truly compelling read. Thank you.
Alice, I love this!! I’m so glad you tuned out the screeching and commented anyway.
I hear you on all this, it is so much easier and more comfortable to stay at home and not feel the strain of sticking out a mile but meanwhile your life is passing you by! I ALWAYS have this anxiety when starting a new class and usually slip in late in a corner to avoid the feelings. However, I went to a cold water immersion class this week and I was so scared that I had a little cry in the sauna which led to a very beautiful conversation with the teacher and hopefully a connection that will develop. Normally I would have kept it in and dashed out the door before making eye contact but I’m so glad I didn’t.
What I mean is, Irish class: you got this! Tell that bean-sí to shush 🤫
Thank you for your reply ☺️
It is, these days, easier to tune out her screechiness. I can only assume having two VERY vocal cats has helped. Well, & time, a certain amount of determination, & what can only really be described as the utter surreality of being older than my mother ever got to be. (Sorry, it feels disingenuous to leave that last out; but I’m aware it is horribly awkward for people to [feel they have to] respond to. Not that I introduce myself to people with “hello, my mother died very suddenly when I was 10 & it has shaped my entire existence since” but as conversations far more often than one might expect lead to the choice to either lie [even if only by omission] or to say so… well, to say the first half of it, anyway, I’m not QUITE so divorced from all sense of how to interact with others as to voice the latter part… Anyway, having inflicted that awkwardness here, please know that I’d never expect a reply to a comment let alone to a reply to a reply so please don’t think I’m trying to fish for a response or for sympathy or… anything, really. I just weighed the importance of that particular piece of truth & realised I had to inflict The Awkward in this instance).
Vastly more importantly than the preceding paragraph though: that is AWESOME about how things at your new class fell out. Just in case you need the reminder: it is brave to let yourself be vulnerable like that. Brave & indeed admirable. I really REALLY hope things continue to go well with the course & with teacher - & I hope the course is helpful.
Staying at home with my cats - they decided as kittens they were having none of this “outside” lark - is indeed always terribly tempting. Especially as there are invariably people who live in the internet with whom to interact should I wish for a conversation with someone who uses actual words. But the weather is glorious here today so I feel a wee [st]roll is in order this afternoon.
Have a fantastic weekend.
Please, please don’t leave. This suffering world needs more humans like you-your thoughts, feelings, insights, ideas….. You are a gem!
Ahh thank you Sara, I will persist! And back at you! 💎
We hear you, we see you. Endless love and support on our end. 🖤
Thank you, Lex! ♥️
I needed to read this today. Thank you. Especially as I am considering starting my own substack.
i'm sure you've heard this a thousand times before, but Luna Lovegood was one of the main reasons I was able to survive my high school; I was bullied and an outcast, and seeing how an amazing person like her was an outcast as well got me through so much, so thank you ❤️
P.S. one of my most prized possessions is a Luna Lovegood wand
Ahh I love this, thank you for sharing Omar! 🌻
Evy, reading this I was reminder of a quote that says something along the lines of ‘we are not told that bravery feels like fear’ - and I just want you to know that seeing you being brave by continuing to follow your instinct rather than giving in to the inner critic inspires me to do the same. So right now I am going to go back to living the life I want to build rather than allow my thoughts to tell me I can’t.
Looking forward to hearing more of your internal processes and sending you well wishes in the meantime x
Ooh I love this way of seeing it, I’ve never heard bravery defined that way but it resonates. Thank you so much for sharing Aivlis, and I’m so glad you’re also facing down your negative thoughts! ♥️💪
Okay now I wanna be like a lobster. That's a sentence I never thought I'd write though... 🦞 What a piece Evanna, thank you!
♥️🦞 Thank you, Carmen!!
Always! 🦞✨
Hi Evanna,
Thanks for writing your letter. It is interesting that you were in Ghent. I'm planning a rail trip in late May to visit eco-towns in Europe, for an imagining a better future project, and Ghent is on the list. It would be interesting to hear if you have any tips of places to visit in Ghent.
All the best, Andy.
Hi Andy,
Ghent is so beautiful! I didn’t have much time to explore the city as I was there for a convention so I just ‘ambled’ in my spare time but the city is so picturesque that that was enough for me. But I can recommend Soul Kitchen as the best vegan restaurant I’ve tried in ages! 😍 Just note that many places are closed Mondays and Tuesdays there.
Your project sounds super interesting and I actually didn’t know Ghent is an eco-town. Hope you get to go!
Thanks Evanna, I shall look out for Soul Kitchen in Ghent. I try to support vegan restaurants on my travels (as well as enjoying the food!) I'm also going to Freiburg im Breisgau (which I think is the vegan capital of Germany :-)) and Ultrecht. I'm hoping to get some inspiration for my small imagining a better future project which has been running for about a year - https://art2imagine.org/online-exhibition/
> The train from London St Pancras to Brussels is 2 hours and 5 minutes
I'm guessing, since you've lived in LA, that you realize how weird it sounds to American readers that Brussels is closer to London by train than DC is to New York. :)
It’s soooo weird!! You get off the train and people are speaking a whole other language at each station 😆
Hey Evanna,
Thanks for sharing your vulnerability. As a sensitive person, I totally understand the inner critic. It’s a blessing and a curse as we feel the two extremes much stronger than the average people. I am also going to a critical stage in life and it’s been long. Although I always believe in my talent and mission, sometimes the reality in life + the inner critic still make me feel fragile. After reading your blog, I feel more at ease, it’s the sensitivity that makes us feel the very basic existence of things and use it for us. I think probably it’s a choice to believe or to fall. I know I won’t be beaten up, so Lobster, it’s just one and one round of growth to prepare myself for that good version in order to accomplish that mission.
Yea I’ve been following you way before Dancing with the Stars. And I will be following you for whatever you grow to. Thanks for continuing inspiring me throughout these years.
Love love love
Shirley
I feel every word of this, Shirley, thank you! 🙏🏻♥️ You are so eloquent. I’m so pleased the blogs help you feel at ease.
I was thinking that lately while reading a book, that some artists’ inner critics are much quieter. It was such a dodgy paragraph in an otherwise fantastic book that I thought ‘how on earth did they get this past the IC?’ 😅 but ultimately I was so glad that they did! Equally I think there are tons of people with much louder critics (lord help them) who cow them into silence and that does nothing for their spirit, in my opinion.
Love love love and Lobster to you! ♥️♥️♥️
I love this so much! It is such a comfort knowing I'm not alone in thoughts that arre much similar to yours. As a young mom with a teenager getting ever closer to adulthood. I am struggling so much with having to find my individual self again. It has been nothing but challenge after challenge and insecurities that I thought I tackled years ago are rearing their ugly heads again. So I very much love the concept of doing the things that scare you and make you uncomfortable. It has become my moto of sorts!
Thank you, Cynthia! I also thought I’d faced enough challenges that the feeling of constant discomfort at trying new things would not be so aggressive but I’m beginning to think you have to be half asleep to not feel a lot!! Isn’t it exhausting 🥲 am so glad you’re embracing it! ♥️
Have you also experienced some days being better than others? I know for me on the more difficult days I would much rather be half asleep. It absolutely gets very exhausting! As for embracing it, I am doing my very best at doing just that but some days I know I have to do the challenge even though all I want is to hide out in my hobbit hole! A good thing I try to remember when I hit a struggle point is looking back at an older version of me and recognizing that that version could never do the things I'm doing now. Helps me to see growth and to look at it a little differently. ❤️❤️