Too Many Emails? + Monthly Zoom on Singleness
A smattering of stuff for your Monday
First things: Are you getting too many Substack emails from all your subscriptions in your inbox? I am too. Here’s how to adjust your email settings for each individual author you subscribe to:
First, in your browser, tap on the title of the Substacker’s email, in this case that’s
’s email titled, Distance:
A new tab will open and at the top right, you’ll see either your image or a generic colored circle. Tap on the circle, and then tap on Manage Subscription:
Okay, now scroll down to where it says Notifications.
If you want to keep receiving every new post from the author, make sure that toggle is on—in my case, the yellow means it’s on, and every time Shawn posts, I’ll get it in my inbox.
If, however, I just want to read Shawn’s posts in the Substack app on my phone or on my laptop, I can toggle that off, turning it gray. This will unsubscribe me from Shawn’s emails, but it will not make me unfollow Shawn in the app, so just keep that in mind if you’re a paid subscriber and want to keep your subscription.
I have about 10 authors whose emails always come to my inbox because I don’t want to miss their posts. But everyone else I subscribe to, I have to go to Substack (either on my laptop or my phone app) to see their new posts. This helps keep my inbox from feeling totally overwhelming.
Yes, you have to do this with each person you’re subscribed to, but it’s worth the extra step if you want to keep your inbox cleaner.
If, however, you have the opposite problem—that no one’s email actually comes to your inbox—try this. This might help if you want to stay a paying subscriber of an author, but you only want to read their posts in the app, not on email.
This Manage Subscription spot is where you go if you’re also having trouble receiving the emails you’re signed up for. Scroll all the way to the bottom and you’ll see it all—but please don’t accidentally unsubscribe from Sayable while you’re there!
Monthly Zoom: Living Single While Desiring Marriage
This past weekend I attended an art + spiritual retreat with some women. If you know me at all, you know art + spirituality might sound like something right up my alley, but if you really know me at all, you know spending a few days in a room full of women is not quite my worst nightmare, but certainly not my comfort zone.
I am the second oldest of eight, all men except me. I have always felt more at ease, more myself, and more comfortable in my body with men than with women. In addition, not being very prone to demonstrating my feelings throughout most of my life, experiencing the feels of others (especially in a large group) can feel overwhelming to me. I prefer one on one interactions with women, or at the most 7-8. It has been a spiritual discipline of mine over the past ten or so years to embrace the feminine parts of my own self, but also to embrace engagements with groups of other women.
All that to say, I was surprised in this room full of women (most of us in our 40s+), to meet several others who also married a bit later in life, one at 38, another at 45, and another somewhere (she gestured vaguely) in her forties. It’s not often I’m in spaces where that is the case and I was refreshed to look back at the face of someone who has experienced what it looks like to marry later than most of your peers (especially for those of us with church backgrounds)—both the goodness of it, and the difficulties of it.
It also reminded me that this week can (sometimes) be a painful week for those who find themselves still waiting for the one whom their soul loves. I don’t talk much about singleness these days, but I still think about it a lot. I think about how my years of being alone formed me and in some ways deformed me. But mostly what I think about it how very grateful I am that I didn’t get married until I was well into my 30s and that I married someone who had a whole other decade+ marriage before ours.
Being single while desiring marriage was one of the top topics that some of you requested we talk about in a Second Tuesday Zoom. I debated the time of the day I’d schedule this for, for obvious reasons, but at the end of the day, I had to schedule it for what worked best for me this week, and that’s at noon tomorrow. I’m really hoping you can take a lunch break and join us.
The invite is, as always, below the paywall because these convos are for paying subscribers only. I don’t record these times together, either, because I want people to feel free to say whatever they want without fear that it will go online later.
Hope to see some of you there (and if you also married in your late 30s or later, please do join us!).
Lore Wilbert is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
