I’ve always written to think. I start with a feeling, an idea, a pull toward something I don’t quite understand yet. Only after writing does it take shape—like I’m watching my own mind navigate GPS directions in real time. So, when I first learned about autotheory, I had to ask: Have I been doing this all along without knowing it? And if so, does naming it change anything?

I remember deconstructing my interpretation of my own experience and questioning whether the interpretation mattered or not. Did experience really have inherent, absolute meaning? If everyone could have a different interpretation of the same experience, that clearly meant the experience didn’t have an absolute meaning—meaning was therefore subjective.

It was only after sharing my ideas with AI and watching it quickly name the understanding I had come to that I realized my ideas weren’t new. I wasn’t having an original thought; my thoughts were being validated by an AI with a much deeper knowledge base than I had.

The insecure little girl within me loved the validation I got from knowing that some thinker had explored the same thought before me. Simultaneously, my presently curious adult mind found a new rabbit hole to dive into and explore. AI had offered me a world I didn’t know existed, but it brought me back to the original question: did giving my thoughts a name matter? Were they still my thoughts or was I stealing them from somebody else?

Insecurity tells me that validation matters. If somebody else had the thought, then it meant I could too. The validation I felt somehow made it safe for me to continue exploring these ideas. Naming it had indeed changed my perception of what I was thinking. It freed me to stop feeling like my perception was crazy or extreme. Clearly, if it was okay for Jean-Paul Sartre to question the meaning of experience, then I could too.

It has unknowingly opened me up to yet another layer of insecurity within myself. Why did I need my thoughts named in this way? Is having a radical new idea a bad thing? What was I scared of? I know what I was scared of—being too extreme, too radical—being too much for others to handle. I was scared of ending up in a place nobody else would dare to go. I was scared to change who the world thought I was.

I wrote spiritual content. I stayed within the bounds of spirituality, but I was frustrated with the ego and the limitations of spirituality that I perceived. Spiritual principles were being warped and twisted by human egos afraid to question their own beliefs, expectations, morality, and societal norms. My frustration had pushed me past the limits that my fear had set for me. Suddenly, the spiritual beliefs I was sharing were no longer fully authentic, and I could no longer stay within their bounds. Pushing past that was terrifying and freeing all at the same time. Who was this new person, and was she safe to be in the world?

Naming my thoughts changed the direction of my writing career. It changed how I saw myself and my work. Naming my thoughts had mattered greatly. But why? Validation. Insecurity. Fear. Doubt. These are things we all encounter and explore somewhere in our lives. These constructs are what spirituality works to understand and heal. These wounds are old and deeply personal to me, yet they’re also something I’ve widely shared and discussed through my writing. Writing helps me think, and it also introduces me to new ideas and new levels of understanding about myself.

My writing had taken me full circle. I had used writing to explore spirituality and myself within it. I had completed the spiritual exploration of myself and questioned what was next. It was then that I was introduced to a philosophical exploration of myself, one that would uncover an entirely new layer of pain and provide a depth of understanding I hadn’t found before.

Unlike the philosophical thinking I had arrived at on my own, autotheory came to me. Social media showed it to me, and AI defined it for me. What was reflected back was exactly what I had been trying to do in my writing. How do I blend spirituality and philosophy with my lived experience? Autotheory offered an answer. Much like my worldview is a blend of different spiritual and philosophical ideas, autotheory is a blend of genres and styles of writing. The mishmash of autotheory reflected the mishmash of my ideas—it seemed meant to be.

Autotheory offered me a deeper question: could I change my writing to fit into this new style? I would have to try it to find out. That is what this article is about – exploring autotheory and the larger journey my writing has taken me on. Maybe autotheory is the vehicle my writing needed to become better than it has been. What do you think? Does it work?

There are still many unanswered questions on this journey. I invite you to explore them with me. Between philosophy, spirituality, and now a new mode of writing, my journey continues to deepen, grow, and expand. I invite you to join me by subscribing to The Rebellion Insider on Substack.

Love to all.

Della