Welcome to Gleam!

Kristen Rea
GleamDaily
Published in
3 min readOct 29, 2023
Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

In the Beginning…

I did not grow up a religious person. Throughout my life, when asked, I’d say, “Technically I was baptized Episcopalian, but I was an infant about to have heart surgery and I think my mother figured it couldn’t hurt.” I wouldn’t step foot in that church again until the age of eighteen when my AP English exam happened to be held next door to my High School— in the Church’s basement.

Growing up I felt like the only person who didn’t care about defining a religious identity. I was me and that was enough. Most of my friends were atheists but that fit me like an itchy sweater. Agnosticism was closer but left me dangling like an undecided voter in a swing state. As if somehow I couldn’t tell the difference between overtly disparate candidates. People struggled to grasp that what I “believed” wasn’t a checkbox on an intake form. I had a natural comfort with living in the inherent knowingness that no person on earth could possibly know “the truth,” so why waste time thinking about it? And so I promptly shoved any thought of religious or spiritual identity to the back of my closet.

Wham-Bam-Wake Up

Imagine my surprise when a spiritual awakening flung that topic from the back of my closet, poltergeist-style, spewing decades of dust bunnies and spiritual contemplation everywhere I stepped. I could vacuum the dust, but I couldn’t vacuum the other thing. The process was jarring and confusing— causing me, at times, to question my own sanity. But what I came to feel was that if I stopped gripping the handlebars — the process, the roller coaster, the discovery — was also fun.

As someone who enjoyed deep conversation with friends, it was a welcomed new topic. Only it wasn’t fit for a dinner table debate amongst peers. It was a topic for me, myself, and I.

From Gleaning to Gleaming

The more I bantered with myself the more little pieces of me I didn’t realize had shattered started to shine. It sparked a healing journey that turned those now glimmering shards into a puzzle that felt euphoric to solve. As I did, that soft glow of intuition that fueled my young adult life, resurface.

These inner conversations still weren’t about discovering any one belief to hold as “the truth,” but rather, accepting the process as a new, exciting, and integral part of my life. And so I shifted to a new perspective:

I don’t believe in beliefs, but I deeply value spiritual exploration.

I realized there was value in stumbling upon a community, a mindset, a framework— heck, even a placebo effect— that inspired me to live my best life, to shine.

So… what is Gleam?

Gleam (GleamDaily) is for anyone interested in dipping their toe into the worlds and intersections of spirituality, philosophy & psychology. It is not a masterclass in mysticism, meditation, stoicism, therapy, or any specific practice, though it will explore them.

GleamDaily is about gleaning inner wisdom for a gleaming life.

It is slow. It is patient. It is lifelong.

In other words, come along for my journey of inner exploration. Let go of the goal, and open your mind and heart to discovering your intuitive voice along the way. And if that leads you, me, or us, to something resembling authenticity, self-actualization, or a general sense of wholeness, then no matter if you’re a convicted Athiest, Muslim, Catholic, or w h a t e v e r — it will be time well-spent.

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Kristen Rea
GleamDaily

Renaissance woman. Follow for comedic personal essays on Amused Bouche and dip your toe into the world of spirituality with me on GleamDaily.