Ink And Insights: Essays By britt wolfe
Welcome to Ink And Insight, the section of my website where I put my thoughts into words and then immediately question whether they were worth sharing. This is not a blog, nor is it an attempt at profound literary wisdom. It’s just me, writing about things that matter to me—sometimes deeply, sometimes irreverently, and occasionally with the kind of misplaced confidence that only comes from having absolutely no qualifications in the subject at hand. If you’re here expecting structured essays with clear conclusions, I regret to inform you that you may have taken a wrong turn on the internet.
That said, if you enjoy long-winded introspection punctuated by self-deprecating humour, half-formed epiphanies, and the occasional sentence that sounds suspiciously like a cry for help, you might just like it here. Ink And Insight is where I wrestle with ideas, air my grievances, and, in the absence of a therapist, process my thoughts in real time. If you take something meaningful from it, wonderful. If you skim through, nodding along while internally planning what’s for dinner, I respect that too. Either way, you’re here, I’m writing, and we’re both pretending this is productive. Let’s call that a win.

The Afterlife Of Art: How Storytelling Keeps Love Alive
Some love stories never leave us. They shift, they soften, they echo—but they remain. The Afterlife of Art: How Storytelling Keeps Love Alive is a deeply personal meditation on the way fiction holds what time can’t, how writing becomes an act of preservation, and why some feelings deserve to live forever. In this essay, I explore the quiet magic of turning memory into narrative—not as an escape, but as a devotion. Because in the act of storytelling, we resurrect what mattered, rewrite what broke us, and keep loving the people, the moments, and the feelings we weren’t ready to lose.

The Softness In Surviving: A Feminist Argument For Tenderness
In a world that so often demands our sharpness and rewards our rage, this essay is a love letter to the quiet power of choosing softness anyway. The Softness In Surviving: A Feminist Argument For Tenderness explores the radical, resilient, and revolutionary nature of gentleness in a culture that mistakes cruelty for control. Rooted in feminist thought, lived experience, and intergenerational wisdom, this piece argues that tenderness is not the absence of resistance—it is resistance made intimate. It is strength shaped into compassion, survival carried in open hands. This is an invitation to reimagine what it means to endure, to lead, and to love. Not despite our softness—but because of it.

The Shape My Joy Takes X: Nothing To prove, Everything To Feel
In this tenth and final essay of The Shape My Joy Takes, I reflect on the quiet exhale that comes when you finally realize you are enough—not because you’ve proven it to anyone, but because you know. Nothing To Prove, Everything To Feel is about releasing the weight of expectation, of validation, and simply being. It’s about the sacred peace of arriving at the truth that you are already whole, and you are already worthy. This is the stillness after the striving. The knowing that everything you’ve needed has always been inside you, waiting to be embraced.

The Shape My Joy Takes IX: Dreaming In Colour Again
In this ninth essay, I return to something I once put away: the simple, sacred act of dreaming. Not to impress. Not to prove. But to live. Dreaming in Colour Again is a love letter to the quiet reawakening of hope, to the dreams that don’t fit neatly into timelines or expectations but bloom wildly in the light of self-trust. This is about bold dreams, soft dreams, silly dreams—ones that wear muddy boots and dance barefoot in the kitchen. These dreams are mine. And claiming them is its own kind of freedom.

The Shape My Joy Takes VIII: The Way Love Moves Through My Life Now
In this eighth essay, I reflect on how love lives quietly in the corners of my life—not as a grand gesture, but as a constant presence. The Way Love Moves Through My Life Now is about the softness I never knew I was allowed to want, the steadiness I didn’t know existed, and the joy that blooms in the simplest, most sacred routines. This is not the chaos of conditional affection. This is care. This is peace. This is love that doesn’t need to be chased—because it never leaves.

The Shape My Joy Takes VII: What Wholeness Feels Like
This seventh essay is not about what wholeness looks like from the outside—it’s about what it feels like deep within. What Wholeness Feels Like is a quiet, sensory meditation on the slow, sacred moments that remind me I am no longer searching, fixing, or proving. It’s about warm floors, easy breath, and ordinary magic. It’s about the way peace settles into your bones when you finally return to yourself. More than a reflection—it’s a homecoming.

The Shape My Joy Takes VI: I Never Needed A Witness
This sixth essay is a quiet kind of rebellion. I Never Needed A Witness is about choosing to live fully without the need to be seen, celebrated, or validated. It’s a meditation on the magic of private joy, on the moments that belong to no one but me, and the gentle power of building a life that isn’t curated for anyone else’s gaze. These are the sacred, unshared corners of my world—the ones where the truest parts of me have always lived.

The Shape My Joy Takes V: A House Made Of Yes
In this fifth essay, I reflect on the life I’ve built—not as a reaction to what I left behind, but as an intentional act of devotion to everything that lights me up. A House Made of Yes is a poetic meditation on boundaries, joy, slowness, and sovereignty. It’s about choosing softness without surrendering strength, about making a home within myself that welcomes only what serves my spirit. This is the architecture of my freedom—built one yes at a time.

The Shape My Joy Takes IV: The Woman I am becoming
In this fourth essay, I honour the multitudes within me. Not as a performance, not as proof of resilience, but as a reclamation. For too long, I was asked to choose—a singular self, a pleasing self, a version of me that stayed small to avoid taking up too much space. But I no longer belong to that narrative. The Women I’m Becoming is a love letter to all of me: the soft, the strong, the fiery, the tender. It’s a reflection of what it means to live as a woman untethered, uncontained, and wholly, gloriously mine.

The Shape My Joy Takes III: The Language Of My Laughter
In this third essay, I explore something I once thought I had lost for good: my laughter. Not the polite, practiced kind used to ease tension or fill silence—but the real kind. The kind that spills out of you before you can stop it. The kind that belongs to people who are safe, seen, and at home in themselves. This is an ode to the sound of my own joy, the people I share it with, and the quiet revolution of laughter that no longer comes from survival, but from abundance.

The Shape My Joy Takes II: Things That Make me Feel Most Like Me
This second essay in The Shape My Joy Takes is a portrait of selfhood, made up of the quiet, shimmering pieces that call me home to myself. It’s not about healing from harm or proving my worth—it’s about recognizing the moments that make me feel most me. This is not a list of hobbies or habits. It’s a reverent celebration of the textures, scents, sensations, and soul-deep connections that remind me of who I’ve always been beneath the noise. A reminder that joy isn’t loud—and neither is truth. But both are mine now.

The Shape My Joy Takes I: The Art Of Waking Up Slowly
This is the first in a ten-part series called The Shape My Joy Takes—a quiet celebration of the life I’ve built from softness, stillness, and sovereignty. These essays are not about what I escaped, but about what I’ve chosen instead. They are love letters to the small rituals, the gentle rebellions, and the steady, sacred claiming of my own peace. In this opening piece, I begin with where every day begins: the morning. Not the frantic rush I once mistook for living, but the slow unfolding of presence, comfort, and care. A rhythm I crafted with intention. A rhythm that belongs only to me.

Not Everything Is For You
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the strange psychology of social media—especially the impulse some people have to offer uninvited opinions about things that clearly weren’t meant for them. As a writer, I’ve learned to expect that not everyone will connect with my work. But what I still find puzzling is the need to publicly announce that disconnect, often in spaces built around love, healing, or community. This essay is my attempt to unpack both the personal and psychological layers of that behaviour. It’s about why I write what I write, who I write for, and why it’s okay—necessary, even—for not everything to be for everyone.

The Illusion of Victory: How Narcissists Convince Themselves They're Winning—Even When They're Not
I’ve just written an essay that I know will resonate with anyone who’s ever had the misfortune of standing up to a narcissist. If you’ve confronted one with truth, set a boundary, or simply dared to stop playing along—you’ve likely seen the fallout. The seething. The smug delusions. The outright lies delivered with Olympic-level confidence. It would be funny if it weren’t so exhausting. In The Illusion of Victory: How Narcissists Convince Themselves They're Winning—Even When They're Not, I unpack what really happens when a narcissist is challenged, why they twist the narrative to feel powerful, and how to protect your peace when you're caught in the crossfire. This one’s part personal experience, part hard truth, and 100% validation. If you’ve ever felt like you were the only one dealing with this kind of madness—you’re not. Read it. Share it. Bookmark it for when they rear their ugly head again.

When the Mirror Cracks: Living Through a Narcissist’s Collapse
I’ve written something deeply personal, raw, and—if I’m honest—long overdue. It’s about what happens when a narcissist loses control of the story they’ve built and turns their collapse into a weapon. If you’ve ever found yourself on the receiving end of that destruction, or you’re still trying to make sense of the chaos left behind, I hope these words find you. When the Mirror Cracks: Living Through a Narcissist’s Collapse is not just an explanation of narcissistic collapse—it’s a reflection of what it feels like to survive it. I wrote it as someone who thought I’d outrun the damage, only to find it knocking again when I least expected it. If you need clarity, validation, or just to know you’re not alone, I invite you to read this one.

The Success of A Life Well-Lived
Success is not just something I have achieved—it is something I have created, something I have built with my own hands, my own heart, my own relentless determination. It is not just about numbers, accomplishments, or status; it is about the fullness of my life, the love that surrounds me, the impact I have made, and the legacy I continue to carve out every single day. I have built a career—or rather, multiple careers—that bring me joy and fulfillment, a thriving business that supports an incredible team, a charity that is changing lives, and a family that is rich with love, loyalty, and unwavering support. And at the centre of it all, I have a love that is steady, enduring, and impenetrable. This is success. This is the life I have built. And I could not be more proud.

The NARCISSIST’s Curation Of Reality
There is something almost artistic about the way a narcissist manipulates the truth—if, of course, you define art as a relentless, compulsive reworking of reality to serve one’s own ego at the expense of everyone else’s sanity. They don’t just lie; they curate. They hand-pick the facts they like, discard the ones that don’t flatter them, and arrange the narrative into a masterpiece of self-preservation, meticulously constructed to keep themselves at the centre of admiration and absolution. And if you dare challenge their version of events? Well, that’s just proof that you are the problem. In this essay, I take a deep dive into the psychological gymnastics of narcissists—the way they rewrite history in real time, turn blatant falsehoods into indisputable facts, and wield gaslighting like a finely honed weapon. Spoiler alert: it would be impressive if it weren’t so infuriating.

The Daughter And The Dead Horse
There is a particular kind of cruelty in inaction. It masquerades as innocence, as helplessness, as a man simply doing his best, but beneath the surface, it festers, rotting the foundation of love until nothing remains but resentment and loss. A father, convinced of his own righteousness, can convince himself that his silence was not a sin, that his refusal to act, to protect, to love equally was not a choice but a circumstance forced upon him. But the truth is unavoidable: inaction is action. Neglect is a decision. And when a father does nothing while his daughter begs for his love, begs for his recognition, and is met only with rejection, the wounds inflicted are not accidental. They are deliberate. They are sustained. They are unforgivable. This is the story of a daughter who carried a love that was beaten to death before her eyes, a burden she dragged for decades in the hope that it might be revived. And it is the story of how, in the end, she buried it. Because no love—no matter how deep, no matter how desperate—can survive when all it is ever met with is cruelty.