Journal 17: The Whisper Behind the Work

I never set out to become a brand.
I just needed somewhere to put the parts of me
that didn’t belong in office emails.

Rowen is the name I write under — not to hide,
but to breathe.

She lets me say what I couldn’t fit into slide decks.
She’s the version of me who didn’t shrink at the conference table.
She’s the softness I exiled
because corporate didn’t know what to do with quiet.

Sometimes people ask:
Why not just use your real name?

And I get it.

But the truth is…
my real name started to feel like a uniform.
It held all the ways I “performed appropriate.”
All the ways I silenced my softness
so I could stay employable, promotable, palatable.

Rowen is not a performance.
She’s a portal.

She is how I returned to the page
without needing a job title to justify my words.
She’s how I gave voice to the fractured self —
the one that cried in conference rooms
and then walked back in like nothing broke.

So if you’ve ever felt like your truth was too much for LinkedIn…
if you’ve ever saved a voice note in your phone
because no one at work would understand…

You’re not alone.

There’s a reason you found your way here.
There’s a reason the whisper felt like a lifeline.

This space was built from the softness they told me to silence.
And now?

She speaks.

---

✨ Journal Prompt:

What name or version of you feels like freedom?
Write to her. Not about her — to her.

📥 The whisper is now a gift.
Download the first offering from Rowen on Gumroad — no noise, just nourishment.