Welcome. I hope you’ll become my neighbor.
I’m Angie Alt, a writer, community care activist, independent researcher, and former health coach and longtime resident of the wellness space. Some know me as one half of the duo behind Autoimmune Wellness, others for my activism on and off social media, and some simply as a friend, family member, and, yes, neighbor.
Healing and understanding how to live well, despite the obstacles in front of us, have always been central to the work I do. After spending a decade helping clients manage chronic illness through nutrition and lifestyle, I realized that so many of the threats to wellness that we face today cannot be resolved through individual action alone. Our personal health and resilience hinges on the health and resilience of our communities. Community is medicine.
Getting well as individuals, neighborhoods, cities, nations, and a planet means embracing the concept of community care, and discovering new ways to dismantle the structures that keep us unwell. I take cues from Desmond Tutu here when he said we must “go upstream” and figure out why people “fall in the river.”
What is Notes from a Neighbor?
Notes from a Neighbor is my offering to help shift the way we think about wellness from an individual responsibility to a group project. In a world that insists on light speed, giant leaps, and complex processes, Notes from a Neighbor is about embracing a slower pace, smaller steps, and simplified everything.
The words I share here (more on my publishing schedule below) focus on examining the fractures in our systems, and using our power as creative, thoughtful, compassionate internet neighbors to imagine new ways to heal those fractures.
But while we’re always keeping the big picture in mind, this space is also about smaller connections – with each other and with our world. It’s about celebrating the small moments that make us human (because joy is an act of resistance!), and using our compassion and empathy to strengthen the families, communities, and spaces we occupy every day.
My notes are for you if:
you feel like it’s all (gestures broadly) too much.
you care, but you’re also overwhelmed and burnt out.
you suspect there are reasons beyond “not practicing good boundaries” that lead to burnout.
you’re sick of hyper-individualistic health and wellness messaging.
you crave honest conversations about hard subjects that help you imagine and articulate the next right move in this unstable moment.
you believe community can be a form of medicine, but you also need small, slow, and simple steps to take action.
sometimes you want to laugh (and curse) about it all.
you like food.
My notes will help you:
keep your “information diet” in check. Maybe you want to stay informed but don’t want the fire hose of TV, social media posts, or constant “breaking news” alerts on your phone.
frame hard concepts in new ways. Maybe you need language for discussions in your real-life communities that go beyond surface-level talking points.
shift from paralysis to action. Maybe you need guidance and gentle accountability on that “One Small Thing” you can do to help.
move the needle. Maybe you know that collective impact matters, but you hadn’t yet found a sustainable way to join in.
feel less alone. There’s really only an us. Maybe this is the place where you can embrace community care and be embraced back.
laugh and eat some good food. Maybe sometimes you just want to be a human being.
What am I sharing?
Notes Archive | A collection of deep dive essay focused on unpacking and exploring solutions to one of the systemic challenges facing our collective wellbeing. I’ll discuss things like burnout, chronic illness, structural power imbalances, resisting what divides us, and more – topics that merit a thoughtful, nuanced conversation and can’t be summed up in a social media post.
Last Monday of the Month | The “Brain Dump” is a monthly collection of things that have grabbed my attention and are related to community care and helping us all actually achieve health and well-being.
Recipe Archive | Community kitchen recipes – simple, nourishing (not just physically) dishes to support the health of you, your families and your communities. Because food will always be medicine! (There are brand-new, exclusive recipes for paid subscribers and previously published freebies for everyone.)
How It Works
There are three tiers: free subscribers, paid subscribers, and founding members.
Here’s what they all get:
For the rock bottom price of $0, free subscribers get:
access to the Note Archive and the monthly “Brain Dumps,”
access to the previously published Recipe Archive, and
to utilize commenting privileges.
Paid subscribers spend $5/month or $50/year for everything free subscribers get, plus:
access to the full Recipe Archive, including brand-new, exclusive Notes from a Neighbor original recipes, and
the bonus, “Neighborhood Supper Club” ebook.
The “Neighborhood Supper Club” is a downloadable ebook on throwing a party (aka practicing community care) with your IRL friends and neighbors. They are step-by-step guides, with recipes from drinks to desserts, shopping lists, prep timelines, and playlists, complete with photos and professional graphic design.
There are 143 notes and recipes here, so with a paid monthly subscription, you support my work for about $2.38 for each note or recipe, and get an ebook for free.
Founding members spend $100/vear (or whatever they want above $50) for everything paid subscribers get, plus:
the joy of supporting me.
Founding members are folks who probably already know and value my work and want to show some extra love.
Why subscribe?
If you are someone who is concerned about the health of yourself or your community and are looking for new ways of thinking about the problems we’re facing today, I hope you join me here. My monthly posts (+Recipe Archive) are dedicated to folks who recognize the need for new ways to respond to the pressing challenges we face as a collective. They’re for people who want to be more informed – not just in surface-level news and politics, but about the deeper aspects of articulating and navigating the uneasiness we feel about the dominant narratives shaping our world. For those who want to begin the work of imagining the next right move.
Join me!
Please subscribe to join the conversation for sustainable, long term wellness for ourselves and our communities.
If Instagram is your thing, you can find me there too: @angie.alt
