Blink Space

My Personal Rebranding Journey and all the Drafts Between

By Dayna Rhode

I’ve been sitting here before this blinking cursor, patiently awaiting the moment of truth. As I stare at the screen ahead, I am observing the impulse to change my Instagram bio more often than I should. These 150 characters are supposed to summarize who I am, what I offer, and why people should care. Isn’t it interesting that of all these things I should know at my age, I can’t seem to settle on a few descriptive words? 

Recently I’ve offered a range of bios, from the professionally playful “Writer | Content Creatrix” to the spiritually suggestive “Expressional Unearthing of the Debriding Soul.” Having tried so many more of these on, I am here — post-deletion — awaiting my next sentence with each passing blink.

Personal Brand and existential Coherence

Creatrixes often appear to the orthodox as suffering from self-commitment problems — scatterbrained if you will. However, it’s the dance of our arrhythmic paths that can, at times, curse us Jills-of-all-skills into feeling constricted by 150 characters. Lately, I have taken an interest in personal branding on social media and found myself at a loss for words in how best to present this composite of all I consider myself to be. Month after month rewriting my bio at whim I have noticed each surfacing true-to-life parallel. I’ve used the branding process to rediscover what I like after crawling out from the lifeless wife and mother identity I felt sandwiched between for so long. In a way, I was shopping for a best fit as if there would be only one. Some people find shopping energetically draining, but to me shopping around for all the elements that fit my personality was fun. Unlike the mall, this is the stuff we’re made of — or, about to be made of.

How do we want to look to the world, contribute to the world, and how are we showing up for ourselves?

How do we want to look to the world, contribute to the world, and how are we showing up for ourselves? That is the essentials of “branding” that dismisses everything on trend. Even for those who don’t want to be in business, shaping a personal “brand” to share your essence with the world can really lend nicely to an empowered path of self-discovery. Once you’ve undergone a personal branding journey, you’ll likely come to observe and appreciate all the extrasensory details that subtly form a story behind other people’s posts without them having to say a thing. When done properly, someone’s social media page goes for beyond branding aesthetics and right to the door of their essence and uniqueness.

Recalibrating my Revamp

So yes, as this cursor blinks I recount the value and fun I’ve had revamping the Instagram account of my personal passion project @dayna.nightrosestudio into @dayna.dayleahdrafts. Though I am still crafting a bio, “heARTist who writes. Inquire within,” seems good enough. Anything more might be overkill. All I know is I do not want to die to a 150-character summary. Perhaps these blinks slip away in defiance like the protector of the small-self warning against another tight-fitting, monochromatic relationship.

Surely I’ve given “me” far too much thought.

Yet, in many of these true-to-life descriptive parallels, I’ve come to see every blinking moment an opportunity to recalibrate. Decide on if I am recommitting to more of the same, or will I be redirecting my time and energy to unearthing each layer of a truer self. Might these blinking cursors be holding space for divergence? Aligning in the calibration that we actually exist within all of it. Might these blinks on screen suggest we never have to be done or have it all figured out?

Transitional Transparency

It was always my preference in my heART studio space to hang my unfinished work up on the wall before my paintings were done. It gave me time to watch and glean what was missing or how the piece made me feel. On my account, I found myself changing outfits in the open-air fitting rooms of the internet, baring my undone inner artisan too. An authentically messy version of an archetypal night goddess we can all experience regardless of age, education, or professional merit. For me, sometimes she would show up eloquently dressed to edit past posts into a more pulled-together version of herself at peace. A few years ago I alluded to this vulnerable availability in one of my Instagram posts, “Do you hang up your works-in-progress? How about in life — with you?”. It was an open question that none of my fellow artists replied to, but it called out that part of us that judge our transitional states and what we have to show for our existence thus far. I feel so many others hide their interests and deeper desires until they are confident they can appear “figured out” to everyone else. 

Not me— I’ve got to be on draft 999 by now. Unsurprisingly, this is how I settled on coexisting with the word “draft”. Night Rose Studio was well suited for my art space, but was too feminine mystique for professional appearances once I decided to revamp this ole maiden. This is how my next draft intends to be expressed: professionally paid. Not gig money. Not tip jar. Creatrix has come for the whole professional-grade paycheck doing business as Dayna Rhode! So this her in I, settled on DayLeah Drafts, alluding to my name first drafted at birth: Dayna Leah Rhode. Giving honor to the gifted anagram at the center of my evolving identity. Healing all degraded versions page by page, day by day.

Evolving With Spirit and Spark

We’re often told what we identify as is not our truest nature. Yet most skip the conversation on what happens if we could get close. This is the core of personal branding people in business aren’t often digging for. Live you like an embodied identity of the best you have to give. I’m suggesting that living life run by any false or outdated identities becomes a certain death to what inevitably light us up. So switch it up whenever necessary and eventually something might stick. I suppose, in letting myself change outfits through all the stories and all the bios, I’ve settled that it’s best to give myself an allowance for an identity that evolves. If I were to leave this bio blank to the void of its own creation, summarized only by an energy that speaks for itself… what then algorithm, what then?

Dayna is a melodramatic humorist, posting her musings and (somewhat) existential content on @Dayna.DayLeahDrafts of Instagram. The conceptual sketchbook and life-in-drafts designed for the purpose of sharing creative spark from her self-study studio.