When the Ache Remains news:

1. You can pre-order a *signed copy* from my most beloved bookshop, Point Reyes Books

2. Enter your pre-order receipt here (from any retailer) to receive a link to an upcoming workshop with me as a bow of gratitude from my heart.

   (& here is some info on why pre-ordering actually matters so much!)

3. Save the date (more soon): Book talk on 6/12 at Copperfield’s in Petaluma

[ A song I’m loving ]

I’ve been giving myself a lot of quiet, internal shoutouts lately as I practice showing up with more courage and willingness to be seen in earnest, to be seen trying. It has made me want to recognize the courage everywhere, the kind we don’t often notice or make room to name. Here are some shoutouts on my heart —

Shoutout to everyone pushing past their own fears in order to add more beauty and care to this aching world.

Shoutout to to everyone learning to meet and nurture their own pain so as to not pass it along to those it doesn’t belong to.

Shoutout to everyone doing the tender work of trusting your gifts so you can stop keeping them to yourself and start sharing them more fully.

Shoutout to everyone tending to their inner process in order to show up more fully for the process of loving this world.

Shoutout to everyone unlearning what was never meant to be internalized and learning how to live from the essence of you.

Shoutout to everyone meeting their aches with tenderness, and letting that tenderness spread outward and outward.

Shoutout to everyone choosing to thaw instead of harden in the face of grief, thus turning grief into a mechanism of loving.

Shoutout to everyone greeting the unknown with presence, greeting uncertainty with willingness, greeting wobbliness with an outreached hand.

Shoutout to everyone devoted to singing, laughing, dancing, and staying silly in the face of all that crumbles.

Shoutout to everyone making medicine from your wounds, making compassion from your hurt, making something from all you’ve moved through.

Shoutout to everyone refusing to quiet yourself in the face of loud, violent men.

Shoutout to everyone creating art, creating songs, creating books and paintings and poems, creating gatherings, creating care, creating nurturance, creating life.

Shoutout to everyone doing the quiet, private work of tending to yourself and those closest to you, in ways no one else sees, in ways you don’t often get credit for.

Shoutout to everyone choosing to stay open to the unimaginable beauty of this world, the brightening sky, the miracle of people returning from space, the blooms bursting forth from earth, the acts of kindness, the surprises, the pleasure of aliveness.

Shoutout to everyone practicing telling the truth when you’re used to saying whatever you think the person in front of you wants to hear.

Shoutout to everyone no longer making yourself small as a source of comfort for others.

Shoutout to everyone willing to feel your achiest parts while staying tethered to the parts of you that have never been hurt.

Shoutout to everyone making space for something new to become available, to become possible, to become itself.

Shoutout to everyone saying the thing that’s hard to say.

Shoutout to everyone taking risks on behalf of your heart’s longing, on behalf of your truest desires, on behalf of what you dream of.

Shoutout to everyone feeling rage in the face of violence and cruelty, and not letting that rage turn into violence.

Shoutout to everyone exploring what it means to love in spite of inherent imperfections, what it means to love imperfect people, what it means to love with ample room for mistakes, what it means to love as if it could be ever-widening.

Shoutout to everyone cultivating the courage required of what you are wanting to give to this world.

Shoutout to everyone noticing the ways generosity is all around, even now.

Shoutout to everyone doing things that are hard for you that others assume are easy.

Shoutout to everyone asking hard questions and not rushing to answers before they are ready to reveal themselves honestly.

Shoutout to everyone unfurling from conditioning that keeps you from seeing the humanity in all living things.

Shoutout to everyone apologizing after saying something you wish you hadn’t said.

Shoutout to everyone trusting the necessary act of creating amid destruction.

Shoutout to everyone staying tender, even now.

Shoutout to everyone staying open, even now.

Shoutout to everyone staying close to presence, even now.

Shoutout to everyone starting again after forgetting.

Writing this felt like drinking an entire glass of water and taking a deep breath, like remembering there are people everywhere doing things that matter, trusting in the unseen acts of courage being tended to daily, within and around me. Recognizing this doesn’t change the world, but it changes me.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ Some beautiful writing explorations

△ I’ve been loving listening to this podcast with my daughter

△ Moved by these words in this moment

△ Reading Lost Art’s first zine and so touched by it

△ David Whyte on being lost

△ Our longing for inconvenience (the New Yorker)

△ The way shadows blend us right into a place

With care,
Lisa

Thank you for reading. Everything I share comes from my own heart; this publication, and everything I do, is created without the use of AI.

When the Ache Remains news:

1. You can pre-order a *signed copy* from my most beloved bookshop, Point Reyes Books

2. Enter your pre-order receipt here (from any retailer) to receive a link to an upcoming workshop with me as a bow of gratitude from my heart.

   (& here is some info on why pre-ordering actually matters so much!)

[ A song I’m loving ]

“I’ve got me.”

This is my prayer, my touchstone, my landing place. It is my grounding rock, my ceremony, my ritual. It’s a note I have on my desk beside the first photo of me as a newborn, taken by a social worker; it’s a truth I water daily. It’s what I’ve learned most from being with my pain, from meeting my aches with reverence instead of shame, from moving toward the tender spaces within and choosing to open my heart to them, to love them.

I’ve got me.
I’ve got me.
I’ve got me.

I hold my infant self in my arms and cradle her. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
I witness my fear, my terror. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
I feel the ghost of grief becoming visible again. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
I look out at the world, and anger looms. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
I miss my grandmother, my sister, my friend. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
Old strategies of protection surface again. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
Someone ripples love toward the shore of me. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
My shoulders start rising to my ears. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
Confusion feels like being in the storm’s eye. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
The beauty is so bright, and soon it will leave. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.
The risk of possibility feels too big, too unknown. I’ve got us. I’ve got me.

Each time I remember I’ve got me, I return to presence just a little bit more. I remember I am an adult now— an adult with choice, agency, and power I can harness for the benefit of myself and the earth. Each time I remember I’ve got me, I return to my body just a little bit more. I remember I can breathe, move, stretch, shake, cry, laugh, yearn, feel, know, trust, be. This remembrance guides how I want to be with myself, how I want to hold my hurt, how I want to witness the ache in others, how I want to be fully available for the love that asks for my attention more often than even I realize.

When you’ve got you, there is nowhere to hide because there is no hiding needed. You know you can steady yourself enough to tend to whatever it is you may find swirling inside. You know you can trust yourself to face what requires facing— and you know you’ll find more ease, love, and precious presence on the other side of that facing.
When you’ve got you, there is nothing to run from; there is only a running into the warmth of your own arms, your own embrace. You can soften in the holding of all you contain, all you feel. You can turn what was once ice into water, letting fluidity shape the places stagnancy once lived. When you’ve got you, the walls you spent so long constructing have permission to slowly fall; you can hold your heart in the vulnerability of letting life in. When you’ve got you, grief doesn’t need to remain stuck inside; you let the current of life’s tenderness take you where you need to go.
When you’ve got you, a strong back gets to support a soft heart; your soft heart allows you to not only connect with others and the world but to respond from center, from care, from the gifts only you have.

I’ve got me looks like soothing your fears instead of letting them guide how you show up in the world.
I’ve got me looks like turning toward your breath as an anchor instead of forgetting you are breathing.
I’ve got me looks like nurturing the young parts inside instead of leading from your tenderest hurts.
I’ve got me looks like taking the risk, like leaning into life’s gifts, like letting opportunity bring goodness, not just the potential of more hurt.
I’ve got me looks like asking for help when you need it and receiving support when it is offered.
I’ve got me looks like giving your grief a seat at the table and hearing what it has to say instead of banishing it to the basement.
I’ve got me looks like trying, like revealing your own courage to yourself, like reaching toward possibility instead of hopelessness, like trusting your own wisdom, like letting delight touch your spirit, like an ongoing remembrance of your true nature.

You’ve got you.
You’ve got you.
You’ve got you.

This is an excerpt from When the Ache Remains, out two weeks from tomorrow (!). It is my hope that this book will feel like a sacred object instead of something to quickly consume, like an outreached hand, like something you can turn toward when you need a mirror of your true essence, like a companion and map back toward your own willingness to meet yourself with the kind of love your achiest crevices so deeply deserve. So many tender feelings as I imagine this book in people’s hands; mostly, though, is an abiding gratitude at getting to be here, sharing this during this uncertain and wobbly time, at all.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ Seeing Terry Tempest Williams speak about The Glorians in Point Reyes last week

△ Qigong practice

△ The fragility effect

△ The Artemis II crew, obviously

△ A newer podcast I’ve been loving

△ Eager for this pre-order to arrive tomorrow

△ On ferns, care, and mentorship

△ Walking the same 2.2 mile wetland loop every day

With care,
Lisa

Thank you for reading. Everything I share comes from my own heart; this publication, and everything I do, is created without the use of AI.

When the Ache Remains news:

1. You can pre-order a *signed copy* from my most beloved bookshop, Point Reyes Books

2. Enter your pre-order receipt here (from any retailer) to receive a link to an upcoming workshop with me as a bow of gratitude from my heart.

[ A song I’m loving (& dancing to) ]

Do you ever pause to reflect on the road you’ve traveled down to get to where you are now? On the countless pitstops, detours, and hours spent lost, wondering if you’d ever find your way back? Do you ever take stock of all you’ve encountered just to make it to this moment, this very second, you reading these words? Do you ever look back and see your younger self standing in awe, watching where they ended up and feeling astounded by what they’ve already made it through, by what they never could have imagined? Do you ever imagine what your younger self would think of you now? How they might nuzzle up to the safety you’ve carved out for yourself? How they’d sigh with relief at the knowing of your ability to have a softened heart in the face of madness? How they’d laugh about all the ways you are still so them in the essence of you? Do you ever let yourself marvel at your own becoming? Do you ever allow the gift of it all to seep into your marrow, be felt in your bones, be registered in your spirit? Do you allow yourself to do this, even when you still have so far you’d love to go? Even when there are still so many paths you hope to traverse in the life ahead?

I’ve been thinking of my younger self a lot lately. I’ve been thinking of the ways she was frozen in fear for so much of her life. Her mastery of self-protection. Her inability to imagine herself old. Her hesitation to dream. Her mirroring of whoever was in front of her, unable to know how to be herself. Her silliness. Her deep, abiding creative impulses that didn’t always get let out. Her lovingly-crafted walls that kept life at bay, kept it all just far enough to never feel fully alive. Her longings tucked away in the private corners of herself. Her heart like a tightly-wrapped gift she didn’t know how to open. Her sweet singing voice, her shyness, her journals, her anger, her dance moves, her locked-up sorrow, all asking for some river to finally flow down.

I’m thinking of writing as a carving out of just one river for that flow. I’m thinking of the slow undoing of all that kept her from knowing her belonging. I’m thinking of the profound act of letting myself be seen now on behalf of her. I’m thinking of the work of sharing about this book instead of hiding as a nod to her, to being witnessed trying, to letting it be okay to be seen in process instead of in perfection. I’m thinking of what a wild thing it is to be here at all, what a miracle it is, what a reminder of possibility it is that I am sitting here, writing to you.

When I got the final copies of my forthcoming book in the mail a few days ago, so much emotion flooded my heart. There was grief for how long it took me to feel some semblance of aliveness. There was tenderness in imagining these intimate words held in other people’s hands. There was pride in watching my daughter open the box with delight and amazement, “I love it, Mama!!!”. There was fear in being perceived, in being misunderstood. There was the wild gift of getting to write and share this book at all. There was a wave of joy for all I know it took to get here. There was so much, the whole spectrum of it, all held in the holding of this offering.

Perhaps most of all, though, was a deep and abiding sense that those younger versions of me would be really proud of current me. And there was gratitude for getting to share these words at all. For every tendril of ache that got tended to so I could be here, offering my heart in this way. For what I know this means, even if no one else does. For the gift of getting to share in connection around all that comes with being alive during this time. For the act of creativity as alchemy. For every younger version of me that fought to be here, to stay. And for the surrender and release of whatever this book means to anyone else, knowing it will find its people and I’ve already done my job.

May you take time to feel the gift of all you’ve made it through already.
May you feel in your bones the sacredness of you being here at all.
May you find the courage to offer your heart, even as your legs tremble.
May you honor every version of you that didn’t know how to be here, but did it anyway.
May you pause in the moments that ask for your own recognition.
May you turn toward your own life with eyes of reverence.
May you witness your own courage, the kind no one else knows is courageous.
May you stay a little longer in that witnessing.
May you trust all you’ve already traversed and all the unseen paths ahead.
May you let it all shape your heart, again and again.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

Thank you for reading. Everything I share comes from my own heart; this publication, and everything I do, is created without the use of AI.

When the Ache Remains news:

1. You can pre-order a *signed copy* from my most beloved bookshop, Point Reyes Books

2. Enter your pre-order receipt here (from any retailer) to receive a link to an upcoming workshop with me as a bow of gratitude from my heart.

[ A song I’m loving ]

I gathered all the work from others I want to share with you today (all linked at the bottom) and am now facing a blank page, realizing I don’t have much to say. Or perhaps I have a lot to say, but I don’t know how to say it quickly, or succinctly, or beautifully, or here. It’s one month until my book comes out and I’m feeling the fatigue of vulnerability that comes with sharing about it so regularly. I’m feeling the bittersweetness of my four year old attending her fourth protest yesterday — the ache of having to gather, and the medicine that comes from being able to gather. I’m feeling disoriented as Normal Life travels on while the world’s seams continue slowly ripping apart. I’m feeling a distaste for the speed we’re expected to produce at, a speed that feels farther and farther from my natural rhythm. I’m feeling some grief as winter fades and cocooning is less acceptable. I’m feeling a sharp tenderness around all that being human requires of us lately — perhaps always — and the pressures each of us are facing daily, both privately and shared. I’m feeling a lot; I imagine you are, too.

I suppose what I want to share today is this: a reminder that perhaps we will lose out on something by choosing our right pace, but choosing our right pace might always bring more aliveness than chasing what doesn’t actually align.

And this: an orientation toward humanity above all else: above expecting ourselves to act like machines, above sales numbers or rankings or popularity, above the judgment and criticism we might easily cling to for the comfort of perceived control, above pushing ourselves or others beyond our limits, above anything that forgets to center the place a heart beats in.

And this: a normalizing of how hard this all is: this balancing of ache and beauty, this facing dehumanization while trying to stay close to all that is soft, this tending to the wider world while also feeding our own tiny worlds, this lingering uncertainty always dangling in the background of the places we’re supposed to feel sturdy in.

And this: some urging toward remembering the trees and bugs and moss and waters around us might have something to teach us, and this nudge toward listening to more than the pressures the systems we live in place upon us, and this lifelong practice of staying close to the things that make us human, the things that make us alive.

And this: the truth that none of us are our work, but we are vessels through which countless ways of being can make their way.

And this: permission to let yourself notice all the ways you are incompatible with the world’s violence, and to hold that incompatability as a gift.

And this: an outreached hand to let you know you’re not the only one, no matter what you might think you’re alone in.

And this: a prompt: can you make some space for all you’re already doing? There will always be more to do. There will always be someone ahead of you. There will always be another item on the to-do list. And, look at all you’ve already done. Let that be celebrated a bit more, noticed a bit more, given some attention to. It matters, too.

And this: the knowing that grieving this world is just one way of loving it, and there is still so much to love, and my child reminds me of this every single day.

And this: an embracing of being weird, spiral-y, confused, un-pin-downable, expansive, ever-changing, fluid, multilayered, beyond any one thing.

And this: a refusal to participate in making myself a category, a hierarchy, a point of value based on output, a number, a follower count, an open rate, a constant upward trajectory. A refusal to treat myself and my work as if it is anything but from my heart, which cannot be measured. A refusal to go along with ways of being that feel like death to what my soul needs to stay alive. A refusal to contort myself into something packaged instead of allowing myself to grow more and more wild.

And this: a blessing I’ve held close for my own life and for the whole of our world over the last few years — words that seem to act as a holding ground as courage kindles inside, words that remind me to tend to what is asking to be formed, asking to surface, asking to come alive, even now, when I don’t quite know what to say:

For a New Beginning, John O’Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ This conversation was so vulnerable, meaningful, and meant a whole lot to me

△ Much medicine to be found in these thirty minutes

△ False Spring

△ A grounding resource these days

△ Tears reading this one

△ “i don’t want to “save time.” i want to spend it, doing this.” Every word.

△ Making Light

△ On art, money, and permission

△ A simple and profound task —

With care,
Lisa

Thank you for reading. Everything I share comes from my own heart; this publication, and everything I do, is created without the use of AI.

When the Ache Remains news:

1. You can now pre-order a *signed copy* from my most beloved bookshop, Point Reyes Books, which truly makes me want to cry.

2. Enter your pre-order receipt here (from any retailer) to receive a link to an upcoming workshop with me as a bow of gratitude from my heart.

A song I’m loving (trying not to link to Spotify anymore)

Hi, dear reader. Goodness, I am grateful to get to write to you. The California heatwave is ceasing; although the warmth felt nourishing in some sense, it also poked at my eco-grief. San Francisco hit 90 degrees for the first time ever in March. All the while, two Great Horned Owls are speaking to each other in my backyard as I write this. The magenta rhododendrons are bursting forth. The bees buzz songs of new life along the blooming wisteria. Somehow, still. The dichotomy of beauty and grief continues its ever-present dance, and my heart stays devoted to learning how to be with it all — how to let it all move me deeper into the world instead of away from it.

It is so hard to do sometimes, isn’t it?

Somewhere in between the climate crisis, the world’s violence, and collective chaos, I feel myself being rearranged in my own small life. Parts and pieces inside have been stirred and are now in a standstill, suspended in mid-air before settling into their rightful places or, in some cases, departing altogether. My work in the world is slowly shifting, unfurling from the shape it has been held in and asking to take on new directions, new ways of offering and Being With, new forms of expression and holding that aren’t yet crystallized. I am neither here nor there, lingering in the liminal, learning to stay here as long as necessary, rather than forcing knowing before it naturally comes. Clarity doesn’t always arrive with the turn of a season, in the very moment we want it. Many of us are in this tender place, this shaky ground, this budging momentum after stillness, this longing to allow the Fire Horse energy to do its work in our lives. This place can feel both beautiful and terrifying, this free-falling into trust.

It feels like there is so much I don’t know right now — so much uncertainty, a thickening fog, a beckoning forth toward something I cannot yet see. The roots have broken through the surface and found the light, but it takes time for the light to do its work. It takes effort to believe in what the seeds can become. And yet in this clouded place, I am leaning on all I do know… all I am sure of. I’ve been asking myself, what do I know for sure?, and the question itself reorients me toward my own sense of trust and assuredness amid the trepidation. It resources and grounds me. I want to share some of my answers with you, perhaps as a nudge to collect your own:

What do I know for sure?
I know courage usually requires an allowing of uncertainty, for if we were certain, we wouldn’t need courage; I know I want to practice more courage, which must mean I also need to practice allowing uncertainty to hold more than just fear.

What do I know for sure?
I know no external gaze, achievement, perception, or success can replace the way we look at and hold ourselves in our quietest, most private moments.

What do I know for sure?
I know there are so many things I can count on: the nourishment of daily nettle infusions. The gift of poetry. The wisdom of my teachers. The sweetness of my daughter’s singing. Daylight widening until June. Feet on earth. Practice.

What do I know for sure?
I know none of us can carry the weight alone, which is precisely why there is ample room for each and every one of our gifts, offerings, and hearts added to the pot, quenching what this world is aching for, together.

What do I know for sure?
I know there are some things I can only do alone — some terrain I can only traverse in the confines of my own mind and heart — some tending that can only be truly met with my own willing hands — and I know the gift in accepting this, again and again.

What do I know for sure?
I know the grief of being misunderstood is something the mask protects against, and, I know the grief of never being who you truly are might be even bigger.

What do I know for sure?
I know Who I Truly Am is always changing, which means I might surprise myself and others, which means I must remain open to being surprised, which means I must loosen my grip on what I think I know.

What do I know for sure?
I know every single one of us will get it wrong sometimes, which means grace is required, which must mean it is always available somehow if I look hard enough.

What do I know for sure?
I know beauty is not a barrier to bearing witness to all else but is instead a bolster as we face all else, and joy is not a detour to walk down once in a while but is instead something to become a home to whenever it visits, and we must, we must, we must.

What do I know for sure?
I know confusion sometimes works like a holding ground, feeling safer than taking the leap clarity asks of us, and this gives me so much more compassion for when stuckness becomes a way of being instead of a pitstop.

What do I know for sure?
I know there is something inside each of us oriented toward healing, toward wholeness, toward humanity, and I want to stay close to what that something is.

What do I know for sure?
I know the outcome rarely matters as much as the process, and the process gets so diluted when it demands a certain outcome, and I want to practice turning back toward process over result as often as I can.

What do I know for sure?
I know I can be a late bloomer and still have plenty of time to bloom.

What do I know for sure?
I know much of this is easily forgotten when I’m on my phone, on an app, or on autopilot.

What do I know for sure?
I know what brings me back to the truth most readily: nature. Long hugs. Talks with beloved friends. Community. Writing. Movement. A walk. Logging off. Rest. Being of service. Laughter. Music. Connecting with the elements. Reading. Getting quiet. I know my phone does not bring me back to the truth most readily.

What do I know for sure?
I know we’re all going to die, and we don’t know when, and staying close to that reality might illuminate what is truly important and what isn’t quicker than most things will.

What do I know for sure?
I know the unknown is the only thing that contains every single possibility, which gives me the courage to allow, face, maybe even love it.

What do I know for sure?
I know I want to love as much as I can, and it will take a lifetime of practice to learn how to do that with less fear and more openness, and perhaps that is the most loving thing of all, that willingness to keep practicing, keep fumbling, keep turning toward love again and again.

What do I know for sure?
I know love looks so many ways, and one of my favorite ways is pure goofiness.

What do I know for sure?
I know I am breathing in this moment. My child is breathing in this moment. My partner and cats are breathing in this moment. You are breathing in this moment. Because we are breathing, it is not too late. Because we are breathing, we can choose to start over, pivot, or change shape. Because we are breathing, we can practice what we say we want more of. Because we are breathing, we are embodying some wild, mysterious miracle, simply by being here at all.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ So grateful for the gift of being in conversation with for her beautiful podcast, Tarot for the Wild Soul

△ A gorgeous new project from Maria Popova and Willow Defebaugh

△ Saved by the beauty of the world (tears)

△ On hopelessness, the virtue of stamina, and showing grace to ourselves

△ My daughter’s new obsession from our co-obsession, Phoebe Wahl

△ Five ways to draw creativity closer

△ This lovely embodied reflection on the Spring Equinox

△ Dreaming of being back at this table, in these woods

With care,
Lisa

Thank you for reading. Everything I share comes from my own heart; this publication, and everything I do, is created without the use of AI.

When the Ache Remains news:

1. You can now pre-order a *signed copy* from my most beloved bookshop, Point Reyes Books, which truly makes me want to cry.

2. Enter your pre-order receipt here (from any retailer) to receive a link to an upcoming workshop with me as a bow of gratitude from my heart.

A song I’m loving:

1 — I’m just going to get the vulnerable thing out of the way instead of trying to create some fluff or beauty or lead-up around it. If you have found value or nourishment from my writing and work over the last many years, will you pre-order my forthcoming book, When the Ache Remains — if not for you then for a friend, a Little Free Library, or a gift? I’m noticing my cheeks feel hot as I type that out so matter-of-factly. It’s a tad embarrassing to be earnest in public — to ask for what I need bluntly. It’s hard to push past all the imaginary criticism and judgment. I’m imagining my cozy shell, beckoning me back into hiding. And yet it feels important to just ask.

I’ve never been able to do the tricks or performance often required of selling books. I couldn’t bring myself to live-vlog my intimate recording process, or turn my writing journey into reels, or do most of the things I’m supposed to be doing to get more pre-orders. I am not very “good” at social media, promotion, or selling my work. It’s been tough being online at all lately, to be honest. Something in my soul dies when I try to force showing up in ways that are wildly unnatural to me; my aversion to anything inauthentic can blur with my stubbornness at times. But I am good at being genuine, so I figured I would just ask. I trust anyone who judges my ask was never going to buy my book anyway. And something in my heart widens when I remember I can just ask for help. We can just ask for help. Your preorders make a huge difference for me as an author, for every author, and I appreciate each one deeply. Ugh/Whew. I did it! You can do it, too! Just ask for the thing! Just say what you want!

2 — I’ve been paying attention to pacing lately. There are places I am trying to keep up with things that don’t even matter to me. There are spots I am needing to slow down and linger in longer than is comfortable. There are parts of my life asking for more momentum and speed, while others are practically begging for more luxuriating, more patience, more turning away from the clock and calendar altogether. The pace of our wider systems feels like a mismatch for my internal rhythms, for nature’s guidance, for what is required for presence to become itself. I am reminding myself often this mismatch isn’t a personal flaw or failure but is designed to keep us from our nature, and I get to choose how I relate to my nature. I get to choose my pace, my timing, wherever I have agency in doing so. We all do. There is grief and relief here, as there is in most important things.

What do you want to keep up with? What are you keeping up with that doesn’t even matter to you? Who is your pace for? What would your pace be if it were for you? What is asking for slower? What is asking for faster? What is asking for more time to notice the pacing that would feel most attuned and alive?

3 — A reminder for anyone who needs it: to be in the practice of pouring more love, care, compassion, listening, witnessing, and nourishment into this hurting world is a gift. To continue widening your heart in the face of violence is a gift. To continue asking how you can help is a gift. To recognize all the ways you are already helping instead of assuming you must always do more is a gift. To notice the ways you simply cannot adjust to the hurt unfolding around you is a gift. To be moved by the ache of it all is a gift. To hurt when you see hurting is a gift. To let your feelings be felt is a gift. To listen to others is a gift. To stay with the discomfort of paying attention is a gift. To trust there is room for your gifts, your offerings, and your particular flavor of care in this world is a gift.

4 — I’ve been re-reading these words, written by Rainer Maria Rilke and translated by Joanna Macy, near daily, like medicine:

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

5 — Recent practices, ways of being, things I forget, things I want to remember, buoys amid the unbearable, sturdy places within the wobble, reminders of who and how I want to practice being, and the ultimate reminder that it is all practice:

I will ask myself, how can I add more love here? as often as possible. I will let this practice soften my hardened places.
I will stay with the discomfort of releasing what I clung to far longer than necessary. I will grieve what I once needed. I will let this grief carve space for something new to take root.
I will breathe into the places I am still trying to control. I will let my breath show me it is safe to let go, to loosen my grip.
I will shed & shed & shed until all that is left is the truest essence of me. I will let it be a practice, let it take a lifetime.
I will remember the wisdom of listening, of knowing I am not always the one who knows best, of letting myself stay humble.
I will let my heartbreak be a symbol of paying attention, of my belonging to all that exists outside of my own edges.
I will make mistakes, fail, and get it wrong; I will trust these are markers of trying instead of proof of badness.
I will return to my body’s wisdom when “figuring it out” only pulls me further from clarity; I will let things take the time they take.
I will hold my fears with so much tenderness, they’ll trust they get to come along with me as I live beyond them.
I will, at times, forget everything I say I want to practice; I will lovingly allow myself to begin again, over and over.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ Some recent books I’ve been generously gifted and am so grateful exist in this world, at this time: Heartwood; Mothers of Magic; The Practice of Attention; Healing the Oppressed Body

△ Threads of connection

△ The art of grieving in public

△ The medicine of this recent weekend workshop still lingering

△ Sinking and watching

△ How patterns change

△ Next on my reading list

△ Beauty from last weekend’s ancestral tending workshop

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

Four and a half years ago, I found myself back in a place of lostness, searching for any kernel of aliveness. It was a quiet, private kind of lost. I had just become a mother. In those early months, within those dark rooms, much of my preverbal trauma and lifelong grief unexpectedly rose to the surface, pouring over my heart as if to say, “I know you are ready to feel this now.” Looking into my daughter’s eyes and seeing myself reflected back in them, seeing myself in a baby, ignited a howl that began as a whisper and slowly grew into a volume I could no longer hush. It was a howl I had been holding since I was in the womb. I looked in the mirror and suddenly saw all the places I was still hiding. I felt a wobbly longing to finally enter into those places with a flashlight, a trembling yet open heart, and my own outreached hand.

As an adoptee, I long held shame around the pain I carried — the way I took my losses seriously when everyone around me seemed to think they were nonexistent or, even worse, insisted I should be grateful. How I obsessed over other people’s stories as a way to imagine what it would be like to know my own. How I missed someone I didn’t know. How I yearned for belonging yet couldn’t see myself anywhere. How good I got at performing. How I always related to the weirdos, the “different” kids, the ones who were othered, the ones who didn’t quite know where they fit. How much time I spent not wanting to stay. How I shielded myself with a mask far too tight for any real connection to break through. How I was so desperate to feel fully alive, while also so terrified of being fully alive.

When the hush turned into a howl, I could no longer keep the grief tucked away. It’s like it was steadily slithering past my many layers of protection, forcing its way to the surface of me, demanding to become part of my life instead of a barrier to it. Demanding to be dignified. Demanding to be free to move, to flow, to be. Demanding to teach me something I didn’t yet know. Demanding my own love.

I’ve spent the last four and a half years getting to know this grief, slowly and tenderly. I’ve traced its outline with my hands, offered it my curiosity, bowed to it, fought it, and ultimately partnered with it as a devoted companion. I started writing When the Ache Remains not from the Other Side of anything, but from the meeting of this ache — from the path itself — from the places I was remembering, the experiences my body was metabolizing, and the truths I needed to internalize a little more deeply. Little bits of letting the howl out, voicing what was long unsaid, telling myself what I’ve needed to hear, insisting upon nurturing my own aches until they knew they were safe to be fully felt.

As I faced and felt my grief, I’ve gotten to know its crevices and corridors. I got to understand the ways it softened upon recognizing my own gaze. I got to feel, in my cells and core, the way my grief carried not only my deep pain, but also my gifts. I got to recognize the ways not feeling my grief was a wise mechanism of protection. I got to learn to tend to the grief that had long been crouched down under the table, give it some air, let it stand a little taller through my own loving attunement. I got to separate the grief that is mine to carry from grief I’ve held for others who didn’t know how to feel their own. I got to feel my adult self watch as every young part of me learned they could be free now. I got to widen into an embrace big enough for all parts of me — the aching, the ecstatic, the afraid, and the courageous — to run toward, a home to them all. I still get to, so very imperfectly, furling and unfurling over and over, because this is a lifelong practice, forever emergent. Thank goodness.

Many of us carry grief that is recognizable, expected or anticipated, narrowed into an understandable category, grief that is a shared language, even when unspoken. Yet some of us also carry a kind of grief that is complex, perhaps secretive, and interwoven into the very makeup of who we are. It’s a grief that doesn’t usually get acknowledged or even known by others. It’s a grief we ourselves don’t often know how to name, hold, or soothe. It’s a grief we were born with, therefore a grief we will always carry in some form. It’s a grief that takes unimaginable courage to face, let alone feel, let alone learn to love.

So when we find ourselves suddenly able to meet that grief with a tender heart, with awareness and presence, it is a miracle. It is a reclaiming. It is a way of humanizing our pain so as to open ourselves up to loving it. It is a subversive act to grieve in a collective that often insists we don’t. It is a loving act to insist upon what has mattered to us. And it is a way of making wide the pathways that were once narrow, allowing connection and life and love to flow through the spaces we once blocked it at all costs.

I long assumed allowing my grief to emerge would annihilate me; what I didn’t realize were the ways it would teach me, the ways it would free me. I thought my grief would be something to get over, fix, finish, or heal; I now know it is something to relate to, be in communication with, hold ritual for, share, learn from, listen to, honor, and have deep reverence for.

There are days it is still so very painful. Days I want to run from it, push it back under the table, pretend it doesn’t exist. Days it causes my protectors to brace quicker than I can catch. I’m only human, after all, and this world is not an easy one to open in. Yet not running from the pain has been the greatest gift. Not being so afraid of the pain has morphed shame into compassion. And greeting that pain allows me to also greet all else that comes with aliveness, which continues to astonish my heart. Now that I know there is no place to get to where grief won’t follow, I feel so much capacity to be here, in ways my young self truly didn’t think was possible. That buoys me when I look out at the world and try to envision something more beautiful being able to take root. It buoys me when I need to imagine. It buoys me in the many moments I forget. It buoys me when I need to dream. When I need to be.

If you are learning to stay with your own grief, know it is the task of a lifetime, one that already highlights your courageous heart.
Know learning to stay with your own grief is the path toward learning to meet the grief of our wider collective with wider-open arms.
Know there is a bright gift in each moment you turn toward what you’ve long turned away from.
Know you don’t need to be on a constant upward trajectory; know you get to falter, forget, fail, and try again, over and over.
Know your grief is so deeply understandable, and needn’t be cleaned up for anyone else’s comfort.
Know there are other hands that will hold it with you, other eyes that will mirror to you the things you need to remember.
Know grief has no finish line, which means slowness is medicine.
Know there will be a moment where you realize you actually love your grief, which is also the moment you realize you don’t need it to go anywhere in order for you to lean into your aliveness.
Know it wants that for you, with you.
Know your grief is sacred.
Know it is never too late to meet it.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

PS. It is officially two months until my next book is out in the world. As a token of gratitude for all who preorder When the Ache Remains, and as an opportunity to be in community, I’m offering a workshop/gathering/contemplative space (date tbd) for anyone who preorders. My publisher made a fancy graphic and landing page to enter your preorder receipts! Thank you thank you thank you for your support.

△ The beauty woven in this conversation

△ Holding all trans folks in my heart

△ Being and somethingness

△ Intimacy is civic

△ Shock and innocence

△ Reading this for a program I’m in and it is so very good

△ The nourishment of ritual with others

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

I want to tell you my cat is resting his old, fragile bones right up against my hip as I write this, and letting his warmth feel like community is deepening my breath.

I want to tell you how exquisite it is to have an embodied realization of what you are holding onto that is truly not yours to hold — how exquisitely grief-filled, how intensely relieving, how wildly illuminating, how excruciating and confronting and itchy and also, somehow, like finally opening a door you long thought was locked, suddenly letting fresh air into what was once a tightly shut room.

I want to tell you watching people protecting their neighbors, practicing care with both wobbliness and precision, and extending their imagination to something much more beautiful than this gives me courage to keep becoming the kind of person who can do the same in my own corner, in my own heart, and each of us contributing our hearts in doable ways means so much more than any of us becoming a hero.

I want to tell you there are many ways I could be more courageous than I am, and staying connected to the humbling of truth is a pathway toward embodying who we want to become.

I want to tell you dancing is akin to being bathed in something new, if you need something new to wash over you in any given moment. (this week’s dancing song)

I want to tell you, again and again, that imperfect is literally the only option, and remembering it over and over might offer you permission to start.

I want to tell you your grief for the violence of this world is a mirror of your heart refusing to close, and a heart refusing to close in the face of all this is a subversive act, and the quiet, subtle subversive acts matter right now, too.

I want to tell you how fucking tender and courageous it is to share your heart via your art with the world. No matter what kind, what it looks like, or how it's received. Don't forget to honor the guts it requires, the quiet unseen willingness, every single time, while others might assume it’s easy or natural for you. It is no small thing.

I want to tell you what a balm it is to drive to a local community center and sit in a circle of people every Thursday night, creating an altar, sharing the ways we are being impacted by the myriad of crises arising around us, the gift of feeling held in uncertainty without attempts at eliminating or even soothing it, and the profound care that comes with deliberately undoing our aloneness.

I want to tell you the audacity of abusive, rich men makes me want to be more audacious in how I share my heart with my people, in my work, in my life.

I want to tell you the times are urgent, so we must slow down.

I want to tell you similarly to a pot of broth on the stove, sometimes things need to stir for a long, long time before we get to digest the nutrients. Sometimes, things need to stay mixed up, swirled, unformed, and unfinished longer than we’re comfortable with before clarity comes, before fullness comes. What can you learn from letting what’s stirring stir a little longer? What can you root into so as to not rush what is meant to take a while?

I want to tell you how brave it is to move through old, once-needed layers of protection to practice loving as widely, freely, and expansively as we’re meant to, and it gets to be a lifelong practice, and it’s okay if it still feels so hard sometimes.

I want to tell you it’s okay to let yourself not be who others might think you are — that you are allowed to step out of the narrow visions others hold of you and walk into a wider container for parts of you that have never been able to see the light of day. Even if no one else knows how to let themselves see it in you.

I want to tell you my book comes out in 72 days and I am still misty-eyed when I read the wildly generous things so many people I admire have shared about it.

I want to tell you I think about these words from Pema Chödrön often: “It's hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at the human predicament. Here we are with so much wisdom and tenderness, and—without even knowing it—we cover it over to protect ourselves from insecurity. Although we have the potential to experience the freedom of a butterfly, we mysteriously prefer the small and fearful cocoon of ego.”

I want to tell you nearly everyone I know is finding themselves spinning in an unfamiliar web of some kind right now, and remembering we are not the only ones is a salve for the heart.

I want to tell you sometimes, moving your body can move so much more energy than sitting down to journal can. Sometimes, letting energy be put into literal motion can shift what trying to do more internal processing can’t. Sometimes, taking on the shape and movement of an element might bring more relief than making another list.

I want to tell you there is so much I am finding beautiful during this season of life, which feels like a surprising gift as someone who long did not know how to be with beauty amid pain, who long thought doing so meant I was betraying what hurts instead of bolstering myself to truly face it.

I want to tell you I find myself clinging to what I know at times, even when what I know is begging me to let it go, and there is a lot of grace to be had with the parts of us that aren’t quite ready to listen to what we’re ready for.

I want to tell you it is deeply vulnerable to practice letting the good in amid so much uncertainty, yet letting in the good, trusting the ordinary miracles somehow still all around, and letting them bolster us as we face the unraveling feels like real wisdom.

I want to tell you my daughter just brought me a waffle made of Play-doh as I was finishing writing this, and there is generosity all around us, asking for more of our attention, and I’m going to let this waffle be a reminder to pay attention, pay attention, pay attention not just to the nightmare but to the sweetness that is right in front of me. May we all.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ These two episodes on Epstein are so incredibly clear, wise, and a must-listen for anyone trying to understand what is (has been) unfolding

△ Survivor power

△ The sweet delight of these two together

△ The love we see in Minneapolis isn’t exceptional — it’s how we survive together

△ I don’t know how to age as a trans person

△ How the Healing Comes

△ "The line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart."

△ Currently reading (also loving his podcast)

△ Communing with nature’s wonders, always

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

1. — “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” ―Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

I must return the gift. These words swirl in my heart often, a budding urge to remember staying connected to joy, beauty, and aliveness is not a betrayal to the pain but is instead an outreached hand as we wade through the pain. Choosing to look for all that is still precious and good is not a distraction from what is urgent but is instead a guardrail to hold onto amid the urgency. Staying with sweetness is not a looking away from the ache but is instead a bolstering that allows you to stay with all of it.

Even a wounded world is feeding us. There are bright purple hyacinths bursting forth from the ground in my backyard. My daughter and I crouched down when we noticed them a few days ago: “look! The first hyacinths of the year! They’re here!” A miracle amid the crumbling. A nod to something new still taking root amid what is decaying. A reminder that it is vulnerable to practice loving this world while it feels so painful, and yet loving this world is what gives us courage to care for it, tend to it, and insist on something more beautiful. And in the midst of so much pain, that insistence feels like fuel, like a flame, like a dark sky being lit up by the moon, like a nudge to keep moving.

2 — I write in my upcoming book When the Ache Remains about how I did not always know how to love this world — how I long wanted to leave this world — how I’m still learning to fully allow my love for this world to take up space in my heart. It is hard to love a world you don’t feel belonging in. It is hard to love a world that holds pain. I so deeply understand this.

Yesterday, during a program I’m currently learning in, we paired up with a partner and each took a few minutes to answer the question, “what do you love about being alive during this particular time on earth?” Lingering in the question for longer than a blip, for more than a moment, brought tears to both of our eyes. Our answers felt like prayers, like rivers leading to the most essential and pulsing humanity. I want to make it a practice to meditation on this question, to let it brighten what often gets pushed to the shadows, to let it reignite the aliveness and devotion this moment is asking of all of us, to flow to that river of essential and pulsing humanity whenever I forget it’s still there, awaiting my visit.

Even when you don’t love the world as a whole, I imagine it could feel like medicine to remember what you do love about being alive during this particular time on earth. Maybe it’s slurping spaghetti with your toddler. Or maybe it’s the experience of hearing geese calling out just a few seconds before you see them flying overhead. Maybe it’s seeing the courage of one person being held by the courage of many people. Maybe it’s coffee in bed in the morning, or water droplets resting on grass after the rain, or that one song you loved as a teenager that transports you back. But there is something potent about circling around these loves and letting them widen within us, letting them show us we are still tethered to beauty, letting them soothe our hearts. There is so much to love, even now. There is so much to love, even now. There is so much to love, even now. And this love can become courage that allows us to act on behalf of all we love, which feels like the most potent place to move from.

3 — It is February 1st. Imbolc. A halfway point between Winter and Spring. A full snow moon. A nearing of a shift from year of the snake to year of the fire horse. A small marking of a turning point, of shifts being available, of change being inevitable. I’m soaking in any and all reminders that there is movement happening. Looking to nature as a teacher of this, of all the ways change can bring about more life, feels like comfort and solid ground to stand on while so much wobbles. May the shift of month, of season, of cycle, be something to turn to when you feel stuck or stagnant. May the remembrance of change being certain allow you to lean into what is asking to be moved, shedded, released, and watered. May you water what you long for instead of what is asking to die.

4 — Generosity is an antidote to overwhelm. I shared a little about this recently, and it grounds me when I remember looking outward and acting can be incredibly soothing if I find myself stuck while looking inward. Being of service is like a buoy when staying stuck in our own minds feels akin to drowning.

4 — “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

What does it look like to practice hope when we hold it as an act of giving ourselves to the future — perhaps to a future we will never personally see or know? What does it look like to stay tethered to hope as a method of commitment, as a trust in what could be? What does it look like to use hope not as a fluffy, ignorant dream but as a choice to shatter what has never worked so something new could glimmer through? What does it look like to remember when we need to bow out of hope for a while, someone else is holding the flame — that none of us need to feel or practice it 100% of the time for our devotion to count? What does it look like to hope on behalf of children when hoping on behalf of our own broken hearts feels like too much? What does it look like to let a beautiful imagined future nourish us as we walk through the despair of what’s present? What does it look like to let hope be an axe? A shove? A giving of ourselves to something wider? These are questions I’m asking.

5 — When you look out at the world and see a swell of grief, know your body is seeing clearly. When you look out at the world and feel a surge of awe in your heart, know your body is seeing clearly. It is possible to hold both. It is human to hold both.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

No links today — another reminder (for those who need it) to look away from the screen, from the news, from the information, and tune into something wider for a moment: the moon, the trees and waters, the faces of your neighbors, a good book, an animal, a poem, some kind of spaciousness that allows you to remember all else that is still here, awaiting our attention, so as to bolster us when we return to everything that is also asking for our presence.

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

To be transparent, all I can really think about the last few days is what is unfolding in Minnesota, in my country. Liam Ramos. Alex Pretti. The dehumanizing lies. The crazy-making feeling of witnessing our leaders attacking our people. The horror and heartbreak soothed by the profoundly moving and radically human displays of solidarity, community, organizing, and resisting. What this does to our hearts, this sifting through beauty and pain, this metabolizing more than any of us can hold alone, this remembrance that we aren’t holding any of it alone. This wave of ordinary people coming together as proof we outnumber them. This. This.

Joanna Macy wrote, “If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.” Everywhere I look, I see people choosing their love for this life and each other over their fear. I see people protecting their neighbors and caring for children. I see people protesting and calling their senators. I see people getting top surgery, people fighting for rivers, people visioning new futures. I see people making art and making meals. I see people grieving and writing poems and architecturing what else could be possible. I see people awakening from freeze. I see people taking risks on behalf of humanity. I see people caring, no matter how wobbly or imperfect. I see people choosing not to look away. I see people bearing witness and being moved by what they know they see. I see people disrupting business as usual. I see people meeting the moment with as much presence as their body will allow. I see people donating and practicing generosity. I see people singing, lighting candles, putting their bodies in the way of harm. I see ordinary people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.

And while none of us know where we are headed, I want to stay oriented toward how many of us are saying No. Not this. Something better is possible. I want to stay tethered to just how many people are resisting the continuation of what has never worked for all. I want to stay stitched to the knowing that despite the systems in place and people in power that want us to believe they are the majority, they are not. We are.

There is risk in caring — in loving this world. And yet I cry as I witness countless people choosing that risk in spite of the consequences of doing so. I cry as I watch ordinary people practice the messy art of fucking caring about each other. I cry as I feel myself stretched between nurturing my child’s small, magnificent world and watching what is happening in our collective. I cry as I feel the vulnerability of unlearning hierarchies, dominance, Othering, and violence. I cry as I feel the fear of the world we’ve known slipping away, right beside the hope of a new world blooming, one I may never see but refuse to not believe in. I cry as I feel the pulse of justice beating in more and more hearts. I cry as I remember we will all make so many mistakes as we find our unique paths to showing up, and in the kind of world I want, mistakes are part of learning — learning is part of growing — growing is what something better requires. I cry as I feel the depth of ache, a mirror of the depth of love I’m seeing. I cry as I notice what a gift it is to feel all of it instead of feeling numb. I cry as I recognize this willingness to feel it all in so many of us. It is no small thing.

May your gentleness not be mistaken for weakness. May your softness not be mistaken for flimsiness. May your compassion not be mistaken for neutrality. May your tender heart burn for what is right.

May the grief, rage, and sorrow be felt so fully, so deeply, so widely, that they alchemize into power for the benefit of all living beings.

May some wise being point you toward beauty and awe when you feel squeezed in despair’s grip, when you forget there is more than just this.

May your wisdom turn into honey to help feed a world that is possible; may you include yourself in that feeding.

May you look toward all who are already building another kind of world and join them.

May the swaying trees remind you to move, to sway, to feel the breeze, to remember you are part of something.

May you let your tenderness grow. May that growth bring you more alive, more here. May being more here give you the courage to act on your longings for all of us.

May all who are vulnerable be protected, held, and nurtured with the love so many have never known how to give or receive.

May the discomfort of witnessing be soothed by the widening of every heart that chooses not to look away.

May you stay devoted to becoming the kind of person a more beautiful and nurturing world is begging for.

Thank you for your grace in this unedited and from-the-heart dispatch. There is so much moving within and around. It feels like medicine to let it move.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ Stand with Minnesota

△ The simplicity of the 5 Calls app

△ Acceptance as ground from Prentis Hemphill

△ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on the one life we can save

△ Dispatch from occupied Minneapolis

△ I’ve never seen unity like this

△ Resisting the death cult

△ Still thinking about this piece from Brandon Taylor

△ Forest medicine

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

I want to tell you I haven’t slept much the last nine nights, and this won’t be the most cohesive or impressive thing I’ll ever write, and sitting down to write feels like drinking water after being parched, and hydration is important in all its forms.

I want to tell you I’m writing this from a coffee shop, my first time away from my daughter in a week after a scary trip to the ER last Friday night, and pneumonia, and a relentless fever, and ceaseless coughing, and little sleep, and checking and checking and checking, and sobs, and fear down to the marrow, and shock at how quickly everything else quiets when the task is making sure the people you love most are okay, and the wildness of the sediment inside me that has been stirred this last week while trying to love her back to health, and the reality that nothing but love really matters.

I want to tell you witnessing the news this past week while loving my child has felt like a fever dream, like a slow drip of despair that has no choice but to be cancelled out by the act of loving what is right in front of me, like terror as I read the endless justifications for murder, for kidnapping, for separation, for bombing, for greed, for hoarding, for power, for control, for violence, for harm, for dehumanization, and the ridicule of those who try to name what else could be possible.

I want to tell you what a gift it is to witness endless acts of care right beside the breathless ache of it all — what a gift it is to see people caring everywhere, no matter how imperfectly — what a gift it is to watch us stumble through our attempts to bring more compassion to this trembling world — what a gift it is to remember we can re-center care again and again, even when we fumble or forget how, even when it feels like a kernel in the face of a universe, even when the results of that care aren’t always obvious in the moment.

I want to tell you how vulnerable it is to care — how I felt the vulnerability of caring when I watched my child trying to breathe, when the fear that wobbled in my chest mirrored the amount of love I don’t always know how to fully be with, when the desire for her to be okay echoed the desire for every human to be okay.

I want to tell you there is risk in caring: caring can lead to disappointment, betrayal, misattunement, rupture, hurt. Caring can lead to confronting the places in you that aren’t sure how to care as well as you wish you could, as well as the places in others that have protection in front of their own care. Caring can bring you right up close to loss. Caring can amplify grief, highlight the truth. But only because caring happens when our hearts are open, and it’s in that opening we feel all of life more acutely… which is often the very place our care can widen from.

I want to tell you the protectors in me don’t always remember this… of course they don’t.

I want to tell you I’d rather practice caring imperfectly than not try.

I want to tell you caring imperfectly is the only option for us.

I want to tell you I watched Renee Nicole Good caring for her neighbors, and being able to see care where others see danger reminds me my heart is still intact.

I want to tell you trusting the risks of caring are worth an intact heart.

I want to tell you a reminder I’m telling myself: that in the face of a dying world is not nothingness on the other side, but instead is the birth of something completely new, something we’ve perhaps been longing for all along, something that asks us to trust in death not being an ending but marking a beginning.

I want to tell you I don’t always remember this.

I want to tell you shame annihilates seeing clearly, and tending to our own shame is perhaps the very salve our clarity is asking for.

I want to tell you how exhausting it is to tend to shame in a world that prescribes it.

I want to tell you this dissonance is not your fault.

I want to tell you your efforts matter, and your practices matter, and your noticing matters, and your witnessing matters, and your attention matters, and your longing matters, and your willingness to try matters, and your attempting matters, and your questioning matters, and your dreaming matters, and your loving matters.

I want to tell you I’m letting there be room for rage and anger, for the seething, burning sensation that arises upon witnessing corruption and Othering, for the disgust that reminds me what is wrong, for the hardening my heart leans toward when I’m afraid of my own rage, for the softening that comes when I allow it to tell me something important.

I want to tell you this is a practice, not an arrival; this is a practice, not an identity.

I want to tell you when we got home from the hospital at 2:15am last Friday, while the wolf moon was at its fullest, my daughter looked up and said, “I’m so glad we have a moon.”

I want to tell you I’m afraid, too.

I want to tell you there are anchors everywhere, and we can turn toward them when the jumble of it all feels like too much — when we aren’t sure what to do — when we feel like we might burst with sorrow.

I want to tell you how astonished I am every time I remember the goodness and beauty and sweetness of this world haven’t been snuffed out by the hatred. That beauty is sturdy and steady. That kindness is plentiful. That aliveness is bursting forth even now. That there are roots just about to shoot through the concrete that looks lifeless. That we can catch our breath again after losing it. That it is okay to be terrified. That is is okay to forget hope until some small act of healing reminds you it, too, is still here, still available. That there are people everywhere, holding up what you need to set down for a moment. That you are probably holding more than you know. That the heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe. My heart is breaking open and open and open. The whole world seeps in.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ An Elegy for My Neighbor, Renee Nicole Good

△ We are in a space without a map

△ Dropping out of the new year race

△ Slowly reading this incredible collection

△ So grateful this podcast is returning with a new season on Tuesday

△ The year ahead

△ Thirty minutes of wisdom and care from Janaya

△ Goodreads is hosting a giveaway of 20 early galleys of When the Ache Remains; click to enter from now (Jan 11th) until February 8th!

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

I am imagining you bolstered with all you need to pivot, to change, to sink into what is asking to be sunken into, to shed the stickiness ready to be turned to liquid, to swirl with the unknowns while rooting into all that is sturdy.

I am imagining you held in the bigness you carry, in the smallness no one sees, in the regrets and dreams, in the longings and grieving, in the anticipation and fog, in all that is taking root somewhere unseen but felt, not yet recognized but trusted in.

I am imagining you remembering you get to start over in any moment, on any day, at any time — that your freshness does not depend on a calendar but instead resides in your very body, in your very self, always available to be turned toward.

I am imagining you walking in a world where violence is quieted, and love is what we throw around, and food is plentiful, and shelter is a given, and needs are met from generosity instead of earning.

I am imagining you able to say no when your body tells you no.
I am imagining you trusting of your yes when your body says yes.
I am imagining you willing to listen and discern what yes and no feels like for you.

I am imagining you creating time and space for what really matters to you — choosing the consequences of releasing what doesn’t — tolerating the discomfort of all that requires release in order to stay with what wants your attention.

I am imagining you as an infant, a child, a teenager, the oldest you’ll ever be, each version with their own longings and knowings, each version carried in the heart that exists right now, each version informing who and how you want to be in the present.

I am imagining some wide expanse meeting you in the terror and fear, in the sorrow and sadness, in the ache that persists even as new flowers bloom, even as the moon rises again, even as beauty remains an anchor.

I am imagining your delight as you let yourself be surprised, as you let something happen that goes against the story you hold about yourself and the world, as you fall into the unexpected and notice all the ways you’re able to float instead of sink.

I am imagining an invisible thread moving from your heart to mine, to theirs, to his, to hers, to the trees, to the roots, to the waters, to the winds, to the gardens, to the protestors, to the caregivers, to the cooks, to the snails, to the artists, to the ants, to the stars, to the whole of all you can never be truly severed from.

I am imagining you standing with eyes wide open in the face of something magnificent, something that reminds you of the whole point of being here.

I am imagining something beautiful unfurling right as you anticipate only the worst.

I am imagining you learning to love bigger, learning to let life in a little more, learning to stay with what you’ve long run from, learning to lean deeper into aliveness and slowly trusting you can be with the aching gold found only there.

I am imagining your ancestors witnessing you trying, beaming with pride and admiration.

I am imagining a circle of protection around you, around every living thing, but perhaps more importantly I am imagining loving hands holding you in the face of all that seeps past that circle.

I am imagining you reading these words and feeling into my marrow that this through-line to connection, these small acts of reaching out, the insistence on continuing to add something of nourishment to each other and to this world, might mean more than we’ll ever really know or see.

I am imagining each of us finding something we didn’t know we needed and being awed at the ways we finally let it all in.

I said in my last letter it would be my final of the year, but these words came out in a quick ten minute burst this morning and I felt called to send them to you. May they land where they’re needed. xx Sending deep wishes of peace and love to you and yours during this portal, this transition, this tender time.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

What I want to say most is sometimes, the most painful fractures are the ones untended within ourselves… and when we make it a priority to witness our own fractures with honest, open eyes, we gift ourselves the kind of congruence we’ll never find from avoiding what is asking for our attention.

What I want to say most is god, I’m amazed at our ability to face continual grief and still find continual beauty threaded within it — it truly blows my heart wide open.

What I want to say most is having access to peace, calm, and ease does not eliminate or erase the pain of being alive, but it does offer us a balm to return to when the ache of it all feels too big, too much, too soon; it offers a place of respite and rest within the texture of every unfolding hurt.

What I want to say most is I’m finally understanding what it means to practice self-compassion in a way that transcends thinking and moves into the felt sense; it is only in this place where we can truly register it as real and embodied, rather than performed and forced.

What I want to say most is the relief of not needing to know; there is so little I know.

What I want to say most is the relief of knowing clearly instead of pretending to be confused or uncertain; there is so much I pretend not to know.

What I want to say most is this year, friendship buoyed me. Courage buoyed me. Creativity buoyed me. Soup buoyed me. Movement buoyed me. Nature buoyed me. My husband buoyed me. Herbs buoyed me. Community buoyed me. Solo trips to beloved places buoyed me. Therapy buoyed me. Reading buoyed me. Art buoyed me. Walks buoyed me. Listening buoyed me. Curiosity buoyed me. Music buoyed me. Learning buoyed me. Writing buoyed me. Allowing grief buoyed me. Mystery buoyed me. My child’s silly and curious heart buoyed me. Long drives buoyed me. Silence buoyed me.

What I want to say most is sometimes, unraveling, while scary, is the exact thing that needs to happen in order for something more true to take root. Sometimes, falling apart is the only way something more sturdy and real can be built in place of what has crumbled.

What I want to say. most is it makes so much sense for unraveling to feel terrifying for the parts of us afraid of change; accompanying that fear is an act of love.

What I want to say most is there is a profoundness in learning to receive; I mean truly, deeply letting in what I’ve long not known how to allow beyond my protective walls; I mean feeling in the body what I long only pretended to know in the mind; I mean experiencing something instead of merely thinking about it.

What I want to say most is fart jokes, according to both the youngest and oldest person in my household, will always be funny.

What I want to say most is you might find more wisdom in something entirely unexpected and unassuming than you will in the places you’ve rehearsed turning to for it over and over again.

What I want to say most is for those of us with attachment wounding, having a healing relationship with even one person is profound — and in our current cultural reclamation of the importance of community, we must not forget the fact that for many, building true safety with one person is often a significant step toward finding belonging with a grander web.

What I want to say most is it isn’t ever too late to make new friends.

What I want to say most is there is nothing you can do to change people who refuse to see your heart, but you can see your heart. You can know your heart. That matters.

What I want to say most is you don’t need to ever get over the pain of feeling unseen by those you wish so deeply could see you; you can be with this pain for a lifetime, and your willingness to stay with it might be part of what allows you to live beyond it.

What I want to say most is your trying counts more than the outcomes of your trying.

What I want to say most is being around children and letting them mirror that awe-filled, silly, uninhibited, curious, naturally loving part of you is such good medicine.

What I want to say most is perhaps you can tolerate the discomfort of being misunderstood, and perhaps that discomfort is easier to be with than the discomfort of performing for the sake of an understanding that will never seep in if you’re being anything but who you truly are.

What I want to say most is tending to the inevitability of death feels like a direct line to more aliveness.

What I want to say most is this all goes so fast — and we don’t know how long we have — and remembering that brings a burst of clarity.

What I want to say most is when all else fails, helping someone else is a fast track to letting heaviness become a little bit lighter.

What I want to say most is how much generosity resides in letting people help you, too.

What I want to say most is of course it feels hard and tender to be human in a world so wobbly, violent, and fragile; this hardness gets to be a symbol of your awake heart instead of a sign you’re weak, not trying hard enough, or aren’t healed enough.

What I want to say most is the sweetness of possibility is like nectar within the fog — and not knowing what’s coming, instead of just being terrifying, might be the exact place where something truer and more nourishing can grow.

What I want to say most is what a gift it is to stay tender in a world that gives you so many opportunities to harden. What a gift it is to stay tethered to the heart in a world that threatens our very humanity. What a gift it is to lean toward compassion in a world that makes it convenient to nudge toward contempt. What a gift it is to remember you get to practice who and how you want to be, in ways no one will ever see and in ways that can shift culture. What a gift it is to let what wants to move, move. To allow fluidity to reach the frozen places. To let people love you. To feel your feet planted on the earth. To loosen the grip. To dive head-first into what you’ve long run from. To admit what isn’t working. To notice how far you’ve already come. To delight in the pleasures that want to greet you. To let sorrow be held. To be ignited by the world you want to see become itself. To soften into some safe arms. To mess up and start over, falter and try, to live your humanness in ways you weren’t sure you could. To return to this very moment, again and again, knowing it is the only place where anything can truly happen.

This is my last letter of the year as I devote these next few weeks to tending to self, family, clients, community, and what wants to emerge in some spaciousness. Winter always calls for more quiet, for less sharing, for what stirs in the dark. There is so much heartache to be with; so much connection to lean deeper into as medicine within the tenderness. I have so much gratitude for your presence and attention here this year — for your loving and contemplative comments, messages, emails, shares, and ways of engaging I will never take for granted. I’m wishing you a depth of presence and care in this liminal time. Much more to come in the new year; for now, sending nourishment and peace amid it all. Thank you thank you thank you.

I’ll leave you with a poem that has guided my year —

Arriving back from the fields
of battle, bruised and bolder,
we are beholden to no one
now. Losing or winning -
the reasons for the war fade
quickly in the memory.
We’ve forgotten that these
suits of armor are not our
second skins. Smiling, we
set aside the shields and
swords, remove the face
masks, begin to peel away
the layers of weight and
protection. When, finally,
we cast our armor to the
ground, it feels as if our
bodies grow and straighten,
swell and lengthen upward
toward the sun. We run,
light and unencumbered,
and stretch the stiffness
from our joints. Rolling on
the grass we laugh as awkward
limbs remember freedom.
When at last we return to
where we started, without a
second glance we know that
we’ve outgrown the suits of
armor. We won’t fit inside
those too-tight shells again.
Why would we even try?
Danna Faulds, Lay the Armor Down

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

There is an invisible grief I’ve been quietly tending to the last two years. Some losses happen in ways that aren’t so recognizable or obvious; there’s no death, tangible ending, or publicly acknowledged void. Instead, some of our losses crystallize underground, in the privacy of our hearts and lives, only known to those closest to us. Sometimes, the true width and depth of our losses are seen by no one but ourselves. They fester in silence and quietly change us from the inside out. They emerge as a shock and slowly fade into normalcy, the pain morphing from sharp to a constant dull ache. They are murky. Ambiguous. Confusing. Lonely. They ignite a search for clarity, the kind that isn’t always available. They insist on our willingness to surrender, to soften in the face of what’s occurred, to remember life outside of the loss, to remember there is more than what the loss introduced us to. In the grip of these kinds of losses, we can easily forget we’re not the only ones — that others are tending to their own unique and particular forms of grief every day, in ways most of us don’t see, not because we don’t want to, but because we haven’t been taught how to.

The dance with loss feels lonely until I remember it is a dance all of us are acquainted with. It is isolating until I remember grief is a language spoken by all living beings, a language we become fluent in only by being willing to fully experience it. It is overwhelming until I remember there are many hands that can hold it with me; there are many people that want to offer their loving support; there are many people who can say, “me, too.” It is shameful until I remember it is perhaps one of the most human experiences we can withstand. It is filled with sorrow until I remember that within it is some golden knowing, something weaving me together with all of life, some kind of magnifying glass illuminating the very thing I couldn’t quite see clearly without it.

My life has been peppered by losses of all kinds, most of which I never knew how to turn toward until the last many years of intentional learning. And it has been in the turning toward these losses that I have discovered the aliveness I thought only existed in avoiding them. It is in the meeting of the grief that I’ve found my capacity to also meet beauty, joy, connection, vitality. It is in the expanding of my arms to wrap around all that has hurt that I’ve come to fear grief less, and listen to its inherent wisdom more. And what I’ve come to know most intimately is that all of this is a lifelong practice, not one we can perfect or perform but one we must learn to do imperfectly. One we must stumble through until we find a steady path, only to stumble again. One we will forget and have to do the work of remembering, over and over. One that requires our courageous looking. One that will change us continually, if we let it. I don’t always want to let it; when I do, though, something unexpected and true always seems to root through the cracks, finding me in awe.

The sun is fading and fading. Darkness always becomes more visible this time of year, whether we like it or not. It’s the time of year where the dullness becomes a bit sharp again, as though to speak through sensation: “please accompany me.” I’ve learned to welcome this rising darkness as a beloved companion, as an opportunity to tend to what often goes missed in our society, as a nod to all we can easily run or busy ourselves away from, asking for our sacred attention again. I feel all the people I miss, the long list of those I love who have died, asking me to remember them a little bit more clearly. I feel the tenderness of the particular loss I’ve been tending to rising, asking me to offer it more love. I feel the fragility all around, right beside the sturdiness always there to be found. I feel the weight of our collective losses, right next to the insistence of dreaming something more beautiful in place of what is decaying all around. The darkness helps me contact these parts of myself and life; it helps me stay tethered to what needs my care, my company, my listening ear, my steady adult self. I feel the way love is somehow woven into all of it.

“Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.” Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface on the well of grief,
turning down through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe,
will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear,
nor find in the darkness glimmering,
the small round coins,
thrown by those who wished for something else.
David Whyte, The Well of Grief

May you find something golden as you slip beneath the surface on the well of grief. May aliveness reveal itself more and more as you trust yourself to dive into the dark.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

What has caught my attention most has been rest from consuming. Quiet. Simmering in what is already here, noticing what is asking for deepened and sustained attention. The only link I want to share this week is the link to what longs for more space — the people, places, and things all around you that might want you to linger a little bit longer with them before moving onto something new, before making room for more. Ingesting less isn’t as easy as it sounds; staying with what you already have isn’t always as neutral or relieving as you’d think it would be, in this world so hyper-focused on consumption and owning, grasping for more and accumulating, getting ahead and more more more. And yet the practice alone can reveal something we might need to know; may it be so.

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving (one that was on repeat in my house growing up):

I woke up under the weather, which isn’t abnormal for a parent of a four-year-old, but I still find myself wanting to write to you. It feels good to want to write to you. It’s foggy out the window, the time of morning where dozens of seagulls start flying across the sky to their next place. My daughter just performed a check-up on me with her trusty doctor bag before heading out the door for a scooter ride around the neighborhood with dada.

Life has been tenderizing me and I’m thinking about love, as I often do. Do you let love in when it’s available? Do you allow care to seep past your protectors and be truly felt? I’ve been asking myself these questions as I notice love permeating the places that once didn’t know how to truly welcome it; when my spine tingles with warmth while my daughter checked my ears and blood pressure with her little tools, while my body registered her precise actions and her widened eyes filled with care, it’s a gift to get to answer “yes”. It’s a gift to notice when love is available, and to let it in.

I am longing to double down on my love practice — on the reality that it’s the practice I want to orient toward most while also being the most tender practice to let ripen as widely as it’s asking to. There are so many layers that can get in the way, often at no fault of our own; it feels like an act of maturation to be willing to sift through those layers with intention and reverence.

I want to share some ways I’m sifting, some practices to let love and care in and out amid the rising darkness, alongside the descent toward winter, right in the middle of the murky unfolding of life:

— Say yes to bids for care… even when they come in the form of play. Notice how the hairs on your arms raise when you feel yourself being cared for in the smallest of ways. Let the noticing signal to your body: this is for me. I get to have this. It’s real.

— Ask yourself, what is my rage on behalf of? When I move closer to the center of my answer, how might I also be moving closer to love?

— Let saying sorry be a practice of love instead of a deepening of shame. Let yourself have the grace for not always getting it right, and let this truth not be a place of punishment but a place of learning, of recognition, of coming into fuller congruence with yourself and those you love.

— Follow the breadcrumbs of your longings. Let what you want point you toward what you love. Let what you love direct you toward what you need next. Let your needs be symbols of what you care about instead of signs of your too-muchness.

— When you feel stuck in your own head, your own story, your own neuroses, your own spiraling… turn outward and ask how you can help. Helping helps us see more clearly. Helping helps us come out of the hole we might fall into from time to time. Helping embeds us in something bigger than ourselves. Helping is medicine.

— Be in the practice of receiving compliments, admiration, gifts, and praise with more openheartedness. Trust that the practice of receiving won’t inflate your sense of self when you see it as a practice of intimacy; trust that the practice of receiving is actually never only about you, but is also about letting others engage in their own practice of generosity and love, too.

— Sit with these words from bell hooks: “To be loving is to be open to grief, to be touched by sorrow, even sorrow that is unending.”

— Get to know the birds that frequent your yard/neighborhood/ecosystem. See them as part of your family, as part of your belonging.

— Let others see you in whatever ways they need to, while not letting their gaze of you shape your own gaze of yourself.

— Extend your gifts outward; let what you have to offer reach the hearts and bodies and minds of those who need them; see the sharing of your gifts not as a way of bolstering your own ego, but as a way of more deeply connecting you to the wider world through generosity, through care, through love.

— Make soup. Make extra. Text someone you know is holding a lot and ask if you can drop off a batch on their porch. Maybe add some herbs or flowers or a homemade card to leave with the soup. See it all as loving.

— Take your time. Follow your pace. Stay with yourself.

— Be tender when you notice yourself coming up against the ways you’ve learned to keep love out, the ways you’ve learned to be skeptical, the ways your hurt has shaped what you let in. Let this noticing feel more like gentle permission than ripping off a bandaid that might still be needed in some ways. Let this noticing inform your longings; let it be a place to return to when you’re wanting to remember.

— Feel the way your grief for the world’s hurts is a direct pathway toward your love for the world. Feel the way your grief is inherently tethered to what you love. Feel the way your grief is a map of love, a stamp of love, a longing for love, a missing of love, a remembrance of love. Feel the way staying in close contact with your grief is just another way of letting more love in, and then more, and then more.

— Look for love everywhere and watch how it shows up in unexpected ways when you’re open to seeing it.

— Trust there is a never-ending capacity for love’s presence… that there can never be too much of it… that the more it’s allowed, the more it extends outward… that the more it extends outward, the more we can be mirrors of it for one another… that the more we can be mirrors for love, the worse anything but love looks… that the worse anything but love looks, the more power love has.

— Let loving be so small, quiet, and subtle: letting yourself mean it when you say thank you. Asking for help as a symbol of intimacy. Saying keep the change to a small business. Seeing someone’s dignity. Letting someone merge in front of you. Withholding judgment. Staying curious. Helping a neighbor. An extra long hug. Stirring the soup. Tidying your home as an act of care instead of a chore. Reaching out to say hello. Standing humbly in a forest. Looking up at the stars. Sharing what’s stirring in your heart. Writing a poem. Calling representatives. Softening your shoulders. Giving yourself a massage behind your ears. A genuine smile. Allowing sadness. The willingness to be wrong. Singing. Crying. Dreaming. Imagining something brighter than you see. Let it all be love. Let it all be love. Let it all be love.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ Currently reading this stirring new collection

△ Can confirm, watching this film will rearrange your heart

△ Healing is making us mean

△ The way this essay brought so many tears (The New Yorker)

△ A mystical ornithology

△ “When I used to focus on the worries, everybody was ahead of me.”

△ An existential guide to making friends

△ California November with my loves and the moon

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

Yesterday, I went for a long walk at the wetlands near my house and left my headphones at home, trading the usual podcast episode for red-winged blackbirds, crows, song sparrows, wind, dirt under boot, hello’s from passersby, and my own swirling mind. I noticed how it felt like care to meet presence without added noise, to cultivate companionship with my surroundings and thoughts. I noticed how expanding it has been to not add more consumption to a moment than is necessary — to not feel the desire to drown out the life in front of me.

I’ve been craving silence more and more lately, a notable contrast to other seasons of using plentiful distraction as a method of escaping what’s here, now. I find myself getting in the car and not immediately finding something to listen to. My queued podcast list is smaller. There is a palpable longing for more time without voice, more space without input, more experiences without narration other than my own. I’m feeling more and more distant from social media, from the ways distractibility has been built into life. I say I value deep attention, presence, and connection to self and surroundings… yet sometimes, living that value in my actual life hasn’t been easy. There is so much to consume at all times. There is always more to learn, more to understand, and time ever-passing. It can be easy to forget urgency isn’t an agent of learning, and overconsumption isn’t a path toward deeper or embodied understanding. It can be challenging to gift ourselves ample space to just be, to let what we’ve already learned seep in deeper, to stand open to what’s in front of us and trust it has enough to teach us. And it can be itchy to stay with what’s here, without reaching for some sneaky aid that helps us escape even a little bit.

Wanting to fully be in my life isn’t a longheld or familiar feeling. Most of my life was spent planning escapes, leaving the moment, unable to simmer in Now. There was so much unmetabolized pain held in my body that staying with What Is seemed more like a cruel joke than an invitation into something expansive. Yet in my devotion to staying, I’ve learned to see how subtly I can leave, often without even noticing. And this practice of staying has seeped into all the pockets of life where I didn’t even realize I was still searching for tiny doors out of the moment: opening my phone in the bathroom, or at a red light, or while waiting in line. Always having a podcast in my ears when walking. Difficulty staying in my body during moments of tension. Compulsive checking of email. A quiet fixing energy when discomfort arises. Agitation when learning something new. An itchy feeling of wanting to walk out the door during a long yoga class.

There have been so many invitations to notice the impulse to leave and choose to practice staying, even when it feels like I might explode. I at times find myself making excuses for why I need distraction at the ready — for why I can’t leave my phone in the other room, or leave my headphones at home. There is so much compassion for the ways we’ve been conditioned away from ourselves, for the ways our culture strategizes to keep us from noticing our own hearts, for the ways we can convince ourselves we can’t be with what is, for the amount of difficulty we’re being asked to digest every single day, for the ways leaving is actually the wisest strategy sometimes.

And yet every time I choose to notice the leaving and reorient toward presence, it feels like a remembrance of what I truly long for. It feels like a revealing of just how far away we can drift, and also how possible it is to return. It feels like a reverence for just how human I am, just how much practice it can take, and how much capacity I’ve built to meet that practice again and again.

And funny enough, the more I learn to stay, the more I can actually face, be with, and respond to a right-sized amount instead of forcing myself to digest way more than I’m able to. The more I learn to stay, the more I can turn toward what is unfolding with an open heart and the capacity to step out of binary thinking. The more I learn to stay, the more I can notice what my role is, what my task is, and tend to it instead of always assuming I’m falling short. The more I learn to stay, the more I can respond to the moment from presence instead of programming. The more I learn to stay, the more I can actually feel what is asking to be felt, which allows it to move, which allows me to move.

I always thought leaving was where relief was, but staying is where I am finding the most relief. Staying is where I am finding the most willingness. Staying is where I am finding the most access to all of it: the beauty and the betrayal, the heartbreak and the humanity. Staying is where I can hear the birdsong most clearly. Staying is where life is actually happening. And that’s where I want to be, which feels like a real gift.

May staying reveal what leaving can’t ever show.
May staying bring the capacity you assume you’ll only find by straying.
May staying allow the birdsong to be registered more clearly.
May staying support you in attuning to what matters most.
May staying ignite your desire to fully be right here.
May staying be set aside when leaving is actually the right move.
May staying be a practice to orient toward, over and over.
May staying highlight all the beauty available here, too.
May staying tether you to your own widening heart.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

ps. Thank you all for your loving responses to my share about When the Ache Remains; it’s always so tender to let what has been so personal and quiet for so long become woven with more eyes than my own, and I’m so grateful for your kindness and support. It feels like a real gift, to slowly start letting this project unfurl into the world.

△ Cannot wait to watch this tonight

△ How to be a lichen

△ Spitting out the Buddha’s teeth

△ Flesh, bones, and breeze

△ Alexander Chee’s brilliance, as always

△ “I’m ashamed to say it, but I had to become a mother myself before I could finally see women who walked around pushing strollers as just…women. Of course, I now also see them as companions in something transcendent and ineffable, but I don’t see them as a type or cohort in the same way I did before.”

△ To the lighthouse

△ Chats with Holly Whitaker and Erica Chidi

△ Quiet mornings alone in West Marin

With care,
Lisa

Today feels celebratory for so many reasons (hello, election results and Taurus full moon!) — and like a good day to share good news. I was going to come up with some super special, strategically-scheduled way of sharing this, but doing so from the heart, when it feels right, has always felt most true for me.

I’m so deeply grateful to get to announce my second book, When the Ache Remains, coming on April 28th, 2026 with Hachette. The stunning cover is below:

pre-order When the Ache Remains

I started writing this book when I was finding my way through my own storm — not when I was on the Other Side of anything. What unfolded was a process of alchemy, an undoing of stale stories about what it means to live with any kind of ache, and a meeting of my own grief with a compassion I had never truly known before. These pages are filled with my heart, an outreached hand, and a reminder of our unaloneness. I have been changed through the process of what unfurled in these pages, and it feels like the widest gift to get to share it with you.

Here is the official description of the book:

In When the Ache Remains, Lisa Olivera blends her own personal experience of living with depression with therapeutic wisdom in a moving exploration of the emotional pain each of us lives with, offering readers guidance on finding beauty and aliveness alongside the aches we carry.

Emotional pain, of all kinds and magnitudes, is part of life. We’ll never be able to find ourselves free of it; no meditation or amount of therapy will cure us of the harder parts of being alive. The practice of turning toward the ache with care – reverence, even – might be one of the most meaningful gifts we can give ourselves. It might even save us.

Lisa has confronted this reality for years as a therapist, weaving her exploration of it throughout her popular newsletter, Human Stuff. She asks questions like, how do we confront and tend to the painful parts of being human without letting that pain entirely overtake us? How do we find joy even when depression visits, even when we lose someone we love, even when the hurt of the world is ever-present? How do we cultivate aliveness in the midst?

When the Ache Remains shares the practice of bringing wholeheartedness to our pain in a tender and wise exploration of how ache shapes life, how we can alchemize our grief into medicine, and how presence is accessible even in the midst of difficulty. Blending deeply personal narrative, humanistic psychology, lessons from nature, words of nourishment, and her naturally poetic undertone, Lisa invites readers on a journey alongside her as she uncovers the impact of our aches, and the process of learning to tend to them in more open, integrative, and loving ways.

You can learn more and pre-order here. I cannot wait to share this book with you; writing it felt like a portal of its own, like it carried me through my own process of becoming a wider companion to my own grief and to the beauty of this world, in turn providing me with so much more to offer. I will never take for granted the opportunity to share my work in this way, and it is my deepest hope that this book will hold you like it has held me.

More soon; Thank you thank you thank you.

With care,
Lisa

PRE-ORDER WHEN THE ACHE REMAINS

A song I’m loving:

I want to tell you my daughter turns four today, and as I decorated our living room last night with balloons and streamers and put party hats on her stuffies, I cried tears filled with the layers of life; the impossibly large love, grief, pure delight and deep overwhelm from what it means to cherish someone so very much in this lifetime — the preciousness of it, the intensity of it, the learning and unlearning required to truly let it change the parts of me that weren’t ever entirely sure how to let it all in and out.

I want to tell you we are so much more capable of loving than we might know in any given moment, and us forgetting it never makes it less available.

I want to tell you the grief is a mirror of the love is a mirror of the grief is a mirror of the love is a mirror of the grief is a mirror of the love is a mirror of the grief is a mirror of the love; when one is near, the other is close by, too.

I want to tell you that so often when we think we’re grasping to get somewhere else, what we’re really longing for is to feel like we can be fully here, right now, in the pulse of aliveness only found in the tenderness of presence.

I want to tell you everything changes, even when we cling with all our might to what we know, to what’s comfortable, to what’s familiar… it will all eventually shift into something else, whether we like or not, expectedly or unexpectedly, and it might be the practice of a lifetime to let the inevitability of change widen the heart instead of shrinking it. Facing change with a widened heart feels like turning onto an open road with an expanse of sky on all sides, where anything is possible and the unknown doesn’t feel so scary but is instead the very place possibility is born.

I want to tell you how hard it is to unplug in a world that seems so deeply and at times pathologically tethered to plugging in, logging on, and using screens as a means of connection… and I want to tell you there is a vast amount of embodied connection that is available in the flesh of life all around us, and the struggle to orient toward it more and more is not a personal failure but an externally-planted seed most of us started watering before we knew what it would grow into. A contemplation: How can I stop watering the seeds I don’t want to keep growing?

I want to tell you it’s okay to do things imperfectly, and it is in fact the only option, and there are people who will love you in your imperfections.

I want to tell you how much I love laughing, how loud and awkward my laugh is when it’s just my little family around, how fascinating it is to me that I tend to keep my humorous, silly, absurd side reserved for very few people, the risks I’ve been taking in letting that side of me out more and more, and the freedom found in remembering our multidimensionality.

I want to tell you so many parts of our current world are so serious, which might be why laughter and lightness and ridiculousness feels more important than ever.

I want to tell you I’m devoted to judging less and loving more, and that devotion doesn’t mean I get it right all the time, and not getting it right can become wisdom when we stop shaming our humanness.

I want to tell you it is never too late to change your mind, even when others might never know how to see you any differently than they’re used to seeing you.

I want to tell you having a job that allows me to sit up close with humanity every day is the widest reminder that most of us are longing for the same things, and all of us were once little humans searching for safety and love, and we are so deeply wired to move closer and closer to the essence of who we are, and doing so allows us to move farther and farther out into the world, into connection, into our inherent belonging.

I want to tell you I’ve been reading this poem from David Whyte lately and letting it permeate the parts of me that forget:

“Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving.
Even as the light fades quickly now,
you are arriving.”

I want to tell you there is room for your gifts, your offerings, your invitations, your extensions into community, your ideas, your care, your softness, your wobbliness, your assertiveness, your curiosity, your zest, your sorrow, your questions, your timidness, your morphing, your buoyancy, your rage, your forgiveness, your wholeness.

I want to tell you of all the ways beauty persists despite the horrors, and of course it does, and what a gift to be willing to trust, look for, and remember that.

I want to tell you you can stay tender with all the ways you have no idea what to do, and you can stay tethered to all the ways you know just what to do.

I want to tell you the sunrises are extra magical this time of year, peach and crisp and splattered with life.

I want to tell you how relieving it feels to allow space for all of it — that we must — and going to celebrate my child’s birthday in the midst of so much devastation feels like a perfect mirror of why all of it is asking for our attention, our willingness, our staying. I want to tell you others will tap in when you need to tap out. I want to tell you your offerings don’t need to solve it all… that was never the task. I want to tell you I see all the micro ways so many of us are bringing more of what we want into the world, and the relief I feel when I let that truth permeate my heart is profound.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ Cultivating Joy and Togetherness in the Midst of Hardship

△ Listening/crying to this heart-soaring new album on repeat

△ Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone

△ The way out of the storm

△ Offering our attention with humility

△ On being in conflict, the inevitability of betrayal, and spacious loving

△ Four years of the most expansive, altering love.

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

I’ve been asking myself, again, how do I keep going? Sometimes, the question is about how to stick with something new or hard; other times, it’s about how to stay rooted to what matters amid the chaos and crumbling all around. Even asking the question How do I keep going? helps me realize I have the answers already — that many of us do — and sharing our answers feels like a gift when so many are living the question right now. So, here are some of my current answers.

How do I keep going?

Let change be a marker of possibility instead of something to be afraid of. Let change be the vehicle for getting closer to your truest self, to the kind of world you want to see, to all that has been asking to be released from your grip. Trust change can be a tool of alchemy, a doorway to more truth, more love, more presence.

How do I keep going?

Be honest with yourself about what you are feeling. Let that honesty turn into willingness to face, feel, and lovingly hold what you find. Let that holding turn into relief. Let that relief widen your ability to be honest with yourself about what you are feeling. Pay attention to what shifts when you choose to face yourself with an open heart.

How do I keep going?

Practice generosity. Think less about yourself and more about what you have to offer. Think less about what people will think of what you offer, and more about what people will receive by you choosing to offer it. Think less about your own personal doubts and more about what a gift it is to move beyond your often-narrow ideas of your work and into the ways it truly nourishes people, when you just get out of your own way. Generosity is a value to lean on when you aren’t sure what to do; it always gives in both directions.

How do I keep going?

Turn toward the spiral — toward all the stuff that comes back around again, in need of new attention, a new vision, new tending, new healing, new nourishment, new lessons. Something old or “already moved through” returning again isn’t a sign of failure or moving backward; it’s a sign of deepening, of going further in, of regeneration. What returns has something to receive and something to teach when you allow it to.

How do I keep going?

Stop trying to keep it all together. You are not glue, or stone. You do not need to remain solid at all times. You can drop some, let some fall, let yourself come apart. You can pour out what you thought you needed to keep contained. You can stretch what is tightened and expand what is scrunched. You do not need to keep it all together. You are not meant to keep it all together.

How do I keep going?

Show up to the yoga class even when you feel tired, even when you don’t want to, even when you wonder if you’ll be able to make it through the hour and fifteen minutes without collapsing. When the teacher says, “feel the community holding it all alongside you” and your eyes water, let yourself savor that unaloneness. Let it seep into the corners of you in need of it most. Notice the way you allowed yourself to be nourished, simply by choosing to show up.

How do I keep going?

Linger in the sweetness of your family: the way you dance in the living room, the way you perform your little rituals and jump in the leaves in the backyard and point out beauty everywhere you go. Linger in their excitement when you make your “famous soup”, their encouragement of you, their I love you’s, your daughter’s obsession with books, your husband’s obsession with birds, the care you’re weaving in your home. Linger in the way it all starts at home; watch it ripple outward when you let it.

How do I keep going?

Ask for help. Do less alone. Embrace the vulnerability of letting others see you in your wobbly places. Undo the patterns of feeling more comfortable doing things on your own. Let the relief of receiving help permeate the places that still feel rigid when you allow that receiving. Let the tenderness of it be a reminder of its importance. Notice how you’re already doing it.

How do I keep going?

Notice how most of the people asking “what else can I do?” are the ones already doing so much. Keep more taps on how you are already being who you want to be in this world and less on where you wish you were different. Let your capacity be enough, and give yourself permission to live within it instead of always striving to work your way beyond it. Trust it will ebb and flow with the seasons, with life. You are fluid, ever-changing. Let yourself be where you are.

How do I keep going?

Keep buying flowers. Keep making your little altars. Keep looking to the moon. Keep letting breath be a buoy. Keep collapsing into the arms of others; keep being someone others can collapse into. Keep making art. Keep asking questions. Keep going to bed by 9:30pm. Keep moving your body. Keep filling your water bottle. Keep getting gas before the tank is low. Keep making nourishing food, even when it’s boring. Keep shifting what you believe. Keep shedding. Keep embracing what is coming undone. Keep allowing what wants to be given new life within and around you.

How do I keep going?

Notice when your agitation and frustration arises and give yourself permission to let it rise out like steam instead of stewing in it. Shake your arms and feel the sensations slide down your arms, out your fingertips, into the air. Voice your frustration and feel the way letting some of it out automatically decreases the bite of it. Don’t try to contain it or hold it in; let it move, be more like river than stone, morph into something more by doing the loving work of meeting it honestly.

How do I keep going?

When it all feels like too much, ask yourself, “do I need to zoom in or zoom out?” Do I need to focus more on what I’m needing in this moment, or more on what’s happening outside of me? Is it resourcing to tend to myself in this moment or would it be helpful to reach out? Let zooming in and zooming out be a dance you can practice, a titration you can embody.

How do I keep going?

When you notice yourself laughing, see if you can unstifle your laughter a little more… let it widen and expand a little more… let it become louder and less controlled and more ridiculous-sounding. Let your laughter free. Let the freeing of it widen you.

How do I keep going?

Look around and amplify the kindness. Amplify the acts of service, the small offers of help, the outreached hands. Pay attention to the ways people are inherently good. Let the compassion you witness spread wide enough inside to become comfort when you witness its opposite. Know it is always happening, right alongside the hard stuff.

How do I keep going?

Let your softness be a golden resource instead of something you think you need to harden.

How do I keep going?

See yourself in the sunrise — a fresh opportunity to try again. See yourself in the sunset — a renewed nudge to rest, surrender, set it all down for now.

How do I keep going?

Imperfectly. Honestly. Tenderly. With love. With willingness to keep trying. With support. With a steady hand on what matters to you. With ample room for mistakes and missteps. With your own warmth. With a hug from a friend. With your daughter’s bright eyes. With the remembrance that this will all end someday, so how do I want to be? How do I want to see? What do I want to stay close to? And can I let it all be practice, something I can return to when I stray? It’s always here to welcome me again. It’s always here to welcome all of us again.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ The emergency is the atmosphere — my favorite read this week

△ AI Ain’t It

△ The wonderful Amelia Hruby has a beautifully powerful new book out now called Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media. Amelia’s work has been so supportive to me over the last few years as I’ve explored and shifted my relationship with social media, being online, and sharing publicly. As I still grapple with my role on social media and how to navigate the impacts it has on me and on our collective, Amelia’s work is a true gift and this new book is an invaluable resource and guide.

△ My incredible friend Zabie in conversation with Dr. Thema

△ Awakening our energy body

△ Nicole Chung’s stunning new piece on adoption

△ Make my healing a party everyone is invited to

△ A gem of a conversation with the Jane Goodall

△ The feeling of moving my body alongside others

With care,
Lisa

A song I’m loving:

1 — Yesterday morning, my phone’s battery was literally expanding inside my phone to the point of cracking the case. I shut it off immediately when I Googled it and saw it’s a dangerous fire hazard; my husband put it on our dutch oven in case it exploded (lol). I ordered a new phone that will come in a few days, and in the meantime I’ve been without one. My phone almost exploding feels like the most obvious metaphor for LEAVE ME ALONE! PUT ME AWAY! STOP USING ME AS A DISTRACTION! STAY WITH THE DISCOMFORT! UNHOOK! It was honestly hilarious, the way I immediately interpreted it as a nod from the universe to take an honest look at the ways my phone has been keeping me plugged into much more than my body and brain can possibly hold, process, grasp, feel.

It’s been a sweet relief to take a forced break and use it as a time to examine what needs changing, what needs shifting, what I haven’t wanted to be honest with myself about, because change is hard. It often feels fumbly and itchy and wobbly. Yet allowing change in our daily habits, patterns, and behaviors feels like one of the most accessible ways to practice what we say we want. It feels like a tangible reminder of our agency, our fluidity, our ability to undo what we no longer need to do. So I’m noticing where my habits/patterns/behaviors go against what I claim to want, and I’m practicing something different. It’s confronting and tender, and also a reminder that the only lasting truth is change. And when change happens at a micro level, I am reminded it can also happen outside of me, in the wider world, which eases some of the existential feelings that my phone has been trying to numb.

2 — I got my first two blurbs back for my book, from two people I admire deeply. The blurb I received in my inbox yesterday made me cry with its kindness, its genuine reflection. Some part of me deflected and said, “she must not have actually read the book to have written such an incredibly positive endorsement.” It’s the part of me that feels more comfortable pushing away positive feedback than I do letting it reach my marrow. It’s the part of me that is afraid of what it would mean to be fully seen in my gifts. It’s the part of me that still struggles to deeply trust that what I have to give is enough. This fearful part isn’t my current, adult self; it’s a younger part who still visits sometimes — who needs reminders from current me that we’re okay, we’re safe, it’s safe to let love in, it’s safe to be seen, it’s safe to be who you are in the world.

When I soothed that younger, afraid part of me instead of sinking into self-loathing for her arrival yet again, my adult self was able to absorb the words I received about my book. I was able to let the absorption rearrange my old tendencies to push away goodness, to keep intimacy out. This rearranging happens every time I notice a younger part of me in need of my loving attention and I respond with love instead of annoyance. It happens every time I remember I am not my reactions, but instead my reactions tell me something about what I once needed. It happens every time I undo my natural impulses and let my 38-year-old self be at the front and center of my life, the version that knows how to tend to and nurture all the younger parts of me who still question whether or not I’m okay.

It is a gift to remember that even the tendencies, patterns, and strategies we wish away the most are there for a reason. That they were once so incredibly adaptive, wise, and necessary for some part of us. That they show up to keep us safe, protect us, make sure we’re okay. That sometimes, they don’t realize we’re adults now with choice, agency, and dignity. It is a gift to tend to those strategies with compassion and care instead of shame and judgment. It is a gift to recognize all the ways we can be with ourselves outside of the punitive, harsh, critical tones we often see elsewhere. It is a gift to offer ourselves what we need — and to take it in when others try to do the same. It is a gift to notice moments where we can rearrange what is still stuck in old shapes inside. It is a gift to be in the practice of becoming this person for ourselves.

3 — Come new to this day.
Remove the rigid
overcoat of experience,
the notion of knowing,
the beliefs that cloud
your vision.

Leave behind the stories
of your life. Spit out the
sour taste of unmet expectation.
Let the stale scent of what-ifs
waft back into the swamp
of your useless fears.

Arrive curious, without the armor
of certainty, the plans and planned
results of the life you’ve imagined.
Live the life that chooses you, new
every breath, every blink of
your astonished eyes.
— Rebecca del Rio

Arrive curious, without the armor of certainty. I’ve been asking myself, how can I stop knowing the untrue beliefs that got build in me so long ago? How can I release my grip on being certain as a method of protection? How can I stay close to a Beginner’s Mind and let it shape the way I see, the way I be? What am I assuming I know that I might actually be entirely wrong about? What am I assuming I don’t know that I actually have a thick knowing of? What would it be like to set down my need to be sure and instead widen into listening — truly, deeply listening? How am I already practicing this? How can I keep practicing?

4 — I keep thinking about how none of us have ever done this before. None of us have been a human in a time like this until right now… we’re all first-timers here, figuring it out a moment at a time. We’re all wild beings that have been entrapped by systems far too constricting for our humanity. We’re all navigating grief and fear and tenderness and rage and devastation, personally and collectively. We’re all facing a world that feels more and more unstable. I hope this remembrance brings some gentleness to however you are handling it all. I hope you can stay really soft with the ways you’re responding to all that is unfolding inside and around you, probably imperfectly because hello, you’re only human. I hope you can notice the ways you’re actually showing up as the person you want to be already. And I hope this self-gentleness can ripple outward into a world that is desperate for something other than more pain. I’m over here trying alongside you.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ I shared a short reading of Joanna Macy’s potent words

△ A podcast that has been in my ears & heart often lately

△ The long dark

△ Breathing with the forest

△ I am loving Samin’s new book, Good Things

△ We must uncenter our minds from ourselves

△ Ever-present reminders of brightness in the dark

With care,
Lisa