Slowing downwards

and five things

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A song I’ve been loving:

opening, 35mm film

1 — I’m writing to you from inside some sort of portal, some swirly space where it feels like I’ve walked out of my old skin and haven’t yet put on my new skin. I feel raw, exposed, like my modes of protection continue melting and I haven’t yet fully learned how to replace them — or, more accurate, how to not replace them… how to simply live this unencumbered by trust and openness to all of life. It’s a whole new way of being, one that makes me feel like I’m starting over at life in some ways.

My body is learning to not immediately reach for strategies of protection and is instead learning to stay, as Pema says. And what I’m realizing most is this: learning to stay with What Is doesn’t mean life will suddenly become easier, that we won’t in some ways still be the people we’ve always been, that hurt won’t continue to reach us… but it does mean we can learn to face life with a wider-open heart, with more love, with a deeper sense of compassion for the floundering experience of being human, with more willingness to let it all permeate and penetrate and seep into our marrow so as to move us, to change us, over and over.

Moving beyond self-fixing and into a space of simply (not simple) learning to enter into the moment fully feels profound. It also feels far less practical, much more mythical, a deeper reach, a lower-to-the-ground space than we often see on social media or in Before-and-After stories or in easily-consumable advice. It feels lonelier, in some ways. But from down here, in this swirly portal underground, something richer is taking root, something I know will take time and patience and slow tending, something I know won’t be the quick fix we (I) so often long for. Perhaps depth is where we go once we’ve skimmed the surface long enough. Perhaps this is where aliveness is cultivated — not in the improving but in the deepening. I’m swimming in these waters with as much trust and surrender as I can find, and it’s teaching me something that doesn’t have words yet but is instead a new shape forming within.

portals everywhere, 35mm film

2 — I’ve been off social media and I’m not quite having the experience so many seem to have… the one of “wow, I don’t miss it at all! I barely remember what it’s like to be there!” Instead, it’s been wildly uncomfortable, confronting, and at times disorienting. I still find myself thinking about Instagram, even when I’m not on it. I wonder what’s going on there, if I’m losing something important not being there. I’ve poured so much into that space the last eight years, and to realize it has in some ways distracted me from what feels like my real work in the world brings some grief, maybe even some embarrassment.

It’s tender to sit with the ways at times I strayed from the depth I naturally embody for the rewards of constant sharing, striving to stay relevant, always being On/Available/Present, building something that brought me a lot but also didn’t offer much of what I truly need. It’s tender to get very, very honest about the addictive qualities of an app and how often I’d leave the present in order to be present on my phone, only to be left feeling worse. It’s tender to ask myself, “do I have anything to offer if I don’t have a platform like the one I’ve built?” — to know the answer is yes but to even have to ask myself the question. It’s tender to not yet have a roadmap of where to go in my work when it isn’t centered around sharing there, when it diverts from the path it has long been traveling on.

I share this to say that sometimes, making the shifts we need to make doesn’t immediately lead to gratification or relief. Sometimes, it requires we move through a more uncomfortable and confronting process first, one that may take time and the willingness to be soft with ourselves in the midst of what we discover. It requires a wrestling, a stinging honesty. Mostly, it requires so much compassion… the kind that makes it safe enough to keep exploring uncomfortable terrain in order to eventually find what we need by doing so.

where it leads, 35mm film

3 — A few days ago, I visited a particular redwood tree that always seems to mother me. I walked into her hollow base and immediately started sobbing, feeling earlier rain slowly drip onto the top of my head from above. Something in me needed to be dislodged, needed to come out. I stayed inside the cave of her for a while, tears flowing from what felt like a stuck dam finally releasing. I once again asked her to tell me what I need to know; I felt my own willingness to listen. I was reminded of all the places we can turn to for mothering, for care, for remembrance. I was reminded that more often than not, someone else’s wisdom and guidance is simply a mirror of what we already know to be true, to be needed. I was reminded of the medicine of returning to the places that hold us again and again. I was reminded of the power of letting our grief be fully felt, not just once but for a lifetime. I was reminded of the relief that comes from releasing what needs to be released. I was reminded of how simple all of this gets to be when we just listen and allow.

4 — As my heart has learned to soften over the last year, I still feel the places where it tightens, where it doesn’t want to stay open, where it wants to keep life out. Yet this has turned into a place not in need of fixing, but a tender place simply asking for my own kindness. There will always be places within us that don’t become exactly what we want them to be. It feels like the greatest gift to give up this pursuit and to instead pursue the practice of offering love to the parts of us, perhaps even the parts of others, that seem to reject it most. It feels like the greatest gift to get to practice loving these parts of us instead of continuing to try and get rid of them. It feels like disrupting hierarchies. Like saying No to punitive culture. Like stepping away from harshness. Like choosing to imperfectly practice something different, and that being everything.

unexpected growth, 35mm film

5 — “Slow' and 'down' are modes of the soul; they are connective modes, ways of keeping connected to oneself and to one’s environment. 'Slowing downwards' refers to more than simply moving slowly; it means growing down towards the roots of one’s being. Instead of outward growth and upward climb, life at times must turn inward and downward in order to grow in other ways. There is a shift to the vertical down that re-turns us to root memories, root metaphors, and timeless things that shape our lives from within. Slowing downwards creates opportunities to dwell more deeply in one’s life, for the home we are looking for in this world is within us all along. The lost home that we are seeking is ourselves; it is the story we carry within our soul.” — Michael Meade

May we remember slowing down and turning inward often brings much more true wealth than outward growth and the constant upward climb. May we be patient with ourselves when this slow, inward kind of growth doesn’t appear to have much to show for it yet. May we trust all that is forming we can’t yet see, all that is taking root in ways we don’t yet have awareness of. May we hold reverence for what is underneath the surface, in the underground, slowly unfurling as the light does.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

△ Holly Whitaker’s new 30 day audiobook on shifting your relationship with alcohol, although her work is really about shifting the way we relate to addiction in all forms; a gift for all who are seeking new ways of seeing and being (as someone who has been mostly alcohol-free since 2019, I can’t emphasize enough how transformative it can be to look at what might be looming underneath our habits and patterns; for me right now, it’s social media/technology — and looking is hard yet also the only path toward inner liberation).

△ The medicine we need moving into this year

△ Seven days of movement to ease into the year

△ What I’m reading/absorbing/practicing

△ What I’m listening to on the Libby App (thank you, library!)

△ Finding one of my old Livejournals, only to see me quoting Pema Chodron nearly 20 years ago and feeling into the parts of me that have always been the same;. the comfort in that, the sweetness in that, and a deepened gratitude to one of my longest and most steady teachers from afar.

2006 Lisa, weaving similar threads as 2025 Lisa. Also, lol @ writing this at 2:37am

With care,
Lisa