Dec 17, 2023·edited Dec 17, 2023Liked by Lisa Olivera
I *know* that life is meant to live in community and I think that's what makes a lack of safe belonging all the more painful. I know what I ache for and I keep coming up empty handed. I've been in those spaces that seem like they ooze with potential (like "church") and still feel like I'm left alone with my thoughts and my grief, and heck, even my values. I wonder if there's a point to all of it - this aloneness - and I have an inkling there is but I still search for connectedness. I think that the capacity to grieve contributes to the aloneness in a world that so often does whatever they can to deny and resist and minimize and bypass any and all grief. I am convinced we are needed because we are the ones who have eyes to see it and hearts to feel it - yet it is too hard to bear alone. Perhaps it is in the, dare I say subversive, creating of that space that we find our community.
I'm reminded of poet Andrea Gibson's words:
"A difficult life is not less worth living than a gentle one. Joy is simply easier to carry than sorrow. And your heart could lift a city from how long you've spent holding what's been nearly impossible to hold. This world needs those who know how to do that. Those who could find a tunnel that has no light at the end of it, and hold it up like a telescope to know the darkness also contains truths that could bring the light to its knees. Grief astronomer, adjust the lens, look close, tell us what you see".
Thank you so much for this. I've written about feeling alone, the need to be seen, this idea that we need each other. But it feels elusive and impossible sometimes-- the actuality of having such community. Thank you for sharing in such a beautiful way. I'm so grateful for your words this morning.
I really needed this at the exact moment I saw my notifications. I have been tracking a similar experience for myself. Within the last year I went from living in close proximity to my spiritual community of the last decade to living on my own in a new city in an attempt to practice more autonomy. This transition has been showing me the places I still need connection, no matter how independent I become. I can also relate to the piece you touched on as an adoptee but for me, my lack of belonging stems from being mixed race and never fitting into either side the way I was expected to. Reading this reminded me I am not alone, and I do have tools to help me navigate this terrain. Thank you 🩷
In my retirement, in a city where I lived as a child but not as a professional, I have been able to let go of the public face. I live alone, and moved back to this town having experienced a lot of loss. Somehow I knew that I needed to find spaces where I could just be, regardless of whether I was showing up with tears-behind-the-eyeballs or not; regardless of what was spilling over; regardless of what was bursting out. I am very fortunate to have found my places-to-be-with - an urban garden, a food pantry, Habitat for Humanity....I rely on the people in these spaces to hold all of what I bring - tears and laughter - and they do so with much grace.
Dec 18, 2023·edited Dec 18, 2023Liked by Lisa Olivera
Thank you, Lisa. I'm able to understand this. I feel this too. I long for that receptive, accepting community, and it appears hard to find. Because of my personal path in the last 20+ years, I'm finally aware of what it means to simply receive another, completely. I'm also aware how rare that experience is, and how contrary it seems to be, against the backdrop of our human condition and heritage (including genetic).
Even so - I also know that it is possible to create, and even though it may be a little island of experience in the whole sea of conflict. I've seen it, and I recognize it, and I have been there.
This is a miracle I now believe humans are capable of, and that in itself is a shiver-down-the-spine realization that lifts me up with hope.
I say there is hope. I say we must keep trying. I say we have the power within us as long as we are willing... deeply willing.
I feel gratitude for this space you create, these experiences you share, the ideas you create out of the all-there-is. Gratitude is a powerful experience. It's inside me and any person experiencing it, and expresses something deeply about us. It frees us to receive and connects us with the world of others.
Gratitude heals me and frees me. It knocks me out of selfishness and victimhood. It even tackles anxiety.
Thank you. Thank you all, here.
(also - I enjoyed the Francis Weller quotes - yes!)
I would argue that community and a sense of belongingness is the number one need for well-being/vitality/QOL. I always think about one of the stories from Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers", where this one town of Italian immigrants lived longer compared to the average at the time. Scientists started testing the water and food, but eventually what they noticed was how everyone was in community with each other; people stopped and talked to each other in the street, amongst other stuff. A buffer to developing PTSD is being able to engage our social brain, humans are better able to regulate their nervous system if there is another human there that can create a sense of safety a sense of relation. Belongingness is a basic need.
I have longed for community as long as I can remember. I grew up in a hostile environment and I guess my family didn't really feel like family (still doesn't) because our family system was broken (still is). I dream of having everyone (friends, community members, strangers) over for the holidays, I have always wanted to be a home for others. I have noticed though, that there seems to be a resistance to this in my life... a great teacher in my life says that what we are meant to do in this life we will meet the greatest resistance to.
Lisa, I commend you for being so honest in your letter. I commend you for choosing to look and stay with the horrors of the world right now. I personally do not have that strength. I choose to look away and ignore, and I ignore the fact that I hate that I do that, and I do recognize the privilege of it, but I ignore that too. I hope you can find the people who choose to look.
I so resonate with what you say about the 'public self'. In my work life I sit in the seat of 'wise therapist' and can fall into the trap of feeling like a fraud when I show up in public as my messy, complex, not put together self. I have a tendency to try and do my grief work alone and so the words you shared on the necessity of finding a container hit home in a powerful way. I will take them into my day and muse on them as I grapple with the Christmas grief triggers that are currently pulling me into my shell of solitude. Thank you 💗
Beautiful! I can relate in many ways. And, particularly, as a writer, about sharing our private selves publicly. I always love your recommendations. Warmly and be well! Nadia
Lisa, To be honest I have not heard of you before finding your newsletter - so I come with no preconceived ideas. I find your writing real - real pain - real working through it. I know what it is like to lack a physical community. I do not know what it it is like to be burdened with recognition. I hope you find what brings you peace. D
the human complexity you translate into words here and make visible palpable is astonishing and therapeutic not only for you but for us as people of a certain mind-set (hate that word but language is limiting) there is comfort to be had in knowing we are not alone in attempting to reconcile, balance
what seems to be so contradictory: basking in our own joy while aware of so much pain
I loved this, I too have so many swirling questions I try to pin down on the page. As Mary Oliver writes: “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” But sometimes I pay the least attention to what my own beating heart is trying to tell me.
I deeply valued reading this and seeing something of what I've been holding reflected back to me, here, on a screen. Deeply longing to throw my phone against a wall for it's inadequacy and also fearful of what is left if I do that. It might be worth finding out...
I also wrote a substack piece a few weeks ago called "will you help me hold it all?" which was, on some level, about something similar: joy and grief living together, in the same place, and the way we are severed from both if we cannot or will not access the other.
I come from a community and tradition that has ways to process these things but I am isolated, physically away from my people, my language, etc and so they clog up my body, causing me to move slower and dream smaller and that has to change.
Thank you for your words, they are brave and generous. Thank you for the suggestion that there might be more to your life than what is crafted and published for the public. I'm grateful for all of it. A process has started in my mind after reading... ❤️
I *know* that life is meant to live in community and I think that's what makes a lack of safe belonging all the more painful. I know what I ache for and I keep coming up empty handed. I've been in those spaces that seem like they ooze with potential (like "church") and still feel like I'm left alone with my thoughts and my grief, and heck, even my values. I wonder if there's a point to all of it - this aloneness - and I have an inkling there is but I still search for connectedness. I think that the capacity to grieve contributes to the aloneness in a world that so often does whatever they can to deny and resist and minimize and bypass any and all grief. I am convinced we are needed because we are the ones who have eyes to see it and hearts to feel it - yet it is too hard to bear alone. Perhaps it is in the, dare I say subversive, creating of that space that we find our community.
I'm reminded of poet Andrea Gibson's words:
"A difficult life is not less worth living than a gentle one. Joy is simply easier to carry than sorrow. And your heart could lift a city from how long you've spent holding what's been nearly impossible to hold. This world needs those who know how to do that. Those who could find a tunnel that has no light at the end of it, and hold it up like a telescope to know the darkness also contains truths that could bring the light to its knees. Grief astronomer, adjust the lens, look close, tell us what you see".
Thank you so much for this. I've written about feeling alone, the need to be seen, this idea that we need each other. But it feels elusive and impossible sometimes-- the actuality of having such community. Thank you for sharing in such a beautiful way. I'm so grateful for your words this morning.
I really needed this at the exact moment I saw my notifications. I have been tracking a similar experience for myself. Within the last year I went from living in close proximity to my spiritual community of the last decade to living on my own in a new city in an attempt to practice more autonomy. This transition has been showing me the places I still need connection, no matter how independent I become. I can also relate to the piece you touched on as an adoptee but for me, my lack of belonging stems from being mixed race and never fitting into either side the way I was expected to. Reading this reminded me I am not alone, and I do have tools to help me navigate this terrain. Thank you 🩷
In my retirement, in a city where I lived as a child but not as a professional, I have been able to let go of the public face. I live alone, and moved back to this town having experienced a lot of loss. Somehow I knew that I needed to find spaces where I could just be, regardless of whether I was showing up with tears-behind-the-eyeballs or not; regardless of what was spilling over; regardless of what was bursting out. I am very fortunate to have found my places-to-be-with - an urban garden, a food pantry, Habitat for Humanity....I rely on the people in these spaces to hold all of what I bring - tears and laughter - and they do so with much grace.
Thank you, Lisa. I'm able to understand this. I feel this too. I long for that receptive, accepting community, and it appears hard to find. Because of my personal path in the last 20+ years, I'm finally aware of what it means to simply receive another, completely. I'm also aware how rare that experience is, and how contrary it seems to be, against the backdrop of our human condition and heritage (including genetic).
Even so - I also know that it is possible to create, and even though it may be a little island of experience in the whole sea of conflict. I've seen it, and I recognize it, and I have been there.
This is a miracle I now believe humans are capable of, and that in itself is a shiver-down-the-spine realization that lifts me up with hope.
I say there is hope. I say we must keep trying. I say we have the power within us as long as we are willing... deeply willing.
I feel gratitude for this space you create, these experiences you share, the ideas you create out of the all-there-is. Gratitude is a powerful experience. It's inside me and any person experiencing it, and expresses something deeply about us. It frees us to receive and connects us with the world of others.
Gratitude heals me and frees me. It knocks me out of selfishness and victimhood. It even tackles anxiety.
Thank you. Thank you all, here.
(also - I enjoyed the Francis Weller quotes - yes!)
A power piece spoken from the heart. Thank you for sharing.
Every word of this. You've captured many sides of a feeling so many of us know these days. Feeling alone and yet...
I would argue that community and a sense of belongingness is the number one need for well-being/vitality/QOL. I always think about one of the stories from Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers", where this one town of Italian immigrants lived longer compared to the average at the time. Scientists started testing the water and food, but eventually what they noticed was how everyone was in community with each other; people stopped and talked to each other in the street, amongst other stuff. A buffer to developing PTSD is being able to engage our social brain, humans are better able to regulate their nervous system if there is another human there that can create a sense of safety a sense of relation. Belongingness is a basic need.
I have longed for community as long as I can remember. I grew up in a hostile environment and I guess my family didn't really feel like family (still doesn't) because our family system was broken (still is). I dream of having everyone (friends, community members, strangers) over for the holidays, I have always wanted to be a home for others. I have noticed though, that there seems to be a resistance to this in my life... a great teacher in my life says that what we are meant to do in this life we will meet the greatest resistance to.
Lisa, I commend you for being so honest in your letter. I commend you for choosing to look and stay with the horrors of the world right now. I personally do not have that strength. I choose to look away and ignore, and I ignore the fact that I hate that I do that, and I do recognize the privilege of it, but I ignore that too. I hope you can find the people who choose to look.
I so resonate with what you say about the 'public self'. In my work life I sit in the seat of 'wise therapist' and can fall into the trap of feeling like a fraud when I show up in public as my messy, complex, not put together self. I have a tendency to try and do my grief work alone and so the words you shared on the necessity of finding a container hit home in a powerful way. I will take them into my day and muse on them as I grapple with the Christmas grief triggers that are currently pulling me into my shell of solitude. Thank you 💗
Beautiful! I can relate in many ways. And, particularly, as a writer, about sharing our private selves publicly. I always love your recommendations. Warmly and be well! Nadia
Lisa, To be honest I have not heard of you before finding your newsletter - so I come with no preconceived ideas. I find your writing real - real pain - real working through it. I know what it is like to lack a physical community. I do not know what it it is like to be burdened with recognition. I hope you find what brings you peace. D
This is beautifully said. Thank you for your words 💜
Love this title immensely. Looking forward to reading it when I have a moment. Thank you for sharing your brilliance.
the human complexity you translate into words here and make visible palpable is astonishing and therapeutic not only for you but for us as people of a certain mind-set (hate that word but language is limiting) there is comfort to be had in knowing we are not alone in attempting to reconcile, balance
what seems to be so contradictory: basking in our own joy while aware of so much pain
thanks
I loved this, I too have so many swirling questions I try to pin down on the page. As Mary Oliver writes: “To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” But sometimes I pay the least attention to what my own beating heart is trying to tell me.
I deeply valued reading this and seeing something of what I've been holding reflected back to me, here, on a screen. Deeply longing to throw my phone against a wall for it's inadequacy and also fearful of what is left if I do that. It might be worth finding out...
I found this podcast episode about grief to be an excellent listen, touching on those communal ways of releasing grief towards the end: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4UKozrYhrm7RtZ758mk3Yl?si=cr3BNed-TIeSo7lT3LyFng
I also wrote a substack piece a few weeks ago called "will you help me hold it all?" which was, on some level, about something similar: joy and grief living together, in the same place, and the way we are severed from both if we cannot or will not access the other.
I come from a community and tradition that has ways to process these things but I am isolated, physically away from my people, my language, etc and so they clog up my body, causing me to move slower and dream smaller and that has to change.
Thank you for your words, they are brave and generous. Thank you for the suggestion that there might be more to your life than what is crafted and published for the public. I'm grateful for all of it. A process has started in my mind after reading... ❤️