What I want to say most
annual threads of a year
Human Stuff is a free weekly-ish newsletter. You’re welcome to share parts of this letter that connect with you on social media, or send to someone you love. Thank you for reading, ‘heart’ing, commenting, sharing, for helping this newsletter continue by being here. It truly means something.
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
Oh my heart. This was a priceless gift, thank you. <3
Your words feel like a soothing salve on my grieving heart. Just when I think I’m moving on from grief, another loss hits me and my heart is cracked open again and life feels uncertain once again. Thank you for your tenderness and vulnerability and for offering healing words and care 💜
May the holidays fill your heart and home with joy and delight ✨