What I'm sitting with

A compilation of currents

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A song I’m loving:

blurry floral close-up on Polaroid film, 2007.

What I’m Sitting With: A Compilation of Currents

• The desire to not turn my time away, or my time in general, into content, into something for anyone other than myself, into something before it’s ready to be anywhere outside of my own being.

• The feeling of waiting for my seven rolls of 35mm film to be processed; the excitement of not knowing how the photos turned out, and the suspense of not getting to see them immediately, and the sacredness of non-immediacy.

• Listening to what feels right. I sent out a short list last week and I’m sending out another list format this week because I want to, and it feels right, and I’m practicing listening to that. May we all practice listening to that.

• A swirl of thoughts about optimization culture — about the pressure to better everything about ourselves and our lives — about the freedom of embracing my un-remodeled kitchen and my old coffeemaker and everything about myself and my life that may never get “upgraded” but are good enough as is.

• Thinking less about how to keep subscribers and more about how to keep my creativity, my soul, my own spark alive.

• This question: What does it truly look like to practice balance with things that bring us both positive and negative consequences? How do we embrace the good parts of something while tending to the impact of the not-so-good parts?

• The fear of being honest about the book I want to write next and finding the willingness to listen, even if it strays from my “brand”, even if it won’t be
  ”successful”, even if it won’t get picked up by a publisher, even if it ends up just being for me. Am I really going to try it? Am I really going to just go for it and see what happens? I hope so. I really hope so.

• What happens when we stop assuming the point of being alive is to do anything other than be alive; what happens when we stop thinking we’re supposed to get somewhere else; what happens when we stop feeling the pressure to keep growing, keep going, keep moving, keep doing more.

• How incredible it is that we’re all still dreaming and scheming and waking and connecting and creating and listening and moving and being in spite of the chaos we’re all submerged in, whether personally or collectively or (probably) both.

• How to continually find the willingness to disappoint people in order to listen to what is best for me; how to be okay with falling off the pedestal I never asked to be placed on; how to accept that doing what I need to do for my own well-being might mean no longer doing something that has been serving someone else.

• The deep, true gift of nature — and not in a cheesy way, but in a real, profound way. The way we can find ourselves more clearly after recognizing ourselves in a leaf or the ocean or dirt. The way we can reorient toward what’s real and true and right after immersing ourselves in places and spaces that are alive with presence. The way we can remember small is good, is enough, is significant, is often just right. The way nature Just Is. The way it reminds us we can Just Be.

• Not reading self-help books; not learning any more about mental health; not tapping into the latest wellness trend; not constantly orienting inward.

Moments from a week that changed me

• Noticing who is in my head when I picture an audience: noticing who I’m thinking about when I consider who will be reading what I share; noticing who I want to impress; noticing when that person is just me; noticing who I don’t consider at all.

• My dreams — the ones I’m just now willing to look at and explore. The ones I’m just now willing to admit. The ones I’m just now willing to see more vividly.

• The fear of the future, collectively: the fear of what kind of world my daughter will grow up in; the fear of collective safety; the constantly-simmering anger around the needs of humans that continuously go unmet for the power of few.

• The difference between being “unique” and being wholly ourselves, which might sometimes actually be boring and The Same and basic and bland but is most true.

• What it can look like to not need to be the smartest or the best. What it can look like to embrace mediocrity where it is. What it can look like to stop trying so hard. What it can look like to own our shortcomings, the things that don’t come so naturally, the parts of us that aren’t so gifted or well-rehearsed.

• The act of listening to the same song 5,000 times in a row every time I find a new song I love, and the sweetness of how long it takes for it to get old.

• Separating conditioning and learned behavior from my truest, most real self.

• Elise Loehnen
  ’s new book about the price women pay to be good, and perhaps the price all of us pay when we distance ourselves from who we truly are for the perceived “benefit” of outside expectations, norms, rules, and gaze.

• The idea that it might actually be more nourishing and healing to learn how to be with people and places and things that aren’t the most aligned instead of assuming we have to ONLY give energy to what is perfectly aligned.

• The pure, unfiltered joy of children. The way society claims to love children but actually considers them In The Way. The gifts we get when we stop thinking a child’s job is to grow up and we instead drop into their Child-ness with them, meeting them in their wonder and remembering our own capacity to hold awe.

• Managing expectations versus reality, and noticing where reality is actually okay and it’s my expectations that make it not seem okay.

• My hesitancy to try new things that fall outside of roles or labels I’ve held, like make prints or art or stickers or tangible ways of engaging with my words and work. My thoughts have been, “I’m not an artist, I can’t do that.” I would never say that to someone else, so why is it so easy to say it to myself?

• The simplicity available to us when we stop complicating what isn’t actually complicated.

• Trusting people when they share kind or meaningful or loving feedback with me. Not dismissing it. Not assuming they’re just being nice.

• Who I’m handing my agency and power over to — who I’m giving my own sense of self-assuredness to — who I’m listening to more than my own knowing.

• Saying what needs to be said. Doing what needs to be done. Noticing where I’m waiting and asking if waiting is actually necessary and, if it isn’t, figuring out what I need to stop waiting and start taking aligned action.

• The relief of learning to sink into right now, even when I’d rather be somewhere else. The relief of an open palm over a tight grip. The relief of having nowhere else to get to. The relief of being in the continuous practice of letting go.

• Giving things the time they need. Not rushing toward clarity. Not rushing toward figuring out what it all means. Not rushing toward making meaning out of something that actually requires time. Not feeling like I need to explain anything to anyone before I’m ready to. Giving things, and myself, the time we need.

A scene from my solo week away at Salmon Creek Farm

This felt good to write out. Thanks, as always, for being here.

△ They’re the Happiest People in America. We Called Them to Ask Why.

△ Is Self-Care Preventing Us From Solving The Loneliness Epidemic?

△ “We lift our gaze skyward to the birds and see what it means to be free.”

△ This lovely new Gia Margaret album has been playing a lot lately

△ Does therapy really work?

△ Some Truths About Writing a Book

△ The Optimization Sinkhole

With care,
Lisa