🗣There is *1 spot left* on my January 1:1 coaching roster (!). I’ll be closing the application this Thursday, December 23. Click here for more information and to apply for a spot. Let’s connect if you’re ready❣️ You can always reply to this email if you have questions. I want to hear from you.
❤️🩹Next Sober From Bullshit Recovery Club: Storytelling Edition is Wednesday, January 5. Register here.
Questions? Ask. I’m here and I’d love to hear from you.
Everything is absurd, and there are no clear answers.
Somehow, this morning, writing from the guest room bed at my little sister’s house, I find comfort in this. You see, these past two weeks have hollowed me out. I know I’m not alone in this. I know you are feeling it too. But I am finding the tiniest sliver of comfort in the above statement, because what it makes space for is rest. Rest.
And the whole body exhales. And we linger in bed with the dog a little longer.
When I feel uncertain, I immediately seek solutions, I immediately try to figure *it* out, to make sense, to craft a plan. I’m a human being, after all, and human beings are wired to seek stability, certainty, security. So it makes sense that this being tossed over and over again into the Soup of Uncertainty has me reaching for steady ground.
I am working reality out in my own mind, in my own nervous system, just the same as all of you. I don’t know how one finds stability upon a constantly shifting underfoot. But I do think that this is the thing that we need to figure out. How do we stay firmly rooted amidst chaos? How do we become redwood trees?
When I give up trying to figure out, when I accept what is, when I shake off my learned tendency toward magical thinking and face reality instead, I can be in relationship to the present moment. This particular present moment happens to be winter solstice. Every article about winter solstice talks about “the return to the light” and the mythic qualities of the longest night of the year. There’s lots of pretty language, lots of suggestions about how to celebrate, thoughtful rituals to ground ourselves in time.
I say do all the rituals. But also, maybe, turn off your phone.
Give your eyes a rest, your eyes, these organs that take in so much more information than necessary, constantly scanning horizons, reading people’s faces, interfacing with devices, hijacked by so. many. screens. Close your eyes. Maybe light a candle in a dark room, close your eyes, smooth out your forehead and your eyebrows, relax your whole scalp, let the quiet light dance across your face.
If we accept that right this second, there aren’t any answers, there is no figuring out, and that no one is showing up with a map—what is needed? What would be helpful, just today, just to make this day even 5-10% more full of ease? What might you do—or, not do? There will be plenty of time—may it be so—to craft a plan, to keep up the hard work, to figure out how to keep going—but today, if at all possible, given our reality, what would feel good?
This is what I’m going to practice today. I’ll sign out of social media, delete the apps off my phone, just for today. I’ll pay attention to my people, I’ll keep reading this gorgeous book on the bedside. I’ll probably eat some cookies. Just for today, I’ll lay down the effort-ing. I’ll take the dog out into the hills, face westward, nothing to obstruct the eye but rolling hills and low clouds. I’ll stay close to myself. I’ll ask that deepest, most profound part of myself, what is needed? and I’ll do my best to listen.
Stay close to yourself, your people. Do what feels right, lay down the obligations. Nothing is getting solved today. So let’s rest, let’s go slow. Foot off the pedal. Burners on low.
From the archives ~ this time last year:
⭐️We Will Miss It When It Ends
⭐️Mourning Doves on Christmas Morning
SELF MADE is a newsletter for fellow 🌺late bloomers🌺 with a focus on recovery, creativity and community. It's written by me, Dani, a writer, coach, and recovery advocate in San Francisco, CA.
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