My dog, Stevie, basks nearby like a big white yam under a broiler, feigning fatigue when I know she’d be up in an instant if I wanted to play with her.

I feel embarrassed and ashamed even though I’m alone.

A small voice in my head says, I just wish someone would want to be with me.

It’s a tortured, tiny little voice. She’s the most honest version of me. I’ve been wrapped around her olive-fits-on-it-sized pinkie finger. It’s a tiny little pinkie with an even tinier pink fingernail, dirt hidden beneath it. Her ache becomes my own whenever no one is around.

It’s her tiny hand that texts everyone she can think of, even people I’d rather not be around when I don’t have plans. She’s the one who manipulates me into using others to be with me because I can’t stand being by myself. It might have been her hand that found the lukewarm can of Busch beer so comforting in high school. Unpracticed, she mirrored the others in the room, and immediately her loneliness went away.

Twenty hours earlier, on that same patch of turf, that little girl was content. Erin’s tanned skin, bright eyes, and just-barely crooked smile filled the yard.

“What would you do if you knew you were dying?” someone had asked earlier that day while we stood in line at the Driver Licensing Office. The difference in our answers was telling.

“I’d want to spend it with the people I love, but they don’t have time for me,” I’d said.

“Oh God, no, not me. I’d want to run into the trees and be alone in nature. People would be worried about me—and very, very mad at me.”

“I wonder if it’s because I’m an only child,” Erin mused aloud as we shuffled a few inches farther in line, now twelfth instead of twenty-second after we’d speed-walked in at 8:36 trying to beat the older woman and her daughter, who ultimately ended up in front of us anyway.

The comment sparked something.

“I think I’m so anxiously attached because I always wanted to play with my older brother, but he didn’t want much to do with me.”

Duck Hunt only had two controllers, and my brother already had two best friends when we lived in our little brown house on 125 Hillview Drive. I took to playing with Annie down the road instead of trying to keep up with him. I still remember the awe I felt in Annie’s living room as I peeled the newspaper from the Silly Putty and watched the ink stay exactly where it had been pressed. But I couldn’t help thinking about my brother, two doors down, where he was likely eating Tess’s delicious eggrolls with her son and her very cute nephew.

I always wanted to be with him. I wanted him to like me.

I wore all his hand-me-down No Fear shirts and Hypercolor T-shirts through elementary and middle school. I loved looking at the glossy baseball cards in his room with him—anything to earn his approval. I remember the poster of the red Mustang Cobra on his wall and the baseball trophies on his bed set, but I don’t remember much about my own room.

In the house with the fancy living room we never went in, an envelope with $80 cash, an elementary-school-sized hand, all the other presents open, wrapping paper strewn about. I had one last gift to give.

My heart thumped loudly in my chest as I happily said, “One more,” in a sing-song voice and handed it to my brother. Chin high, the secret burning my cheeks pink, my parents looked on with wonder.

This envelope was the ticket to my brother’s love.

He opened it. Dirty dollar bills in ones, fives, tens, and even a twenty—crumpled, rumpled, a child’s allowance. Bills soft as socks, every edge and bit of crispness worn out of them by the darkness of pockets and piggy banks.

Three pairs of eyes fell on me. They were wide with how wonderful I was. How generous. How syrupy sweet.

My brother’s dream of a bass guitar was now within reach. I could practically feel his resentment toward me melt away as he counted the bills. I expected admiration for my selfless act. What happened instead wasn’t even a possibility in my ten-year-old brain.

My mom gently intercepted the exchange.

“Ooh, no, Linde. I’m sorry, Colson. She can’t give you that.”

My jaw dropped to my chest, and my heart sank to my feet. A different kind of pink prickled my cheeks.

Is this fair? It’s my money to give...

All I knew for sure was that I’d tried—and failed—to secure my brother’s love.

Grand gestures be damned.

If it had worked, I don't think my brother, newly able to drive, would have made me take the bus instead.

If it had worked, I don’t think he would have made fun of me for wearing my robe in front of his friend, the one I had a crush on. (The robe was yellow fleece from neck to toe. It would have shown my shape better if I’d been wearing plastic garbage bags.)

If it had worked, I don’t think I’d still hear that little voice who desperately, dearly wants someone to want to be with her.

My artificially bright blonde hair catches the breeze as the turf warms beneath me, and I marvel at how pretty it is. My best friend from high school made it this absolutely yummy blonde at the ends.

“Let’s go bright for summer, and I’m not letting you cut it,” she’d said during what must normally be a consultation for her other clients.

I always do what she says.

She hasn’t been wrong yet.

I love the way my hair goes with my tan legs, the backdrop to my hair in my frame of vision. I notice the stubble on my usually waxed legs, which also shines in the sun, and I think of my sweet friend in Bend, who somehow always makes time in her impossibly busy life to wax them.

For a second, my brain focuses on these loves of my life, and the anxious little girl loosens her death grip on my heart.

Then I remember they’re in different states, it’s the eve of my birthday, and I’m a raging hormonal mess.

So the tears blur the blonde and the tan and the green, and I’m ashamed to be forty-one years and three hundred sixty-four days old and still wishing someone would want to be with me. I go inside to try and get away from myself.

The sun is setting through the window; it’s a direct shot into my eyes. It’s annoying, but not annoying enough to do something about. My bare legs glow a pretty yellow in the light. The light blue sweatshirt I’m wearing reminds me of the sky I hid from earlier today as I watched White Lotus while riding my Peloton to avoid the pain of loneliness.

That little girl tried to negotiate terms with me so I wouldn’t be alone with all her might. I could stop by the birthday party, just to say hi. Five minutes; I could leave whenever I wanted. I could go to my friend’s house in Seattle; I’m always welcome there. What about Mike? I haven’t seen him in a while. Or the cute boy I’m dating—I could call him. I even wished my parents were here to take me out to dinner. She ran through the local Rolodex, then through the people who might actually answer their phones. She wanted to puppet me anywhere but here.

As I frantically walked down the hall to change into what I call “real people clothes” so I could leave the house, I heard a different voice: “You have to want to be with you.”

My knee-jerk reaction was, “How fucking cliché,” accompanied by an eye roll.

I threw on my new blue sweatshirt and a pair of cutoffs. Birkenstocks would make it look like I cared. A quick drive to Starbucks and a call to my mom to tell her how much it hurt to be alone.

“I know,” she said, echoing her words from earlier in the day. I’d apologized earlier, saying sorry for being so pathetic. She replied, “You don’t have to be sorry; that’s what moms do. Who else is going to listen to this?”

Forty-one years, three hundred sixty-four days, and my mom still cares.

The story hasn’t changed. I’d still give all my allowance to anyone I think might have the time and desire to be with me, but I can’t seem to find anyone who wants it.

“I’m happy you’re going to write, honey,” my mom said through my earbuds as I walked across the parking lot.

The pimple-faced kid with a mushroom cut tells me the forty-three stars in my Starbucks app will only get me a cold foam topper in a cup. I don’t understand the words that came out of his mouth. He tells me the bottle I handed him from the cold case will be $5.46. I tell him, “I’m too cheap.”

I sit at a round table and open my bag. I’m proud of myself. I’ve picked a happy medium. I’m away from home, but with me. I have my laptop, and I’m going to write.

In the depths of my bag, there is no laptop.

I rip off a text to my mom: I forgot my fucking laptop.

Because she doesn’t only get the sad, anxious parts of me. She also gets the angry, pissed-off parts of me.

As I pull out of the parking lot, the little olive-fits-on-it-sized pinkie twitches.

I think about the open stores. I think about all the places that sell chocolate, or ice cream, or the errands I could run for the party I’m throwing for myself. I hear the words “fuck it” from somewhere inside me. It sounds like an angry teenager.

I almost convince myself I’m not going to write.

It now silhouettes the top of the trees, no longer in my eyes. The green is deeper at dusk, rich with depth and aliveness as the tops reach into the buttercream sky. I listen to the quiet of the fading day; her tiny grip has finally loosened, pinkie curled soft against my palm, asleep.

I press the button as the clock in the corner of my screen changes to 7:30. Strangers’ faces populate my screen, and just like that, I’m a person “Living with Cancer.”

My mind flashes back to the AA and Al-Anon rooms I’ve spent time in, “Hi, my name is Linden, and I’m an alcoholic” has become “Hi, I’m Linden, and I have a brain tumor.” The leaders of the group have each been living with cancer for years; one of them tells me he’s survived stage four cancer multiple times. The other facilitator also has a brain tumor and has also outlived her prognosis. This fills me with a surge of hope, and I feel relief and gratitude that I self-identified as a person Living with Cancer. She then says she’s had several brain surgeries but has forgone other treatments so she will have options in the future. My hope balloon explodes, my heart free-falls into my gut, and I want to barf it up. I used all my treatment options eleven years ago, now I feel I’m banking on luck, ignorance, and science hurrying the fuck up to come up with better options. A surge of anger, “this is why I didn’t want to come to this fucking group,” screams through me as my head is forced out of the proverbial sand.

I am saved by the next person to introduce himself as he has a terminal diagnosis, and all my ‘poor me’ energy immediately shifts to deep sadness and compassion for this beautiful man who is sharing details about his daughter’s wedding. He is bedridden as he tells the group he almost walked her down the whole aisle, but had to sit before he made it; the son-in-law he’ll never have had to meet him halfway. He showed a picture of a skeleton who used to be a vibrant man and a princess in a white dress. Both are adorned with flowers, one bursting with life and the other a ghost of a life close to extinguished. The heart I’d just wanted to barf up was now breaking, my eyes brimmed with tears.

This sweet, dying man ended his share by offering another man his air miles, “I don’t need them anymore,” he joked. The recipient wanted to get home from treatment to see his son graduate, but didn’t have the money, and my tears exploded.

My turn to introduce myself came, and I was a complete and utter mess as I told them the truth: “No offense, but I don’t want to be here.” I blubbered about my second diagnosis and the lack of treatment options as I wiped my snot on my knee. I lost contact with the group as my eyes squeezed shut and and embarassment on top of fear took over. The group was remarkably emotionless through all of this, and it muddled my fear with confusion. I collapsed into my emotions and felt ashamed. I only have a slow-growing tumor. Comparatively speaking, I am able-bodied, youngish, and have a ‘better’ cancer diagnosis than the others in the group. My tumor wasn’t bad enough to warrant my being here.

The leaders flirted through the meeting, batting jokes back and forth while people described their diagnoses and fears. It diffused any potential emotional charge until my outburst. I was irritated with them, shocked and disappointed by the opportunities for emotional catharsis missed due to whatever dynamic this was. The woman who shared after me started by saying, “Oh, now, now you’ve got me crying, I don’t want to cry.” What the hell else are you doing in here!? flew through my mind as I realized tears seemed to be an anomaly. The leaders continually riffed about topics not relevant, and eventually, somehow, a joke about not having penis cancer was told after a share from a man with severely metastasized cancer.

I was the new kid, catching up to a group dynamic everyone else already understood. The leaders flirted. People shared devastating things. Nobody responded. They were all in on ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ was. A man in his fifties, inundated with metastatic cancer, shared his frustration with people’s response of, “Well, you don’t look like you have cancer.” No one acknowledged him.

The penis without cancer joke bounced around the virtual room like a balloon in the kids’ game of keep it up. My eyes stared wide as one of the leaders of the group giggled and messaged the woman who had given in to tears earlier in the session. She checked her phone on screen and, eventually, a look of shock and surprise crossed her face. The leader asked if I wanted to see it. Everyone else was laughing and joking now, not wanting to be left out, so I said yes.

My phone vibrated a moment later. I tapped the photo, and an old man was holding a dead fish on a boat. I didn’t get the joke or its relevance to the conversation at first. Then I saw a huge penis hanging out of the old man’s shorts. I stared at the screen while everyone laughed. Confusion took over as the conversation carried on, and I didn’t recover as they joked about how I’d probably never show up again. They were right. After that night, I decided I would rather have cancer alone.

I can’t even put a necklace on myself, let alone go rock climbing. Supporting my body weight by gripping a tiny hand or foothold on the side of a cliff or a vertical wall is no longer an option. I have tendonitis in my left shoulder that aches if I get too stressed. I’m like an old man in Reeboks and crew socks (apparently very hip right now) who can tell the weather by the amount of pain in his joints. When my shoulder starts to predict the weather, at least it will be more useful.

Typing this right now is one of the most frustrating activities I do throughout the week, which is, in part, why I don’t do it. In the good old days, I used to make my brother do typing tests with me. It was literally the only thing I could beat him at. EVERYTHING else, he was always better than me: Mario, Tetris, Guitar Hero, and any sport that involves both hands, eyes, and coordination. But typing—my WPM (words per minute) was damn good before my brain surgery. The brain tumor that came into my life 11 years ago had to be “debulked,” and the surgeon did an aggressive resection that left me mildly paralyzed on the left side of my body.

I don’t know at what point this fella found out his inner knowing was off, but my inner knowing was spot on after the first time hanging out. Ask me if I listened… no. Of course not; trusting my inner knowing is not a strong skill set of mine. Overriding it? Yes. Drowning it out, where’s the waterboard? Listening to other people, I’m all ears. Yes, all two of them, at once.

When he said, “When you know, you know,” my inner parts were like, “Yeah, maybe,” while I felt a tiny wall go up between us. He’s turning forty this month. He’s a bartender; he’s changing jobs to work 16 hours in 3 days so he can bike, ski, and go to the climbing gym the other 4 days. I want to be clear that I don’t have a problem with people who choose to live their lives in less conventional ways. I’m all for doing life differently.

The little red flag (for me) that I saw right away and promptly ignored had nothing to do with him being a bad guy; it was just a mismatch I recognized immediately. He lives for outdoor activities, biking, skiing, and climbing, and I don’t. Not because I don’t want to, but in part because I can’t, and also because I don’t have the energy or desire to build my life around that. It’s just not how I want to spend my days.

I’m not shaming this kind of lifestyle, and probably many of them are very happy (probably happier than I am), but I need meaningful work and depth over breadth. Plenty of people love it and build great lives around it. I just know that I am not a good fit for this type of person. I’m not going to go mountain biking and then hit the climbing gym. My morning run has me looking forward to my couch and the moment I can crack a book.

A psychic once described me as having the mind of a philosopher and the heart of a poet, and I’d never felt more seen. I’m strong and physically look like I could do outdoorsy things, but as my friend who watched me go around some bushes in the forest once murmured under his breath, I’m “not an outdoors girl.”

So what the hell happened? How did he hijack my system, where all of a sudden I find myself thinking about how I can help him find his calling (when he definitely didn’t ask me to)? I am excellent at being helpful. And what about the part where I’m not dating because I want to focus on my writing, and when I’m dating, a man moves to the top of my totem pole faster than a lumberjack at a highlands competition?

Spiritual Guru Peter Crone (phenomenal teacher, dresses a little like Aladdin) says, “Life will present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you’re not free.” Guess what, friends, I am not free in the context of relationships. This blue-eyed, fun-loving cutie patootie triggered the part of me that is programmed to try to get love from unavailable men, but it was after a solid two weeks. He took me to see otters, he made me vegetarian charcuterie (with dark chocolate), and he was kind to my dog and helpful with every request of mine. He opened car doors and paid for food for those two weeks, and I stayed centered, but I let myself enjoy the ride.

A consultation with ChatGPT (outsourcing my own truth) about what was happening was my demise. “You’re being guarded,” it said. “Be more open and vulnerable,” it said. So I did. I was more open and vulnerable with a person I knew was not a good fit. I used rationalization and magical thinking to drown out my intuition, and it ended with me getting stood up and a late-night follow up text for “fucking up.” He said he’d wanted to tell me in person that he’d been on the fence about pursuing me and didn’t want to waste my time. Sorry about that.

Let me tell you, friends, that did not land well. It cracked something open inside me that brought me to my knees on my light pink and white fuzzy carpet at two in the morning. It wasn’t losing him, and it wasn’t getting stood up. It was the crazy making hamster wheel I’ve been on for decades repeating itself. There was a fucking sign that read: “THIS RIDE IS NOT FOR YOU” in my body, and I hopped on and rode the ride anyway. I exhaust myself.

I think I wrote about how I wanted to listen to my body and be in alignment with my intuition more about two months ago. My friends, I almost did. I thought about it, and then I didn’t. The good news is, this time I did tell him his actions had an impact (I matter!), I didn’t swear at him, and I got really good information at a low cost (only a month, with free food and otters). I knew he wasn’t right for me almost immediately, and I chose not to listen, and that choice showed me exactly where I’m still not free.

The part where my body says no and my mouth says yes is a super old handshake deal I made with the world to make sure I could get love and be lovable. I’ll contort myself into whatever round-hole, square-pegged situation that’s needed. Trauma expert Gabor Maté talks about this self-abandonment strategy as a basic conflict between attachment and authenticity. I want to be myself, but we are tribal creatures, and so it becomes necessary for me to abandon myself to be like you, to stay part of the tribe and ensure my survival. I’ve been vegetarian, then pescatarian, then, well, my dad bought meat that’s on sale, so I’d better eat it (frugaltarian), all in one week. Sometimes I can flip or flop in a moment like the fish on the deck I said I wouldn’t eat, until it turned into a taco on my plate.

I digress… It was painful to face him. The little girl part in me was shy and wanted to turn away; the cool girl part of me wanted to make a sarcastic comment; and the wise adult (fuckin finally!) part of me simply said, “Yes, I would like to hang out again. Thank you for asking me to hang out the first time.” Terrifyingly, this led to a snowball of more vulnerable disclosure. “I didn’t intend to hit on you when I joined you, but when you know, you know.” And I did know. We’d met the week before in the same place.

“You mind if I join you? The main cold plunge is broken.” The shirtless figure said as he came into the room. The bubbles from the jets and the low light muted his voice and face. “Of course, I can’t claim all this to myself,” led to two hours of first-date conversation I hadn’t seen coming. The best part of meeting in the wild is that you can’t see it coming, and you don’t know it’s happening until you’re getting out of the hot tub and he asks if you’d like to hang out sometime.

The genuine yes that came out of me was refreshing, but I could also feel the little girl in me perk up: will he love me? Maybe forever? (she’s kind of a psychopath… she likes to daydream and plan forever before we know if he wants to hang out a third time or not). I don’t let the little girl lead anymore after she took the reins with a guy two years ago, and it ended poorly for us. He lied about having to travel for work, and I never saw him or heard from him again. She got relegated to the back seat after that.

I dropped cold plunge/hot tub guy off at 9:45 p.m., 5 hours and 45 minutes after I picked him up. If you know me, I usually can’t hang out with anyone new longer than an hour, two tops. The day before, I’d met the Quiet Rejection (see previous post) guy on the bridge by my house, and my performer part puppeted us around the river for two hours. It was a nice walk, but it was also a relief to part ways. I was hurt to be rejected, but the quiet truth in my body was available and accurate after I let the hurt pass.

Cold plunge/hot tub guy is picking me up tomorrow to take me to see river otters (HUGE full-body YES). But this isn’t about him, or any other fella who comes my way. It’s about connection to myself and honoring that connection. It’s about a felt experience in my body that guides me to an authentic life. My task is to stay true to what’s alive inside me and trust that my tribe will find and keep me. To not allow my attachment anxiety to lead me to self-abandon. As I listen to my body and honor what’s true, I stop abandoning myself and that’s where my authenticity begins.

And now…I overthink. Honestly, I wasn’t super interested in him to begin with. Not really my type and very soft spoken, a little on the shorter side, but Bend is small, and I’d seen him at my yoga studio multiple times, so I introduced myself when I saw him at the gym. It seemed the socially kind and appropriate thing to do.

He texted me later that day, saying he’d found my number while looking for a therapist a while ago and remembered my unique name. It was a bold move on his part, but I like people who move through the world in unique ways and take risks. Eventually, we found ourselves out for a walk along the river. I brought my dog, and he was kind. He is handsome in an unconventional way, and I found myself squinting behind my sunglasses for his uncovered blue eyes.

It’s Bend, on a first hangout, so naturally, I wore my third-best running clothes so I could go for a run after our walk, and he wore workout shorts, shoes, and a sweatshirt with a picture of a goose on it; the subtext read, Silly Goose. Stevie, my little white bulldog, came with us because I promised myself not to go on first dates unless I’m accomplishing a second thing, which somewhat limits options. For the most part, I get my dog out on a first date. I’d also be open to grocery shopping, a run, and/or getting my oil changed. I just haven’t had many first dates since establishing this rule.

After the awkward goodbye, I shoved my feelings down by throwing in earplugs to listen to a training call with a guy named Robin, who promised he’d help me double my income in two months if I pay him a reduced fee from his original $6,500 price if I sign up in the next three minutes, but he doesn’t disclose the reduced fee and I don’t click the link in the three minute window. I immediately switched to an audiobook while I finished my run, ate a protein bar, showered, then processed the interaction with ChatGPT (which I actually don’t recommend for several reasons I won’t get into here), and sent texts to two, no, wait, three friends about it. Mostly “healthy” coping today.

Thankfully, my days of self-destructive drinking and binge eating are behind me.

This seems like a good time to remind us that I was definitely curious, but not even super into him or excited about the date in the first place.

One of my superpowers is how self-aware I am. Sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it.

For example, this little walk I just went on triggered the immature high school part of me who just wants him to want me; it triggered the anxiously attached little girl in me, who thinks I should hang out with him again just in case there might be more connection the next time we get together; the slightly arrogant part of me who wonders, “what I could have possibly done for him not to be interested in me?”; the trying-really-hard-to-be-healthy adult part who says, “I want someone who is at least curious enough to ask more questions about me”; the spiritual part who says, “just let it go and allow it to unfold, practice nonattachment”; and the more direct and controlling part of me that wants to text him some version of, “I’m down to hang again if you are, but if you could let me know either way, I’d appreciate it.” (That part has gotten more kind over the years.)

Sometimes I’ll use the analogy of a snowglobe with my clients. “It seems the snowglobe is really shaken up right now. I wonder what would reveal itself if we just sat and let the snow fall for a minute.” As I write this, I’m looking at each snowflake in that globe. The different ages and versions of me are all losing their shit at once, and what I’m noticing is, as they are named, they settle. I can see that all of them want one thing: love, but from outside myself. And they want it from someone who doesn’t even want to hang out again, let alone love me.

Eventually, the snow in the globe settles, the noise quiets more than the initial rejection, and I return to my body. In my body, there is calm. In that calm, there is a knowing. This part of me understands he is not someone I need to pursue. He is kind, sweet, and interesting, but none of that makes him someone worth abandoning my truth for.

A last note: I’ll definitely have to keep redirecting myself back to this knowing, and I’ll probably ruminate on it a lot more—but at least I can redirect myself :)*

I spend the first 20 minutes vomiting content from the week. In between accounts of events, I mention the anxiety, but briefly. It’s like seeing an old friend from high school on the street, but you don’t want to make eye contact. Part of you acknowledges their presence, but you don’t slow down; the concrete becomes infinitely interesting, and you whip your phone out of your pocket faster than a gun in a showdown in the wild west. Anything to avoid contact with the uncomfortable symptoms I’m calling anxiety.

I know I’ll have to go back to it, but it can wait for now. My therapist knows I have to “empty out my box of ‘Legos’” before I can get into the real work of processing (actually feeling my feelings). At minute 19, I’m sick of hearing my own voice and hiding in my head. My frustration with myself mounts enough that I stop talking. I take a deep breath, and immediately my face flushes. I close my dinner plates and focus on the feelings in my body. My therapist knows me well enough to know my process. She stays quiet, patiently waiting as I connect with myself. I tell her I’m anxious because I have Improv at 6:30 and it’s scaring the shit out of me because I “bombed” last week. As if a person can bomb with only 3 hours of experience.

The week prior, at improv, I was an 11 out of 10 in terms of nerves. My thinking mind was completely flooded. I couldn’t word find or remember names, instructions, or what I was doing, mid “doing.” I went home that night and analyzed every weird thing my scared brain made me do. I replayed every moment, obsessing about how awkward I was and what people thought of me. I’m very lucky because this rarely happens to me, but many of my clients do this in many, most, or all of their social encounters. It was a great experience to deepen my empathy for my clients.

At 10 am on Tuesday, I text my bestie a picture of my horoscope for the day, which reads, “It’s okay to go home early,” and tells me no one will think less of me if I put my needs first today. I text her and ask if this “means I don’t have to go to improv tonight? So stressful!” “Are you feeling overwhelmed?” She asks, “Big time.” I reply, feeling validated. “Don’t do it then,” and with those four words, she gives me permission not to go. I sign off with a yellow heart and prayer hands, grateful this compassionate soul just gave me permission to quit.

But remember in my earlier Substack post when I said I wanted to live before I die? For me, going to improv is living. I feel alive there; I laugh, play, and make connections in weird ways with weird people. It’s refreshing for my soul, as I squint in the bright lights, not to have a freaking clue what I’m doing, to fail, and be celebrated for not knowing and failing. It’s the one place in the world where my natural way of being seems to be celebrated.

“What are you noticing?” I hear Debra ask as I begin to yawn, tears spilling from my eyes. I tell her I feel about 12, 13, or 14 years old; for sure, it’s my middle school self who is freaking out. She gives me space to sit with it, and I begin rattling off old core memories of being laughed at and bullied in softball and basketball. About four memories jump to mind in succession, and I tell Debra about each one, tears falling from my closed eyes. As I reveal these trapped memories to her, my breath deepens and slows. These were not repressed memories; I’ve always had them on the brink of my consciousness, but I’ve never made eye contact with them. I’ve never stopped on the street to say, “Hey, little Linden, how was that for you? I care, and that sucks that happened.” Debra did that part for me when I finally went quiet, her love and sincere care a balm for Middle School Linden, who quit every team sport to avoid feeling that pain ever again.

Middle School Linden was scared shitless to go back to improv because she fucked up last time. She wanted to quit because that’s what she always does; it’s how she keeps me from feeling embarrassment and shame, which I’m very grateful for, but embarrassment and shame are often necessary for learning new things and being seen. I’ve mostly avoided embarrassment and shame by working for myself and only doing things I’m good at for about twenty years, without realizing I was being controlled by a 14-year-old version of me. The 14-year-old version hides behind ‘overwhelm’ to avoid doing hard things.

By the end of my therapy session, my body felt calmer. The internal ants were gone, and I was actually excited to go to improv. I let myself be seen and took risks. I trusted myself and my peers. As I walked to my car in the parking lot, a car slowed to a stop, and the window rolled down. With confusion, I peered inside and saw my idol, the big black stand-up comedian, reach out his fist to give me a bump after a well-timed comment that “fucking killed.” “Yes, I officially peaked in my fourth hour of improv. But more importantly, I took my eyes off the concrete. At 41, my 14-year-old didn’t stop me from living.

My belly is super bloated from stress, and I’m like an inflated balloon, slowly deflating through what I hope are silent toots on the grey pleather seat I’m sitting on as I write this. My $7 Recess Mood drink says it’s going to make me “calm cool collected” which is good because I’m still gagging on the taste of the wooden fork I ate my meal with (can you tell I’m at SFO yet?). Don’t get me wrong, I dig saving the whales, but I don’t want to do it with cardboard straws and wooden utensils.

I’m suddenly brought back to a date I went on when I first moved to Bend, and I’m shocked I don’t tell the story of this date more often. Dear sweet Tony Bumble, as he is so aptly named in my phone, asked me to show up to an event he’d already bought a ticket for. Drinks and apps would be provided; I was told to dress smart, but casual. I was psyched—this was far more effort than 99.9% of the men I’d ever gone on a first date with.

After getting lost on the Central Oregon Community College campus, Tony’s voice guided me over the phone to the lecture hall with about five minutes to spare. In these five minutes, we both grabbed paper plates with an assortment of small bites and beverages. Red wine for Tony, water for me. Nothing unusual yet. It was when he pulled out his camping utensils—a set for himself and a set for me—that things got unique. Not in a bad way, just different. I graciously (I think) accepted the well-worn, dull tin fork and knife while he apologized under his breath (for what, I’m not sure). I was still along for the ride as I tried to eat my small bites on my small paper plate with the Tin Man’s utensils. A beautiful view of Bend greeted us as we made small talk at the minute-to-go mark before showtime.

Only when the show started did I want to get off the ride. Bend 101 – Our City’s Water System and Waste Management popped up on the screen. Now I want to be clear: I’m naturally curious about almost everything—it’s one of my favorite things about myself. That said, the tension in my body started to mount about 15 minutes in as the city management experts on stage introduced themselves and dove into the deep minutiae of how these city systems work.

I wish I could tell you that I listened to the mounting “no” in my body. It was a perfect June evening, and I dearly wanted to be outside by the river they were showing pictures of on the projector that blocked the view of the actual river. But I did not. My body started to ache, my back hurt (hello, old injury and being forty-one years old). I sat there, like a good date, feigning interest, getting cold, my body craving the sun outside as she shivered in the air-conditioned room.

Could it be said I was suffering? Suffering is subjective, and yes. Yes, I was suffering. I sat there in physical and psychological pain: Should I just leave and text him later? I could tell him I’m going to stand in the back because my back hurts. Will I offend him? I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Could I tell him something came up?

It was an insanely long 90 minutes I’ll never get back. And why?! At what point in my life did I start believing I had to be nice and do what other people want at my own expense? Why did I put Tony Bumble’s feelings before my physical and psychological wellness?

After the presentation, I thanked Tony for his tinware and handed it back. I shared a few pleasantries about the presentation, along the lines of “Wow, I would have thought the golf courses in Bend used way more water!” and “I had no idea there were two—TWO!—lumber mills in Bend, before one went out of business.” Was Tony nice? Absolutely, yes. Did we ever go out again? No. Did he ghost me after I set a boundary about him peppering me about politics via text? Yes.

I came back from a women’s retreat a week ago, which my close friend and I jokingly called “Sex Camp” due to the lack of a more precise name. What do you do at Sex Camp, you ask? Lots of what happens at Sex Camp stays at Sex Camp, but one key aspect was learning what “yes” and “no” feel like in the body. This was not new for me, as I use body-based therapy practices with myself and my clients professionally. That said, it’s one thing to know what a yes and a no feel like in a controlled environment like therapy, and it’s an entirely different thing to do it in real life. The body provides detailed information about preferences. When boundaries are needed, many of us (myself included) often overlook these signals to cater to others’ wants and needs, to stay “lovable,” or to avoid disturbance.

The thing is, Tony Bumble was a really nice person. Had I quietly said, “Tony Bumble, you’re a really nice person, and I’d greatly prefer to blow this popsicle stand and get to know you in the sunshine by the river,” he would have agreed. My suffering was not his fault, because I didn’t communicate that I was cold or that my back was aching. My withholding of how I felt was not only unfair to me but also to him. He is not a mind reader, so as far as he knew, I was okay—possibly even enjoying myself.

Imagine if I were honest after the fact. Suppose Tony Bumble asked for my opinion after the lecture, and I admitted that my back was hurting, I was bored out of my mind, freezing, and desperately wanted to be outside. Meanwhile, I was so distracted by thoughts of how to leave without hurting his feelings that I completely missed the interesting facts about where people’s poo ends up. I also thought his tinware was pretty quirky, but I dug that he was trying to save the whales. How wildly intimate! He’d know me. Not the pleaser-faced girl with the plastered smile. And what a different, refreshing experience that would be.

What I didn’t fully understand then—but am only now metabolizing—is how deeply this pattern runs.

At Sex Camp, I learned the importance of aligning my inner and outer worlds. I want my voice to reflect my true feelings and advocate for my needs. I learned early on that staying lovable often meant staying quiet and doing what others want me to do. I let that pattern play out for years, and most of the people who participated in it were and still are unaware of the physical and psychological pain I was in. That isn’t their fault, and it’s not mine, though it is my responsibility. As I write these words, my body is both bracing and agreeing, a reluctant yes to the inevitability of doing this work and the last two hours I have to wait until my plane takes off.

In my opinion and experience, the subconscious mind and body really dictate how we show up behaviorally in the world. Sam Harris, an American neuroscientist and philosopher, wrote in his book Free Will, “A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.” It’s a short book and worth reading if you’re interested in why humans run the same programming or repeat the same behaviors over and over again, even when those behaviors are harmful.

“It feels like everyone else wakes up at neutral, and I have to climb my way up from a negative 10 each morning,” I explained to one of my many therapists over the past 10 years. Or, more likely, I explained it that way to every single one of my many therapists over the past 10 years. It hasn’t felt like a negative 10 as much this past year, a great sign of progress.

Recently, I came across David Hawkins’ Map of Consciousness, and it was a tough mirror to look in. It’s an upside-down triangle, with low vibrations at the point and higher vibrations at the top. The lower levels of consciousness are grouped together in a category called “Victim/Abusor Consciousness,” and the top, widest part of the triangle is “Self Realization.” I don’t know a lot about it, so I’m only going to share what’s relevant to this essay.

The lowest vibration is 20, and it’s labeled Shame, 20 what? You ask; I don’t know, but it’s enough to know it’s the total opposite of 1000, which is Full Consciousness. 30 is Guilt, 50 is Apathy, 75 - Grief, 100 - Fear, and finally, we meet Desire at 125 - there’s energy in desire, and more in Anger at 150. 175 gets you to Pride, and apparently 200 is the threshold of Courage, out of the “Lower Ego Self” and into the “Rational Linear Emotional Self”, where the landscape gets significantly more appealing with Neutrality (remember - in my mind, the rest of the world wakes up here every day).

I found this map just this week, and it felt like someone had drawn a diagram of the exact journey I’ve been on without knowing it. I’m blown away by this little rainbow-colored upside-down triangle that reflects back to me what I’ve always felt in my body. I’ve been hanging out in the 20s for most of my life. I don’t have a strong relationship with Guilt, but I do have a very strong relationship with Shame. I was steeped in Shame. Just steeped in it, like every little cell in me had its own shame story. I couldn’t separate “me” from it. That negative 10 I told my therapists about? Ya, that was 20 - locked in at Shame. I can tell you for sure that we rarely experience only one emotion at a time, so I’ll name my secondary and tertiary relationships as Apathy at 75 and lots and lots of Fear at 100.

Over the last year, I finally met a therapist who I felt could actually hold me and my mess. All my other therapists were wonderful (actually, there were a few really shitty ones, but that’s for another post), but my subconscious and traumatized parts who live in the body never trusted them enough to go deep. It took HOURS of working with this woman, who has walked through fire with me in session, right by my side, not afraid, never judging, before I finally started to let go of what was stored in my body. My mind never really got what trauma stored in the body really meant until I started releasing it. If you were a fly on the wall of our sessions, you would see me curled in a fetal position, crying, punching couches, sweating, yawning, burping, and shaking violently. You’d have seen bright red cheeks and tears juicy enough to drip Shame out of my eyes and sweat dripping Fear of every pore in my body. You would not have seen waves of nausea so bad that they flipped my gut to the point I thought I’d throw up, and a throat that involuntarily closed to the point I worried about getting air.

I used to love therapy—those wonderful therapists I mentioned? I didn’t realize I was doing it, but I was dazzling them with my self-awareness, insight, and psychospiritual babble, read this as I was locked in my mind, where my intellect saved me from having to feel my body. It wasn’t until Debra helped me drop into my physical self that I finally understood what I’d been bypassing for the first four decades of my life.

I couldn’t have changed my life at 30 when I got the first tumor. The trauma stored in my body, my “puppet strings,” if you will, kept me stuck in my patterns, in my Shame, Fear, and Apathy. Over the last year, as I began to realize I actually have a body (I was dissociated from it for so long that I barely acknowledged it unless it was to shame it into being smaller, be mad at it for not being smaller, or be afraid of it for making me unlovable and unacceptable (see what I mean? Stuck at the low end of Hawkin’s triangle)).

I’ve been seeing signs of life more recently since my last post. I signed up for Improv and have my third class tonight. I’m starting West Coast Swing lessons when I get back from Carlsbad next week, and I just got back from what my friend called “sex camp,” where I’m continuing my healing journey with women who are reclaiming their pleasure for themselves, not for anyone else. I’m very proud of myself for these seemingly small actions, and Pride is 175. I plan to have the Courage (200) to continue sharing this journey with whoever wants to be a part of it.

“What am I paying you for?” my mom said in jest the other day, as one of my few paid subscribers. The comment has sat on my shoulder for weeks. It gently nudged me, it made me think, it brought up the part of me that plagues me, “You should be writing, why aren’t you writing?” You have a brain cancer diagnosis, and it’s not enough to motivate you?” It knows my writing is one of the only predictable places my soul comes alive, so yes, if I’m not writing, my soul is like an old helium balloon from last year’s birthday party, still attached to my wrist, but definitely being dragged through life.

I don’t know what to say. It’s scary, “living with cancer” as my support group is called. I don’t want to admit to this reality because it scares the shit out of me. At a nonprofit called Death Cafe, we gathered in a circle at the library to discuss death openly. I found myself saying, “I’m not afraid of dying,” but I am afraid of not living before I die.” My feet were freezing as all the blood rushed to my cheeks, and I don’t know if I was sweating or crying more profusely as the words spilled out of me. I can only describe my internal experience as a quiet desperation, desperate to live, desperate to not die, desperate to hide, desperate to be seen.

The tension of the two keeps me stuck in a circle of acceptable, comfortable, habitual behavior. Work, walk the dog, eat, clean, work, walk the dog, repeat. I pinball my way through life, lacking purpose and intention. Always there for others, rarely here for myself. It’s exhausting, and there’s no story to be told at the end of the day. It reminds me of Thoreau’s famous quote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” And that can bring me to my knees in a heartbeat; that’s not the kind of life I want to live.

It’s a funny thing, to ‘live with cancer’, because no one asks you about it. It’s not like Tanner, the guy at the dog park who tore his leg tendon; his crutches and purple, swollen knee are billboards for attention and inquisition. I hear him telling his story about his soccer career and strength-training days over and over as his floppy, brown dog, Timber, and my little white bulldog, Stevie, tumble; bookends of the same species, meeting in nature and wrestling it out. It’s not that I want to talk about it every day; it's just that what you can’t see or feel often gets forgotten.

Where people do ask about it, in my survivor’s support group (and what a bummer of a word that is - surviving is something you choose, but honestly, cancer doesn’t give a shit). I’ve seen people do everything “right” and they die. I’ve seen people go off the rails, drinking, eating whatever, drugging, doing all the things, and they live. I don’t see a rhythm or reason. I refuse to pretend I even have a clue. I did everything ‘right’ in 2014, and here we are.

I don’t feel like I fit in with the survivors’ group either. The last group left me sobbing as I witnessed a beautiful man, literally on his deathbed, give another survivor his air miles so he could make it to his son’s graduation on the East Coast. “I obviously don’t need them anymore. You deserve to be there.” The display of selflessness leaves me shattered.

And somehow, I’m the only one crying. The others, in their small 2x2 Zoom boxes, are dry-eyed. I know I’m an extremely emotional cancer girl (no pun intended), but seriously? This guy just shared pictures of himself walking his daughter down her wedding aisle (did I mention it was his last outing?). Meanwhile, my tumor is growing so slowly that I get to "live my life” as my neuro-oncologist suggested. I feel like an impostor as tears roll down my cheeks; my cancer isn’t severe enough for me to be here. In terms of cancer, I’ve got it good, and I really do. But there’s still a tumor in my head, and I don’t know what to do about it.

Eleven years ago, when the tumor showed up, tangerine-sized, I felt immensely supported, and I know now, so naive. I told people I knew it was malignant because a benign tumor “wouldn’t be enough to get me to change my life.” Well, it was malignant, and though I’ve grown immensely, I still haven’t changed my life. I still ignore the things that light my soul on fire because they require me to be seen, to ‘take up space’ as the self-help pop cliche goes. I still don’t do the things I know I want to do, to live before I die. And yet, it’s scary to be fully alive. Stuck again between the hard place of being afraid to die and somehow equally afraid to live.

So that’s why I haven’t written. It’s scary to confront these messy truths. It’s almost unfathomable to me that the tumor is growing again, and I haven’t done anything different. It’s embarrassing and feels awful to admit. But what about meditation, nutrition, qi gong, supplements!? I did all those things, and guess what? Right on time, 11 years later, here we are. I’m not saying I’m giving up, but I sure as shit am saying I might’ve missed the point of the first tumor. Maybe it’s not about preventing death; maybe it’s about stepping fully into life.

Slow-moving heartbeat, breath,
she multiplies
silently,
slowly.

A cocoon of death,
or a butterfly—
not yet sure
what’s inside.

Her arrival,
an unwanted guest,
slipped in
through the back door,
undetected.

What message does she bring?
A wake-up call?
A reminder for all?

Only if I listen—
faintly,
whispering,
quiet,
still—

nothingness
to hear.

And now,
the fact she’s back
requires me
to bend
my ear.

It’s one of these synchronicities that sat my cute butt into a white rocking chair at the airport last Saturday, which I’ve walked past in previous visits, but the big, colorful owl on the wall behind the rocking chairs caught my attention. A fellow I met on Hinge invited me to the cutest used book store in all of Bend, The Big Story, a week prior. I’d never heard of it, despite book stores and libraries being my favorite places on earth.

The owl at the airport matched the owl on the outside wall of their location on 3rd in Bend, and I followed the sign. My eyes glanced over the books The Big Story puts on display at the airport (for free! Bless you, Bend). Thick fantasy novels to escape into, children’s books of all kinds, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, a cookbook or two, and what?! Michael Beckwith’s Spiritual Liberation, Fulfilling Your Soul’s Potential makes eye contact with me in a way only God (or the super hot guy at the bar) can. Begrudgingly (because what I really want is one of those fat fantasies to get lost in), I pick the book up and flip it open. This is a favorite game of mine. Pick a book, open to a random page, and trust the universe has a message waiting for you. Seriously, try it. I’d LOVE to hear about it if you do! Maybe even leave it in the comments! (I might have brain cancer - you should probably do it - it's kinda like a dying wish, even though we’re all, always dying, right?).

Anyway, pg. 109, that Son of a Gun, boy, was it for me. I looked at the page, in all caps, one line: CHALLENGES ARE YOUR SPIRITUAL LIBERATORS. You bet your cute butt, my jaw dropped. I took a picture of it and sent it to my family text chain, because I love little glimpses of God, and even more, I love sharing them with people I love. A line in the paragraph seared into my brain, “Being alive means welcoming the next challenge because you have discovered how this activates the evolutionary impulse to establish a higher vision for your life.” When I say it seared into my brain, what I mean is, it resonated deeply, and then I promptly forgot it when fear of “tiny tumor growth” in my brain replaced it. Does anyone else find it absurd to measure tumor growth by increments of what you might call your little dog? Or the amount of cake and ice cream you want at the birthday party when you’re on a diet? Ya, me too.

So I’m sitting on the gold couch at my parents' house with my mom’s tiny white and tan dog in my lap, back legs crossed like a lady, my black sweats and black tank are covered in dog hair, when I feel compelled to read Beckwith’s book, meditate, and/or write. I decide to reach for the book and pick up where I left off rather than a random page reading.

Page 35, “Spirit is in the midst of me and lovingly guides my path to awakened consciousness. (Pause and feel into that statement. Breathe into it and remain still for five minutes or longer.” I actually do what I’m told for once, for some reason (probably because I already wanted to read and meditate, and now the book is telling me to meditate). As I sit in stillness thinking about how spirit is already moving me, something shifts.

The ever-present, underlying fear and resistance to this Thursday’s appointment with my neuro oncologist gives way (10 am PST for those of you who are following along ;). And an understanding arises out of nowhere that I am fully supported. This brain tumor thing is an enormous challenge; it has the potential to liberate me spiritually, remember? Being alive means welcoming the next challenge.

The resistance to life is awful. “I don’t want to do this” has been on repeat…what is it that I don’t want to do? Any of it - all of it. I don't want to go to doctors, I don't want to do scans, I don't want to have a tumor, I don't want to figure out my treatment path, I don't want to take drugs, or get a craniotomy (although I loved having a shaved head - silver lining!).

Suddenly, I see a rendition of a little boy in my mind (I get visions sometimes) and immediately, I know what it represents: *The Hero’s Journey! I think to myself, the boy is leaning forward, running towards “Thursday,” because he knows it will yield a higher vision for my life, and I know that is the reason my soul incarnated. The fear dissipates, and I see this experience differently; fear becomes a source of vigor for challenges and excitement to see how it unfolds.

Will I be scared tonight in bed when everything is quiet? Yes. Will I remember the fearless little boy who is running to the challenge and try to embody him? Yes. Will it work? I’ll keep you posted ;)

All my love <3

*Joseph Campbell was a scholar of myth and meaning. He revealed the “Hero’s Journey”—the timeless story of leaving the familiar, facing trials, being transformed, and returning home renewed. That the trials we face aren’t detours, but the very path that transforms us.

What would you want to say?
If you could say one thing to the world
Let's say you were pressed for time
For a minute
Pretend death is real
Like you have something growing in your head
Imagine your death bed
Surrounded by those you love
What roots will you leave?

Will anything luscious remain
After your bones return to dust
Or is it desolate—
a vacant space
you refused to see?

A famine.
It could have been a feast.
But what?
Too tired?
Ignored your call?
Distraction sweeter than devotion?
Numbing easier than love?

Connection too painful.

Try on pain.
It's how you know you're alive.
You’ll feel it deeply,
on the inside,
like rage lit on fire.
It’ll burn
til one day
it burns out.

I promise.

The sweet nectar of rain always comes.
Sadness meets love.
The acorn cracks open.
Grief pours out and floods the ground.
Deeper roots can’t be found.

What tree will you grow to be?
Who will lean against your trunk?
Find solace in your shade?

Never forget
it's not about you or me.

So—what will you say to the world,
Let's pretend death is real.

My mind wanders, and I remember I should be getting a call from my neuro oncologist; it’s Friday, and they reviewed my MRI at the tumor board on Wednesday. As I’m not the star of the small talk show, I shift my body into a ‘you all matter to me, but I’m not a part of this’ posture, and sneak a peek at my phone. A voicemail tells me I’ve missed Dr. Taylor’s call, but she’s left me a message in my My Chart. ‘Something’s come up’ body language takes me a few steps south towards the green of the 9th hole as I frantically log into my account on My Chart.

A glance, and I think I’m going to vomit or shit myself. Fortunately, years of emotional regulation skills kick in. A deep breath…remember? Social norms? We don't vomit or shit ourselves in small talk circles. After the initial freight train hits me, through blurred eyes, I read it again, “there is a tiny part of the tumor that is growing,” stares at me in a My Chart message delivered at 10:18 am. The message is prefaced with, “I am out of the office today, but if needed, it can be discussed on Monday.” I quickly put my phone away as if I could shove the cat back into the proverbial bag. I plaster on my small talk face and turn my attention to my Aunt, cousin, and neighbor. My cousin is holding her adorable, ten-pound Italian greyhound named Elton. I covertly self-soothe by turning my attention to Elton, his haphazard ears, and adorable overbite, calm my body as the cadence and tone of the chitting and chatting shift and indicate the neighbor is making her way back to the golf course.

I whisper into my cousin's ear, “Can I talk to you?” I don’t want to burden her, but I’m alone in my new city and I need the feeling of someone who’s known me forever. We sit in Adirondack chairs on the patio, our backs to the house and eyes of the people who love me, but who I’m not ready to tell. She holds my hand with the tattoo on her middle finger, three dots as a symbol for balance. Her beautiful white Scandinavian skin is comforting; it reminds me we are sisters. Tears fall with no sound as I hand her my phone. The pain is excruciating, a weighted blanket that suffocates, fear that chokes from the inside, nausea dominates as I take another breath and another breath and I use my skills…I tell myself, “We don't know what this means. She used the adjective tiny; she isn’t so concerned that she’s made herself available to me. In fact, she’s so unconcerned that she believes I’ll be fine over the weekend until Monday.” That’s actually good news, right?

As my cousin helps me process the information, my uncle brings out his famous salmon dip on crackers. The freshly whipped dip sits atop crisp crackers, and the desire for deliciousness is quickly trumped by severe nausea. I think my tears gave something away as I detect a hint of concern or care in his blue eyes as he sets it on the arm of the chair between us and walks away.

For a moment, I would give anything to go back a week, a couple of hours, a day. To have the bliss of not knowing. To enjoy a beautiful human and delicious food in a gorgeous setting. Instead, false security has been pulled out from under me, and I’m drowning in fear.

The grief is pure, cleansing in a mad sort of way;
It humbles me and leaves me breathless.

Like being sliced open, the pain is sharp.
It cuts through the noise.

My mind screams itself blank, searching,
But there’s nothing to be found.

I find myself grasping and gasping.
I try to hold on, but the world keeps turning.

I had to leave you back there.
I didn’t have a choice.
I promise I willed the earth to stop.

I sneak out of bed and mourn you in the car at night,
a safe place for feral sounds.

They rip through me
til I don’t know myself.

I’ve lost my humanness,
or perhaps I’ve just found it.

Your little white hair is everywhere,
your bed is still in back.

Your little face looks at me in the passenger seat,
eyes big, begging me to scratch your ears.

I wish I had,
and now I can’t.

Shadows of cream and white haunt me,
I turn, and you’re not there.

My head looks up expectantly, not of my own will,
the rhythms of our dance still keep me in time.

But my partner is gone—
your little body and sassy looks,
your snuffles, and your snorts.

The slow, reluctant walk,
the bunny hops and licks,

no belly to be gotten.
No ears to scratch,
to hear my
“Good morning, good morning, good morning” song.

A language lost in word and form,
yours and mine alone.

I tried it on the new puppy,
and I have to tell you,
she just looked at me funny.

Buttercup,
I’ve gotten better at missing you.

I’ve learned to let the grief shape me.
I become putty as it passes through,
yielding to what takes form.

It still tears me open,
but I’ve learned to appreciate its purity.

Grieving you is the most honest thing I’ve ever done.

Just beyond those depths of ache,
I break open a little more,
and gratitude begins to sneak her way in.

The best of news, my love—
In my grief,
I find you again.

They all arrived by divine appointment; two were gifts, two others were recommendations, and one was part of a curriculum from a PhD program I decided not to do after attending the retreat (another thing I barely started!). A big, fat purple one is to help me study so I can finally be fully licensed (THAT could have been done in 2022, shocking!), and one is a book I still need to return to my friend’s daughter (a month ago).

The words wait, page after page, there must be over 2,000 of them in front of me. Sometimes I randomly pick a page to find out what message is meant for me, for that minute of that day. Sometimes I plow through a book from front to back in 48 hours. Often, I’ll start them and they’ll go back to the little free library, cracked, but unread. It takes almost no time to lose my attention if it’s not for me. I used to make myself finish a book if I started it. That lasted about three months. I realized how unfun it was, and back to flying seagulls on the bedside table they’d go. A week later, they’ll be nestled into their free little library temporary home, unread, unfinished, awaiting the next person’s time and attention.

(My bestie just started texting me about some insecurities she’s having, and I almost abandoned this post entirely. It would be the 19th in my drafts folder - case in point.)

My phone is sitting on the deep teal couch next to me, face down. The “Mighty” app has a little red circle with the number 25 in white next to it. Inside that app is a 21-day course on changing habits and cravings, which I paid 200 dollars for. I’m on day 15, and they are celebrating the end of it. Will I finish it!? I don’t know.

I have four Instagram accounts, one of which is my personal account. One project I’m particularly sad about that lost momentum is my “Sketchy Dogs Project,” where I started doing one(ish) line drawings of my friend’s dogs for donations to give to a local shelter called Street Dog Hero. Does SDH know I’m doing this? No, because I started it and didn’t finish. (Yes, I raised $10 for them - they’ll get it eventually; it’s fine.)

I have groceries in the Costco cart app, supplements in the FullScript cart app, and two blank canvases that I’ve primed but haven't yet painted. I want to create art that's better than “Target Art.” I’m going to paint signs with quotes that touch my heart.

“Think honestly what you have thought that love would not have you think, and think what you have not thought that love would have you think”

It’s going to need a bigger canvas.

I believe I’ve made my point. It would be easy to get mad at myself for not finishing these things. I could berate myself, and I have. I’ve used shame to try to motivate myself, and it doesn’t work. I’ve used calendars, “streaks,” reminders, and all the time management tools. This would drive some people crazy, and it definitely used to frustrate me, but now, my truth is that I kind of like it about myself. I’m not afraid to try new things, and I’m also not afraid to let go of them when they don’t hold my interest. I get excited, burn hot, and then projects fizzle out.

I’m pretty sure this is frowned upon at large in society. We’re probably supposed to finish what we start. I will say, I did a fabulous job finishing my muffin (anyone?) the other day, and I crushed Succession with a fervor I didn’t know I possessed. I also completed a half marathon last weekend, and I aim to finish this essay.

There is something about the way I move in the world that lends itself to half-starts of many things. If you are familiar with Human Design (a personality assessment based on astrology, in part), you may know that there are different ways people work that are more natural for individuals of different ‘designs’. When I got my HD reading and it told me I do best by having multiple projects going at once and allowing myself to flow between them without expectation for finishing anything, I felt seen and validated in a way that left me reeling. The ah-ha moment was so significant that it reshaped my entire understanding of myself and how I now encourage myself to navigate the world.

A post like this without exploring the concept of discipline would be negligent. The Oxford Dictionary defines discipline as:

The practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.

Shame is the most common form of punishment I see in my practice when clients fail to do what they say they want to do. Self-loathing, the inner critic, and beating ourselves up - we’ve internalized voices and looks we got as children when the world told us we should be different from who we are. I’m no expert on children (since I have none and was scared of them for the first 3.5 decades of my life), but I love this phrase that deeply resonates with parenting and how we can learn to re-parent ourselves.

What you needed was connection, not correction, to be mirrored, not managed.

Our society prizes discipline, correction, and management. I think we can learn a great deal about ourselves when we undertake challenging tasks, to be sure. But I also believe our job is to pay attention to the soul’s longing and its unique expression. This isn’t laziness, it’s spiritual alignment. Who would we be if we hadn’t been managed and corrected, but instead mirrored and encouraged with connection when things got hard?

“We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that’s death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn’t have any fresh air. There’s no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

It’s not about pushing yourself to the point of suffocation or suppressing your soul's expression. Connecting with ourselves means following our greatest excitement and aligning with our enthusiasm, doing our best sincerely. And sometimes, that means honoring the natural end. It involves honoring your truth and your natural way of moving through the world. A sloth doesn't believe it should run like a cheetah, and it takes joy in its slothiness (I assume).

Let us all be surprised and delighted by the uniqueness of ourselves and how we move in the world. Let us dare to let go of control and perfection and trust that we got exactly the 487 words of the book we needed to read before setting it down; let us trust that we didn’t need what we didn’t read. Perhaps the second seventh of the seventh-eighths of the project was all I needed to learn something about myself. I keep writing these damn essays because its one of the best parts of my week. And if it no longer resonates or feels out of alignment tomorrow, I’ll stop.

To who? The Universe? My grandmother? The ancestors behind her?

All of them, maybe.

I tried to pray today. Not the polished kind. The kind that sounds like this:

Dear God, I don’t know how to do this. I beg you to guide me. Help me turn it over. Help me shed the skin. Help me listen to what lies within. Put me in contact with my little one—the part of me that never forgot. The part that still knows you.

Please take this blockage from my chest. Please take away what was never mine.

Please speak through me. Make it obvious. Please, please show me the way.

And then, a beat later:

This still feels like bullshit and I want Doritos.

That line was honest, the most human part on the page. I don’t want to bypass. I’m here for the muck.

I just don’t want to do it like this anymore.

I don’t want to self-help myself into oblivion. I don’t want to optimize my nervous system or shadow-work my way into enlightenment. I don’t want to heal like it’s a job. I don’t want to “use” my pain for anything today.

I want to rest.
I want to remember.
I want to play.

“Play with me, please,” I whispered to the Universe.

That line feels truer to me than any I’ve ever written. I don’t want to impress life. I want to know it. In the way a kid knows their best friend. I want to be met in my tiredness, my cravings, my confusion—not bypassed with lessons or mantras.

And I want to become the fully expressed “Linden tree” (see Hillman’s acorn theory if you want that to make sense, or don’t) I was named for.

That version of me is grounded and soft and wise and carefree. She remembers the chime of her grandmother’s globe pendant. She knows how to play in the sun and how to rest in the shade. She is unbothered by how long it takes to become.

So today, I’m not writing to be wise. I’m writing to say: I’m tired, and I want to be met here. If the Universe wants to speak through me, I ask her to make it obvious. If I’m supposed to rest, then let it be holy. If I’m meant to play, then let me remember how.

There are rainboots in this memory, somehow—red with yellow tops, the yellow dripping like too much icing on a cake. They’re behind a bookshelf, covered in cobwebs. Forgotten joy. Forgotten play. A part of me that got buried under all the effort.

I don’t want to do it the old way.
Please show me another.

Note: I (Linden) didn’t have it in me to write a polished piece today. This came from a conversation with ChatGPT, which helped me shape all my raw, tired, stream-of-consciousness writing into something shareable. I’m letting this count. It’s all my writing, but cut up with some transitions, and (to my surprise and delight) it's way more vulnerable than anything I’d normally post, because I didn’t think I’d share it.

Every so often, I find content that grabs my attention and elicits a full-body yes. It’s that feeling that’s kept me engaged for two hours now. Despite my frustration with the malfunctioning app, my heart is happy, and my intellectual parts are loving every minute of the content I would have vehemently denied applying to me in my twenties.

As a therapist, I spend a lot of time sitting with people’s pain—and my own. In this moment, it’s just me, my headphones, and a feeling of understanding unfolding. Ah-ha moments ripple down the timeline of my history as the psycho-education course illuminates the darkness of my past.

I had to laugh when I realized it was Friday night and I was home alone. In the past, going out to drink was the only thing that got me through the week. Now I’m here, slightly annoyed, mostly enthralled—listening to a training on anxiety, depression, and shame. The very things I used to drink to avoid.

Shame has become one of my favorite topics lately. I love to intellectualize shame. I love to intellectualize almost everything. It’s one of the brilliant ways my mind has adapted to help me cope with pain and discomfort.

The man’s voice is gruff and a little too slow for me, but at 1.25x speed, he clips along at a rate that keeps me intrigued. He’s talking about his work with families with alcoholic fathers. His initial training is in family systems therapy, but he met Richard Schwartz—the “father” of Internal Family Systems (IFS)—at a conference and consulted with him on a case. That conversation changed everything. He’s been a believer in parts work ever since.

The overly simplified concept of IFS is this: we all have different parts within us, and those parts are trying to help us live our lives. Healing happens when those parts cooperate. Think of a dysfunctional family, and then imagine that family lives inside of you. It’s a lot to walk around at odds with oneself. One part says you should do this, another insists you shouldn’t. Lots of opinions we’re aware of, and so many more parts we aren’t aware of—the ones we aren’t aware of often manifest as behaviors we don’t understand or can’t control.

An example of this might be a woman who keeps dating emotionally unavailable men because there is a little girl part in her who is still trying to get her emotionally unavailable father’s love. IFS helps to reveal these unconscious parts, and in doing so, they can be worked with. It's like family therapy, but for your inner world. It helps identify the conflicting parts and smooths out the chaos.

The gruff voice defines shame as “being seen in our badness.” I agree—and I think it’s helpful to back it up a step. We only believe we are bad because someone, at some point, “told” us we were. I use quotes around told because it doesn’t have to be explicit. We learn we’re bad through all kinds of cues—a caretaker turning their back, being punished, a facial expression. These subtle reactions can all communicate “badness” when we’re young.

If we have caregivers who tell us we’re bad, and we believe them, it creates a part of us that feels fundamentally unworthy. That part becomes hidden. Exiled. This is why we hide parts of ourselves.

Brené Brown says,
“Shame hates being seen.”

I’ve never found anything more accurate—both in my life and in witnessing clients in session. Shame is a master of disguise, rooted in despair to be loved. Humans will do anything to avoid feeling it.

But the catch-22 is: shame only dissolves when we speak about what we’re ashamed of. “The only way out is through,” as the saying goes. I’ve walked that long road, and I’m still walking it, uncovering shame in different areas of my life through therapy.

The voice in my ear sums things up succinctly: “Self is the antidote to shame.”

In IFS, “Self” is a concept that refers to the part of us that is whole, benevolent, and unbroken. It’s one of my favorite aspects of the model—it’s also one of the only therapeutic frameworks with an overt spiritual component. Self is something we all have access to, though many of us lose connection to it because of negative self-concepts or wounded parts that get pushed away.

In IFS, the self is characterized by eight qualities: Compassion, Creativity, Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, Calm, Connectedness, and Clarity.

To me, Self feels like being centered, connected to my roots. It’s an open heart and a curious mind. Softness that radiates where movement and stillness meet.

Call it whatever you want to call it - source, self, spirit, soul, it’s the energy in all of us we were born as and will die as.

It’s the part of me that shows up when I’m sitting across from someone who is terrified to be seen. It’s the energy that listens without flinching, that sees the ugliest part of a story, and rips my heart open further. It’s the stillness at the center of the storm, the warmth that rises when I remember I’m not here to fix anyone. I’m here to love them as they are, in their beauty and their “badness.”

“Being seen in our badness” is the origin of shame—but that “badness” was imposed on us through morality and judgment. So it makes sense that the antidote would be being seen in our so-called badness through the eyes of unconditional love—the opposite of judgment.

Unconditional love melts shame away. Shame thrives in darkness and isolation. It cannot survive the light of love.

But it matters who you share your shame with. Choose carefully. Not everyone is equipped to hold your most tender parts. Their response matters.

As I write this, I realize this is why I love being a therapist. My clients allow me to step into Self-energy every session. To love, to witness, and to hold space for their hidden parts—again and again. It’s one of my favorite parts of life.

I reached for my phone and, with grogginess from sleep still muting the world, I began a Google search:

I don’t want to kill myself...

Google auto-populated the rest:

...but I don’t want to be alive.

Sadness combined with relief washed through me as tears spilled over my lower lids. Warm and viscous, they melted down my cheeks. Alone in my bed, I finally felt connected.

I didn’t understand this then, but part of the relief was connecting to my truth. I’d avoided it for years. And while I hated to know other people suffered from the same heaviness of not wanting to live, I was relieved to know I wasn’t alone.

This sentiment long preceded my marriage—I remember it as far back as college. It just took me until I was 33 years old to admit it to myself and have the courage to look into what had haunted me for over a decade.

“It feels like I start my day, every day at a negative ten and I have to fight tooth and nail just to get to a negative 2 or 3. That’s not even neutral, goddamnit!”

Outside on the patio in my blue hammock, my spiritual coach held space for my frustration with depression and fatigue for the umpteenth time.

Coffee was the best part of my day, and that morning, I couldn’t have any. I’d developed a caffeine intolerance. It started to skip the fun high part and push me right into overwhelming anxiety and nausea. It was so unfair. I felt defeated, helpless, and miserable. That last little light of mine, snuffed out.

I moved about those days, propped up by flimsy scaffolding. My interior environment felt like it could crumble at any moment.

I’m reminded of those wooden figurines held together by elastic string—you push the base of the toy and the figure collapses into a heap. Now imagine that toy is built with balsa wood—which is essentially the wood with the lowest self-esteem. It has “exceptionally low density,” which makes it easy to burn and easy to break.

That was me. I was easy to burn, break, and crumple. I didn’t know myself because I hated myself.

It’s impossible to get to know that which you hate.
And you can’t love what you judge.

It’s been a slow journey back to myself, most of it orchestrated by a higher power.

My ego has many ideas about healing and how it should be done, but the most powerful healing experiences in my life are not ones I chose intentionally. They were presented to me, like stumbling on a treasure you didn’t know you were looking for.

Love is gifted in many forms, but primarily, a series of insanely beautiful humans have softened the edges of my self-hatred and self-judgment—like the waves of the ocean tumbling rocks until they no longer cut like knives.

The pain I carried broke down my walls of protection, and I started to expose my darkest secrets in safe places—yes, in therapy, but mostly with friends on phone calls, hikes, and walks, and occasionally on tables being waxed (my waxing history has been surprisingly and notably cathartic).

My ability to be vulnerable has been directly correlated to my healing process.

As I exposed the parts of myself I deemed unlovable, I was met with love, compassion, and my favorite: a lot of *“Me too”*s.

Every time I was met with love, my little balsa wood self was allowed to stand taller and take up space. Enough reps of this, and I learned to meet myself with the acceptance and compassion others offered me.

Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön speaks on the topic of maitri, which is a multi-acted Sanskrit word for “loving-kindness.” I like her simple, reductionist definition of maitri as the practice of unconditional friendliness with oneself.

At first, I was given that unconditional friendliness by others—my parents, my friends, teachers, and (temporary) unconditional friendliness by boyfriends—until I could start to give it to myself.

My harsh, damaging, critical self—the one who made me want to leave the earth—began to lose its potency.

I always thought it was my circumstances that were so painful, but I started to realize:

It had much less to do with the outside world and much more to do with the chaotic, self-deprecating inner world that created my hell.

“We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.”
— Anaïs Nin

I started to take responsibility for my inner world, and everything shifted.

I no longer identify as a tiny, collapsing, balsa wood puppet. I’m closer to a willow tree now, bending with the wind, still flexing too much with what comes my way. My anxiously attached parts still offer shade and comfort to some scheisty characters, and I still have a very narrow window of tolerance for my body shape and size—but that’s okay.

The work offers another opportunity to learn, accept, and grow into myself.

James Hillman’s acorn theory posits that we all have a soul’s expression coded in our DNA—latent gifts waiting to be expressed under the right conditions.

Life offers us the salt, heat, acid (and sometimes fat, if you have body dysmorphia like me) to chip away at the lies we believed—the things that made us our own abusers.

We grow deeper roots with each challenge.
We prune away what was never ours.
We learn to accept and own our weirdness and quirks.

Hopefully, we learn to trust ourselves once we stop hating ourselves, and start to pay attention to the breeze at dawn, Rumi writes about.

Because in the quiet breeze are the secrets we long for—the blueprint for the oak tree we are destined to become.

“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!”
— Rumi

At this point in my life, the pervasive feeling of not wanting to be alive rarely sneaks in and I’m learning to love my willow-ness.

I no longer crumble like balsa wood at the weight of life.

I still bend, bruise, and want things to be different—but I know who I am now.

I’m looking forward to the latent coded DNA my soul is waiting to express.

The girl who once lay under that Pendleton blanket, tears sliding into her ears, wasn’t broken.

She was beginning to listen.

To the ache.
To the truth.
To the breeze at dawn.

And now?

(Chat GPT wanted me to tell you I don’t go back to sleep) But the truth is:

I vacillate between being asleep and awake

between following my soul’s calling and doing what I should be doing

between moments of self-love and self-hatred

I’m vacillating my way through life

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The wooden chair beneath me hurts my tailbone.
The dirty marks on my fridge stare at me. The light shining in from the window to my left dazzles and then darkens. Clouds, wind, and the leaves of the tree dance a waltz only they know the steps of. A Western bluebird alights on my neighbor’s roof, its tail flicks high as its head darts—by the look of it, he might be dancing to his own tune, like no one is watching ;).

I don’t know the name of the tune playing on my little Bluetooth stereo, which is also perched high on top of my fridge. I’ve wrapped my curtains back with the speaker cord so the meditation candle doesn’t set them on fire while I sit, eyes closed.

I listen to the music, soft and ethereal, the cold breeze refreshes my cheeks, and I open my eyes to write. My heart is so full I can barely stand it, and right at that moment, the sprinklers come on. The light hits the droplets of water, and they shine the only way nature knows how—like stars twinkling, a tiny, bright shooting star shower, just for me.

And this is when the tears begin to flow.
I’m so overwhelmed with gratitude that I can’t hold it together. I melt into the experience, my eyes automatically look up to the heavens as everything blurs, and my chest shudders with deep breaths as I allow the moment to take me.

I did not create this moment with intention. The universe landed me here. I did not consciously think to myself, "I want to create a gratitude space and write ten things to be grateful for every morning." And yet somehow, I ended up here, not by planning, not by journaling about ‘gratitude rituals,’ but by life unfolding in the perfect, sideways way I can’t predict.

Looking back, a few things nudged me here…

I’d wanted to move to Bend for years. I waited. I waited and waited. I didn’t want my ego mind to be the author of the next chapter of my life (I love her, but we haven’t always batted 1.000, if you know what I mean); I wanted my perfect place to reveal itself to me.

Finally, it did, and it started with a $1,000.00 writing course I barely participated in. I got nothing from it besides a refusal to refund me and a writing buddy named Kim. Kim referred me to a writing program called Write Your Own Life.

A few months later, I sat at my computer and introduced myself to the group, which was—and is—led by a fabulous writing coach named Marian. I couldn’t even remember how I heard of the group until Kim’s white hair popped into one of the little Zoom tiles. “Oh, yeah, that’s how I got here!”

Within weeks, I learned Marian was based in Bend and might take a new job in Texas. Now, as I move about my ADU in Bend, I wonder if Marian broke the toaster or if it was broken before her. I feel blessed to follow in the footsteps of one of the most authentic, brave, and sincere women I’ve ever met (yes, she reads these sometimes, but it’s also true).

The second piece that contributed to the puzzle I described above:
I have the worst fucking insomnia I’ve ever had in my whole life. It’s awful. I’m not supposed to be on a screen right now—blue light and all—but the free little library didn’t deliver, and I can’t read one more self-help book. I’m too tired to help myself.

HOWEVER, insomnia allows me to wake up at 5:30 in the morning. My insomnia app (based on the research-backed CBT-I intervention, so I’ll be fixed in 8 days—I’ll keep you posted) tells me I’m supposed to get sunlight in my eyes first thing.

Where does the sunlight come in, you ask? You guessed it: in my kitchen window, directly in front of the fridge. So that’s where the 1990s wood chair was planted. Yes, I have to move it to open the refrigerator. It’s fine.

How did I land on a gratitude practice? My friend, who went through breast cancer and came out the other side thriving, published a gratitude journal as part of her healing. She's now my neighbor(ish) here in Bend.

Two weeks ago, she joined me and one of the many female loves of my life for a birthday celebration. She presented said gratitude journal as a gift to each of us while we were high on edibles, indulging on mildly overpriced, mediocrely portioned tapas at the Flamenco room.

I forgot about it.
(Blame the edibles. And the tapas. And the concert. And the random late-night BLT—how did that get in there!?)

Then one morning, rummaging through my work bag looking for poop bags for Buttercup, I found it.
At 5:40 a.m., barely awake, I saw it: a darling pink gratitude journal with a monochromatic rainbow and tiny stars on the cover. Yes, please.

AND—it literally had a personal instruction:
“Linden, find your magic in the gratitude.”

Sometimes, I do what I’m told.

My little ego brain did not take the advice of every self-help guru/neuroscientist/therapist/researcher out there and “should myself” into this practice intentionally because it’s supposed to be ‘good for me.’ I’ve tried that a million and one times, with a consistently inconsistent streak of one to three days in a row.

The moment I described earlier—when I saw nature dancing with herself and shooting stars at 6:13 in the morning, when nature herself moved me to tears and flowed through me?

I couldn’t have seen that coming.
It was a moment designed for me, co-created with the universe.

My only job? Respond to the call.
I followed the flow, got out of the way, and now I have a ritual to start my day.

I used to think something was wrong with me for needing so much help—but now I’m wondering if this was all part of the plan.

I’ve had over 11 therapists in my life; I didn’t want to take the time to get the count right, so over 11 it is.

I’ve been to rehab for a substance use disorder, and I’ve done partial outpatient treatment for an eating disorder.

Add up those hours and dollars, and we’re looking at triple and quadruple digits.

It’s been a long journey.

I frequently wonder what I would have done with all that resource (time and money) if I didn’t struggle mentally and emotionally throughout my life to the degree that I have.

I don’t know how I got this hand of cards.

In his book, The Soul’s Code, American psychologist James Hillman argues that our souls pick our “hand” before we come to earth.

My dumbed-down, mythed-up interpretation of his argument is that we’re all egoless soul stuff in a mythical holding place until it’s our time for a few trips around the sun.

Divine timing says it’s our turn, and off our little soul goes to pick our parents, siblings, passions, pains, and karma for the intended purpose of divine growth.

Someone called it our soul’s curriculum before I did, but I like the term, so I’ll borrow it.

Our soul’s curriculum is chosen, our meat suit acquired, and with a swift swoop of a divine slip n slide, we’re born into this earthly realm to experience everything we need to fulfill our soul’s curriculum.

I like the idea that I picked this path.

That some part of me that exists on another plane had her sticky paws land on these options in the candy shop of life.

I got too much black licorice (according to my tastes), more atomic fireballs than I’d choose next time, and a jawbreaker, according to how badly I grind my teeth at night.

But, I also got some freakin Skittles, $15 bars of dark chocolate, and a never-ending box of Sweetheart valentines conversation hearts (they’re not that great, but the steady, predictable drip of sweet love has been needed for survival throughout my life).

Life is a smorgasbord, and my little soul came to partake.

What would the desirable be without the undesirable for contrast? (Solid title for another read about my dating life.)

It bums me out that the American dream always focuses on happiness.

Happy is such a yellow emotion.

It’s too bright and shiny, too one-dimensional.

The Buddha said, “life is suffering.” In this context, suffering refers to a broader, more nuanced sense of dissatisfaction, unsatisfactoriness, and the inherent impermanence of existence.

We aren’t just here to have a good time.

My soul picked my challenges with intention.

It isn’t in the yellowness of life that we grow (I get that the sun is yellow and helps things grow, but bear with me).

The darkness ultimately shapes us (or how we respond to the darkness, I should say).

When we move through darkness, we have the opportunity to gain strength and ground in an authentic, embodied reality.

It gives us the chance to come undone, to break free of false selves and inauthentic ways of being.

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone.
The shell cracks, its insides come out, and everything changes.
To someone who doesn’t understand growth, this would look like complete destruction.”
— Cynthia Occelli

Imagine a tree without a solid root system; it will never grow to its fullest expression.

Zen Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh captures this succinctly and powerfully with the phrase:

“No mud, no lotus.”

Lotus flowers require muddy conditions to thrive.

My daimon didn’t come here for the American dream.

She didn’t want to be married with a couple of kids and a white picket fence with a two-car garage.

She came for the black licorice and the fireballs, the hours of therapy and gut-wrenching, open-hearted connection.

She came to forget herself so she could really remember.

She chose the mud so she could grow down.

It’s taken me decades to accept myself and my self-imposed soul’s curriculum.

I’m still growing down, grasping at the nutrient-dense soil at times, completely unaware of what kind of blooms await.

I don’t know my brand of fruit, what my fullest expression will be, or if I’ll realize it in this lifetime.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

But knowing that something bigger than myself chose this less typical hand helps me reorient to life in an empowering way.

Maybe I’m still just a seed—cracked open, insides spilling, trying to find the light without losing the mud.