“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” - Audrey Hepburn

At the beginning of the summer, I declared myself to be a flower farmer. And I had a vision: I would grow flowers and share them for free.

My husband built me three raised flower beds. I talked with friends who know a lot about gardening and they shared their seeds, plants, and tips. I picked out seeds and read about when to plant them and how to nourish them. I planted them and then I waited!

Eventually, flowers started to bloom!

Most mornings this summer, this was my daily ritual: I would walk outside barefoot (of course!) and go into my garden. I’d take my basket - an Easter basket my mom gave me a long time ago - and I’d take my scissors or clippers and walk down into the garden. And I’d look for what had bloomed.

Every time I walked down the stairs to my deck, I’d think: “Ohhhh, I wonder if there will be enough to make bouquets for people.”

And always, always, there was an abundance! Earth – she always surprised me…and I am learning so much from her abundant giving.

There would be cosmos, zinnias, dahlias, calendula, milkweed, daisies, and sunflowers. Flowers that came from friends, my mother-in-law, and my neighbor and her son. From the very beginning, my garden has been an expression of community and sharing.

I would look for what was thriving, what needed more water or sunlight, what needed to be pulled out, what wasn’t working. Some flowers grew tall and wild and took off. Some were eaten by I don’t know what – like my roses. Some flowers didn’t survive the thunderstorms we had. And some simply needed a little more care and even some sweet talking to. Yes, I started to talk to my flowers!

From the get-go of declaring I was a flower farmer, I envisioned giving away flowers. I saw it in my mind and heart: every day, snipping flowers, placing them in my basket, going back up into the kitchen and filling jars with flowers to then put out under our cherry tree out front.

I told some friends about my vision.

“I have jars I can give you!” People started to say to me.

Jars started to show up on my doorstep, friends would bring me jars when we’d meet up for coffee, and fellow yogis would bring jars to yoga class for me. Even though they didn’t live in my neighborhood, they still wanted to help! What generosity!

So I collected jars—jelly, pickle, yogurt, Mason jars. I’d fill them with flowers and put them out under our cherry tree with a sign:

FREE FLOWERS.
TAKE FLOWERS + JAR.
DROP OFF A JAR IF YOU HAVE ONE.

LOVE,

LISA

And then people would take them. I rarely saw who took the flowers. Sometimes, neighbors would leave a thank you note for me…and jars!

On Substack Notes, I shared a story of how one day, my college-aged son came home from his summer internship and said, “Mom, I saw two teenagers walk off with two jars of your flowers.”

I imagined those two teenagers carrying flowers home – maybe they kept them for themselves or maybe they gave them to a parent or grandparent. I loved imagining teenagers stopping to notice something beautiful and then deciding to share it with someone. It made me instantly hopeful for the younger generations – if they can stop to notice beauty and share it with others, we are going to be okay!

It was shear delight for me to imagine my flowers could make people smile and think, “There is goodness in this world!” And maybe have a bit more trust in and hope for humanity.

As of today, I think I have given away over a 100 bouquets! I set them out for neighbors out front, I made some arrangements for my friend’s wedding celebration, I gave flowers to friends and family when we’d meet up, I brought arrangements to my local yoga studio, and I dropped off one to a friend who had recently lost her mom.

When I gave people flowers and see their faces light up with such delight, I started to think more about another type of well-being: communal flourishing.

We talk a lot about personal well-being. Our society promotes personal well-being – from stress reduction to strength training, from our nutrition to our nervous systems.

And I think personal wellness – especially holistic well-being – is super important. We need to care for ourselves. It’s super helpful to understand our nervous systems. We need space and time for rest and movement, good food, good friends, and good therapy. We need practices that help us feel grounded, connected, and alive.

But as I watched my garden this summer, I kept thinking about the ecosystem that allows an organism to flourish.

The flowers needed good soil, watering, sunlight, room to grow, pollinators, other living things around them, and the right conditions.

My flowers didn’t flourish by themselves. They are part of a entire living web - rain, sun, bees and butterflies, birds and trees, all the microorganisms in the soil, best buddy plants next to them that help each other grow, and ME – walking barefoot in the garden every morning and watering and tending to them.

The flowers were part of an ecosystem of care!

I think it’s easy to forget that we, too, are a part of this ecosystem of living beings on this planet. I believe we are at a critical moment where we need to expand the conversation around well-being – beyond the individual and into communal well-being - to remember how intimately we are connected and dependent upon other humans, plants, animals, and the earth!

I imagine that if we started to give more attention to this fact that we are so intimately interconnected we might start to deeply regard the flourishment of our communities and planet.

So I’ve started to ask the question:

What would it look and feel like for humanity – and our living world – to flourish?

What if our world was designed more around human connection than constant consumption?

What if every person felt like they belonged somewhere?

What if we thought about the kind of ancestors we want to be?

what if we spent more time connecting to nature?

What if we had a more intimate relationship with rivers, forests, birds, butterflies, and the land of our earth?

What would the world look like if we designed it around belonging, natural beauty, walking/biking, and being outside?

What if business leaders created companies that regarded the earth and human flourishing and not just maximized profits?

What if every single institution, industry, community, business, school, government started to really regard the intimate connection we are all a part of?

What might change? How might all life flourish on this planet?

Delightful is Changing.

As a holistic psychotherapist, social worker, and lover of nature, I can’t just talk about “nervous system regulation” or “stress reduction” or “leading a life you deeply love” without talking about the ecosystem in which we exist in. I cannot talk about personal flourishing without talking about our communities, institutions, countries, and planet flourishing as well.

I am changing things up on Delightful. And I’d love for you to join me.

I am teaching a whole academic year-long training at Georgetown University for faculty and staff around flourishing and the “skills” we are going to need going forward. That got me thinking - I think more people want to hear about humanity evolving. So I would like to share some of these “Skills for Humanity” with you.

What kind of skills do we as humans need to develop in order for us and our planet to flourish? And why?

Let me start with the WHY first.

AI and technology are expanding so rapidly that it is already shaping our lives before we even have a handle on its impact. Tech bros and billionaires are shaping our future – yours, mine, and this planet!

We need to wake up and spend some time envisioning the kind of future WE want. Then we need to take action to participate in shaping THAT kind of world.

So I am literally beginning with VISION.

Vision is the capacity to imagine.

If we stay stressed out and navel-gazing at our own individual lives, the tech bros and billionaires will shape our future for us. Before we can create something different, we have to be able to imagine it.

So I’ve created a new meditation:

Imagine Life Flourishing: A Guided Visualization for Hope & Possibility

And I’m making it free.

It’s an invitation to pause and imagine what flourishing might look and feel like—for you, for your relationships and communities, and for the living world around you.

Listen to the free meditation, Imagine Life Flourishing: A Guided Visualization for Hope & Possibility

Moving forward, I’ll be writing about the Skills for Humanity I believe we need right now—vision, discernment, connection, agency, creativity, reverence, delight, beauty, and more.

I’ll be creating guided experiences to help us explore these together through breath, imagination, intuition, nature, meditation, yoga, shamanic journeying, energy healing, and guided clinical hypnosis.

Oh baby!!!!

Paid subscribers will receive these deeper experiences as I create them.

Subscribe now

So if you are reading this and this matters to your body and soul, and you want our children’s children to inherit a beautiful, flourishing planet, join me.

I invite you to become a paid subscriber.

This is going to be a place where we embody, practice, become the kinds of people who create life flourishing.

Opportunity to Go Deeper:

Something new emerging for this fall! Ohhhh – a totally new offering.

In addition to the integrative psychotherapy and coaching I do, I am now opening spaces for: Somatic Tarot Card Readings

You have not experienced a card reading like this before.

It’s a co-creative, holistic approach to intuitive guidance that brings together the cards and body, breath, imagination, and inner knowing.

For you and our world to flourish.

Rather than just sitting back while someone tells you what your cards mean, I guide you through thoughtful, soulful, and embodied inquiry.

What are you ready to release? What’s asking for your attention now? What’s calling you forward?

I weave in breathwork, yoga postures, soul journaling, nervous system practices, and practical tools that you can take into your life – for you and for our world.

Ohhhh it’s beautiful!

This offering is a way of bringing together many of the things I’ve spent decades in - somatic work, intuition, yoga, meditation, the wisdom of the body, and interconnectedness of all living beings. And it’s a way for me to personally support you in you being aligned with how your soul is calling you forward to help humanity and our world.

To schedule - just message me and we can arrange a time and payment via Venmo.

Evolving Forward…With A Vision

And as I envision where Delightful is going, I am thinking about my flowers.

I had a vision at the beginning of the summer: I would be a flower farmer. I’d grow flowers and give them away.

I didn’t know exactly how it would happen, what would grow, how many flowers would bloom, or even what flowers would come up! I had no idea that people would jump in and start to help by collecting jars for me! And I had no idea just how much delight it would bring to people’s lives.

I just had a vision and I started.

Then something happened that I couldn’t have created by myself. People joined me. People encouraged me. Even when my ladders were taken from my front lawn, people reached out to me. Friends gave me plants and seeds. People would ask me about my flowers and how it was going. People took these delightful arrangements home! And I imagine that people shared them with their people.

Something that began as a little vision in my three raised flower beds became something communal.

This flower farmer thing I imagined became something bigger and more impactful than I even thought! But it did start with a vision of what I knew was on my heart to do.

That is the power of vision. We don’t need to know exactly how something will unfold – we just need to take the time out and give ourselves a beat to pause and imagine it! From our hearts and souls.

Then we need to have the courage to trust ourselves and take the first step.

Offer what we have.

Pay attention to what grows and what needs some love.

So that’s what I’m doing here on Delightful. I’m envisioning something much bigger. I’m joining with others (maybe you?!) and I’m wondering:

What could grow from all of us imagining a flourishing world - and then living as though we’re part of creating it?

I don’t know yet, but just like Earth offered me such abundance every morning to create my jars of flowers, I have a feeling that something beautiful will grow when we join together.

So let’s see what happens when we envision and dream about what kind of world might be possible.

I am glad you are here.

Blessings,

Lisa

Cosmic Potential

It was late, the sun was setting 
as I finished digging in the earth 
in my new flower bed that 
my husband built for me, and I 
placed the last flower seeds 
in the soil. 

I had spent an hour in the garden 
after work as a therapist of 
holding space for weary humans 
wanting to feel okay, wanting to feel 
hope and feel held by 
something larger than their 
anxieties and compulsions 
and suffering. 

With knees in the dirt 
in my now earth-stained pants, 
I sat back.

I felt the quiet 
evening breeze 
carrying softness 
to my skin - 
to my soul. 

I looked down at my hands 
and the dirt under my nails -
proof of my effort but 
no guarantee that the hours 
and days spent here kneeling 
and digging and planting 
will result in the vision I have 
of a garden lush with color 
and bees and abundant blossoms. 

Earlier in the day, 
clients wondered, 
"Will this ever change? 
Am I good? 
Will I be like this forever? 
I don't know what to do." 

We press a prayer into the soil 
of our earth-bodies 
and we hope. 

We water the seeds with 
daily practices of 
placing our feet on the earth, 
feeling the breath, gently bringing 
one hand to the heart, and saying 
our own name with kindness. 

We wonder and we pray. 
We wander and we come back 
to what our ancestors practiced 
again and again that 
strengthened within them 
roots of resilience 
and faith and fortitude. 

We allow the timeless miracle 
happening underground 
to unfold - 
earth loosening, a seed 
unfurling and growing toward 
what it instinctually knows is 
its destiny. 

But no one posts about 
the season of nothing happening 
and faithfulness of practice 
in the darkness of doubt 
and uncertainty. 

No one shares about 
the "no results yet" of 
daily showing up to whisper 
another prayer of hope 
from your heart. 

We want certainty - 
some sign 
that our work and effort 
is taking root within us. 

Yet so much of transformation 
looks like this: hands in the dirt, 
messy emotions, heart sinking 
and then hoping and sinking and 
then hoping, and no tangible proof 
appearing 

and 

choosing to stay - 

choosing to water, 
choosing to trust that what has 
not yet broken through the darkness 
will find its way through the 
soil and into the light. 

Then, on one seemingly 
monotonous day, 
you sense it - 
something has shifted. 

The earth has been rumbling 
and quietly parting.

There is a small, undeniable 
green shoot of hope - 
it's easier to breathe, 
to be kind to yourself, 
to not get caught up in 
your old thoughts, 
to respond with love 
instead of react out of fear. 

And you know now that 
even in the darkness 
and the wandering, 
your soul knew 
how to bring you 
into the light. 

And though more weather systems 
of emotions and thoughts 
will come, somehow 
you trust 

that this seemingly fragile 
green shoot contains within it 
the same cosmic potential 
of all things - 
a new star birthing, 
a mammoth sunflower rising, 
a whole new galaxy forming. 

And you begin to faithfully trust 
that so it is with your life, too.

Lisa McCrohan (c) 2026

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This spring and early summer, I have been spending less time online. In the morning, instead of writing or posting, I’ve been waking up and going barefoot into my gardens. Whether I have five minutes or fifteen, I water the beets and zucchini plants, check on the zinnias and dalias, and notice what has emerged overnight.

Some mornings, I cut roses and hydrangeas and hot pink and purple and orange flowers I forgot the names of. I lay them in a basket and carry them inside to arrange them in glass jars that once held jelly, pickles, spices, and yogurt that neighbors and friends dropped off on my porch. I carry these colorful arrangements outside and put them on a small step ladder under our cherry tree with a colorful handmade sign that says: “Free flowers.”

I’ve been going to my yoga teacher training that’s local and in person. I was trained in yoga over two decades ago, but I wanted to deepen my teaching skills and be a part of a local community diving deeper into yoga together.

I’ve been up late with my family watching World Cup soccer games. That has sometimes meant that I am tired the next day because I am not a late night chica! But my son is home from college and my daughter is a teen and these moments of being together are precious.

I’ve been outside going on walks with our dog and sometimes stopping to meet other dog owners. I’ve been going to my kettlebell class and seeing the same ladies. When I wasn’t there for two weeks, one of the women, an older Korean woman who usually has her mat next to mine said, “Lisa, where have you been?! I’ve missed you!”

When i finish work, I try not to go online and veg out. I call a friend as I go for a walk, cook dinner, or clean up the house.

This may all sound so ordinary, but it’s absolutely filled with life - the smell of earth in my hands, fragrant roses, popcorn popping for watching soccer. The feel of grass beneath my bare feet, the hammock holding me, belly laughs as I walk and talk to a best friend.

With such big breaks from being online and with such lengthier moments of being outside, connecting with people in real time, and moving my body, I feel something so vital to my body and soul: I feel more in touch with my aliveness.

Maybe you too have been noticing how you are drawn toward aliveness this summer. Are you watching the World Cup games and how strangers are connecting and dancing on the streets with each other?! Maybe that’s the only time you are getting onto social media or watching tv. Maybe you want to get to the beach or want to break out the board games with your family. Maybe you want to hug more. Maybe you want to pass up the promotion so you can actually have a LIFE!

I believe humanity is at a critical juncture as AI increasingly impacts every single area of our lives - how we live, work, think, and relate - and it influences how we spend our time and what we pay attention to.

As we are pulled more into our phones, we are rapidly being pulled away from something vital to human flourishing: feeling alive.

We are losing touch with the ordinary moments that make our lives feel rich and meaningful.

The warmth of a conversation with a dear friend at a local cafe or on a walk.

The delight of knowing our neighbors well enough that we stand in the driveway and chat on a random Tuesday evening.

The feeling of walking barefoot on the earth.

The comfort of sitting beside someone you love and watching a movie without the pressure to hurry and get back to all the things we “have to do.”

The joy of making something with our hands.

The wonder and tranquillity of sitting in a hammock and watching fireflies come out at dusk.

Doesn’t that all sound exquisitely enchanting right now?!

These days, are connected to more information and more people than any time in human history. Yet I see how more and more people feel unhappy, disconnected, anxious, “blah,” overwhelmed, and lonely.

Our souls are so very hungry.

We are hungry for aliveness. We are hungry for belonging. To feel connected. To be a part of something larger than ourselves.

We are hungry to linger and feel the breeze on our skin. To laugh with people we love. To lay on our backs in the grass and look up at the stars in awe. To smell our favorite dessert baking in the oven and sharing it with loved ones.

We are hungry to use our hands and create something beautiful and share it with others - a handmade card, a loaf of bread, a wind chime made of seashells, a crocheted blanket.

We are hungry to fully inhabit our lives. To hug and be hugged. To feel the gentle and loving touch of another human being.

Don’t you feel that hunger too?!

As technology expands, humanity has some critical questions to ask ourselves. Buckle up, because here we go and get real and honest:

What kind of people will we become?

Will our lives be organized around efficiency, productivity, and optimization? Or around connection, wonder, belonging, creativity, and aliveness?

Will we allow algorithms to shape our attention without really questioning it? Or will we consciously choose what truly nourishes our minds, bodies, hearts, and souls?

Will we become increasingly disconnected from ourselves, one another, and the earth? Or will we remember how we are relational beings and how we need this earth to be flourishing too in order to survive?

Will we recognize the cosmic potential in our souls and at our fingertips at this point in time?

So what gets ignited in you - stirred in you, lights up in you - as you read this?! Feel into THAT! That is aliveness calling to you!

That is why I stepped away from producing so much online and created really messy, imperfect gardens with weeds and seeds all mixed together. That is why I decided to be a part of a six month in person and local yoga training that both challenges me and deepens an inner strength in me. That is why I hang with my family and chat about life even if I disagree with people’s viewpoints. That is why I walk my pup and initiate sometimes awkward conversations with other dog owners. That is why I keep showing up to my kettlebell and yoga classes. That is why I put away work for the day and linger in long conversations with friends.

I am restoring my aliveness. I am feeling into what makes me feel alive and human and connected and happy to be here even if at times it’s annoying, awkward, challenging, or hard.

Do you feel this desire for aliveness coming awake in you, too?!

The future does not have to be shaped only by technology, what’s on your social media feed, or some billionaire’s latest AI project designed to drag you into their altered reality. And don’t get me wrong - I am actually not against technology or even AI. I am for humanity consciously shaping the future based on what matters and is vital to humans and the earth flourishing.

We can shape the future by the choices we make every day. I know - I get it - we have jobs and bills and worries and responsibilities. But that is where we have to find our agency.

Sometimes that means making one different, small choice.

Maybe there is a moment this week you can choose to linger instead of rush.

Or get together with someone instead of isolate and sit on your couch alone scrolling on your phone.

Or create just for the experience of shaping something with your hands instead of going online to buy another pair of shoes.

Or take a chance talking to a neighbor.

Or ask a store clerk how their day is going.

Take the risk of feeling more alive!

Other times (and I am just going to be super honest with you the way I am with my clients) you have to make some big life-altering decisions based on what your body and soul are crying out to you to choose.

Maybe there are some bigger questions to ask yourself that might mean you make some big changes:

When do I feel most alive?

What activities, people, and places leave me feeling more awake, connected,soothed, and present?

What leaves me feeling numb, depleted, disconnected, or “blah”?

What am I hungry for that I keep trying to satisfy with things that don’t actually nourish me?

If I continue living exactly as I am today, who will I be in five years?

Am I using technology as a tool or am I using it as a replacement for listening to my own inner wisdom or getting feedback from an actual human?

What am I organizing my life around?

This is “soul turning toward soul.”

I pray for our soulful embodiment - being around sunlight, laughter, and the closeness of other living things.

This is me pressing a prayer “into the soil of our earth-bodies” and hoping.

Us and nature flourishing in our aliveness - that is the seed I will keep watering.

This is cosmic potential blooming from within us.

Your soul knows how to linger. Your body knows what soothes it. Your heart knows what it loves.

Lean into THAT!

And we as humans do know how to evolve! We know that compassion and joy and belonging and celebration and gathering and being alongside one another are what bring us alive and will truly make a life - and this planet - rich and fully alive.

PS I am making this free to all readers. If you’d like to support my work, I would greatly appreciate you becoming a paid subscriber. I feel like everything is so expensive these days and I want to make sure that anyone who wants to access these practices and inspiration can do so. Your generosity supports this possibility.

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Today’s piece is about what can bloom in our real life when we get off screens and drop into the body and soul leading us.

I wanted to give you an experience of dropping into either the written or audio expression of this post. You can read or you can listen to the audio here - which i only did one recording of and made no edits to take out pauses or the aliveness and realness of my breath so as to encourage a future of not losing “the human” - less curated and more human.

Listen to this post here:

Immersed in Real Life  

These days, I am spending more
time outside with my hands in the
earth, muscles engaged, face 
sweaty, and dirt caked under my
nails than scrolling online. 

I am spending more days holding
hope in the palm of my hand and
pressing each seed gently into the
earth than I am sitting at my desk
pouring my precious, vivacious
soul into writing for the masses.

I am spending more of my energy
dreaming of how I will share my
flowers and veggies and fruit with
neighbors in just a few months
than I am sitting and wondering if
my poetry will reach far in the
online world.

I am experiencing more creativity
flowing through me as my feet sink
into the mud, the birds sing 
alongside me and flowers begin to 
slowly send shoots up through the 
spring earth than I do when I am 
inside, alone, forcing words to 
form into lines of poetry. 

Spring is here and offering you 
anopportunity to consider: 
what is your body longing for?
How is your soul calling you to
awaken from the slumber of
discontent and step into 
a new life?

Lisa McCrohan © 2026

There is a shift happening deep in my bones, prompted by my soul.

Maybe you feel something happening like this, too:

There is an undeniable desire to stop being on screens so much and inhabit life - real life. The life we can touch, taste, smell, hear, and see.

Life is happening right here through our bodies.

For me, it’s happening with my hands in the soil, standing, bending, and moving my body...feeling my muscles flex and engage and grow...as I dig and as I plant seeds.

Real life is happening off screen.

Oh my goodness how something wants to bloom in our lives - in real life. In the life we can taste, touch, smell, see, and hear.

What wants to bloom in your life?

Maybe it’s a garden like me - growing daisies or watermelons or carrots that you’ll risk sharing with neighbors your don’t know yet but will knock on their door and offer them a small bouquet of homegrown and recently picked flowers.

Maybe it’s asking a friend to linger in a long conversation on a hike or over coffee where phones are put aside - and you make it happen on a regular basis.

Maybe it’s listening to your body and noticing how it doesn’t want to be sitting all day staring at an overstimulating device. How it wants to move and be nourished by taking your time biting into an apple, how it wants to stretch arms out like a bear waking up, how it wants to sigh loudly like a lion ready for sleep, how it wants to stretch out like a cat in a sunbeam. My god, we are more an animal than we are a machine!

For too many years, many of us as creators, artists, writers, poets, and small business owners have poured copious amounts of creative energy into the digital world - writing, posting, sharing, curating, creating, offering...hoping our words or art or message travel far, hoping something meaningful lands.

And sometimes it has.

Sometimes we have reached across the world, or across a divide in this digital landscape and we have soothed, we have helped, we have nourished with our words, with our poems, with our music, with our art, and we have felt full and like it’s worth it.

But we have also lost something.

Tech neck they call it. Our head jets forward to look at our device, our shoulders round forward as we hold our phones, leaving the space on the upper back between the shoulder blades too stretched and under toned, while the muscles in our chests get too tight and the tops of our shoulders - the space connected to our necks - gets overly used as the over compensate for the lack of muscle in our upper back. Not to mention then the problems we have with a weaker core and lower back. And we sit and we sit. Like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Our eyes burn, headaches happen more frequently. And don’t get me started on the epidemic of loneliness - choosing to “connect” online or just scroll on our devices instead of putting in the awkward effort to know our neighbors.

I get it. Real life is messy and imperfect. It’s awkward. We might get rejected. We might feel discomfort. We might finally feel what sadness or grief or longing lingers here - inside our bodies.

But the more I am immersing myself in real life - the messy, embodied reality of bodies and emotions and nature and sky and earth and hearts that break and longings that could erupt from our hearts, the more aliveness I feel. Whether that aliveness is the salt of my tears or the stillness of peace settling in me. The more truth I feel. Whether that truth be tender or tenacious. The more clarity I feel. Whether that be a clear head or a clear heart. The more focused I feel. Whether that be centering my pleasure or lingering in a conversation. The more creativity arises. Whether that be a poem forming or a path appearing led by my soul.

This doesn’t happen with me sitting on my device or staring at my computer.

It happens outside with my hands in the dirt. As I’m planting seeds, my minds gets clearer and Poetry comes to me. Poetry that might never be spoken out loud or never be written down, but it swims across my heart and it changes me, it nourishes me, It invites me into a deep sense of pleasure and satisfaction with my life instead of trying, reaching, pulling, grasping for something different, believing in this capitalistic life that we are broken, that we need something else, that we’re not complete...that keeps us navel gazing at our insecurities our imperfections.

Creativity, clarity, and peace do not come from staring endlessly at a screen and working harder. They rise up from within us by living in our lives, in real life.

Spring is here, and I would imagine that you too feel this call, this deeper invitation. To lay our bodies in the grass, arms and legs spread out, with our faces toward the sun, our hearts open and resting and yet also supported by the earth, breathing fully.

What wants to bloom in real life?

Not online. Not someday. Not when you have it all perfectly figured out. But right now, in the actual texture of your days - in the touch, smell, taste, sights, and sounds of your day.

Maybe it’s getting your hands in the soil and planting a garden.

Maybe it’s leafing through a cookbook and choosing a recipe that sounds scrumptious to you.

Maybe it’s just making the decision to spend more evenings outside, on your porch, talking to a neighbor., walking your dog, smiling at a stranger who passes by.

Maybe it’s making art just for the sake of somatically experiencing your body moving in rhythm with a paintbrush or with clay.

Maybe it’s in making the choice - the messy, hard, difficult, vulnerable choice to deepen your relationships, to tell someone that you’d like to know them better, that you’d like to spend time with them, that you enjoy their company, that you’d like to get to know them better.

Maybe it’s investing in the people who live right around you, that maybe you have... dismissed, maybe because they appear different than you or that you don’t have anything in common with them. But maybe here, right here, right around you, there’s an opportunity to knock on your neighbor’s door. and just say, “Hey, I live next door and thought I’d say hi.” Maybe it’s to bring them a small plant. Maybe it’s to bring them a bagel or a kombucha, or a poem.

I know, for me, that it also is about reclaiming parts of myself, my life, my energy, my soul - that slowly drifted into the digital world. And I knew it, and I felt that it was depleting me. And I continued with it far too long than when my body knew I was done.

Spring has a way of waking up our desires... of inviting us to plant seeds that want to bloom.

Let’s start with the body

Your body wants sunlight.

It wants movement.

It wants fresh air, conversation, good friends, hugs, and connection.

And when we listen to those longings of our bodies, something in us begins to stir, begins to come alive again, begins to be clear, calm, soothed, and feel safe again.

What wants to bloom in real life?

Right here, in the soil of your everyday life - in the dirty, messy, incomplete, imperfect, sometimes disappointing, real life.

It might surprise you just how glorious it can be to give your mind a reprieve, to give your eyes a reprieve, to make the shapes that your body wants to make, to give into the desire to be outside, connecting to the natural world, connecting again to people.

It might just surprise you that life... real life... is beautiful, and that you need very little.

You might begin to feel your breath again, to feel the aliveness in the cells of your body.

You might discover that new ideas and creative ways of being nourished, and nourishing the world, begin to emerge.

So I will not perfect these words and sharings. I will not commit to any rhythm other than listening to my soul. And I will offer you what gems arise in the raw and real of my life. I won’t over extend my energies and override when my body says, “This is good enough. Now go outside.”

Blessings,

Lisa

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What happens when the life you’ve been trying to build no longer feels aligned? This piece is about the sacred moment of standing at the threshold—letting go of old ways that drain us and trusting the quiet emergence of something new.

I also share a very personal unfolding of my own about a big shift in my creative and sharing process.

This is a long piece that invites you to brew a cup of tea and linger with this reading experience.

I have been trying to make something happen in my life for a long time now. I really want it to work out. And I’ve been clinging to it trying to make it work. It’s part of my personality that I don’t like to give up. I will try a hundred different ways before I quit.

But recently, I have been (slowly) admitting to myself, “This is not working out.”

The old way I am going about it just doesn’t nourish me. Actually, it drains me. If I’m being honest, it even hurts my heart and my body.

My soul is asking me to put it down…and let it go. Then to step across the threshold into a new timeline.

I love that language: a new timeline.

A new way of orienting, seeing, exploring, and living life.

But the old way – I first have to let it go.

And I have to trust that something new is quietly growing underground, even though I can’t see it yet.

On a Global Level

This is happening on a global level – the old paradigms that have shaped our societies are beginning to crack. Systems built on endless growth, domination, and extraction are showing their limits and exposing how harmful they are. We see it in how people are questioning economic models that prize productivity and profit above human wellbeing. People are waking up to the fact that the treadmill of endless productivity is exhausting us. People are exposing the corruption and violence of an elite few.

The old way is collapsing.

Some people will continue to hold on and try to keep pushing for “the old” to remain. Others will cross the threshold and step into what is growing and wanting to emerge: the evolution of humanity.

In Your Own Life

On a personal level, maybe you have been pushing for something in your life that you really want to work out. Maybe you are clinging to an old story, habit, relationship, way of interacting, or way of living. You stay with what is old because it’s familiar. You cling tightly to an old dream that you know needs to go.

You’ve tried to make it happen. You might sit at your desk and strategize how to make it still work. You ruminate about it. Your prayers in the middle of the night seem to go nowhere. You hold on tighter.

Pause for a moment with me and ask yourself, “Is there something in my life right now that I keep trying to make work but isn’t?”

Maybe it’s something you have prayed about, strategized about, and thought about on a daily basis.

And then ask, “What is the quieter, inner voice telling me?”

I’d imagine that underneath the chatter of your brain and anxiety, you already hear the guidance – you know what to do – but you keep holding onto what needs to go

You keep clinging

to what God is gently asking you

to release.

I get it – we push away the wisdom we hear because it feels scary to lean in, trust, let go of what’s familiar, and embrace what our souls know is a new direction – a new timeline.

The more we resist, the more our inner voice persists. It will keep calling us for our soul’s evolution.

Most likely, you can’t quite make out the shape of what will come next. But there are rumblings in the earth-soil of your soul - something new wants to emerge.

The Hand of the Beloved

My Darling,
how is it that you search for Me like
a poor beggar on hands and knees, 
frantically scrounging the dirt 
floor for food?

My Dear Heart, if you wish, 
I can continue to beg and scrounge 
alongside you, and we can keep 
bruising our hands and knees,
never really filling our bellies on 
the scraps this world happens to 
toss our way.

But wouldn’t it be easier and 
a lot less on our hands and knees 
and hearts to take the hand of the 
Beloved who has always been 
holding such sweet nourishing 
delights to your parched lips?

Come, let’s rest for a while.
Let’s go outside and
lay under the vast 
moonlit night.

A Threshold Moment

The old way is not our way forward anymore. And there comes a moment when we are standing at the threshold between the old and the new unknown of our soul’s truth.

We have one foot in the familiar and one foot hovers hesitantly over new ground.

It might totally rearrange our life. And so this doesn’t feel like just a small choice; it feels like an identity shift.

Inside each of us, an unsettling question arises:

“Who am I

if I let this go?”

What often comes next is this one:

“What will happen

if I stop clinging

and let this go?”

This threshold moment holds so much tension. We can stay in this threshold moment for a long time. I know I have.

Let me share more personally now…

There’s been this desire on my heart around my writing for a long time now.

I am a writer. I love to write. I have been writing my whole life and sharing online for over 15 years.

In that time of sharing online, I have met some incredible people. Some have become friends, coaching clients, psychotherapy clients, and dear soul connections. I am deeply grateful for the connections that have blossomed from being online.

But the landscape of being online has changed.

Somewhere along the way, I found myself spending more and more time on my phone, thinking about posts, revising words, navigating platforms and algorithms, and trying to say something meaningful in spaces so crowded that my gems seem to disappear into a vast digital sea.

In the beginning, it felt fun and exciting to connect to people all over the world! But for awhile now, most of the time, I put forth a ton of time and heart into what I share, and I feel like I am writing into an abyss.

Recently, I’ve had the courage to admit to myself:

I am deeply unsatisfied with the way that I am currently spending my time writing and sharing online.

I love to interact with people. I deeply appreciate it when people want to connect more personally with me and they message me or reach out.

But now, it just feels mostly...lonely. And isolating.

I don’t like to play the algorithm game. I don’t write things to chase likes or followers. What matters most to me is something more soulful and deeper: genuine connection.

And the old ways I’ve been sharing online just aren’t nurturing that anymore.

Something holy in me is calling me in a different direction that feels more aligned and also nourishing to me.

A New Way

The other day, a gentleman who lives in our neighborhood stopped me and Sherlock on our walk. Earlier in the week, I had created a Valentine’s Tree in our front yard where I hung hand-painted Valentines and included some of my poems. There were close to 40. I left a note on my poetry board about how I just wanted to spread some love and for people to take a valentine. Within a few days, all the valentines had been taken home by neighbors!

My neighbor gave me a big hug. As we hugged he said, “Lisa, you have such a beautiful soul.” He was tearing up and that made me tear up.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that you have such a beautiful soul.” He pointed to the willow tree, now empty of Valentines. He talked about how he walked by the other day and was so moved by the offering. He took a Valentine home for his daughter who was going to be visiting later that day. He told her that when she left, to go out of the neighborhood via my street and to see the Valentines Day Tree. She did and she told him she was so moved by it too!

My heart swelled. Seeing my sweet neighbor who I love talking to when we stop to chat when we are out walking our dogs – seeing his eyes and his sincere kindness as he shared from his heart what an impact I made with the Valentine’s Day tree and the poetry board I used to put up….it made me think,

“This human interaction is what matters. This is what I love.”

I love connecting on a deeper level with a few people. To see how my writing truly impacts someone. To hear about their life and their story. To see their eyes, to feel their heart, to see how their bodies settle and expand in realtime in a poetic experience.

This is when I feel alive and grateful to be alive!

I told this to another friend and said, “The feeling of the experience with my neighbor will remain with me forever. Getting 10,000 likes on a post? That dopamine hit will fade.”

This has me at a threshold point about my writing. I love to write. I will always write. But something sacred is saying, “Let go of the old way you’ve been writing and sharing.”

And I’m like, “Okay. So what does that mean? What do you want me to do?”

And my soul is like, “Go outside.”

WHAT?!!!!

That makes NO sense – at least to the “old way.” The old way tells me to just keep going in the same way I have been

But the new way? GO. OUTSIDE. (more on this in a moment!)

Maybe as you start to entertain the idea of letting go of your “old way,” a new way arises and you are like “WHAT?! That makes no sense!” It feels crazy, irresponsible, unrelated, and even unfathomable.

But this is our soul trying to get us to evolve! To step out of the old paradigm, cross the threshold, and step into a new timeline.

So we are at a threshold point.

Will you fight against the current of your own evolution as you cling to your old way?

Or will you step across the threshold into a new unfamiliar landscape that you somehow already know is for your blossoming?

Courage

There is courage required here. Courage to let go of the life we have outgrown. Courage to hear the quiet inner prompting and trust it before there is evidence. Courage to follow this call even when it dismantles the self we’ve known.

Something sacred within us is whispering – it’s time – time to soften our grip and let go.

Just as winter’s ice and snow melt into spring rain in order for green shoots to appear, something within us is saying it’s time for a new season.

Courage

Someday, you will look back at
this very spot where you stand now
as holy ground.

It will be the place where you 
finally stood still and decided that 
you could not keep ignoring
the Voice Within You.

And though you weren’t feeling 
brave or completely certain,

there came this moment, 
at this exact spot,

when you felt yourself surrender 
everything to the Beloved 
within you.

“Take me,” you said,
“I’m Yours.”

Heeding the Call of the Soul

For my own self I feel it’s time to put down my phone and even my pen.

I keep hearing, “It’s time to go outside.”

This is what my soul is telling me:

It’s time to move my body and work in the garden. To dig into the earth, hold seeds in my hand, and press each one into the soil.

It’s time to be with people and gather together, to see their eyes, their bodies breathing, how their mouth makes different shapes as they talk, to hear with my own naked ears the tones in their voice.

It’s time to dream of writing in new ways where you interact more with people.

I know with every fiber in my being this is what I need to do rather than cling to the old way of just posting online that is just not working for me.

So today, as I’m writing this, I took a break. I went for a long walk with our dog, Sherlock. And then I went over to our garden beds. I am digging them all up and starting fresh with raised beds. I have a lot of digging to do. The ground was still cold and wet from all the snow and rain we’ve had. I held the shovel in my hands and started to dig.

Ten minutes in and this felt more aligned with myself than being inside, sitting at my desk, trying to craft the perfect sentence – trying to figure out what will resonate with people and spinning around and around in my head.

Poetry flowed in my heart - it always does. But the new ways I will share are not quite formed yet.

I don’t know exactly where this will lead me (or my writing). Maybe I will have more live events - in person or online where we can gather and interact. Maybe I will perform a poem at an open mic night! Maybe I will print out a poem and send it to a specific person so when they open their mailbox, they have a little surprise! Maybe i’ll collaborate with more writers. Maybe I will think of creative ways to gather us - that can even be both online (but live) and can meet for a retreat in person!

I dont know yet. But I trust my soul. And as I took one step over that threshold into “soul guidance territory,” I felt more peace.

I do not have answers. I only know that beauty is calling me. Connection is calling me. And I know that will give over to creative ways of writing and sharing and being in community that truly nourish us – on this new timeline.

I wonder if you feel this, too – the moment when you decide to answer the question: “Will I trust my soul or keep following the fear of the old way?”

Your soul and my soul have given us the answer.

Will we surrender even if it sounds illogical?

Will we trust even if we don’t know exactly who we will become?

Will we let go even if we have very little to hold onto?

The only thing we know is that our souls are ready to blossom.

I can feel how the old way forward doesn’t work anymore. But I feel a wisdom rising up within in me that is begging me and also guiding me into something different. And I bet you do, too.

Perhaps our only work right now is to listen…

the way we listen

when we kneel in the garden

and press a seed

into the waiting earth

trusting that something is already growing

even before we can see it.

Blessings,

Lisa

What does this mean for Substack going forward? I don’t know! I have to go outside first and honor that.

If you stay, awesome!!! You might share ideas with me, tell me what would delight you, or simply be part of this unfolding, knowing that Creativity has its own rhythm. And now it is asking me to pause, to wander outside, to listen for what wants to grow and blossom next.

If you are a paid subscriber, you might consider that your offering is a way of supporting the creative process - the writing, reflecting, experimenting, and listening that eventually blossoms into goodness for the world. Or if you’d like to end your subscription, that’s okay. If you just paid and need a refund, no problem - just email me.

And if you stay, I’m grateful to have you walking alongside me into this unknown landscape. If you don’t, I am grateful for how you have supported this creative body of work and me, and I wish you well.

Offerings

Garden Talk Coaching Sessions

This spring and summer, I’m inviting you to experience coaching in a new way…out in the garden, surrounded by the organic rhythms of life and the nourishing whispers of growth. Much like my beloved “Walk and Talk” sessions, these Garden Talk sessions blend reflection, conversation, and gentle guidance but with the added grounding and inspiration that comes from being in nature.

We can do these sessions in-person or online.

In-person, you’ll come to my office and be in our backyard. As we move among the soil, plants, and blooms, you’ll have space to explore what’s ready to grow in your life, what needs tending to, and how you are shaping a beautiful life for yourself. The garden becomes a mirror for your own inner landscape—a place to metaphorically or actually dig in, plant seeds, and witness new possibilities emerging.

If we are online, we’ll talk on the phone - you’ll be in your favorite outdoor space and I will be in mine. We’ll connect with nature and let it support your session as you listen to your soul’s calling.

Whether you’re seeking clarity, support for a transition, or simply a soulful pause to connect with your own inner wisdom, these sessions invite you to step into the season, your body, and your life in a deeply nourishing way that values beauty and blossoming as lived experiences.

To work with me in coaching: check out my integrative coaching page. You’ll find my pricing and my approach. Then sign up for a consult on my website. Please note: I am only working with a handful of clients this summer.

Work with me in integrative coaching

The Clear Collective

For those who feel the pull to step into something new, but want to deepen their clarity and be in a supportive community, this is the kind of energy we hold in The Clear Collective.

My dear friend and colleague, Maria DiLorenzo, and I have teamed up to offer this sacred space. It’s a space where an intimate community of people come together for a 10-week intimate coaching experience to clear what no longer serves them—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—and make room for the life and self they’ve been quietly yearning for.

You’ll be guided in a deeply nourishing and beautiful way to step through the threshold of what your soul is calling you to, and you’ll be doing this work in community, allowing you to witness, support, and be supported in the unfolding of something new, even before you can see the full picture.

find out more about the Clear Collective

Garden Instead of a Post

I have too many thoughts
swirling in my head about 
what to write. 

So much is happening 
in our world, 
inside of each of us.

Old systems are collapsing.

We can feel a deep call to
something very different -
in our world and in our own
lives and relationships. It's 
painful and also messy. Yet,
we know it is necessary. 

The only intuitive impulse
that comes to me: 
be outside. 
Clear the land. 
Build the garden beds. 
Get your hands in the soil. 
Kneel on the earth and 
plant the seeds.

I cannot form words into a 
written post right now. 
I can only pick up my rake 
and clear the sticks and dead
leaves from the garden and
focus on planting seeds that 
I hope will turn into a lush and
bountiful ecosystem of color 
thatI will make bouquets from 
and share with neighbors in
a new season. 

Lisa McCrohan (c) 2026

I tried to form a written post to you all from Friday until today. This is all I got. I went out into the yard for several hours this past week. Now it’s snowing, but it’s supposed to be 60 degrees later this week. I’m going to be a flower farmer this summer. It’s one of the only things I am certain about right now.

What about you? What is your body-intuition guiding you into - even if it doesn’t make “sense”?

Blessings,

Lisa

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In the quiet of February, with snow still covering the earth, I put on my boots and walk in the backyard imagining my new garden.

The earth is still hard and cold. Nothing new has broken through yet. There are no green, no blossoms...no evidence of what abundance will (hopefully!) come in just a few months.

And still… something is happening.

I am not planting, just listening. I am noticing where the light lands on the earth, imagining what flower or veggie wants to live here this year.

This is both a magical and strategic stage. Before making flower beds and buying soil and compost. Before my hands dig into the ground, loosening the soil and laying hope in the earth.

Before anything blooms --- I am listening. I am dreaming. And with each new “soul impulse,” I make a decision.

I sense into the soul impulse to expand what I grow this year. I sense into my vision of cutting fresh flowers from my garden and handing them out to neighbors and friends. I imagine the carrots I will pull from the earth, the squash I will cut off from the vine, the berries I will pluck off the bush.

I imagine how that will feel. Alive, peaceful, connected, grateful, gracious.

And I am also strategically planning - I won’t just scatter seeds on the earth and hope for the best this time! I am making intentional plans in order to give my vision roots.

Maybe you know this place in your own life. There might be a subtle stirring within you for blossoming or a quiet awareness that something in your life feels ready.

Ready to be cleared. Ready to be tended to. Ready to be chosen with intention.

Maybe it’s a creative dream that keeps tapping on your shoulder.

A pattern or habit that no longer fits the woman you are becoming.

An old role you’ve outgrown.

A vision of yourself that has come into your mind and heart lately.

Maybe it’s even a physical space in your home that feels heavy or crowded and you want it to feel lighter and more inspiring.

There is a change wanting to happen. There is new life calling to you.

This is the season before the bloom.

And it can be quite confusing, irritating, and overwhelming You can feel scattered, uncertain, and stuck - not knowing where to start, what to choose, or how to go about creating the space and the process to blossom.

Winter Ritual: The Prep Before The Bloom

If you’d like to honor this threshold, here is a simple winter ritual:

1. Go outside (if you can).
Even if it’s cold. Even if it’s gray. You might even put your bare feet in the mud!

Take a moment and stand on the earth. Notice that most everything is still dormant. Imagine the potential that lies beneath the surface. Close your eyes for a moment…

2. Ask one gentle question:
What in my life feels ready for new life?

Let it rise from within you. It will. Trust it. Trust your inner wisdom.

3. Imagine the bloom.
If this area of your life flourished, how would you feel in your body?

4. Choose one small act of preparation.
It can quickly get overwhelming to consider how to start encouraging that bloom. Please start small. Maybe you clear a drawer, make a list, schedule 15 minutes to dream, call a friend to tell them what vision is starting to form in your mind and heart.

This is the kind of gentle prep that begins to loosen the soil to prepare for what wants to bloom in your life.

Introducing The Clear Collective

My dear friend and colleague, Maria DiLorenzo, and I have come together to offer an intimate 10-week community experience where you choose one area of your life that feels stuck or cluttered — internally or externally — that is ready for new new life, and we gently and powerfully guide you to feel it bloom.

Together, Maria and I blend the practical and the magical.

You will learn a simple framework for making a meaningful shift — something tangible, real, and doable for your life.

You will learn - even more importantly, experience and embody - a steady, intuitive process that calibrates your nervous system and deepens your inner knowing so the change you long for and create is rooted in your “soul desire.”

We will not be about scattering seeds and hoping for the best. We learn how to really listen, wisely choose, and plant with intention so hat what blooms next in your life feels alive, peaceful, connected, grateful, gracious.

If something in you is stirring… if you can feel that subtle readiness… I would love for you to explore The Clear Collective and join us.

Join The Clear Collective

Let’s prepare the ground.

Let’s end with a poem:

A New Chapter

It's time to let go of what
you know needs to end.
You fought to make it happen.
You stayed in it long after you
knew it was time to be done.
And now today, it's time to let go
and you know it.

Mourn the loss.
Mourn what could have been.
Grieve the failed expectation,
the "it shouldn't have been this way"
and the "this is not what I wanted."
Get angry about how much
effort and time and heart you
put into it.
But do not stay too long in
analyzing it all and picking
yourself apart - every action,
word, reaction.

Put your hand on your heart
and forgive yourself.
Yes, forgive yourself.
You are wiser now.
You are stronger than
you've ever been.

Gather the logs.
Make the bonfire.
Ceremoniously burn what
needs to turn to ash -
the journal, the love letters,
the old photos,
even the vision boards.

Then take a shower.
Let the water wash over you
like holy water -
cleansing and blessing you.
Wash the dirt from
under your nails.
Wash your hair in fragrant scents -
be it lavender, vanilla, mint, or
chamomile.
Stay as long as you need to.

Then when you are ready,
step out of the shower.
Stand in front of the mirror -
naked. You. In full vulnerability.
And ready.

Look yourself in the eyes
and study your beauty -
even in this "great undoing."
See God in you.
Feel your angels nearby.
Listen to that still and true voice
within you saying, "it's time."

Walk into the new chapter
of your life that you are writing.
Let the first line be:
And so I decided to love myself.

Lisa McCrohan © 2022

With love,

Lisa

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“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” - Rumi

Our Valentine’s Day Tree started with what seemed like a random thought, “Make Valentine’s Day cards with friends for your birthday party.” So I found some ideas on Pinterest and invited a few girlfriends over for my birthday in January to make valentines. At the time, I had no idea what I was going to do with the valentines!

We all had so much fun. And afterward, I felt the impulse to make more. I didn’t know why, I just listened. I made several for my husband. I thought of some friends and family.

Then I started to think, “How could I share these with others - beyond friends and family?”

And then I remembered the poetry board my dad had made for me that had now been sitting in the garage for a year. For about two years, I’d get a piece of poster board and hand write one of my poems and put it on my poetry board under the weeping cherry cherry out in the front of our house.

But I stopped after awhile. Life got busy. A few folks had told me they really loved it and that it added beauty to the world, but I wondered if it was worth it and if it really made any difference.

Then recently, out of the blue, a neighbor stopped me and asked if I’d be putting up poetry again, they they really enjoyed walking by and seeing there was a poem there.

And then my daughter came home and told me that one of her friends asked her, “When’s your mom going to put another poem out?”

Okay, it was time to put something out front again.

And I thought, “I could hang Valentine’s Day notes and poems on the tree and make a sign for the poetry board that says “take a valentine!”

This got me so excited! I got some yarn, clothes pins, and clear plastic card holders. I printed and cut out poems I thought that folks would enjoy and be inspired by. I recruited my husband and he helped me tie the yarn onto the bare tree limbs and hang the valentines.

Here’s the full video and story that I set to some music, too:

It made my heart smile seeing these colorful notes swaying in the wind and thinking that soon neighbors would be walking down our street and be delightfully surprised to see this makeshift valentines tree!

And so as I write this, I think there are about 10 notes left. We started with about 40!

In creating this valentine tree, I noticed a few things that I want to share with you:

1. I felt a creative impulse and didn’t know why. I didn’t know what the end result would be (I still don’t!). I just felt that inner nudge. And i listened to it - little crumb by little crumb.

2. It felt so good to HAVE FUN! We are missing fun in our daily lives. As an integrative psychotherapist who works with the nervous system, I know how “fun” helps us access a state of the nervous system that softens, soothes, and connects us.

3. Finally, it feels good to give. It feels good to put something out into the world to just spread some love. I know my tree isn’t going to solve the world’s problems. But it might brighten someone’s day. Or maybe (this is just how I think as a therapist) someone walks by who is depressed, they’ve had a rough winter and they have been thinking about suicide. And then they see this tree and they happen to pick out one of the valentines that says: “You belong. You matter. You are loved.” And the poem that goes with it is one about mattering and self-love. And they decide that maybe today isn’t the day to die. And it gives them a tiny moment of hope.

Self-Love

Maybe you don’t have to do so much,
try so hard, expend so much energy trying
to keep everything together. Maybe you
are carrying too much - much more than is
humanly possible.

Maybe it’s time to go easy on yourself –
to be gentle, to soften the harshness,
and to talk to yourself like you would
a dear friend who needs compassion.

Maybe it’s time to let yourself feel the
pleasure of slowing down, doing less,
and finally choosing to love yourself.

Lisa McCrohan

I guess you never know the impact of your sharing. It could impact someone’s moment or someone’s life. That we don’t know. What we do know is that the impulse to create and share is a holy call and we are to respond.

****Just as I’m writing this post, I talked to one of my brothers who was traveling on Valentine’s Day going from California to DC. He just told me, “I loved your video and idea! You inspired me and so I passed out small individually wrapped snickers bars to everyone I saw at the airport!”

Oh my goodness! We never know what might happen when we just listen to an impulse to create, have fun, and share.

That is why I shared on social media too. We have no idea what our creative and kind ideas might inspire in others.

And that, I believe, is how we are going to fill the world with more love. Hate and violence are so big right now, so prolific. Hate is at the helm of the country.

But we can bring more love than they can bring hate. I feel it. I bet you do, too.

The world is changing. God, the Great Mother, Spirit - whether name you use - is creating something new. And she is ready for it to be birthed - through us. It is happening. What is dying are the old ways that do not serve us. What is rising are things like: collaboration, unity, connection, and compassion.

She is going to turn our world upside down. She is reknitting us and the earth.

What will flow through your veins - anger or peace?

Hate or love?

Holding onto grudges or extending your hands in forgiveness?

Will you hold tight to your resources or will you share them with others?

Will you be on your device more than being outside?

Will you choose to connect with ai or people?

Will you keep living half alive or will you have the soul courage to turn toward what makes you feel alive?

Ask yourself, “What is calling to me - nudging me to evolve?”

“What wants to be brought into the world through me?”

“How can I be the love in the world?”

It could be through a poetry tree or handing out candy! It can be that small and simple.

Because each time we light up someone’s moment with kindness, we are adding to the evolution of this new way of being.

So this winter, before spring arrives, feel into what wants to come forth from within you. What wants to be expressed - and shared?

Play with that. Follow that bread crumb. You may not get the full vision of the outcome, you may not know why yet. But trust it.

Here’s a prompt: every morning wake up and ask, “How can I love today?”

And then follow what you hear.

Let’s end with a poem:

____________

Resources to Nourish You:

I have free soul-soothing, nervous-system-nourishing meditations on Insight Timer App for morning, afternoon, or getting to sleep:

meditate with me

Gems of Delight and Your Light is Rising are two books that are perfect for daily reading and having on your night stand!

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Blessings,

Lisa

Today, I am explicitly writing from that place.

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Yesterday, my husband, my daughter, her friend, and I drove down to see the Buddhist monks who are walking for peace from Texas to DC. Crowds of people gathered at the hotel where the monks were having lunch and giving a talk. So many of us were outside in the frigid cold listening to the monk’s talk because there was no more room left in the hotel hall.

People kindly crowded in closer to hear, standing on piles of snow, sitting on trunks of cars, and standing on slippery sheets of ice. Some people were carrying flowers to give to the monks, others were handing out hand warmers, I brought small cards of poetry and inspirational stickers to hand out to people!

There we all stood for an hour in the freezing cold - wind blowing, listening to wisdom, and being in the presence of kindness. People of all ages and races stood together.

The nonjudgmental, peaceful, and loving presence of the monks blanketed the crowd and changed our hearts. People were kind to each other. When I handed someone a poem, most often I was greeted with, “Oh thank you!” and “That’s so kind of you!”

The monks’ one-pointed devotion to compassion meets our hearts and opens them.

Their safe, quiet, and tender presence changes us - the way your mother or father when you were little would tuck you into bed, gently smoothing back your hair, and tenderly kissing you on your forehead - or the way you would have wanted them to.

The monk’s message was clear, “Start with loving yourself. Then practice loving your family. And say to yourself every morning, ‘Today will be my peaceful day.”

Today will be my peaceful day.

So many of us are hungry for change. And change is happening. Old political structures built on greed, domination, and hate are crumbling. The “usual” capitalist way of “doing business” is dying out. Humanity has an opportunity to evolve.

Those who cling to their power, control, and privilege are going to have a very hard time. If you have hate in your heart, if you are standing by while ICE inhumanly treats another human being, if you still support T in office — I’d imagine that you are full of fear. I’d imagine you weren’t shown much love when you were growing up, and you probably endured a lot of suffering in life that, most likely, you’ve never shared with someone else or processed in therapy. I’d imagine you don’t really love yourself. I’d imagine you carry a lot of shame. I’d imagine you were humiliated at some point in your life, maybe even abused, too.

Instead of tenderly turning toward your pain, you learned to displace it - and that turned into hate.

Hate comes from fear. Hate comes from deep wounding. It starts to “other” someone and making them less than or not human - the way T did when HE posted the horrific picture of the Obamas that depicted them as apes - because you cannot tolerate the pain within you that you have been carrying for decades.

What would happen if you paused and you listened to the monks? What if you started with loving yourself - admitting that there is a tender place within you that is wounded, hurt, ashamed, tired, scared, and has felt unloved?

What if you started by putting your hand on your heart and started to treat yourself with kindness?

What if you woke up today and said, “Today will be my peaceful day?” And you created a landscape within you of peace - choosing to say kind things to yourself and choosing to treat your body with love, choosing to say kind things to others and do kind things for others?

What if you just stopped and put your hand on your heart and admitted, “Love feels better”?

I’d imagine you are an intelligent person. You aren’t dumb. You just want to be loved, too. You are hurt and you are afraid. You are scared something is going to be taken from you and that you will lose out. You are afraid of so much. And you are hurting so deeply.

I know this because I’ve been a psychotherapist for decades. And people don’t hurt others unless they are hurting inside themselves.

Fear, shame, and pride keep us tightly locked in our set ways, when underneath is a deep anxiety, a deep grief, and sometimes a deep terror.

I feel for you. I really do. I know that something in you knows what I am saying. You can feel that pain come up late at night or in moments between being on Fox News and being on your phone. Something in you just wants to be loved. You probably have a big heart, or you used to - until something hurt you. And now, you feel threatened and scared. You think immigrants, black and brown people, women, and people of other faiths than yours are going to take something essential away from you.

Something essential is already being taken away from you every day by the hatred in your heart, by the way your anxiety keeps you gluttonously scrounging for some kind of control. Your fears keep you trapped and constricted.

Staying in that locked, tight, constricted feeling of fear and hate just doesn’t feel good. You know it. But you don’t know any other way.

The monks are offering another way.

Let them wake you up from hate.

Let them wake you up from fear.

Let them open you to love.

THAT is the way to peace.

Drop your pride and join us.

For those of us who are READY for humanity to evolve, we are moving forward. We understand that peace does not mean we stand idly by while violence and horrible atrocities are committed.

You can be very committed to peace AND stand for justice. And that’s what we who are midwifing a new way of existing on this planet are going to do.

We too need to wake each day and declare, “Today will be my peaceful day.”

We want to ground our outrage so that we embody it in wise ways and take actions that are wise.

Being peaceful does not mean we do not speak truth. Oh we will keep speaking truth. And as you love yourself - as you sit in meditation every day - even if it’s for a few minutes - and as you get curious about creating a peaceful landscape within yourself, you will be guided by your own inner wisdom.

Peace may look like being at peace with your own heart - and so therefore, speaking up about atrocities, saying “No more” to racist talk at the extended family dinner table, and asking the person in your family who is still a MAGA fan, “When were you first hurt in life? What sadness have you been carrying?”

And most likely they will be too guarded and think you are crazy. They will push you away. And you can say, “I love you too much to tolerate the hate you have. I know you are afraid. There’s another way. I hope you let love lead.”

I, too, need to wake up each day and say, “Today will be my peaceful day.” I have had plenty of times when anger, hurt, and frustration have gotten the better of me and I’ve reacted from those constricted places rather than responded from love. So I am practicing this. It is haaaaaaard when we are triggered. But I am practicing.

Let’s be alongside each other. In Spanish, there is a beautiful verb: acompañarse, to accompany. Let us accompany each other in practicing peace, unity, healing, and love. It will not look pretty. We will not always be kindly received. But when we are with like-hearted others, things can change.

I remember hearing this quote in college when I was the student director of our community outreach and resource center, and I’d like to share it with you:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has" - Marget Mead.

There is hope - WE are the hope. Let’s evolve humanity together.

Blessings,

Lisa

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“Tears of despair can be fuel. Thunders of anger can be light.” Maxime Lagacé

As I write this, I am sitting in a cozy chair curled up in a blanket with the fireplace going. The house is quiet. It’s cold outside and the ground is still covered in snow and ice. I feel this inner pull toward stillness, and yet also…rage.

I imagine you know what I mean. You might feel it, too. Maybe a family member recently triggered you personally. Maybe the atrocities of ICE have made you seethe with anger. Maybe you have pushed down, kept quiet, overridden what you have wanted to voice too many times. Maybe you have held way too much for too many people for too long.

The snow, slowing down, and stillness of winter have a way of revealing what has been avoided or denied – in your body, nervous system, home, and relationships.

As I am cozy in my chair, I am thinking about a moment recently when I felt dismissed by someone I care about. They want to avoid emotional conversations and stuff down glaring truths. This has caused harm. I don’t always handle this the best, either. I react.

I am still right now not because I am peaceful – god knows there is shame, hurt, rage, compassion, confusion all swirling in me right now – but because I am learning to stay.

Stillness doesn’t always bring peace - especially at first. It often reveals truth.

And that is why as a culture, we avoid stillness. When we sit still – literally still our bodies, when we turn off the devices – even the music or TV in the background – what happens?

Yep. All our stuff comes up.

What we have avoided, shoved down, tried to contain, held at bay, left unfelt comes to the surface.

And as a culture, we have not learned to be in discomfort, especially here in the United States. We do not know what to do when the tiniest ounce of shame, rage, grief, hurt, humiliation, or rejection arise. We really have not learned how to do this individually nor collectively and communally.

We can always find a distraction at any time of day or night. We flip on the TV. We scroll on our phones. We turn on a podcast. We do this to avoid what’s undigested, unprocessed, unFELT beneath the constant noise.

Stillness calls us to honesty. To look truthfully. It is often not gentle nor calm. It is a truth-revealer.

Stillness asks us to learn how to stay with what is here.

And that is majorly hard.

But, in learning to stay, something different becomes possible.

Rage can be a creative rather than destructive force.

Rage arises when something precious has been trampled over and over again. It comes from a body that has said “Enough!!!” for far too long, but no one has listened. It is often armoring/protecting deep grief. What makes it dangerous is when it has been ignored for too long and when it doesn’t have a wise container that channels it. That’s when it causes violence to ourselves and others.

But when rage is met with slowness, being held, and safely embodied, it becomes clarity, creativity, and fierce devotion to what is true.

Most literature out there about rage and anger is too cognitive – asking questions about it, analyzing it. There’s a time and space for that, but rage lives in the body. When I looked up quotes on anger and rage, most of them talked about the destructive force of it. There were hardly any quotes on the intelligence of rage. Too often, we try to control it, tame it, and push it down. While rage needs a wise container, it only fights more when it is restrained.

Stillness, when entered into with intention and care, can be a wise container for rage.

**For paid subscribers, I continue on about stillness and rage - working with it all in a healthy, embodied way where we don’t react nor collapse. I share a ritual for building your capacity to remain with what’s here.

I am practicing this alongside you. I too need to deepen my capacity for the kind of stillness that can “hold it all.” Today, I am sitting in the car while my child is at indoor soccer practice and I’m just going to follow this ritual that I am about to share with you below. I am not talking with others much today. When I get home, I will continue to be in the quiet. And so I will let this practice become a ritual for me in winter.

If this nourishes you, please join me.

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“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.” - Lao Tzu

Years ago, I noticed how someone I love had changed.

They were single, worked a lot, and didn’t do much with friends. I also noticed this: they hadn’t been touched in a long, long time. The kind, warm, loving touch of another caring human being.

Over time, they had become rigid and harsh. I noticed in how they held their body, the sharp tone they used in conversation, and how they moved through life a bit guarded, braced, and armored.

Something essential had withered.

I recognized then that something in us grows rigid and harsh when we do not experience softness - when our senses are not soothed and nourished, when we don’t feel held - by people, community, warmth, and belonging.

I’m not talking only about romantic touch - I’m talking about consistent, kind, friendly human contact.

A hand on the shoulder.
A warm greeting.
Sitting close enough to feel another body breathe.
Being looked at with tenderness.

When I was in Argentina last year, I was struck by how soft and energizing human interactions were!

I saw people constantly greeting each other with warmth and kisses. Lingering together over a merienda with friends at a cafe in warm conversation and the occasional touch on the arm as they laughed or talked. Mothers and daughters walking down the street arm in arm, fathers and adult sons holding each other in a long embrace as they walked.

In the United States, we do not touch like this. And maybe touch isn’t your thing.

But I deeply believe this: every human being needs softness and connection - through the senses.

Some people haven’t been spoken to with kindness for a long time. They haven’t heard their name said with softness and and affection.

Some people don’t even notice how harsh their environments have become:

~ the eye-squinting harshness of bright overhead lights (even in the yoga studio - I’m like “come on! Let’s use lamps!”)

~ the constant noise of our modern life just getting into the car and driving a few miles to a cement-block, aesthetically dull strip mall

~ the coldness and heart-numbingness of our screens

~ the lack of regard for natural beauty in neighborhoods being built that just bulldoze trees

Some people don’t even see loss or absence of a collective value around beauty, softer paces, lighter work schedules, and warmer gatherings where we linger longer with other humans.

As a psychotherapist and human, I see how we wither without softness - without our senses, bodies, hearts, and souls experiencing tenderness, kindness, and sweetness.

I also see how we can re-experience the softness we crave.

I saw it in my dear one who I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I saw how they changed - physically. energetically - when they softened because of love. Love that they actively welcomed in. Years later, they hug (something I never thought they’d be open to), they laugh, literally how they embrace others has softened, their tone of voice is warm, their words are kinder and more understanding, they actively are engaged with life and other humans. They look and feel alive.

Before I go into a beautiful and simple ritual around softness, I’d like to also offer you a stark contrast of softness and the kind of “everyday harshness” in everyday life. See if you sense the strength of softness.

The other day, I was on my way home in the car when I heard JD Vance’s voice on the news talking about the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis. His energy was harsh, pointed, blaming. It jarred me.

I got home and I told my husband that I had wanted to show him this video of the Buddhist monks walking for peace from Texas to DC.

As we watched the video together, I was so moved by the stark contrast between the energy of Vane and the energy of the monks. It brought me to tears. The monks have such a gentle softness about them. There is nothing harsh about them.

Notice how many people have come out to see them walking and how many people have been moved to tears by their gentleness.

Notice what “power” lies in softness, as Lao Tzu said. Imagine if our leaders led with that kind of softness and gentleness, promoting peace!

Softness - it’s seen as weak in our culture, but really it is a deep strength. I believe the way of softness will save us.

Choosing Softness - A Winter Ritual:

- guided written steps and 10 minute audio meditation

I’d like to share a ritual with you that is perfect for winter and also:

• raises our consciousness - making softness a value and necessity, not a luxury

• gently re-focuses where we place our attention in our daily life

• feels intimate but also safe

• feeds the inner desire of belonging and connection

• reclaims a sense of reverence in our daily life

…to reclaim, re-experience, re-connect to the softness we as humans crave.

I’ll write out the steps and also include a guided audio meditation for you so you can slip into this experience of softness.

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Today’s ritual is a free gift. Future Sunday rituals this winter will be shared with paid subscribers. Become a paid subscriber here to receive each week’s ritual:

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“True power lies in softening and allowing Love in.” Lisa McCrohan, Gems of Delight

Years ago, I wanted a morning practice. I wanted it to be sacred – a ritual. I needed it to be something that I could do no matter what – something easy, simple, doable, and gently uplifting. There were some mornings I was commuting down to Georgetown University and leaving the house at 5:45 am – and every minute in the morning mattered! Other mornings, it was my day to take the kiddos to school. It had to fit into my morning.

Then I heard about this “Good morning, I love you” practice. It sounded hokey at first. I’m a bit embarrassed to tell you that because even back then, I knew that self-love is the basis for loving others. I had written poems about self-love. I talked to clients every day in coaching and therapy about self-love. I led meditations on self-compassion. I had been practicing self-love for long time. And still, I felt a bit funny trying it.

But I did. And this is what happened: the practice became a ritual that changed me.

Right when I woke up, when I became aware that I was awake, even before I got out of bed, I would take a few breaths, feel the warmth of my covers and the softness of my bed. And then I’d put my hands on my heart and whisper out loud, “Good morning, Lisa. I love you.”

As I said the words, “Good morning, Lisa. I love you,” it was like “Ohhh that feels kind of good…” – a warmth spread across my chest. But then it felt like of weird – maybe a bit awkward and new. But I liked it!

I kept practicing. Each morning, I’d just do it. The practice evoked curiosity in me: “Do I really love myself? Do I want to love myself? What does this feel like to love myself? Can I really give myself this much love?”

That curiosity took me deeper into the practice. I started to really play with it. “Is it selfish? Can you ever give yourself ‘too much’ self-love? Am I really worthy of this much tender love?”

All these feelings started to come up. I just allowed them all and stayed with the practice. It stretched me and opened me to a new level of love. I really started to enjoy the softness and gentleness of it. I felt closer to myself.

This ritual didn’t feel selfish – it felt expansive. I started to feel that there was no such thing as too much self-love, because, I literally saw in my own life that as my cup of love was full, it would spill over into love for others – abundance organically flowed out as love to others.

And I started to really believe in my bones that I was worthy of not just a little love – but extravagant tenderness, as Jesuit priest, Gregory Boyle, says: “Receive comfort, be comfort; hold everyone in exquisite tenderness.”

And over time, this practice became a ritual – a regular morning moment that was sacred.

I really feel like the simplest definition of a ritual is: a habit that is meaningful. A regular practice infused with intention and devotion.

With this ritual, I found that I started to love myself more deeply – to really and honestly deepen my love for myself. It kindled softness and expansiveness in me. And I found that I had more patience, understanding, and love for others.

And the ritual was short & simple. Doable. Impactful. – win, win, win!

So let me share this ritual so you can check it out, too

It’s perfect for the winter months when you are just waking up and you are still in the coziness of your warm covers.

Morning Ritual: Good Morning, I Love You.

In the morning, right when your eyes are fluttering open for the first time, and you realize you are wake…before you get out of bed and you are still lying under your covers:

1. Put your hand on your heart.

2. Say to yourself, “Good morning, [Your Name]. I love you.”

3. Hang out there for a moment – take a breath or two – in and out.

4. Notice how you feel.

That’s it.

It’s important to say your name. There’s something about saying your name that makes it personal and impactful. And don’t just do this ritual once; try it out for at least a week and see what shifts in you.

Even if it feels hokey at first. Even if you think you don’t deserve it. Even if you think that loving yourself will “let you off the hook” (which, no one should ever be on a hook, anyway!). Even if you think that “too much self-love” might be make you selfish or lazy. Try it out.

Because as I tell my clients and I have experienced for myself, “Harshness never heals. Only love heals.”

But don’t take my word for it. Check it out in your own lived experience.

Make this your morning ritual for one week.

See if self-love makes you vain. See if it “de-motivates you” to make any healthy shifts in your life. See if it makes you selfish and give less to others.

I’m betting that what you’ll experience is this: loving yourself more deeply will expand, soften, and open your heart so that you take actions that are rooted in even more love – and your love will spill over as blessing to those around you in new and loving ways.

But check it out for yourself and share with me what happens. I’d love to hear.

Let’s end with a poem:

Exquisite Self-Love

She decided that today

would be a day of

exquisite self-love.

She was done with

the harshness.

Her answer to

everything today

would be

love.

Lisa McCrohan, (c) 2024

Imagine what might shift in our world today if a whole bunch of us decided to make this make Good Morning, I Love You our morning ritual. Imagine how we might be softer with each other, more patient, and better remember our shared humanity.

Want more support for self-love?

Here are additional resources to nourish you:

Sometimes it’s nice to be guided through a new ritual. If this is you, I got you! Check out my free meditation on Insight Timer: Self-Love As A Morning Ritual. You could play this meditation each morning for a week!

If you want to go deeper into self-love and this ritual, you might enjoy these two archived podcast episodes on my podcast, Delightful: #25 Root Yourself in Self-Love and #27 Fall in Love With Yourself

Moms and grandmoms have loved my first book: Gems of Delight. Through poetry, conversations with God, and soulful stories of motherhood and womanhood, this seasonal guide invites slow exhales and savoring small moments in everyday life.

Your Light is Rising, is a poetic, soul-nourishing guide that invites readers into sacred pauses throughout the day to kindle their inner light. Through poetry and embodiment practices, it offers a grounding, compassionate way to live with more presence, courage, and peace.

Finally, if you want a daily guide for Self-Love, check out my course, 10-Day Self-Love Challenge. It’s a gentle journey designed to help you sweetly cultivate self-compassion and nervous system ease. Each day offers a short email with a simple embodied practice, a brief explanation of why it matters, and optional “sweeteners” to deepen self-love.

And just a final note: I am glad you are here. I really feel like this winter feels different – people are really allowing winter to be what it is – a season of being cozy, quieter, softer, and “going within.” I love seeing this. I hope these Soul Nourishing Sunday Rituals are a source of nourishment for you.

I know that not everyone is able to join this monthly/yearly paid community, but if you’d like to support my work on a more occasional basis, I’d be grateful if you would like to buy me a smoothie. A little green or berry delight is always a welcome boost of love to my body and soul. Thank you. (I guess in winter, it’s more like a mug of warm tea, but smoothies come the warmer weather! You get the idea!)

Buy Me A Smoothie

And if you’d really like a subscription but can’t afford it, just email me.

Today I turn 52. I really can’t believe it. This sounds old, but I don’t feel old - not how I imagined 52 to be when I was in my 20s. Sure, I need readers sometimes, it’s harder to see in dim light, I have gone through menopause and feel those shifts, my body is changing, and I’ve lost people I dearly love.

But honestly, I’ve never felt better - holistically - physical I am strong and I love my body, emotionally I can ride the waves of big feelings and tend to the ones that need tenderness, my thoughts about myself are kinder these days and just freer, relationally I have dear people in my life, spiritually I feel deeply connected and guided, professionally I have accepted that I am an elder with growing wisdom to hold space for deep healing and aliveness.

I am...happy. The “content with life” kind of happy. The happy that comes from realizing I have agency and also nothing to prove. The happy that comes from following what delights my heart.

The past - it feels in the past. I am free to move forward. I feel liberated. That took a long time and a lot of work.

I am grateful and deeply aware that life is both fragile and tenacious. I am keenly aware that I am only here for a limited amount of time and, most likely, it’s more than half over. That doesn’t pressure me to “get it all in” or “get it all right.” It shows me more clearly what is precious and invites me to be more patient, let shit go, say yes more quickly, love more expressively, and do what delights my heart.

I don’t need answers anymore. I bow to the Great Mystery of it all. I feel the Benevolence of the Divine.

I know I am loved. I have been loved very deeply and sweetly in my life. And I love myself more and deeper and in softer and kinder ways with each passing season.

There are anxieties that still wash over me. There are insecurities I still have that hold me back. I’d love to express more love and take more soul risks. Midlife and menopause have come with some new aches and injuries (aerial yoga was not for me!), but they call me to tune inward and listen for what my body needs.

I’ve built a really beautiful life. Not perfect. I’ve made a ton of “mistakes” and hurt people. But I am accepting my humanness.

I am practicing gentleness. I value beauty in everyday life. I play and laugh more.

I love adventures - big and small. Skiing down mountains, walking in new cities, hiking in quiet woods, admiring vast landscapes, hanging out in new cafes and trying new foods with dear ones. The everyday can be an adventure too - running errand with a friend who makes me laugh, enjoying a cup of tea with a neighbor, talking on the phone for hours with my besties, trying a new yoga class, hanging out in the kitchen with my family, going for a walk with people I love.

I don’t have to have it all together anymore. I’m showing my vulnerability more and more. I reach out even in my shame and embarrassment. I don’t go at life alone.

I have been really intentional about the life I have created. My deepest prayer is to be aligned with how God guides me. I feel like me and G. are in cahoots!

I believe in compassion and love and kindness. I believe in the power of delight. I live by: follow what delights your heart and you’ll inspire the world.

I’d like to write another book and make my poetry visually beautiful in small and big ways. Maybe even do an open mic night or speak poetry at events?! But even all those “goals” don’t have to happen for me to be happy now.

I plan less and flow more.

I hold grudges less and play more.

I trust - deeply. I know there is something bigger than me that is beyond any name or label.

I believe in the good in humanity even where jerks do crappy things. I’ll never let them harden my heart.

I fawn less. I have deeper regard for my body and time and presence. I don’t say yes to what feels like a no. I trust myself.

I have let my hair go gray for years now. I might add some pink sometime. I love cute, comfy clothes made of natural fibers on my skin. I hardly ever wear makeup.

I don’t speak harshly to myself anymore. That faded big time in my early 40s. Harsh or critical words don’t even come up anymore - that took thousands of “hand on heart” practicing, self-compassion-practicing, and giving myself grace. I am my own best friend now.

I really would like to keep nourishing my connections with my dear ones. Big moments and adventures as well as small moments in everyday life where we accompany each other, linger with each other.

I am satiated. Satisfied. For many years - decades - there was a striving in me. It was what it was. But now, that striving has really shifted. I am content. And there is a freedom in feeling that deep in my bones.

I love curling up next to my beloved as his gentle presence soothes me to sleep. I love watching my children explore the world and grow and think deeply and try new experiences. I love simple moments of time spent with my parents. I love growing my relationships with my siblings - they are some of the funniest, most loyal, and good humans I know. I love the sunsets over the mountains outside our back door. I love how Sherlock, our dog, follows me everywhere and we know what each other are thinking. I love pink - in all shades. I love being outside doing any kind of movement. I love yoga and poetry and homemade popcorn. I love making meals and not following the recipes by adding my own twist. I love having people over and in my family room and kitchen. I love phone calls from friends, regular “check ins”, calling “just because,” and getting/sending real letters in the mail. I love the way light comes into my bedroom in the morning. I love my quilt and pillow. I love tulips and birch trees and the huge willow tree out back. I love dark chocolate and surprises from dear ones. I love spontaneous adventures and hilarious conversations. I love people (most humans) and I love being an extrovert. I also love a lot of alone time in the mornings and evenings to be with my journal and prayers. I love dogs and panda bears and llamas. I love painting and writing poetry. I love hugs and “I love you’s” from my family. I love calls from my college kiddo. I love car rides to soccer with my teen. I love vastness in any landscape. I love standing at the top of a mountain and pausing to take it in before I ski down. I love feeling I am enough. I love that I have healed a lot of old wounds. I love that I feel free and a vibrant aliveness flows through me right now. I love to play and delight in my life - for however long or short I am on this earth.

This is 52 for me.

Here are some photos that express some of my loves. I’d love to see or hear about some of your current loves, too:

Thank you for letting me share this with you! It’s quite vulnerable to share what I wrote this morning on my birthday and put it out into the world, but I thought it might encourage you to reflect on your own life. And it was fun for me and swirled gratitude in me to reflect on how my life is right now in this moment. Makes my heart smile!

Soulful Invitation:

Whenever your birthday is this year, you might want to try this out!

Start with: “This is [your age]...”

And just let it flow.

Maybe you share it, maybe you don’t.

And sit back and feel into what you wrote. Some years are hard and heavy. Some years are lighter and more vibrancy flows through you.

Honor wherever you are.

Hold it reverently.

What’s Coming…

(Starting this Sunday, I’m going to be sharing Soul-Nourishing Winter Rituals. Oh baby! To help us honor the invitation of winter, stay cozy, “go within,” rest, be nourishedm and feel replenished. See you back here on Sunday!

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Blessings,

Lisa

It was my 18 year old son.

“Mom,” he said - breathless, joyful, “did I wake you up?”

“No,” I said, “I was up writing.”

“I’m almost at the top.” He said.

He had been hiking for hours - alone, in the cold and dark of Norway in winter, moving steadily upward through crisp air and long stretches of quiet to a summit I couldn’t see.

“In about fifteen seconds,” he said, “I’ll FaceTime you.”

My heart leapt. I put down my pen and notebook.

And then there he was - my sweet boy’s face full of wonder and awe!

Then he turned the camera around to show me majestic mountains in winter and darkness, a blue lake weaving through the valley - so still and yet so alive.

A vast expansion spread across my chest.

He slowly panned the camera a few times so I could share this moment with him.

Here we were, both of us in the cold of winter as dawn appeared, thousands of miles apart, feeling such aliveness - together.

What I marveled at even more than the view was my son’s reaction.

“Oh my god,” my son said, “it’s so beautiful.”

He stood there quietly, reverently.

My son was traveling solo in Europe after he spent a semester studying in Ireland. As a parent, I had been nervous about him going. My mind conjured up “What if” scenarios and calculated how long it would take for us to get to him.

After we hung up the phone that morning, I sat with it all - the fear a mother carries. The ache and necessity of letting go. How we might want to hold on tight - to keep close what matters, to contain, to keep everyone safe.

But also - I felt a deeper knowing: a soul kept small comes at a cost.

Something essential withers when we ignore the call to expand, explore, and risk being changed by going outside of our comfort zone.

My husband and I could feel that something in our son needed to do this. Like his soul needed to do this.

I know that feeling. In my early twenties, I knew I needed to go and live and work in Latin America. I applied to a program, instantly Ioved it, and something holy in me knew I had to say yes.

This was way before cell phones and FaceTime. Way before location-finding apps.

I remember the moment when I had told my parents, we had several conversations, and then my dad simply said, “Well, let’s go get you the gear you’ll need.”

They trusted that “something holy in me” knew I had to go.

Their trust blessed me. And my experience in El Salvador and Guatemala shaped my whole life.

I felt the same knowing in my son when he told us he wanted to take two weeks after the semester ended in Ireland to travel on his own. While I worried about what could go wrong, I knew a deeper truth:

Like me, my son needed to go on this adventure. Not only to see beautiful places and take some awesome pictures, but to grow. To deepen his sense of connection with himself. To experience the freedom and responsibility of navigating his own way through the world. To be changed by what he encounters.

Trying to contain the call of aliveness squeezes the shape of the soul.

It’s too tight. Too restrictive. The soul can’t breathe.

Spending the last year preparing for my son to be in the global program going to Ireland, I’ve noticed this:

Watching our children expand and be on their own path to aliveness, it stirs in us what our own souls are longing for.

My son’s leap into exploration opened up in me my desire for new adventures, too.

A solo trip to Argentina. A family trip to Spain visiting a dear friend I met during my time in Latin America so long ago. A family trip to Ireland to see our son, Liverpool for a soccer game, and hiking in Wales.

If you would’ve told me a few years ago that I would do three international trips in one year, I would’ve said, “No way! That’s not possible.” But it was.

I have also gone on more soul adventures closer to home:

~ Walking barefoot in the grass.

~ Skipping over to my neighbor’s house for a chat.

~ Running errands with a friend as we laugh and laugh.

~ Dancing naked in the bathroom while I brush my teeth and wait for the shower to warm up.

~ Creating stickers from my art and poetry - just because it delights my heart to share beauty.

Maybe you don’t need to hike a mountain in Norway, or sit with a friend at a cafe sharing a merienda in Argentina, or cheer wildly at a Liverpool game (though maybe you do!).

But maybe you too have felt the dullness in your spirit that slowly builds over time from putting off what makes you feel alive:

~ The creative impulse to shape clay with our hands, but keep dismissing as frivolous.

~ The longing for more beauty and time in nature, but choosing to be on our phones.

~ The desire for play, community, connection, and belonging, but we hold back.

~ The adventures we put off because we label it “impossible” given our schedules and budget.

~ The new experience - event, club, restaurant, day trip, hike, hobby - that we keep postponing.

~ The sacred part of us that whispers to us, “There is more life to be had, baby!”

This soul whisper tends to get louder and louder in midlife. Have you noticed that?!

Something essential to your soul is reaching out to you through the noise of modern life, and asking to be reclaimed, experienced, and embodied.

As AI advances and increasingly takes us out of our bodies’ felt experience, deadens our senses, and disconnects us, this call to reclaim our aliveness is vital.

Aliveness begins gently in the present moment.

A pause.

A full exhale.

Feeling your body on the earth.

Touching a soft texture.

Listening to a soothing sound.

Smelling a pleasant scent.

Tasting a delicious bite.

Letting the eyes rest on a beautiful site.

When a client in therapy and coaching says, “I have no idea what lights me u anymore,” we don’t go up into the head and start searching.

We come into presence. We let the body remember and guide us.

It always does.

A gentle aliveness begins to awaken. A spark. A hint of energy vibrating. Hope is rekindled.

Sharing that moment with my son on the mountaintop inspired me to keep saying yes to the adventures my soul wants me to go on. It reminded me that even in midlife with responsibilities and obligations, it’s invigorating to get curious about what’s stirring in my body and soul…and to believe it’s possible to claim that aliveness - now. Not someday. But today. In this moment.

This is what I hope for us in 2026. To feel as though we are standing at the mountaintop of our lives, looking over an expanse so beautiful that we bow in awe and gratitude for being alive.

And we claim that aliveness now - today, in this moment.

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This winter, I’m offering a six-week series called Kindling Creativity and Joy.

It starts Jan 14th - THIS Wednesday! Registration closes on Sunday - in 48 hours.

This experience is about creating the space for you to feel your aliveness return - even softly glow and blossom - in sustainable ways that are doable in your everyday life.

Imagine this space as a warm hearth in the dark months...a place to remember what makes you feel most yourself and honor what new adventure your soul is calling you to experience.

Get out your art supplies and get ready for some magic, Love!

If you feel this stirring, I’d love to walk alongside you this winter.

Get info and sign up

Let’s end with a short poem. I put the words to a video I took at the ocean - a fun expression of creativity. I hope you enjoy it:

Blessings,

Lisa

If you’d like some stickers, just message me and I can take your order!

“I don’t want to ‘conquer’ or ‘crush it’…I want to co-create. I want to align.” - Lisa McCrohan

It’s 4:30 am and I wake up from a bad dream.

Damn it.

I wanted to start off the day and 2026 with a softer experience for my nervous system. I wanted to wake up and do my soft ritual of feeling my body cozy and warm in bed, snuggled so sweetly under the covers. I wanted to wake up less anxious, like I have been lately.

Instead, my heart is racing as my body feels the residue of the dream. My belly tightens slightly. My mind jumps in, wanting to analyze and figure out my dream.

I get out of bed to use the bathroom. The house is dark. As my bare feet walk on the cold floor, I can feel how my energy moves quickly up into my head and my thoughts speed up.

I recognize an old habit - trying to think my way into feeling softer and settled.

Yeah, that doesn’t work. And I know that!

As I sit on the toilet, I look out the window. The moon is shining. It’s still so dark and quiet. I can hear my husband softly breathing in our bedroom.

I exhale. I can feel a shift begin to happen - my belly starts to unclench some, my chest widens just a bit.

I ask myself, “Does analyzing this dream feel expansive? Is this what my body wants?”

“No” comes clearly.

So I drop the dream. I don’t give it more energy or attention. Yes, just like that! Because it doesn’t serve me, and now in midlife - my god - how I’m learning to trust myself more quickly - to not second (and third and fourth) guess what my body and intuition already know.

I choose where my attention goes. This isn’t bypassing what’s uncomfortable; it’s a wise embodied way to stay with what feels steady and kind to myself.

I get a glass of water and go back to bed. I slip back under my warm blankets - the handmade blanket an old roommate from over 20 years ago made for me to keep me warm in the Boston cold when I moved there. I remember how thoughtful this old friend was to crochet a blanket for me. A warmth begins to glow in my heart.

My quilt wraps around me - the one my dear friend found for me in a small, local shop many years ago because he knew I really wanted a quilt and it would delight me. I think of my dear friend who passed away nine years ago. I miss him but I feel his kindness and love. And the warmth in my heart glows stronger.

My body softens so much more now as I snuggle under the warmth of the blankets…and the love. My breath widens the spaces between my ribs and expands my belly and chest. I settle into the early morning feeling cozier and…even proud of myself – “I just dropped that storyline, baby!”

This is where I want my attention right now. This is what feels true and right in this moment.

A soft joy is kindled in me - like putting just another log on the fire to keep it lit and the house warm in these colder months.

That’s the kind of authentic joy I want this winter.

Soft joy. Playful joy. Sweetness toward myself. Choosing where I want my attention and placing it there.

Maybe this is the kind of energy you want for the start of 2026, too.

I’m so not interested in jumping into January with crushing my goals or conquering the parts of me that are really just asking for sweet care. I am not looking to “fix” what society might label as “broken.”

I’ve so given up that way of being.

What I trust now is a quieter wisdom - a soulful conversation that includes my heart, body, and what I know deep in my body without having to explain or prove myself. More of my choices come now from this sacred place.

Midlife has opened me to this kind of deeper trust and living.

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Winter’s Invitation

Winter invites us into a quiet softness, to be cozy, to kindle what wants warmth and nourishment rather than conquer what our minds think we “should” overcome (which inevitably leads to burnout).

Winter gives us space to gently tend to what is rooting down deep and will soon be ready to rise come spring.

2026 feels like a year of new beginnings. I sense the gentle sparks of change happening in me - new thoughts and intuitive impulses, deeper wisdom rising from my body that inspire new possibilities through different gentle choices. I’ve heard from others that they sense this, too.

This past week:

~ I felt the craving rising up from my body to put on my playlist I titled “Elevate” and move intuitively as I waited for the shower to warm up. So I did. It felt softly exquisite. A clear energy of aliveness flowed through me.

~ I felt a joy organically flowing into my thoughts - sparking curiosity and possibility about a new way of relating to someone I love. So I followed it with curiosity and it sparked a new hope in me.

~ I felt the creative impulse to try a new format for some of my poetry and create short poetic videos with Canva. So I spent some time creating, and afterward, I felt energized and inspired! Here’s one:

~ I felt the hint of a new adventure kindling in me. So I shared the idea with my husband and we planted a seed of possibility that feels spacious and invigorating to my soul.

**Who else here loves adventures?! The video at the top of this post is one of my pics from the Cliffs of Moher. And here’s a little video of sheep from our recent adventure in Ireland. I now love sheep! Check out their personalities just in a short clip!

With decisions and actions I am considering taking, I am playing with asking myself these questions and feeling into my true response. I want to share them with you, too. See what they spark within you and use them as your guide as you go into 2026:

Decision-Making in 2026:

Does it delight my heart?

Does it feel beautiful to my body?

Does it feel spacious and true to my soul?

Does it spark my aliveness?

Just asking these kinds of questions can spark something deeper within us that is ready to rise.

This winter, I’m creating space to tend these sparks - to play, imagine, and notice what wants to rise in us. Gentle practices, small embodiment rituals, and creative curiosity will guide us as we explore how joy and creativity can fuel the aliveness within us when spring arrives and 2026 unfolds with new possibilities.

I’d love for you to join this cozy and fun gathering: Kindling Creativity & Joy: a six-week winter experience.

Sign up here

Check it out. Join us if it resonates with you. I’d love to kindle what authentic aliveness wants to come forth from within you as the year unfolds.

Let’s end with a poem. The lines of poetry in video (at the top of this post) come from this poem. I wrote it a few years ago at the start of a new year. It still resonates today:

Galaxies, Not Goals

I am starting to see all these posts
about beginning the new year.
"Commit!" And "Crush it!"
And "Conquer your fears!"

I don't want to "crush" or "conquer."

That is such a "power over" and
"domination" approach that has
caused so much destruction.
Let's be done
with that toxic paradigm.

I want to co-create.
I want to align.
I want to integrate and even
befriend my fears.

I want to practice devotion,
reverence, and surrendering
to the God Within Me.
Because I am beautiful 
in my divinity and humanity.
And when I bow to that 
Goddess within me, 
I sense how she and I
are one.

No, I don't want to crush it.
I don't want to conquer it.
I want to reverence it.
All of it.

I want to give myself space
to rest when I need to,
move when my body
calls for it.
I want to luxuriate in being
alone with myself
and loving myself -
simply for my own pleasure.

Yes, my pleasure matters.

Slowly sipping chai tea.
Writing in my journal.
Looking out at the mountains
behind our house while
I pet my dog.
Making butternut squash soup.
Going for a vigorous walk.
Being fully present
to my breath and body in yoga class.
Planning our next ski adventure.
Watering my plants.
Laying down to meditate.

I don't care about goals or
"getting more."
I want to discover
the
g a l a x i e s
within me

and play with what
d e l i g h t s
my soul.

Lisa McCrohan © 2022

Blessings,
Lisa

“I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” - Joseph Campbell

This winter, the first thing I do the very instant I wake up is feel my body lying in my warm bed. I feel the comfort and warmth of my covers, the softness of my pillow.

My whole body enjoys the coziness. It’s actually an experience of gentle joy - first thing in the morning.

It’s nothing complicated. It’s so simple. I know such a practice could easily be dismissed. But this little experience starts my day with me feeling safe and settled. The soft joy I feel in my whole body is a nourishing kind of stimulation - a gentle kindling of creativity and connection, rather than a depleting kind of stimulation like looking at my phone causes.

A shift has happened. For years, I woke up anxious. I started to embrace certain embodiment practices in the first few moments of my day. These practices have taken up residence in me. They open me to a kind of creative thinking that’s only possible when our nervous systems feel safe and settled. They open me to a kind of joy that nourishes me instead of a overstimulation that activates me.

These practices help me to inhabit my life.

To embody this experience of being human.

To not just think happy thoughts or calming thoughts to manage anxiety, but rather to come into a less anxious state through and with my body.

I believe that embodiment is key to experiencing what’s possible for all of us in 2026.

Creative “solutions” to our individual and collective problems only come from a safe and settled nervous system state. Joy can do its “job” of lowering inflammation, reestablishing our connections to one another and nature, and feeling a sense of delight in our lives only when we inhabit our bodies feel safe.

Something is shifting in our collective experience. I think each of us - when we are quiet and not on a device for a hot minute - sense it.

Our intuition and bodies are telling us that something new is emerging.

We are being invited into a new way of being.

“I’m ready for something different,” a friends recently shared with me. And it wasn’t just wishful thinking, it’s like she was claiming it.

“I’m tired of being numb.

I’m tired of being on my phone.

I’m tired of feeling disconnected from life...”

After more than a decade of many of us increasingly being on our devices - now even addicted to them - we are done with that way of living...well, existing - because I wouldn’t call it truly living.

Something holy in us remembers our innate aliveness.

Something sacred knows we are out of alignment.

We don’t want to just function and get through the day. We want to fully inhabit our lives.

Right now, I bet that if you pause for a moment, you’ll sense the curiosity rising in you: do I need to live, work and relate in these same old ways? Aren’t I here to feel more alive?

There’s a deeper discernment I hear happening in so many people:

how do I want to experience my life?

It’s surely not endlessly scrolling and walking around half baked and numb and overstimulated.

Something holy calls to us to get curious about building a life that feels more spacious, more aligned, more nourishing for our bodies and nervous systems, and truer to our souls.

I know it is so easy to keep scrolling. It’s not just teens who are addicted to their phones. It’s most of us, too, if we are honest. And we all know it. That’s the old way of existing.

Do you feel the invitation to something new and nourishing that calls to you beneath the impulse to swipe and scroll?!

So what do we do?? How do we inhabit our lives?! How do we drop more into the body and tap into the wisdom of our souls?

The old ways are like sirens calling us back. They lure us with a promise of another dopamine hit.

Yet, they are not the path for you now.

If we don’t want to be numb...

If we don’t want to be constantly overstimulated…

If we want to actually inhabit our lives…

How do we do that gently and realistically?

Well, we definitely don’t shame ourselves into presence. We don’t think our way out of a nervous system that’s been caught the pattern of “overstimulated and then collapsed, overstimulated and then collapsed.”

Here is what I know - personally for my own self and body, and professionally for my clients and those I support:

Embodied creativity and joy are going to be our fuel going forward.

And we need to feel safe and settled for creativity and joy to flow organically - in our bodies and through our daily lived experience.

When our bodies feel safe, we have what I call an “integrated brain” - we are using our whole brain to dream up possibilities.

When our bodies feel safe, joy isn’t forced, it flows.

Creativity and joy are going to be our fuel moving forward - crafting our individual and collective lives that are so much more nourishing and beautiful and alive than they are now.

But we need spaces and experiences where this new sense of safety and settledness can be felt in the body, where creativity and joy are not just talked about but experienced and inhabited.

Because the sirens of our old ways will easily lure us into one more scroll, one more over-stimulating habit.

This is where Kindling Your Joy & Creativity comes in.

I created this 6-week winter experience because I see how deeply people are craving a different way of being - and how hard it is to access it alone.

I know how to create the conditions where creativity and joy can organically arise through the body...feeling safe and also gently invited into something new.

I know how to create the space where your nervous system feels safe enough to listen within, to kindle what has been waiting quietly within you to rise.

I know how to create the holding environment for you to play with possibility as you let go of the gripping around your old ways of being so you inhabit a new and more nourishing and life-giving way of living.

Together, we will practice embodying safety and then courage to get curious.

We will doodle and create with specific intentions.

We will imagine.

We will breathe and laugh.

And new spaces within your mind and body and lungs and heart and soul will open up to you.

Then you’ll start to make clear in-the-moment embodied choices that are aligned with the person you are called to be now. You’ll take actions that feel delightfully creative and gently joyful.

This is a cozy, soulful space to expand in ways your body and soul and creativity have been longing for.

Winter is the perfect time for this experience - to listen, to play, to get curious, to feel into what wants to emerge with love, presence, and even fun.

If you are tired of the old way of existing…

If you feel the invitation to inhabit your life more fully…

If you want to begin 2026 feeling more alive, spacious, and connected…

I invite you to join us.

Join us

Let’s end with a poem. I wrote this one after deciding to ski down the double black diamond run called Bold Decision for the first time - what aliveness:

Bold Decision

Swooshing down the
double black diamond,
Bold Decision,
there is no thought -
only focus.

Mind still,

body fully engaged and
knows what to do,

heart expansive -

my skis glide across
the snow.

Mind, body, heart: one.
Aligned.
Alive.

This is meditation.
This is peace.
This is aliveness.


Lisa McCrohan © 2021

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” – Victor Hugo

This past week, I heard things from clients like:

“Lisa, we don’t have Christmas ornaments on the tree. And I’m going with it!”

“I’m not sending out holiday cards.”

“I have these battery-powered candles and they are sitting on my kitchen table because I haven’t bought batteries and I don’t think I’m going to!”

“My house doesn’t look like it usually does at the holidays and honestly I’m just letting that old expectation go.”

“We aren’t sending out holiday photo cards this year. It’s too much of a process.”

People are choosing simple! They are choosing what feels like enough! They are choosing to not overextend, and instead, choosing “cozy” and connecting with their dear ones! They are shedding expectations that do not serve them.

Do you know how happy this makes my heart to hear?!

I even notice for myself that the mess on our kitchen island, table, and family room just doesn’t bother me. We have shoes littering the floor beneath the ironing board that’s been left out in our kitchen for a few weeks, items to return sitting on the kitchen chairs, and laundry baskets of clothes to be put away. Pillows and blankets are already strewn all over the couch and chairs in the family room from family movie nights that have already started. Our ski bags and gear are spread out in the front room of our home.

The only gifts I’m giving this year to friends and extended family are handmade by my friend Jenn - flowers she grew during the summer, dried, and arranged in a beautiful sun catcher (!) AND also her the most beautiful smelling earthy lotion/cream. I’m tossing in some of my stickers that I’ve made. And that’s it! Everyone is getting these gifts!

(Like my stickers? Just message me and I can take your order! 1 for $3.50 or 6 for $18)

And we are picking up our son from the airport this evening! He has been studying abroad in Europe. We plan on two weeks of cozy, sleeping in, lower expectations, and just hanging together.

I keep hearing this from so many others in my life:

“I’m doing less this year.”

“I don’t need to expend all my energy to do it all.”

“I’m choosing simpler.”

“I just want to enjoy the magic of the season.”

“I just want to connect with the people I love.’

Maybe you too have taken things off of your holiday to-do list that just don’t need to happen.

Maybe for you that means fewer decorations or not sending holiday cards. Maybe that means simplifying what you are giving.

Maybe you are taking yourself off the hook (which, no human should ever be “on a hook!) of making things perfect, and instead you are choosing to do less and to simplify because IT SERVES YOU and your sweet energy and sanity! And maybe you are choosing to get cozy and connect with those you love.

I loooooove this!!!!

And instead of feeling like something is missing, there’s a strange but very welcomed relief in the air. A soft exhale. A “cozying into what what feels nourishing.”

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Because 2025… whew. It’s been a year of upheaval, uncertainty, chaos, and constant change. It’s been…a lot. It kept us in constant stress mode. Many of us have been holding a lot and bracing a lot.

So it makes sense that this season isn’t about doing more - it’s about letting go so there is room for us to breathe.

It’s about tending to what’s essential and simplifying.

And this is what I LOVE seeing: we are noticing where we have AGENCY to make choices that are about our happiness and nervous system state despite what’s happening “outside of ourselves” - in our country and even in our dynamics with people.

What I’m really sensing is this: something new is stirring for 2026.

I’ve heard the same vibe from so many people:

I hear people talking about 2026 with a different tone in their voice. An almost trusted certainty that “this is going to be a good (lighter, happier, nourishing) year.”

Not just hoping for it but like knowing it! In our souls!

It’s like we are collectively tapping into what is on the horizon: big positive, life-giving shifts. And we are ready for it!

FINAAAAAAAAHHHHLY!!!

We are taking back our agency and self-sovereignty to take actions that feel like sweet alignment.

We are getting creative with answering the invitation of our souls to make choices that delight us and feed our energy.

We are reinventing how we live, work, relate, and go about our day so there is a heck of a lot more ease, beauty, simplicity, and joy.

We are feeling emboldened to make these shifts!

Can you feel this??!!!

I was hanging with some friends the night at a local brewery and someone said: In Chinese zodiac, 2026 is the year of the horse.

We are going to feel passion, energy, freedom, and a drive for adventure!

There is fire here, people!

We will have a sense of renewed enthusiasm and courage (and determination and steadfastness) for bold moves and big leaps into what feels authentic and enlivening.

We are talking about big transformation, people.

We are talking about focused on what really is essential to our well-being.

We are talking about restoring authentic, warm, human connection.

We are talking about not just thinking outside the box but taking action that’s outside the box and sets you free!!!!

And I sense this: anyone trying to hold on to old ways that just don’t work, trying to keep old structures and patterns that are dying off and need to crumble, and clinging to “the old” because “this is how we’ve always done it” is going to have a hard time.

You can transform and take emboldened action - letting go of all that old patterning and beliefs and stories - and step into an open field of adventure and a wild ride that delights your soul.

Or you can sit in your same chair, looking at the same paint color on your walls, caught up in the same old stories and relationships and ways of living that will slowly (or maybe even quickly) make your heart parched and cracked, feeling sad and resentful, with bitterness that becomes like drinking sand.

Honestly, that’s the choice, baby.

It’s time.

And going forward, we are going to need:

• to know how to strip away what is a distraction or out of date or no longer serves us to get clear quickly and make aligned choices.

• to invoke our curiosity and a willingness to say “let’s see!”

• to deepen our attunement to what deeply delights our hearts and the courage to follow it

• to know how to tap into our creativity and think outside any old boxes in order to be able to dream up, invent, and step boldly into new ways of living that we’ve never seen before

I know this. I feel it in sessions with my clients. I know it in my bones.

And so one evening, after teaching my Slower Advent series this December, I dreamed up a new offering that I know is going to be magical and incredibly inspiring and gently emboldening for us:

I am not waiting to tell you this until after the holidays so you can know what’s on the horizon for you as you start 2026 with a sense of hope and inspiration, which helps you to then settle into the joy of what’s right here in the last bit of December.

Here’s what is coming:

Kindling Creativity & Joy

A 6-week online winter experience for a lighter, more inspired year ahead

Grab your paints, pencils, or cozy mug… it’s time to create magic this winter, baby!

Get the details & sign up

This 6-week live Zoom experience is for anyone who wants to begin 2026 feeling more spacious, alive, and inspired.

This is a space to reconnect with joy and creativity - for these to become your essential fuel for how you live, make decisions, and move forward.

We’ll gather every week to spark imagination, bust out of old boxes you’ve been in, and step into what joy wants to come alive in you.

This is where cozy meets courage, play meets clarity, and joy becomes momentum.

If you want to begin 2026 with gentle zest - sparking your imagination and feeling more spacious, alive, and inspired - this experience is for you.

We begin Jan 14th.

Click here for more details and to sign up.

Because the light is returning.

Life is going to invite you into a brighter, bolder way of living in 2026. Let creativity and joy fuel you as you step into your new aliveness.

Let’s finish up with a poem:

A New Chapter

It's time to let go of what
you know needs to end.
You fought to make it happen.
You stayed in it long after you
knew it was time to be done.
And now today, it's time to let go
and you know it.

Mourn the loss.
Mourn what could have been.
Grieve the failed expectation,
the "it shouldn't have been this way"
and the "this is not what I wanted."
Get angry about how much
effort and time and heart you
put into it.
But do not stay too long in
analyzing it all and picking
yourself apart - every action,
word, reaction.

Put your hand on your heart
and forgive yourself.
Yes, forgive yourself.
You are wiser now.
You are stronger than
you've ever been.

Gather the logs.
Make the bonfire.
Ceremoniously burn what
needs to turn to ash -
the journal, the love letters,
the old photos,
even the vision boards.

Then take a shower.
Let the water wash over you
like holy water -
cleansing and blessing you.
Wash the dirt from
under your nails.
Wash your hair in fragrant scents -
be it lavender, vanilla, mint, or
chamomile.
Stay as long as you need to.

Then when you are ready,
step out of the shower.
Stand in front of the mirror -
naked. You. In full vulnerability.
And ready.

Look yourself in the eyes
and study your beauty -
even in this "great undoing."
See God in you.
Feel your angels nearby.
Listen to that still and true voice
within you saying, "it's time."

Walk into the new chapter
of your life that you are writing.
Let the first line be:
And so I decided to love myself.

Lisa McCrohan © 2022

Ohhhh, Love - you are going to love yourself so much in 2026 - in new and deeply refreshing ways! And your light is going to inspire others to do the same so that love ripples out into the world and makes some big shifts. It's time - for you and for all of us. 

Blessings,

Lisa

Even in the Dark

It’s 430 in the morning.
I need a drink of water.
I don’t turn any lights on.
it’s too early for even a soft light.
I move out from under the down blanket
and slide my legs off the bed.
Even in the dark,
my feet know how to find the earth.
I walk to the bathroom.
I turn on the faucet.
Even in the dark,
my hands know how to cup water in them
and bring a drink to my mouth.
I walk back to bed.
My body still wants the warm cocoon
of my down blanket.
Even in the dark,
my body finds the bed and
pulls the cover up over me
and around me, tucking me in
for a few more hours of rest.

Even in the dark of our sorrow or despair,
how much more does God know 
how to find us,
to be the ground that stabilizes us,
to bring us a small sip of joy
amidst the tears,
to be the warm blanket of grace
that wraps around us
until we are ready
to be out in the world again?


Lisa McCrohan © 2024

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When I was in fifth grade - about 10 or 11 years old - my family and I went on a hike. Toward the end of the hike, I asked if I could catch up to my older brother. My parents said yes and I ran ahead to catch up with him.

But I never caught up to my brother. There was a turn off to get to where our car was parked, and I never saw it.

The sun was setting and it was getting dark. I was alone, lost in the woods.

This was all way before cell phones. There was no “find my phone” app to check my location.

I was missing for a few hours. There were heat censored helicopters looking for me.

But the person who found me? My dad.

I was later told that when my parents got to the car and saw that I wasn’t there, they got the park ranger, a search mission was initiated, and my dad took off in the dark to find me while my mom stayed with my siblings.

My dad searched and searched for me. He called out to me for miles.

As I was alone, I was getting scared. It was nighttime now. I could see the helicopters and I waved, but no one saw me.

And then, in the distance, I heard my dad calling my name, “Lisa! Lisa!”

“Dad!” I shouted back!

We kept shouting until we met:

“Lisa!”

“Dad! Here I am!”

“Lisa, I’m coming!”

“Dad!”

He found me! And he scooped me up and hugged me. He wasn’t mad at me for missing the turn, just so relieved to find me. And I was safe once again.

Even in the dark, I knew my dad’s voice and he knew mine.

We walked back together in the dark. Once I was with my dad, even though it was pitch dark, I wasn’t scared. I was found. And we were together. I was safe.

I share the poem “Even in the Dark” and this story because winter is upon us with the cold and dark, and also because many of us are going through some hard times.

At age 51 now I have had times in my life where I feel lost and in the dark. I have felt uncertain of myself or what’s next or what to do. I have had plenty of times of feeling stuck and low on hope. I have felt alone.

Maybe you can relate.

Maybe you’ve been moving through a season where you feel a little disoriented. A little untethered. A little unsure of where you’re going. A little lost.

Maybe you’ve been carrying something heavy and private. Maybe life has shifted in a way you didn’t choose. Maybe you’ve been walking through the day with grief, exhaustion, or a quiet ache that no one sees.

In dark times, I am finding that I trust these four things - they find me and help me through the darkness - and I want to share them with you.

1. Nature. Nature shows us that seasons change. There is a season for darkness and a season for light. We can watch how nature doesn’t resist winter, doesn’t shame the trees for losing their leaves, doesn’t rush the long nights. Instead, nature rests, conserves energy, goes inward, and trusts that life is still exists beneath the surface - even when it cannot be seen. Nothing in nature blooms all year long. Nothing is productive all the time. Darkness is part of its rhythm. The light returns.

2. The body. Our bodies are wise. I know that our culture tends to push our bodies, ignore our bodies, and control our bodies. For centuries, we dismissed, distrusted and thought lesser of the body. But when we begin to tune into and trust our bodies, we discover an innate wisdom pulsing through the body that knows what we need and how to heal.

I know that feels so foreign to many of you reading this. And maybe you are even a bit leery of this truth.

Notice this: let’s say you are walking in your house and you bump your knee into a table. Instantly your hands will go to hold your knee. Your voice will cry out in pain. And there is a whole inner healing process already initiated within your body to take care of your knee - without you willing it!

It takes time to reconnect with your body and trust it - in physical, emotional, relational challenges.

But just like I wrote in the poem, “even in the dark, my hands know how to cup water in them and bring a drink to my mouth,” your body knows you and it knows how to care for you.

3. The Divine. Use whatever name for it you’d like, but I believe there is Something Sacred that we come from and knows us. I often use the word Divine. I do not get caught up in the particulars created by religions. The only thing I believe in is that this Source is Benevolent. In the dark times of my life, inevitably a Grace arrives - not of my own doing or creating - it just arrives - like a gift. It finds me wherever I am - alone on the bathroom floor, the car, the grief, the uncertainty, the hopelessness - and it wraps itself around me and weaves itself in me like a warm blanket.

4. Community. We live in a time where we can go out of our house, walk into a store, use the self-checkout lane, do our shopping, and go back home without ever talking to or even interacting with another human. Shoot, we don’t even have to leave our houses - we just order everything online!

Even if you are an introvert, this lack of human connection hurts us. The impact of loneliness on our health has been compared to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

We are relational beings. We wither in isolation. We need people.

In the dark moments, especially when I feel ashamed and that shame would have me hide and “deal with it myself,” when I choose to reach out and share and be seen by a dear one, something in me lightens.

Being seen is one of the most precious gifts we can receive. And seeing another person and being alongside them is one of the greatest gifts we can give one another.

In the presence of a dear one, we are found.

Even in the dark, these are the “places” where I find my way (where I am found - where hope and lightness and truth find me): Nature. The body. The Divine. Community.

They hold me and guide me. They weave hope into my bones and psyche. They buffer me. They find me and I feel less lost, less alone.

That night long ago when I was lost in the woods, I didn’t find my way home by myself. I was found by someone who loved me. I kept calling out and so did my dad. Once my dad found me, there was still darkness - but no longer alone, my fear disappeared. We walked together in the dark toward home.

If you are in a dark season right now:

Listen for what is calling your name.

Drop into the wisdom of your body.

Call on the Divine.

Reach out to someone who can walk with you.

Even in the dark, hope will find you, Benevolence will wrap itself around you like a warm blanket.

Even in the dark, you can be held and accompanied.

Even in the dark, you do not have to walk alone.

Winter Gems

Would you like to feel rested and nourished throughout the holiday season and into winter? Try my guided meditations - they are FREE on Insight Timer. Find deep rest and nourishment.

Meditate With Me

Need a pep-me-up of self-love and joy? Need to heal some burnout? Or want a lovely gift for someone in your life?

I created a 10-Day Self-Love Challenge and a 12-Day Joy Challenge to practice self-love and honoring the light in you.

My Preventing and Healing Burnout workshop gives you a toolkit to help you critically reflect on your life and take soulful actions toward setting better boundaries and choosing what delights you.

My two books, Gems of Delight and Your Light is Rising, offer short reflections that are nourishing nuggets of daily love. Perfect gifts for yourself or a dear one.

Get resources here

If you long for further guidance, check out 1:1 coaching with me - info and pricing are all upfront and on my website. Check it out first and then sign up for a 15 minute free consult. I will have a few new spaces opening for 2026.

1:1 coaching

Blessings,

Lisa

Radical Spaciousness

It’s a radical act these days
to give yourself space -

to go outside and
breathe
between appointments,

to say no
to more commitments
so you can stay home
and put on comfy socks
as you cozy up by the fire,

to have limits
to what you give
so you can give yourself
a long walk in the woods
or a nap in the hammock,

to sit down and
slowly eat a meal
by yourself or
with a good friend who
makes you laugh
and feels like
home,

to opt out of the culture
that pushes the pursuit
of more and bigger -
houses, bank accounts,
and stuff

and to choose a simple life
watching the sun go down
with a mug of chamomile tea
in your hands,
taking a long, hot bath
and going to bed early.


Lisa McCrohan © 2023

Giving yourself spaciousness. What does that mean for you right now?

First thing that comes to you.

How does your body respond to imagining this sense of spaciousness? Did you just exhale? Feel your shoulders soften? Feel your belly relax?

Take a moment and linger with this for a bit.

Maybe this moment is the start to December inviting you into a new kind of pace to your day, a “letting go” of what you usually take responsibility for, or an adventure that is deeply soul-nourishing.

The world will hurry us, instruct us, sell a whole bunch of crap to us that we don’t need. It’ll try to distract you from listening to your own body and inner wisdom.

So it’s quite radical these days to give yourself spaciousness - to dream as you take a walk through the woods, to linger with a friend at a coffee shop, to stretch and move between appointments or emails, to let go of others’ expectations - and be in your own energy.

It’s possible, yes, even within the particulars of your own life. There is a sacred pause waiting for you.

Blessings,

Lisa

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“Wisdom is the art of living in rhythm with your soul.” John O’Donohue

We are in Ireland and I am watching sheep graze in a pasture next to a centuries-old castle we are about to explore. The lush and expansive Irish landscape is a beautiful rest for my eyes from the narrow focus on devices they are so used to. Here their view widens as they have a reprieve that sends a soothing message throughout my whole nervous system: "You can rest now. Take in this beauty. Experience this."

I now adore sheep. They are just slowly doing their thing - grazing and resting and sometimes playing. My husband Brian watches the sheep with me in this expansive field and says, "I wonder what that's like to look all around you and only see deliciousness?"

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As we walk the castle grounds, I watch the way light and landscape intimately play and mingle with each other to create a mood, a wordless story, and magic. We come upon a cluster of old trees and moss-covered rocks, and the mood changes as we enter. It's not spooky but there is an unspoken warning to regard this magical space. This is where light turns down its intensity and softens into mysterious shadows. This quiet space suspends the laws of time and the usual tiny human thinking of what is possible.

Being on a magical land that invites you into its story is sustenance for the soul - a recognition that there are forces at play in life that are much larger and more powerful than my mind's thoughts and worries. . This is where the soul gets to play. I exhale.

As I explore Ireland, I am noticing how there are many kinds of rest. See which one (or several!) resonates with you:

Physical Rest - literally laying down and resting your body, napping, doing very little.

Sensory Rest - giving your senses a reprieve - stepping away from brightness, noise, screens, "taking in" too much and stepping into the pleasure of cozy, warmth, a hot bath, aromatherapy, and natural sounds, delicious tastes and smells, soft sounds, and warm touch.

Emotional Rest - letting yourself not hold everything for everyone.

Relational Rest - allowing space from draining dynamics, letting go of over-functioning for the people in your life, and tending to the relationships that actually nourish you.

Creative Rest - letting beauty, nature, and art spark your creativity.

Mental Rest - a break from planning, analyzing, solving, worrying, multitasking. Letting the mind wander like sheep in an open field.

Spiritual Rest - feeling a part of something larger, steadier, wiser. Engaging in prayer, meditation, or just silence to hear your own soul.

Rest from Expectations - loosening the grip on who you think you “should” be and how others should be.

Rest from the Inner Critic - softening the voice that keeps you on high alert and saying harsh things to you.

Rest from Productivity - releasing the belief that your worth is measured by what you accomplish, the roles you play, how perfect or imperfect you or your house or your life looks.

Rest from Negativity and Complaining - shifting your orientation from noticing what's wrong to noticing what is here,and the possibility of another story playing out.

Energetic Rest - allowing your life-force to replenish. Resting from the people, tasks, and environments that drain you, and intentionally returning to what energizes, uplifts, and restores your spark.

Seasonal Rest - honoring winter’s invitation to slow down, get cozy, and turn inward. Letting the body be in rhythm with nature rather than the calendar of productivity.

What kind of rest do you need?

I sense that each of us needs to honor a certain kind of rest and I thought we'd take Advent to give ourselves the rest we need.

I created A Slower Advent - a three session gathering on the first three Thursday evenings of December - as a gentle, spacious invitation to honor this season with softer light, shadowed quiet, cozy gathering, gentle reflection, and a soulful somatic sacred pause. The kind of rest that nourishes your nervous system and helps you return to yourself.

Join A Slower Advent

We will reflect, journal, engage in gentle somatic movement, and then I'll guide you into a practice of yoga nidra - the yoga of sleep.

If your soul is craving a slower, more meaningful December - one guided by reflection, replenishment, and the subtle magic of presence - I’d love for you to join us.

Let’s end with a haiku poem, from both of my books, Your Light is Rising and Gems of Delight:

The Way Home

I am quiet now

Listening ti my heart beat

My breath leads me home.

-Lisa McCrohan

Blessings,

Lisa

“I really want to simplify things this holiday season,” I said to myself at the end of the day as I laid on the floor in our family room - spread out like a snow angel on the carpet- but a tired and overstimulated one.

Our dog was licking my foot, while my parents’ dog - who we have been watching for a few weeks while my parents are visiting my sibling in another state - kept trotting over to me and bringing me his squeaky toy, pawing my hand to play tug of war and then to play fetch - over and over.

My foot bumped into the pile of laundry waiting to be folded. I nudged a pair of jeans aside with my foot, pushed the laundry basket out of my space, and made enough room for my body to stretch out more in the mess.

I laid there doing the “laying on the floor” kind of yoga that is one of my “go to’s” to ground me and nourish my nervous system.

This made me think about how we can create spaciousness even in the mess around us. We can find some stillness where our bodies, minds and souls can rest even with the demands or obligations that we just can’t change. We can find a patch of nourishment even in the particular “givens” we have in our lives.

That evening with the dogs and me on the ground doing my “laying on the floor yoga,” I found some simplicity, stillness, and nourishment in letting it all just be - the dogs, the tiredness, the laundry, the aches and longings, the “I wish this were different” kinds of thoughts, the “what am I going to do about...” kinds of wonderings.

Even with all those things, I just spread my body out on the earth and sighed and stretched and moved organically without thinking about it.

About 10 minutes later, something had shifted in me. My nerves weren’t so fried. My thoughts weren’t so negative or heavy or “Oh my god, I just can’t do this anymore!” My emotions weren’t so intense. My body was wasn’t so tight.

It was uncomplicated - 10 minutes on the floor, letting it all be.

Yes, more of that, please.

Simply and slow.

Letting go.

Simply joys - like slow exhales, organic movements, and rest.

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I have been in a mode of simplifying my life - noticing what is essential, what needs more time and heart, what needs less of my attention and energy units. It’s beautiful and clarifying. It’s soothing and nourishing.

So when I thought of Advent, I thought of sharing this kind of simple and slow with others. And the idea of A Slower Advent: Rest, Replenish & Renew came to me. The concept and the details just flowed out of me. I didn’t second guess the dates, the time, the format, the vibe. I knew right away that we needed some soulful reflection, some journaling, a bit of sharing, some easy movement, and then a deep experience of rest with yoga nidra.

Here’s what I have for us:

A three-week online gathering for women seeking stillness, softness, and soulful restoration.

join us

Dates: Three Thursday evenings in December: 4th, 11th, and 18th
Time: 6:30 – 8 pm (Eastern Time)

Before the light returns, the sacred season of darkness invites us to slow, soften, and rest.

Over the course of three Thursday evenings, we’ll gather for soulful journaling & reflection, connection, and a gentle somatic movement that leads into a guided Yoga Nidra practice — an embodied invitation to rest deeply, listen inwardly, and be restored from within.

Each week offers a feminine rhythm of slowing, softening, and receiving — the opposite of the season’s rush. Together, we’ll create a sanctuary of rest in community, honoring simplicity, tenderness, and the wisdom of the dark.

Dec. 4th: Rest – The Art of Letting Go
This first session will be a practice of slowing down, softening, and releasing – softening what’s been tight and creating room for rest. Imagine: grounded, spacious, and full exhales.

Dec. 11th: Replenish – The Quiet that Restores
This second session will be a practice of receiving – tending to your inner landscape, listening for what nourishes you, and receiving nourishment. Imagine: heart-centered, light-kindling, and self-compassion.

Dec. 18th: Renew – Wonder, Awe, & Simple Joys
This final session will be a practice of noticing – discovering small moments of awe and delight that awaken naturally from stillness and organically rekindles our sense of being alive. Imagine: gentle joy and soft peace.

Each 90 minute evening will include:
– a grounding opening
– reflection, journaling + optional sharing
– guided gentle movement and yoga nidra
– a soulful closing ritual

Together, we’ll remember that rest is a rhythm our body and soul long for, nourishment can be simple and soft, and renewal flows naturally from rest into delight — in the pause, the breath, and the shimmer of candlelight.

You’re invited to come as you are — tired, curious, hopeful — and find rest in the company of others seeking the same.

Payment: You can pay here on my shop OR use Venmo: @lisa-mccrohan-1 (You’ll see my picture)
If you use Venmo, be sure to send me your email address so I can give you the Zoom link.
* I really tried to keep the cost of this low, but ff $60 is a hardship, please reach out to me.

Prep:
– Listen to my Yoga Nidra Fusion meditation for free on Insight Timer
– Bring a journal and pen
– Dress comfy and cozy
– Have a quiet space where you can lie down, with pillows and blankets so you are comfy

I hope you’ll join us.

Blessings,

Lisa