can you be me today? 
i ask,
i whisper,
i implore - stiff and foggy. 
can you just me me for a bit, 
while i don’t know how to?

it is grey like rain, 
but the skies have not
parted open yet.

first i sat on the big white chair facing directly towards the lake,
but i couldn’t settle.
it felt,
today,
like a chair for someone else. 

a tired bumble bee was napping on the back of my usual morning chair.
i didn’t have the heart to move her.
she know exactly how,
to be her napping bee. 

so i stand again.
i pad towards the side railing,
i gaze at the stand of skinny white birch,
that i think of as mine.

mine not as in any kind of ownership,
more of just a friendship,
“my friends,”
the stand of tall skinny birch on the edge of wood off the side deck.

who i say good morning to.
who i offer refuge to. 
who i meditate with, 
on days when the weather is right, 
for meditating on the side of the deck. 

hello,
i say. 
opening finally
to something -
to the trees.

feeling, 
as i open, 
that i have feet. 
that my feet are bare,
a bit cool,
pressing down on the boards of the deck. 

feeling the slight tingle,
and throb, 
of my right inner ankle bone,
which i have bruised somehow.

and feeling, 
feeling, 
other waves inside of me.

not naming, 
just feeling them rise, 
and envelope me.
ripple around,
bumping up against 
all the confines,
i think are me.

wave,
wave,

wave.

until one starts to spill out of my eyes.
a warm drop of this inner ocean,
moving slowly down my cheek. 

what even is this now? i wonder. 

and i see my trees again,
that is when i ask.

i crack my chest open a little
and take them in.

can you be me today? 
a small plea.
can you just me me for a bit while i don’t know how to?

and instantly
the waves moving all around inside of me
are met -
by the bright upward growth of the trees.
instantly my roots are deep
in the earth,
my home.

instantly nothing needs to be anything else.

instantly i am
crashing water 
and the forest.

waves of feeling
and the bright bright aliveness of now.

my cells reverberate a deep
deep
empty.
open,
wide,
calm.

oh!
my heart sighs.

oh.
my womb roots deeper
into the soil,
the granite,
the land.

oh,
my feet tingle.

my spine lifts.
small sparks of space alight,
between my vertebrae.

oh.

i am you. 
i am you.

i am you. 

and i exhale.
at last.

yesterday i moved my daughter into her college dorm for her freshman year. i’ve known her move in date for months. we’ve been packing and and preparing actively for weeks. we had favorite meals the last few days - and so on.

yet, i woke up this morning and felt a sort of weight of sadness i wasn’t expecting. i tried to avoid it by listening to a book. then i tried to avoid it by explaining factually to myself why i didn’t need to feel sad. then i texted one of my friends and said, “wow, i am sad this morning.”

she replied, “duh.” (which she was saying with love.)

so i sat on my office bed and cried for a little bit and i noticed where in my body i felt the most tension. then i placed my hands there (on my throat and my chest) and i quietly offered a wave of loving perception.

then i asked, “hi, i feel you. is there something you need right now?” i immediately felt this wave of intensity in response to my loving question.

i just need to feel sad. i want space to feel however feel. why do you never let me have space?

that response made so much sense to me, because not making space for my own feelings to matter just because i feel them is a pretty long standing pattern of mine. it isn’t good or bad it just is. but i do get choose other ways to show up to myself and my life.

and then i remembered the piece i wrote last week about my cold plunge…i thought i was writing it to share but i realize now i wrote it to capture it, so it was easier for me to remember and re-live.

the cold plunge piece:

i plug my home address into google maps and make sure i have a water in the cup holder before i start the drive. the gps takes me home a different way than i anticipated, all back roads with twists and turns and mountain views instead of along the lake like i expected.

i play mumford and sons and cry a little here and there.

when i roll my windows down and let in the fresh air and the natural light, they rattle in the doors. this is life with a soft top vehicle.

“when i put myself in the right place, it is disorienting,” i will say to him the next day. trying to explain what this swirl is, why i am a little off.

but on this drive i haven’t realized that yet and what i am wondering is, “how did it get this good?” and “how can i continue to let it be this good? how i can i really feel it?”

in the cold plunge tub i followed all the instructions to a tee. i stepped on the exhale. i took another breath and then sat down into the water on the next exhale. i thought to put my arms right in so i didn’t have to do that later, i leaned back against the back a bit. a plus student.

she looked right at me and i met her gaze, maybe the hardest part. and then she saw right through me and she said, “great work, you are in. now feel the cold.”

and that is when i startled, not when i got into the cold but when i let myself feel it.

it is funny to be a human with a well honed freeze response and to get into a cold plunge. because i can be the cold, i can do the cold - but i can’t necessarily feel the cold.

i held eye contact with her, daring myself to trust, believing i can be supported. i let go a little bit, took a breath and filled myself back into my body.

i felt the cold. it was fucking cold.

then i began the process of calming down. not pushing myself to be ok, not making it work, but truly feeling the intensity of the cold and calming down. it took several breaths. i remembered to shift my awareness to the backline. i found uma and rested there. i breathed in through all the pores of my skin. and then the most magical thing happened - i felt my true nature come online with me in the cold.

“she loves you,” the facilitator was whispering to me. “yes, yes, feel her. the cold is a goddess and she wants to heal you. yes like that, like that.”

i kept breathing and filling myself with my life force. an audible hum of pleasure drifted out of my parted my lips. there, i was here. i was feeling. i was alive to it. everything is pleasure.

“you could get out now,” she said, as she made small waves in the cold tub letting the goddess lap me. but i was too happy with what i had found, a presence that feels the cold and stays fully there.

and so she cooed with me for a bit longer, and i smiled and sighed and twirled my hands slowly and wiggled my toes until she said, “now is when you get out. you can get back in again later but now is when you get out and warm up.”

i felt her invitation and stepped out, a little shakey, back on the solid ground. i padded my way to the sun and rocked myself back and forth in my towel.

hours and hours later, after lunch and journaling and free time and swimming in the lake and dinner and a silent disco and tarot with the cats. after dissolving a few more layers of my own protection in the group space, i was sitting in the back of her car driving back to our rooms.

“i can’t believe my life is this good,” i admitted. “and sometimes i am scared to say that aloud. i am scared to write about it or talk about it or share it. but if i don’t say anything then other people might not know it can be this good, like i would not have known. so i guess the path is to be honest about how much i love my life.”

i get to drive home from these two nourishing, disarming days, just a short drive, through the woods and the hills and the farms with epic mountain views. i cry a little on the drive in my bad ass bitch car with my windows rattling open to the air i love in the state i love. i land in my lake house. i hug my daughter. my cat comes when i call her.

how good can it be? how much can i not just do it, or have it, but feel it.

the cold is a goddess, she wants to help heal you.

yes, yes, i feel it. i feel it all.

and now back to today:

so here we are, sitting on the bed remembering again. there is a difference between “doing” the day after i move her into her freshman year of college and being with it.

part of me wants to end this piece right there because i’ve gone on long enough. but that wouldn’t be authentic so let me say one final piece:

when i write about feeling my feelings i am talking about a very nuanced and multi-layered experience. i am choosing not to avoid but i am also choosing not to fully merge with the “perspective” that is familiar to this emotional state. i am identifying more as a compassionate awareness towards the feeling, and my ability to perceive and meet the feeling from that.

all love,
robin

i am so curious what is true for you?

xo,
robin

it is a little more complex than that actually - i think i have known since the moment i first held my first born that being a mother was it for me. i felt it in my bones and my heart undeniably.

what happened was, i let myself feel like this prioritization meant that my work, my business, the offering of my gifts to the world, somehow didn’t matter. like there was less value because i wasn’t scaling correctly. there was less value because my social numbers didn’t match some of the other women i was comparing myself to. like somehow i didn’t take my work seriously enough because i didn’t hire child care and a home manager and “really go for it.”

what is actually more true is that i have treasured my work, and the way i built it to flow like river around my family life, needs and schedule.

i have absolutely thrown my whole limitless soul into supporting the humans who chose to work with me - in the times after the kids were asleep, or while they were at school, or when i was leading a group practice call and could hear them playing (so loudly!) in the living room.

what i am realizing now is that lived truth of my work has actually been more sacred because it was built and offered in alignment with my heart calling to mother.

and, as i say in the video above to “flag that shit” - i have grown my capacity to bring conscious attuned mothering to myself when i need it by throwing my all into growing that energy as a mother to my external children.

how cool is that?

the world doesn’t need you to be different, it needs you to land fully in each cell in the truth of your truth right now.

curious what that might mean?
pop over to “work with robin” and book a free inquiry call.

all the love in the world for no reason at all,
robin

well, here we are. and here have been truly all along.

the little one is here, yes - scared and alone. isn’t she just the sweetest thing ever born? she is here with us for such beautiful reasons. she is in you and yet she is not you - but just a small inner gem, a facet of a diamond inside of you.

the mother is here also. the one you were born to be. the most enormous, expansive unfurling of soft wings mothbug creature who inhabits the back body. she knows how to move towards it all. how to mirror and contain. she loves and loves the little one. perhaps there is nothing left to fear because absolutely nothing can come in this life that is bigger than this divine mother love for the little one.

and so, who rises up out of that rich inner soil? who is this woman? with an entire body of sensation with the softest inner channels and heart. this woman - who is trembling with the power of life itself. who is sourced by eternity, and everything and nothing at all. who dwells and braids and winds and dances in and through this body. this funny smile, this humidity fluffed hair, these sometimes awkward limbs. this laughter, this skip and twirl and even the stiff stumble.

she who moves through us in every gesture of embodiment we live. not needing anything to me more perfect, or better.

here they all are. and the long haired, desert tent dwelling, fierce protector of peace - he is here too.

let them all be right right here and breathe deep this blessed union of every single cell of you - because if nothing matters then it is all absolutely perfect right now. even the questioning, the contractions, the thinking and judgements and mental loops - all of it is absolutely sacred nothingness and a wave of life - life! - moving through us. there is nothing to do but let life move.

this video includes a short poem and dedication of merit as well as some of my usual rambling. if you have made it through the ten days of invitation - at whatever pace was right for you! - i would love to hear from you.

what did you experience or feel?

did you learn anything about yourself or your days?

what was easy? what was hard?

will you be continuing your “one small thing,” or closing this specific practice to make space for a new one?

are you leaving with any new questions or desires?

reach out and let me know!

all love,
robin

it is such an honor and a privilege to sit in that space with another human, to feel their system sort of blossom open in my space and reveal these ripples, from childhood or even from ancestral lines.

what i am keenly aware of this week, due to this amazing human blossoming, is how tightly opposites are wound together. love is braided with suffering, pleasure is tightly wound with pain, joy is entangled with a webs of deep fear.

it all makes sense in the maps i draw, trying to help establish a sense of order and containment as we wade into the chaotic mystery of the felt sense, of the unknown.

and yet, no matter what map we might draw, or describe, there is always the more profound ask inferred.

“can we make a space to feel our way through this together?”

sometimes the inner pain, fear or suffering gasps open so wide in the system it is like a flood has hit. in those moments even i, our fearless leader so to speak, will have a little voice pop up that says, “really? this is what we are supposed to be doing?”

i have learned, thanks to years of this work and - again - the honor and privilege of being trusted by countless humans - is that i can use that inner question in my own mind as a flag of sorts.

the flag of “really?!” is a sign to me to slow it all waaaaaay down. to simplify everything down right into now and - you got it - one teeny tiny small thing.

as our own awareness takes in the parts of us that have been existing in unbearable pain, fear, grief - it is tempting to try to “hurry up and fix it.”

but isn’t that what we have been doing all this time?

the antithesis is this. cease the ever-loving fixing and just exist. come right here next to what is so and whisper, “i know we are scared and overwhelmed but also, this is enough. can you feel if i place one hand right here where you are most alive in my body? can you feel if i offer you this one warm breath? can you sense me saying, ‘hello, i am here. you do not need to change. i will stay.’”

you might not have these words. or you might utter them but feel numb. that is all totally fine.

one small thing. one prayer for peace. one gesture of care or tending. a simple breath is often enough. it is what my mentor used to refer to as “turning on the flashlight.” and he would tell me “you just turned the flashlight on. that is all there is to do. nothing needs to be fixed.”

you are not broken, you are simply finding your way back home. and the paradox is that you are already home.

what is one small thing that feels okay? do that. let it be enough. send a moment of rest to that deep deep engine that has been driving you for your whole life.

yes my friends? yes.

lovelove,
robin

a sample of a map…

don’t trust the mind, feel the response in the body…

xo,
robin

i sigh and then gather my determination to get up. i check the dry food bowl, there is food in there but i add more because maybe that will distract her from whatever this tirade is. it is the second time this week she has woken me with her cries but also this a new thing for her.

once the dry food bowl is topped off i decide that since i am already up it is a good idea to go to the front door and call for her baby sister who was shenanigans earlier before i went to bed and didn’t come in for the night when i called. now that i am fully awake, i might as well get her in also. once the kitten is in i decide pee and change my pad before trying to get myself back to sleep.

my alarm goes off in the morning to meet my daughter at the lab for her blood draw. i pop up and grab some fresh water and coffee and then wander to my office for a bit before i go. there, both cats are sacked out, sleeping quietly.

i sit down on my office bed and let myself feel how i feel. i am groggy from the cat wakings and my own restless sleep night. i take a few deeper breaths and then i slump a little as i realize that i forgot to do my “one small thing” while i was downstairs making my coffee.

a small voice of reprimand starts to lift in me, but as it does i look up and see my tara wall hanging and altar right there across from the foot of the bed.

hi, i say.

hi, she replies, with a wave of warmth. you can simply offer it up, she reminds me.

i close my eyes. one thing i love about my understanding of tara sadhana from Rachel Wooten’s book and teaching is the sort of “vibe” that as well as offering tara plants, and flowers, and incense, and such (as i do on my altar to her) - i can also offer her my suffering, my thinking, the knots in my life.

everything is made of energy, or everything is the same sacred nothingness, so all offerings are golden.

my old cat is curled into a extra fluffy donut at the foot of the bookshelf upon which the tara altar rests. my baby cat is curled up in a bed under the desk to my right. i have this hit of an idea to offer my refuge and bodhisattva to the felines today - in place of the lake and trees.

i bow my head to tara for her sage nudge.

i place my hands by my heart center and begin..

dear ones, don’t fret if you forget or forgot. let go of what it was supposed to be. offer up the knots of the mind, of the heart, of the body, to buddha tara (or any other source you wish) and simply begin where you are.

if you have not done your “one small thing” yet today - can it happen in some way right now?

om tare tu tare ture soha,
robin

here is a short guided practice that may help to begin to lead you into this kind of felt connection with your own embodied knowing.

let me know how it feels for you?

all love,
robin

i offered my refuge and bodhisattva to her, not the lake and not the trees.

also, i had already had a few sips of yesterday’s coffee AND taken a shower.

here is what i was pondering as i settled into my day: freedom.

simply put, your “one small thing” is here FOR you. if it isn’t feeling great choose another one. if you want a day off, swap out your ten day commitment for something juicier for today and see how that feels.

don’t analyze it, judge or evaluate it.

feel it.

this morning i really wanted a warm shower and clean skin and a fresh shave. so i decided my one small thing was going to be a devotional shower. i soaked in the sensations and relaxed into the pivot. i did not doing my prayers first, i did my shower first.

because i wanted to.

freedom to pivot. freedom to feel even the tiniest pull of desire. freedom to see what happens if i listen to that.

sometimes desire is resistance in hiding - but sometimes desire is divine knowing. is wisdom. it is the true oracle liberating herself from the box of should and stepping into her rightful place as my leader.

the only way to learn to feel the difference is to get playful with it. explore. and then stay present to what happens next.

if you can’t get it wrong, what is your '“one small thing” today?
do you desire a pivot?

sunset from the boat, just because it is how we summer.

if you have any questions, or what to share how your journey is going so far, leave me a note below!

lovelove,
robin

image of our card from the naked heart tarot by jillian wilde

my labradorite polished sphere…

(in good news, everything arises out of nothingness.)

as tension becomes the state in the body the mind creates reasons not to do “one small thing”: “too busy, after i ____, later today, too tired, i have to ____ first before i”…and so on

but what if those reasons are laying on top of something more simple, a sensation or series of sensations we can perceive in the body.

sometimes even “one small thing” sized intention, ritual or practice is a source of resistance. if you notice you “don’t want” to do your one small thing or you keep choosing to “get to it later.” it might be fun to get curious towards this resistance.

notice it is here.

hello, “maybe later.” hello, “not right now.” hello “i can’t now because…” hello, “i don’t want to.”

can we slow down for a moment to the pace of our felt sense?

where in or around the body do we feel this?

does it feel tight or loose? hot of cold? fast or slow? does it have a shape? a color? a texture?

can we sense or feel the quality of this without needing it to be different?

now, might we offer a breath? one simple breath. it doesn’t have to be particularly deep, or wide, or anything at all. just whatever breath you already have is perfect.

maybe there is a also simple intention.

i offer this breath as a curious presence to the sensation.

i offer this breath as little wave of love, or compassion.

i offer this breath as acknowledgement, validation, acceptance.

choose any of the above that resonates as true or even possible to your system.

maybe you can add some touch? any skin to skin touch will elicit a little oxytocin in the body system and that will begin to shift the body from tension towards the potential for pleasure.

bring your hand to the place on your body where the sensation showed herself to you.

or bring your hand to any place on your body you want! touch your face, touch your high heart, bring a hand to your low belly to center yourself.

breathe into the contact with the hand. one simple breath, maybe one more if that felt good - or even ok.

each choice is a micro-nutrient to your system. every time you choose one simple presencing act you are shifting something out of the unconscious pattern and into the potential for something else.

now, now that you have slowed to a felt sense, perceived something - anything! offered a breath or two, offered a touch or two, might you move into your “one small thing?”

this morning i lazed about in bed for a bit before i actually got up. by the time i got to the kitchen i was in a little tension and resistance with myself. even my refuge and bodhisattva felt a little unapproachable.

i slowed down. i felt the tension in my skull, in my upper chest, in my low low belly. i offered some curiosity. i offered my loving breath. i touched my own skin for a moment.

and off i went to the deck…

and how are you? how is your one small thing going friends?

all love,
robin

have any questions or want anything clarified? let me know below.

xo,
robin

Get more from robin sandomirsky in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

the live will take place on substack. i have never done a live here before so we will be learning together! let’s keep it low key and fun..

can’t make it live? no worries the recording will be here on substack waiting for you! feel free to message me with any questions you’d like answered on the live.

all love,
robin

i have this, “spiritual perfectionist” part of me that wants to life to work like this:

• hard thing happens

• i avoid hard feelings for a bit

• then i remember i know i what to do

• then i make space for moving the feelings

• then i do some practice to meet the deeper pain points

• then i let them know we are good because we have me

• then it is complete and i get back to life

the spiritual perfectionist was with me this morning pretty hard.

yesterday i had an emotional day. several hard things just kind of stacked into a pressure cooker type situation inside of me and my existence and then bam - a deep deep pain story hit the high note and i was puddle on my floor.

but, see above “then i remember i know what to do.”

yesterday i took a lot of brave steps that the old me couldn’t have taken (hello spiritual and emotional maturity ftw.) truthfully, i am really really quite proud of yesterday me.

then i made the mistake of going to sleep and waking up to a new day where my perfectionist wanted it to be “over” and my feeling body was like having feelings.

cue the constellation of parts that surround my deep pain. this morning was heavily populated by my inner harsh one. i see her, right now as a giant, muscular mountain lion. she is slightly injured - lets say she has a bad shoulder - and she has some very young baby cubs that are crying and hungry that she needs to feed and care for. some kind of threatening force has entered her space and she is wildly, aggressively, to the death, teeth bared, spitting and hissing to protect her young. she will die on this hill.

in this model/vision i am also the one who has created the lack of safety. i made a bad move, i misjudged something, i took my eye off the ball, i was dumb - and now danger is too close to the cubs. so i am being attacked by mama mountain lion for my bad move. for being bad. for being wrong.

now there is also a sad one who comes up and says, “oh shit. i thought we had moved through this but i was wrong. we are actually not ok and never will be because we live in this deep dark hole alone and that is actually a bigger truth than okayness. i don’t know why i thought i handled it and found a way out. that is not true.”

and then the spiritual perfectionist pipes up, “hey, be quiet over there! we don’t need to be sad i handled sad yesterday. we have me. we are fine. remember? why are you still feeling like this?!”

its a daunting constellation to contain in this one small, 48 year old, human, female, mom, wife, daughter, friend, mentor body. it is so so much. i want to crumble under the invitation being so intense. i want to be better than this or be done with this. i want to have it figured out or else i just want to fucking quit.

but there is another option.

this morning i got out of bed.

of course i went to sleep and of course i woke up and it is okay that this wild activated constellation of perspectives is on high alert inside of me. i don’t have to create a radical fix.

i pad barefoot across the hardwood floor of my kitchen and open the door to my deck. i grab my aminos and some fresh water. istep outside into the natural light.

i soften my gaze and take in the trees. i turn my head and see my beloved lake.

i don’t feel anything different yet. that is not the point. the point is to choose to move in a direction. to take a tiny, bearable, titrated step.

one small thing.

i bring my heads to my energetic heart.

i press my feet into the deck boards.

i take a deep breath through all the pores of my skin.

i slowly offer refuge prayers and bodhisattva vows to the lake, the the trees, to the grass, to all all all of my complex beautiful, fucked up, broken, amazing, awakened, thriving, lost, grieving, celebrating self.

i trust this tiny shift makes space for whatever comes next. it is not an escape hatch - it is a trail head. everything big is made up of a million tiny particles. every enormous shift in self is made up of strings of miniscule decisions.

day one - one small thing - begin with choosing refuge and bodhisattva on the deck.

how about you? what is alive in you today? how will you choose to join me and practice your own one small thing?

my personal refuge prayer & bodhisattva vow mini practice:

“but, what do you want?” he asks me for the second time. “you are describing something that is hard, what do you want to replace it?”

i pause and try to feel the answer to his question. but finding an answer to him does not actually feel like the path i want to take in my own exploration and i have learned to listen more deeply to my inner direction.

“i don’t want to talk about what i want instead,” i say slowly. “i just want how i really feel to take some space for a moment.”

that might read like a simple sentence but i’d be ableto talk for days on end about how hard it was for me to be able to calmly stake that claim. how it has taken me therapy, and spiritual practice, and a masters degree, and every kind of healing work under every rock on the planet, and 48 years to get to this moment right here.

the moment where i trust that how i really feel can take up space just because i feel it.

now, i am not talking about projection here. i am not talking about justification, or judgement, or needing to be right. those are my older ways.

this is not the old version of emotionality: i need to explain to you why i feel this so that you agree. i need to give facts about how i came to feel this way so you can get that i am right about the feeling. i need to convince you that my feeling is valid. and of course the common favorite, how i feel is your fault so you need to hear all about it and how wrong you are for making me feel it.

i was on with a client the other day and we were exploring some of her recent feelings, the textures of them and they way they appear to rise from a linear set of circumstances. she was giving me the background details on some recent life stories.

i listened intently and then i felt the pattern and the timing to bring it out for us to be with together, to get curious towards.

i said something like, “i hear all these details and to be honest i personally agree with most of them. i get why you feel how you do and i get that it’s frustrating that some of your family doesn’t.

but also, you don’t have to give me all the facts to prove to me that your perspective is right. here, in this space, we are practicing that you get to feel something just because you feel it.

that is all.

just because you have a current feeling you get to have that feeling take up space - in you and here with me. you don’t have to get me on board that your feeling is correct. we don’t even have to trace it to some current factual root in order to alleviate it. none of that.

you just get to feel how you feel because it is how you feel.

we practice making space for that in a body, and a system, that was not allowed that space and grace where it was shaped.”

i don’t have her sitting here with me to tell me how it landed with her. but i can tell you this simplification of a great big complicated path to my own truth felt profound in me.

i have actually ended up sharing similar wording with several clients over the handful of days since that call.

that was the essence of my request to my husband the other day, as i stepped out a stressful dynamic elsewhere and went to share with him.

i don’t need to progress from this spot to something better. i just need to feel the container within which my feeling state is allowed to take up space, just because she is alive, is moving, is active and vibrant and as real as anything else might be.

not the story, not the facts, not the proving, not the being right or wrong. just the actual felt sense inside of me. the tightness, the frictions, the dark murkiness, she sharp vibrating trill in my high heart. even the numbness. it is all allowed to be because it is.

“if you aren’t the space for this right now,” i continued on to him, “that is ok. i can take it to someone else or hold it with myself. but the space to feel is what i am needing.”

and i meant that. my request for him to witness how i feel is a request. he is actually not required to make space for my feelings if the timing is wrong, or he has his own energies taking up too much space right then.

here is my experience, it takes practice to feel. it takes even more practice to feel with curiosity, with a slowness that matches “the peace of our hearts” (as marion woodman said.)

it takes patience and a recommittment again and again to learn to feel with nuance towards what is a repeating pattern from the past and what is a new burst of aliveness in the now.

it take practice, and surrender, and a willingness to fail to explore following the aliveness and the now and gently tending to the repeating patterns from the past.

it takes trust to get vulnerable towards it all, to be willing to be wrong, to make a mistake, to not have an answer right away.

some of this making space for what i feel just because i feel it i learned through the experience of someone more experienced than me being the one who said, “yes, take the space. describe the feeling. i am here to receive without judgement.”

some i have learned through my spiritual practice, my writing, my own journey to embodiment.

20 years ago or so, i was sitting with my original teacher and mentor. i had a new to me client who was bringing topics to me that i wasn’t sure if i was equipped to meet. as i shared my fears about what i “know and don’t know” with my mentor he leaned back in his chair.

“if you think it is “you knowing” that is doing this work,” he said with a light chuckle and slow smile, “then we have bigger problems. what you do is get out of the way and let spirit move through you.that is why it is called the hollow bone.”

god was it humbling to let go of facts and begin to trust something else. something with a grander scope and vision. something i could just “feel” when it was happening.

and funny how much i believed it was how to show up to my work before i got that it was more importantly how i show up to my entire life.

here i am, letting go of knowing how to get it right and trusting the felt sense to write.

xo, robin

1. spend abundantly on your own well being and self-exploration. i promise this move will change you and also spill out onto your loved ones and into your communities because a human who is nourished is inherently inspired to be of right action and balanced service.

2. right now you can skip the abundant spending and sink into receiving. i am inviting you to take advantage of my obsession with exploring what works and join “one small thing.” a free ten day invitation (hosted by the obsessed one herself) to help us intentionally make one small commitment in our life and see what unfolds.

my one small thing lately has been refuge prayer and bodhisattva prayers on my deck in the morning. i offer them up to the lake and the birch trees specifically.

the thing i have found about transformation is that it happens in the minutae - in the nuance. we tend to tell ourselves that is going to take a giant dramatic rearranging of our entire life or circumstances to feel differently, but that is not true, it is a just a stall tactic created by the mind and the ego.

real shifts in the experience of our actual life tend to arise from repeating a tiny shift over and over again. so, how about we see how that feels for a few days together?!

starting august 1 and running through the 10th join me here on substack for a short video and/or post to encourage you to shift your one small thing at least once a day.

one small thing will run sort of like a pot luck. bring your own dish if there is something you love. if not i’ll share mine with you.

what i mean is if there is a small shift you know you want to commit to, bring that. if you feel like, “oh my god i cannot do this because i have no idea where to start” then don’t fret - i’ll have a small selection of favorites to offer you.

want to play along? just make sure you subscribe here to the FREE substack and you’ll get all the info.

sending love and gratitude that you’re reading along,

robin

xo, robin

you will never be enough little one.
you will never feel entirely safe, your job - of stabilizing everything and everyone around you will never be complete.
you will never be good enough to earn consistent and heart-felt praise.
you will never feel understood.
you will never feel like they know who you are and want to care for you.

you will not soften into bed at the end of a day like a kitten who has played hard and slurped up her food. your belly will not be full and soft while your eyes drift closed.

none is this is your fault - or even your creation. you were born into a world that met you with dark corners and hard edges. with rules that didn’t feel good in your body. with unspoken responsibilities beyond your means or control.

you were shaped by a space that was uncomfortable. you pressed your body into the hard wall by your bed, trying to find something to orient to before you could sleep.

you kept reaching out, and tracking out, and vigilance out out outward. something out there must be able to be tended or settled or fixed in a way that would finally, finally, finally give you some relief.

but there is no relief in that story sweet one. just ever present low grade stress worry fears - like static playing on the radio one room over.

here, look here. meet my gaze. yes we have the same eyes, sweet one. yes we do. mine are here for you. i will not lie to you or pretend. i will not deny your back room static and the way it has always always always tugged at you and made even the most beautiful moments heavier - and made so many nights be falling asleep exhausted and empty.

i know your story and i know your lands. i know the trails you circle and the maps of tension that route through you. i know you.

here, i am here. again and again. i will never demand anything of you. i do not require you to change, or fix yourself, or do anything at all really.

because you do not need to start you also do not need to stop.

you get to just be you.

maybe you can begin for a moment even to feel how your own breath moves in you. maybe you can feel me, here with you, shining my backline towards you like a heat source, like a sun. maybe, and maybe not. i have no demands only offers.

if you turn away i will stay. if you lean in closer i will stay. if you feel afraid i will hold you. if you want to pace i will be right here when you are ready for a break. if you want to track him, or her, or them, i will let you lean back against me while you track.

feel my arms around you when you want arms around you. feel my hand holding yours when you want to hold a hand. yes these arms are your arms. yes these hands are your hands.

you might find yourself sitting on the deck, in the darkness, with the music playing. you might look around you and see this small collection of humans, let’s call them friends, and feel that static pull of worry.

did i do enough?
did i contribute?
am i ok?
does anyone know who i am?
does anyone even like me?

because that is how it feels where you were born. you are never going to be enough. and yet, yet, the slippery thing is that i am here now too.

you do not need to be enough because you are.
just your very aliveness is the measure.

see how the trees stand tall, feeling the lake and the air and the stars? that is their very aliveness sweet one. isn’t it a treasure? even as they get old, get sick, don’t provide enough shade - or make too much shade… none of it matters to the aliveness of it all.

stay worried, and pace those sweet loops of stress all over your little soul and still i will be here with us. i will saturate the cells of the now. i will remind you again and again that there is no where else to be,
there is no one else to be.
there is just you.
here.
alive.

which is entirely the enoughness of never enough.

my voice reading this: