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The Pull of Rocks

My youngest son collects rocks. And while he’s not particularly discriminating about which ones he takes, he tracks them mentally…we know because we’ve tried to “return” them to the earth only for Sam to notice that his “favorite” rock is missing. The other day, I paid him in Robux to go through one very, very heavy bin of them and re-earth at least half. I was surprised—and a little sad—that he obliged. It seems that his fascination with Robux is outpacing his obsession with quartz.

As he sorted through the bin, he gave me a few rocks from his collection for safekeeping by my desk, including one that he had painted. It’s a dark gray rock, completely unremarkable aside from some hasty splashes of color, but I found myself holding it while I worked the other day. It’s very soft—not polished, but smooth, and surprisingly heavy for something that fits in the palm. Rocks want to be nestled against the ground—their gravitational pull is strong, and I found myself letting my arm hang as I held it.

While I’ve never been much of a crystal person, I started buying them during trips to Sedona in recent years, letting myself wander around Crystal Magic until drawn to something specific. And every time I’m there, I pick up a new talisman from Phoenix Two Moons, who makes beautiful cuffs, necklaces, and amulets (see above). These choices have largely been at least partially aesthetic, but recently I’m convinced I’ve been able to discern different energetic qualities. And yes, while I intellectually know how critical crystals are for so much of our technology, it took a long time for me to accept that they can telegraph both power and information. And intention. I’ve come to believe that they are an encapsulation of spirit + matter—a very specific form of energy confined to the physical.

As Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee writes in Light of Oneness: “The substance of spiritual transformation is in the very cellular structure of life. It has to do with the way energy forms into matter. The transformation of energy into matter is one of the mysteries of creation. It is a continual process in which the invisible comes into form. Particle physics has shown us that the world of matter is not as it appears, but is a constantly changing dance of probability. Energy and matter are different images of the same reality. But there is a dynamic of transition when energy takes on form. This is part of the wonder of revelation, the instant in which His invisible presence becomes visible.”

As the name of the store in Sedona suggests, crystals are magic. I think all rocks are, really, even though I don’t necessarily want to store bins of them in our quite small house.

In Kitchen Table Wisdom, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen offers:

For more than twenty years I have offered a very simple yet powerful ritual to people before their radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery. I suggest they met together with some of their closest friends and family the day before their procedure. It does not matter how large or small the group is, but it is important that it be made up of those who are connected to them through a bond of the heart.

Before this meeting I suggest they find an ordinary stone, a piece of the earth, big enough to fit in the palm of their hand, and bring it to the meeting with them. The ritual begins by having everyone sit in a circle. In any order they wish to speak, each person tells the story of a time when they too faced a crisis. People may talk about the death of important persons, the loss of jobs or of relationships, or even about their own illnesses. The person who is speaking holds the stone the patient has brought. When they finish telling their story of survival, they take a moment to reflect on the personal quality that they feel helped them come through that difficult time. People will say such things as “What brought me through was determination,” “What brought me through was faith,” “What brought me through was humor.” When they have named the quality of their strength, they speak directly to the person preparing for surgery or treatment, saying, “I put determination into this stone for you,” or, “I put faith into this stone for you.”

Before we return Sam’s rocks to nature, we will fill them with intentions first.

The Last Go First

I listened to Brené Brown interview Father Richard Rohr on her podcast, Unlocking Us, while I made dinner on Christmas Eve. It was a wide-ranging conversation about faith, suffering, the perils of organized religion, and how Christianity—as frequently practiced today—doesn’t have much to do with what Jesus supposedly said. I found their chat deeply resonant, particularly as it dovetails with my own patchworked faith—a faith I’ve come to on my own. (I went to Jewish services as a child, and an Episcopalian boarding school with near daily chapel attendance but have never belonged to a religion.)

But clearly—as the focus of my own book attests—I’m very interested in how religion becomes culture. And more specifically, the way religion informs our psyches and subconscious beliefs.

But I digress. As I listened to Brené and Father Rohr chat, I had to laugh as she explained to him that the “Parable of the Vineyard” grates her Enneagram Type 1 nerves. (Father Rohr is also a Type 1, as am I—if you’re Enneagram curious, I highly recommend this $12 RHETI test from the Enneagram Institute.) The “Parable of the Vineyard” (Matthew 20:1-16) is a story that Jesus tells about how it is in the Kingdom of God. In brief, the owner of a vineyard hires some men to work in his vineyard, agreeing to pay them a denarius. He hires another group of men looking for work a few hours later, agreeing to pay them a fair wage. He proceeds to hire more people throughout the day, offering them the same fair wage, including a group an hour before the workday ends. Then he instructs his foreman to pay each of them—“beginning from the last, up to the first”—a denarius. When the men who have worked all day grouse at the inequity of being paid the same as the late joiners, he responds, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?”

This story chafes our very idea of capitalism, where our hard work is appropriately measured and rewarded. The way Jesus tells it just doesn’t seem fair. In many ways, this story underlines how our very human ideas of fairness and justice are flawed and inadequate (after all, when does justice ever feel entirely complete?), but there’s a deeper message here. And to be honest, I didn’t know what it was.

I had to then LOL while reading Sufi mystic and teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s Working With Oneness yesterday. I have to love the synchronicities of the divine—particularly when they’re this hard to ignore. Though LVL is Sufi—the mystical arm of Islam—in this particular passage, he writes about Jesus, specifically the “Parable of the Vineyard.”

Each of those who works in the vineyard of the Lord is given a penny, a symbol of his own wholeness. This is the gift for spiritual work: we are given ourselves. It is given to all those who participate. Those who have worked since dawn and “borne the head and burden of the day” may complain, but they do not understand that to participate in the work of the whole for even an instant is to be given access to one’s own wholeness. This is the experience that is now being offered to all who are drawn into the sphere of spiritual life. As a culture we are so identified with patterns of hierarchy and their levels of exclusion that we overlook the primary truth that the dimension of oneness is all-inclusive. The moment we turn our focus away from our own ego-self and participate in the work of the whole, we step into the circle of our own wholeness. There are no levels of initiation: one is either in or out. And someone who has just begun on the path is given as much access as someone who has been engaged in spiritual practice for many years. (p. 8) [Emphasis mine.]

LVL goes on to explain the elusive nature of wholeness: “Wholeness can be difficult to recognize because it is complete; it does not function through comparison, through the opposite of light and dark. It is difficult to recognize wholeness through our ordinary modes of perception, by defining it against what it is not.”

In many ways, Working With Oneness is about our fixation on materialism and its attendant capitalism—and how this keeps us mired in a certain type of thinking, one where our value and very worthiness is meted out by effort, attendance, and hard work. LVL, like Jesus, flips this on its head: The last go first. It is not about being perfect in our diligence, it’s about stepping into a different reality where we are all worthy, all equal, all deserving based on who we are, not on what we do. It’s that simple. There is no hierarchy in wholeness. It’s just complete.

There’s much more to come from me on the idea of wholeness in the coming weeks. I am convinced—not just because of this fit of synchronicity—that it is the foundational layer of what this human experiment is all about.

Holding it Against Your Bones

Yesterday, I held my long-cherished cat Fletch as she died. She was a big girl, like a gravity blanket, and she felt warm and soft and present for many minutes after she left.

“Is she really dead? She doesn’t feel dead,” I kept asking my husband.

“Yes, honey, she’s gone.”

While Fletch and I had been close since the afternoon we adopted her 13 years ago, we became inseparable during COVID. She was always draped across my lap, pinning me down when I recorded podcasts or worked on the couch. It was a type of codependency, surely; I hated to leave her, and after her sister Dot died in February, I tried not to: Fletch was distraught after Dot passed from cancer, constantly meowing and searching, unless I was in the room. I think her sister’s death broke her heart.

I noticed Fletch’s labored breathing on Monday morning and immediately took her to the emergency vet; while the prognosis for heart failure is actually pretty decent for cats, she was diagnosed with HCM when she was four. Nine years ago, she was only supposed to live for a few more months. I knew, despite flutterings of hope, that it was probably time. While I waited for the vet to give me an update, a friend called to tell me his cherished dog had passed; another friend texted that his first love had suffered a stroke and died. These were smoke signals to me to prepare for the worst—I knew death was in the air.

It’s funny, because a week ago, my husband went to Petco for litter and started texting me pictures of two sisters up for adoption there via a local shelter. Months ago, after Dot died, Rob had warned me that after Fletch, we were going on a pet hiatus—no more cats—and so I took his enthusiasm as an opportunity. Four hours later, we had two kittens. Fletch watched them from my lap, largely unfussed though not enthused. When her breathing turned labored I worried the presence of the kittens had offended her into dying by protest; now, I see that she was simply passing the baton, ensuring she could go without leaving us abandoned and alone. I think she set Rob up for his fateful trip to Petco.

I am very sad. I recognize I’m writing about a cat, when many are staring down the holidays without their parents, their siblings, their lovers, their friends, or most inconceivably of all, their children. The holidays are hard; or more precisely, they’re life: Joyous with jagged edges, some days darker than others.

My friend Jennifer sent me this poem yesterday:

In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

She followed it with this message: “I wish I had a magic wand that kept everything you love right in your lap forever.”

I wish she had a magic wand, too, and I wish I had a magic wand for all of you. But as Mary Oliver reminds us, death is the counter-polarity of life. Death gives context and contour to love—we would never give up the latter out of fear of the former. I’m missing several beings this holiday season. I’m lonely for their company and yet so grateful to have loved them, and held them to my bones, for as long as I did.

Welcoming the Light

Growing up in Montana—miles from potential playdates, beyond the ambition of the cable company—books were my closest friends. They offered insight into worlds far away, shocked my imagination, and inspired my mind. Plus, my parents, who were not indulgent with toys, were very generous with books: I could order from the Scholastic catalog when it circulated at school, so long as I had read everything they bought me. I benefited greatly from this largesse, teaching myself to read quickly, voraciously, and, if I’m honest, often beyond my comprehension. (I think I was 10 or 11 when I read Clan of the Cave Bear. Ahem.)

I idolized authors and writers and ultimately majored in English, so I could write about writers. Interestingly, I felt too ashamed or timid to claim to be a writer. After graduating from college, I became an editor instead, writing short pieces here and there, but otherwise helping others share their stories and their expertise. In my mid-20’s I started ghostwriting for extra cash. This became my contact high with publishing: I’ve co-written 12 books over the years in almost as many categories. Several years ago, when she was papering one of these deals, my agent asked me when I would write my own book. It had honestly never occurred to me: I don’t say this with false modesty, either. I didn’t think of myself as a writer, as being interesting, or worthy enough…on my own.

“I don’t think I have a book in me,” I demurred. 

“I beg to differ,” she replied.

She was not relentless, but she was consistent. Every six months or so, at the tail-end of conversations about other projects, just a question: “Have you started your proposal yet?” That yet, a foregone conclusion, a statement of faith. I would write a book. I let that “yet” lodge in my mind like a piton and started to contemplate what core question I’d want to spend years of my life attempting to answer.

As soon as I opened my mind to the possibility, the question arrived—but, in many ways, allowing the question was the easiest part. Emailing my agent: “Okay, I’m ready,” was much harder. While examining the Seven Deadly Sins—the organizing principle for my upcoming book, On Our Best Behavior, I was called to stare down one of the sins that’s been a personal thorn in my side: Pride. For a long time, I’ve been scared to be seen, believing that calling attention to myself is unseemly, at best. At worst, it’s dangerous.

I have been doing a lot of work on this particular sin for the past few years. While I can’t profess to be over it completely, a recent comment from my friend Jakki Leonardini, an energy medicine practitioner, offered a helpful reframe. I told her recently that I was feeling anxiety about announcing my book and drawing additional eyes to my work—that increased exposure felt scary and unsafe. With a certain simplicity, she said that I had it backward, a common mistake. She offered that while we think about attention as a spotlight, singling us out on a stage, putting our work out into the world is the opposite: It acts as a lighthouse and becomes an opportunity for others to gather and share their light as well. “The more light you allow, the more you attract the light of others, and the safer you are,” she added. “It’s much safer than staying in the shadows.”

I’ve been noodling this over in my mind for weeks, how much sense this makes and yet how counter it runs to the programming that most of us have heard all our lives. And I’ve been wondering what the world might look like if everyone stopped dimming their own light.

Underselling What’s Easy

A few weeks ago, I wrote about transitioning into working for myself, and a conversation I had this week reminded me that I left out one of the most important parts, a nugget of wisdom passed onto me by a mentor.

We undervalue what comes easiest to us. We undervalue our gifts.

In a world that values effort, elbow grease, and time spent, we miss the magic of where exercise fluidity and grace. We think our magical powers—whether it’s ideation, cohering a group around a vision, flying through Excel or Adobe—are no big deal. And so we give them away. Or under-charge for what we do best.

I think this is a bigger point than market rates: It speaks to our willingness to focus on our weaknesses and dismiss our strengths. To write them off as worth nothing. In fact, I'd argue that if you want to understand your most-developed and exceptional talent, make a list of what you would offer for free.

There are several books I love about work, one of which is Do Nothing, by Celeste Headlee. It’s a treatise on our productivity-oriented culture and propensity to overwork. She writes:

I think we have engineered our way further and further from what we do best and what makes us most human. In doing so, we’ve made our lives harder and infinitely sadder. “I can hunch over my computer screen for half the day churning frenetically through emails without getting much of substance done,” writes Dan Pallotta in the Harvard Business Review, “All the while telling myself what I loser I am, and leave at 6pm feeling like I put in a full day. And given my level of mental fatigue, I did!”

Many of us are exhausting ourselves this way, working very hard at things that accomplish very little of substance but feel necessary. To a large extent, the solution to this problem is to correct our misperceptions. In the way that those with body dysmorphia see something other than the truth in the mirror, the feeling of being productive is not the same as actually producing something.

Headlee’s point is a good and salient one: By making our busy-ness the thing, we abandon ease. There are some things at which we are each uniquely gifted; others, where we’re not. May we come to understand our talents, prioritize them in our work, and shepherd those of each other, too.

On Our Best Behavior

I’ve interviewed hundreds of people over the years—and learned something resonant from each of them—yet it was a small aside from psychotherapist and author Lori Gottlieb that lodged like a piton, deep in my mind, and became the spark that ignited my book—a book that I'm thrilled to formally announce today: On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good is now available for pre-order, coming May ‘23.

The aside from Lori was about envy, and how she advises her patients to pay attention to what it signifies: As she explained to me, envy tells you what you want.

In the days and weeks after our conversation, I couldn’t get this idea out of my head. Lori’s framework is not at all how I had internalized envy; I’d always thought envy was shameful and gross–something to be denied rather than mined. But Lori prompted me to dig a little deeper. I started to search within myself for its contrails, wondering what signals envy had sent to me that I had missed: What wants had I sublimated and repressed? And I also started studying the wider culture, wondering if undiagnosed envy wasn’t at the root of why women get so worked up about the behaviors, decisions, and achievements of other women, and why it’s so hard for us to get on-side with each other. Is all of that catfighting just…envy, coming out sideways?

I felt like I was onto something, but not the whole thing. I started pulling on the thread and a web emerged—a particularly sticky one. A web that is so striking in its obviousness that I believe it’s largely escaped our detection: It’s not just Envy that we find so shameful. It’s also Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Anger, and Pride. They make up the Seven Deadly Sins. First codified in the Egyptian desert in the 4th century, these edicts live on inside of us today, regardless of our religious upbringing or inclinations. I believe that we police these precepts in ourselves and in each other, that they’ve become a checklist, or punch card for what it means to be a “good” woman. By subconsciously abiding by them, women end up equating self-denial with virtuousness. But denying ourselves in an effort to be "good" means we participate in our own oppression. On Our Best Behavior traces the way each of these sins has taken root in our lives—and what we can do to break free.

Writing this book changed me. It wasn’t a purely mental exercise, it therapized my soul. I had to interrogate every part of my life to understand the tenterhooks of these sins and how they corralled my existence. I had to go deep into our cultural history to find their footprints and the way they’ve burrowed into our consciousness. It’s been a ride, and I can’t wait to share it with you. And talk about it with you. While very few people have read this book—a strange experience, to be alone with something for so long—early feedback suggests that the frame alone is enough to send women deep inside of themselves. I cannot wait until it’s in your hands.

The Flip Side of Vulnerability

Several weeks ago, I made a video about a word I mis-use: penultimate. Who else thought penultimate meant “the ultimate ultimate” and not second-to-last? In the TikTok comments, someone told me to explore the word vulnerable. And so I did. And the results stunned me.

The etymology of vulnerable is vulnerare (Latin): to wound, hurt, injure, maim. It wasn’t until the 16th-century that the definition of vulnerable flipped, and it came to represent the opposite, a susceptibility to being wounded, hurt, injured. Though, it wasn’t popular: Its usage has hockey-sticked in recent years as the word has become a significant touchstone in our collective vocabulary. We’re all instructed to be vulnerable, rather than armored—to show our soft bellies to the world. On the whole, I think this is good advice, but there’s something about this flipped etymology that made me realize that vulnerability cannot be one-sided. When it’s one-sided, it’s more akin to either martyrdom or an attack, rather than…a duel.

Brené Brown, who is largely responsible for the mainstreaming of vulnerability, often refers to Teddy Roosevelt’s famous “The Man in the Arena” speech, which goes like this:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

It’s not the critic that counts. This is hard advice to take, especially when so many of us now put ourselves out there on the daily for others to adjudicate our worth.

A few weeks ago, an anonymous user posted a podcast review cushioned with that death blow, “I love Elise BUT…” This listener, who had apparently read all of my other reviews until they found one in May that aligned with their opinion, described my interview style as “cringe-worthy,” “borderline embarrassing,” and “disrespectful.” They believe I talk too much. On my own conversational interview show. “I love Elise but I hope she is reading her reviews and can start correcting this.”

Well, anonymous listener, yes, I do read reviews. And I wish I could say that the positive ones land with as much force as those that are less so.

I brought this review up to my therapist and he looked at me with alarm: “You can’t spend your energy on this. You can’t afford to. We need to work on some ways for you to be self-protective…specifically, I don’t think you should read reviews.”

I countered that I felt like I should turn and face feedback: Because isn’t that what vulnerability is about?

“No,” he replied, “anonymous feedback does not get your energy. And it does not deserve your vulnerability because it is not vulnerable.” He explained that vulnerability requires mutual risk: Offering feedback, even criticism, can be vulnerable, but only if it’s owned.

“Is that why it feels so different when someone emails me with feedback, even if the feedback is hard?” (Yes, I read all emails, too, and many have offered valuable insight that I’ve tried to integrate.)

“Yes. Because you can write them back. There’s a relationship there. They’ve exposed themselves to you in some way. That requires vulnerability.”

Rationally, I don’t care about the review, nor do I feel particularly defensive: Having co-hosted a very popular show for many years, a lot of feedback crossed my transom, most of it conflicting: I talk too much, or I should talk and share more. I do too much reading and prep, or I’m the only host who preps, or I’m not prepared enough. I have the best, most soothing voice, or I sound like nails on a chalkboard and I should see an ENT about my vocal fry. And on, and on, and on. I also know that if I take in negative feedback, I must also take in positive feedback.

But, I still thought about this conversation with my therapist for weeks, particularly as it coincided with the revelation about the etymology of vulnerability. It unlocked something for me, particularly regarding self-protection: I have become so entranced by vulnerability as the end-all-be-all that I started to believe it was anathema to armoring myself from anything at all. I think many of us do this, feeling obligated to walk through life with our necks bared. But as I learned that day in therapy, vulnerability is more complex. It’s too high stakes.

I now start every morning with a short prayer asking that I be shielded from anything I’m not meant to see. I accept protection. Because my therapist was right: I don’t have the energy to spare. And neither do any of you.

Finishing Things

This weekend, I posted a story on Instagram of a photo of a sink full of dishes—organized, with utensils in a cup of water, but undone. It was relatively unremarkable but typical of how it goes in my house. My wonderful husband Rob does some of the dishes, and then he simply moves others around, leaving them “to soak.” Or, he’ll do everything except for one dish.

I heard back from hundreds of people, some claiming to be Rob in the scenario, others who live with a Rob. And the question, of course, is…why? That’s mine at least: If you’re going to start the process, why not finish it? Isn’t it just a modicum more effort to do that final pan, or put those “soaking” forks in the dishwasher? For those who claimed to be offenders in this scenario they offered no excuse, just that they can’t finish the dishes.

Barry Michels is a therapist here in Los Angeles who works with many high-powered agents, screenwriters, and actors. Barry, a former lawyer, has been mentored by the legendary Phil Stutz, the subject of the new documentary on Netflix called Stutz, made by one of Stutz’s patients, Jonah Hill. As I watched the documentary and walked past the sink full of dishes several times on my way to get snacks, I was reminded of a workshop I went to many years ago with Barry. Most of the people in the audience that day were creatives—both thwarted and successful—and Barry asked the crowd how many of us…couldn’t finish washing the dishes. Hands shot up. This is apparently a real thing. In his experience, it is closely tied to not only avoidance, but a refusal to finish anything. There are many things more important to finish than pots and pans after all, like completing a book, a screenplay, a business plan. But in his experience, leaving dishes behind is part of a larger pattern that has significant implications for someone’s creative life.

Phil and Barry wrote a book called The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower—and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion, which is an articulation of Phil’s genius point: Tools and practices that connect you to a higher, universal force, which allow you to address life the moment you feel stuck. While Phil is officially an M.D., he didn’t want to practice traditional psychiatry or psychotherapy. He didn’t want to leave his patients without the ability to make change immediately—and to do this, he needed to give direction, to get involved in a way that’s not standard for patient/doctor relationships. Thus, the tools.

When it comes to an unwillingness to finish things, Barry connected it to a fear of being judged, criticized, or rejected: It’s much easier to practice avoidance than to put yourself out there and risk failure. And the tool that Phil and Barry offer for this particular tendency is called REVERSAL OF DESIRE, where you move into life inviting pain. It is through the practice of pain—effectively doing things that you don’t want to do and experiencing the results—that you build momentum and put yourself in motion. Most importantly, Reversal of Desire takes us out of the comfort zone, where we practice complacency and watch our lives zip by without exercising our full potential and power. In their experience, the beauty of practicing this tool is not only a greater experience of creative unburdening, but the universe that can get behind you. Suddenly doors open and opportunities materialize—not always according to our preferences and stated goals, but often in magical ways.

According to Barry and Phil, when you think about something you don’t want to do—a potentially painful phone call, pages that need to be written—you tap into your desire to meet the pain. As they explain, “Your experience of pain changes relative to how we react to it. When you move toward it, pain shrinks. When you move away from it, pain grows. If you flee from it, pain pursues you like a monster in a dream. If you confront the monster, it goes away.” As you practice Reversal of Desire you will find the energy pulls you forward through the action. (There’s a whole chapter on Reversal of Desire, along with four other tools in their book.)

In the documentary, Phil offers another tool, which he calls STRING OF PEARLS. The idea is quite simple: “I’m the one who puts the next pearl on the string,” he explains, and each pearl has the same value. You’re not focusing on the effort, the reward, or “size” of the pearl, just on the simple act of taking action and stringing it together. In Phil’s opinion, this is the cycle of life, something we do over and over. It is what powers a fulfilling, productive, and creative life. As he explains to Jonah in the documentary, “True confidence is sitting in uncertainty and moving forward. The winner is the one who is willing to take the risk to work the cycle. All I have to worry about is forward motion and putting the next pearl on the string.”

Small, incremental, habit-building action is the secret according to Phil: After all, it doesn’t matter how much money, power, or prestige you’ve accumulated in your life, there is no exoneration from pain, uncertainty, and hard work. And the only antidote to this reality is putting pearls on the string—or in our house, and apparently houses all over the world, doing the dishes until they’re done.

(BTW, wouldn’t it be fun to be married to me?) Thanks, as always, for reading. Below is the diagram of REVERSAL OF DESIRE from The Tools.

Transitions

To be responsible is to take your life in your hands and own your own power and purpose. It is to say “yes” to what you truly are, even though you do not yet know who you are. This is why it is a gamble that many avoid, preferring to instead live the safety of what is known and defined. To live oneself is always to step into the unknown: this is the adventure and the challenge. In the words of the Sufi master Abû Sa’îd: “What you have in your mind, forget it. What you have in your hand, give it. And that which is to be your fate, face it.” —Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, The Signs of God

I’ve received many requests for time lately, a call for office hours of sorts, primarily revolving around the same question: How did I transition from a full-time job to working for myself? What’s my best advice for those who want to do something else? Particularly when the “something else” is in a creative field like writing.

I was speaking to a friend-of-a-friend recently about this very concept, and I realized my advice is pretty simple: You just have to do it. Small, iterative steps toward what you hope to achieve. Small, iterative steps down as many paths as possible. In my experience, there are no shortcuts. Or, if there are, I can’t offer much advice because I apparently missed them!

So first, those small steps: You have to do the thing—writing, podcasting, making content for social—even when very few people will see it, read it, or listen to it. You have to start where you are. Email lists are built one subscriber at a time. There’s no known way to market podcasts outside of guesting on other shows and hoping you can generate some word-of-mouth virality. I started Pulling the Thread at close to zero and have slowly grown from there. Instagram is less transparent to me, but I can tell you that I had a few thousand followers in 2019, to the point where I was told I didn’t look like a real person with a real job. I rarely-to-never posted. I didn’t get fully organized on Instagram until this year. Honestly, I enjoy making Instagram videos now, but it took me a long time to face my ambivalence (I wrote about “influencers,” “followers,” et al in this post).

Having worked in media for a long, long time, I promise there are no audience development hacks (again, if there are, I don’t know them). The only way to build something meaningfully big is to build something meaningful—and then put in the time. I wish I had better news! I can say the intimacy of connection is powerful regardless of the size of your audience: To be read or listened to by anyone is an honor. I believe we’ve all been deluded by scale plays that more is better, that what you’re doing doesn’t have value if it doesn’t reach millions: But chasing audience is a race to the bottom. One look at our pockmarked media landscape, entirely predicated on getting as many eyeballs as possible, is a testament to that: Make things that matter, otherwise there’s no point. And worse: there’s the potential to cause harm.

This is where it gets tricky, because when it comes to making money, audience and its size does matter. Particularly if you want to monetize directly: When it comes to something like writing, you can charge for subscriptions (Substack, Patreon), there are brand partnerships (selling ad integrations on your mailing list, or Instagram), you can sell courses and workshops, or you can sell the thing directly (book deals, either via publishers or publishing yourself, writing for magazines and sites that still pay, etc.). You can also write for trade (copywriting).

I make money through writing books—my own, as well as for other people. I've been ghostwriting and co-writing since I was 25. It has been essential extra income throughout my career. But even now, 12 books later, it is not enough. I supplement through consulting and board work as well. Some writers can wing it on writing alone, but it’s a hard craft—doing it well is one thing, but then getting people to pay you for it (both in advance and for the actual, finished book) is another thing entirely. And don’t forget that advances from publishers are amortized over years—typically you get ¼ on signing, ¼ on manuscript acceptance (which can take years), ¼ on publication of hardcover, ¼ on publication of paperback. Ghost-writing is a slightly different pay-out, but you have even less control over delivery. If you earn out your advance, you can make money on the back end, though this is hard to do, and even harder to plan. So my best advice for anyone who wants to make it as a writer or other creative is to walk many paths at once: It’s not romantic, but it is a way to quell anxiety if you need to make a living. It’s too much pressure (in my humble opinion) to rely on a single stream of potentially inconsistent income.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t do it: I heartily recommend following your heart, particularly if you’ve built a career helping other people follow theirs. I also believe that you can only know what you want to do with your life through a process of elimination—most of us didn’t pick exactly right out of school. And even if we landed in the relative ballpark—I started as a magazine editor and have not deviated far—chances are that we’ve iterated our way to some new version. Recently I was with some college students who reminded me that the jobs they’ll have when they’re 25 or 30 might not yet even exist. So that’s my other best advice: Assume you won’t be doing what you’re doing now in 7 years. Stay nimble, stay open. Inch your way toward something that might feel better bit by bit—make it a tangential move rather than a complete reinvention. (Or do that, too, I’m just not that brave—my best friend bailed on a career as a bankruptcy lawyer to start a makeup line called Reina Rebelde, so ask her for advice on complete career turnarounds!)

Most people ask me for advice about writing and podcasting, though, so I can also offer this: The barrier to entry on both of these is very, very low. (Unlike, say, starting a makeup line.) Anyone can launch a podcast and achieve reasonable sound quality. Anyone can buy a domain and throw up a website with a blog, or kick-off a Substack email. If that appeals to your heart, you have no excuse not to try. Do what you can to take the pressure off, and give yourself time to figure out what you’re all about. Don’t try to monetize out of the gate. Don’t assume you’ll have a massive audience in months, and then judge yourself when it doesn’t emerge. To quote my friend Jen: Start small—and then smaller still. And to go to Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s words at the top of this email, “To live oneself is always to step into the unknown: this is the adventure and the challenge.” Go for it. One step at a time.

Seeing Things as We Are

“We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.” —Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani

I’m writing this newsletter as election results tick in via my computer. I am already disappointed, as I was hoping for a firm and wholesale rejection of a party that seems extreme and is intent on delimiting rights. I wanted to be validated that we all want the same things, and can agree on how to get there. And yet, no. It’s always more complex. And so I’m sitting here, swallowing my anxiety, wondering how it will fully shake out in the coming hours and days. Simultaneously, I recognize that we’ll have to dust ourselves off and keep going.

A few weeks ago, I went to a retreat with Carissa Schumacher, where she advised us that what powers us is what we power: In short, if we are powered by fear or anxiety that’s the energy we feed in the world. It is difficult work not to submit to these powers: For one, they are highly contagious and in many ways, self-feeding and self-fulfilling. She advised us to recognize when they are emergent in our bodies and then, quite simply, to turn them off. Next, we must actively choose to be powered by love, trust, innocence, joy, balance, acceptance, and compassion instead. Like muscles, these must be exercised. One by one. Week by week. I spent the past two weeks working with compassion. And this week, appropriately enough, I’m working with acceptance.

Here’s what I will say: This is hard. On Halloween (Compassion), I yelled at precisely six kids. Or maybe more. (I do not like Halloween, particularly when teenagers start mowing down toddlers to get Twix. As my friend Jen commented, it can seem more like a hold-up than a holiday.) And acceptance, for someone like me who struggles hard not to control everything, is proving even more difficult. I don’t want to accept Ron DeSantis. But we have to hold the space, and we have to pull everything up. There is so much paranoia, distortion, and dark energy in our midst: We cannot let it suck us down.

I know I’ve been yammering on a lot about vibration and Gurdjieff lately (that post is here). But I thought I’d elaborate here on the denser realms. To reiterate, this is the wonderful Episcopalian priest Cynthia Bourgeault’s description of Gurdjieff’s work (he can be quite indecipherable), specifically the Worlds that he articulates. I highly, highly recommend The Eye of the Heart, which is a full exploration of his philosophy.

Per Bourgeault, here are the Worlds in brief:

World 1: “World 1 is the Holy Absolute. The Godhead. The ‘inaccessible light,’ the holy impenetrable, ineffable, unknowable…”

World 3: “World 3 is the primordial ternary, whereby the Godhead—ever indivisible and unmanifest—brings himself into ‘perceptivity and divisibility.”

World 6: “This world launches the inaugural leap into outward manifestation…where consciousness ‘condenses’ into ‘psychic force’ and begins to move as an actual energy stream, creating, animating, and shaping the created order.”

World 12: “World 12 is the Christic.”

World 24: “Is the world of presence, where the outer forms of physical materiality are illuminated from within by the light that pours from World 12 and above, and where human consciousness—awake, three-centered, and having passed that first conscious shock point (which it supremely tends and mediates)—fully inhabits this physical world, takes instructions reliably from the higher realms, and participates fully in the required cosmic exchange. This is the world of conscious man or woman—‘man number four’ in Gurdjieffian terminology—who lives awake and willing right there at the junction point where the ‘two seas meet,’ infusing the staleness of the lower worlds with the vivifying energy of his or her authentic presence.” 

World 48: “It is the world of philosophy, ethics, and religion; the world of intellectual striving and cleverness and of industry, curiosity, science, technology, and the arts—in other words, the first fruits of civilization as best we know them. It is the world of high rationality. The world of high egoic functioning and self-reflective consciousness. … But for all its giftedness, it still falls just below the first conscious shock line; hence, it is still, in Gurdjieffian terms, preconscious and ‘asleep.’”

World 96: “World 96 is the ‘formatory’ world, as Gurdjieff calls it, where everything operates on autopilot, in clichés and thought-bites: stale, conditioned, habitual. There’s not even any real thinking that goes on here, as there is in World 48; it’s all recycled opinions and stereotypes. In Gurdjieffian terms, this is the world of personality, the world of ‘not-I’; of all that is artificially acquired and that obscures our real essence. It is monochrome, repetitive, and boring—uncreative, stony, and inanimate; the lowest world in which human consciousness can even barely hold its shape.” 

World 192: “World 192 represents the hell realms. It is the world of the deeply disordered, anguished, and psychotic, the spawning ground of evil and the demonic, where consciousness has lost all spaciousness and congeals toward an unbearable density.”

While I talk about these Worlds at length here, these worlds exist on continuum, ever-present. There are elements of World 24, World 48, World 96, and World 192 present around us—the lower, denser realms are the siren song for our fear and anxiety. We must pull up. The magical part of exercising our balance, compassion, and acceptance is that there is a call-and-response: I promise, having worked with these “powers” for a few weeks, that once you embrace that energy, you will see it reflected back everywhere.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Showing Our Work

We had parent-teacher conferences the other week—it turns out that neither of my sons are particularly good at “showing their work,” i.e. demonstrating the underpinnings of their problem-solving. It was a small aside, but interesting to me. It seems like my youngest is shy to show his process, and only wants to reveal a “perfect,” finished result rather than any underlying struggle. My oldest, on the other hand, doesn’t always know how he knows what he knows. I relate to both of them very much.

Culturally, we grapple with the idea of “not-knowing,” wanting always, always, to not only know the answers, but to be affirmed in those answers as well. We expect ourselves and each other to arrive at every juncture fully armed, complete, intact. There is pressure to have an opinion about everything and to hold to it tightly. To double-down. To have no questions, to be resistant to yielding in the face of new information. In fact, we publicly shame politicians for refining, i.e. changing, their thinking over the course of their political careers, and hold them accountable to earlier, less-mature, and less-evolved positions. This inability to change or be changed creates a brittleness and inflexibility that has all of us deeply entrenched, unable to open ourselves to new ways of thinking. When it comes to my youngest son, Sam, who at the tender age of six is not entrenched in anything, I will be encouraging him to adopt my mantra, as it serves me well: I don’t know.

Then, there’s my beloved Max, whose wisdom outpaces his tiny, 50-pound frame. He processes a lot of information—a mind-blowing amount of information—and it is no surprise to me that he cannot always mark the path his brain has traveled to arrive at the solution. This happened frequently to me as a kid—I would intuitively know the answer in math class, sometimes to complex equations, and then have to back-up and do the work to re-solve the problem on paper. I can’t explain how I knew, just that I knew. I think many people can relate to this type of knowing—it’s our intuitive body, wrapped around every cell of our being. And the societal pressure to prove it can destroy the magic. In many ways, this is the (often false) binary between science and spirituality—the two are friends and collaborators, in my opinion—but our culture loves to deny anything that lacks clear proof. I believe that in time, proof to all these existential queries will come—we just don’t yet have the tools to process the imaginal, energetic realm. Just because we can’t prove it doesn’t mean it’s not real.

I wish we all were better at holding space for the process of becoming—of showing each other our work, and of not rejecting things we lack the language to explain. This week, I relistened to my podcast episode with Dolly Chugh, author of A More Just Future. Dolly, to me, is a perfect example of someone who shows her work through her quest to become a better, good-enough-ish person, to probe at her own identity and long-held beliefs about the world, to ask questions that she feels maybe she should already be able to answer. May we all be more like her.

(The other concept I loved from her book and our conversation was the idea of “adventure planning,” or entering into any experience, whether it’s a family vacation or a reckoning with your past, with the idea that the journey will not go as planned. When you’re open and expect strange turns and downsides, it bakes in resilience and flexibility to change course.)

The Construct of Time

I sometimes work with a woman named Anne Emerson who is somewhat of an adjunct therapist. I call her when I feel extra-stuck, and she works with me on my limiting, subconscious beliefs. As we chat, often quite generally, she’s half-listening to what I’m saying and tuning instead into what goes unsaid. She then shoots back statements that on the surface might have little to do with our conversation but are eerily accurate. Like these from a recent call:

“Being a hard worker who makes major life sacrifices means I am more valuable and what comes from the struggle is more valuable than when it’s all in flow and easy.” I was ON for that.

“Having a good worth ethic means fully opening to work that I love and only doing it when it fills me on all levels.” And I was OFF for that.

Ouch.

At the end of every conversation, she muscle tests/re-programs the statements. (Or that’s the theory.) While I enjoy the reorientation, I really love the conversation: Anne is abundantly wise and she also makes me laugh. And I really love to laugh.

As many of you know, I fell off a horse, knocked myself unconscious, and broke my C2 in two places this summer. Despite how scary that sentence sounds, miraculously, I was largely unaffected. The one significant symptom from the accident actually surfaced in my gut. I was recently diagnosed with lymphocytic colitis, a relatively benign IBD that’s thought to be an autoimmune disease. Regardless of its provenance, I have been wiped—very, very tired—likely a reaction to my inflamed colon. And this has been stressing me out. How am I going to produce “enough work” when I’m so exhausted?

Rob has been reminding me that I recently delivered my very first book into production, an endeavor that took an awful lot of energy. And he added, I worked on a book project for Shondaland (yes, I got to watch Bridgerton about two dozen times, for work—fans of the show will love Inside Bridgerton), host a podcast, do board work, consult, read many, many books, and parent. And yet, I remind him, I used to do all of that, plus hold down a full-time job, and co-host a podcast that published twice as many episodes. My recent exhaustion has left me feeling like I just can’t do what I used to. That my creative capacity is narrowing and that I’ve used myself up. I could tally my productivity at the end of every work day and it was…a lot. Now, I have days where I accomplish…nothing.

And that’s where Anne comes in. I was looking through notes from a call we did when I was first out on my own, processing how and where to spend my seemingly abundant time. “Do not forget,” she warned, “time does not work in the same way for you. You are not allowed to accept an hourly rate.” She went on to explain that my energy expenditure is short and vast. I make fast work of things—or that’s how it seems. But underneath my ability to quickly dash out a memo or plan, I’m spending a huge amount of creative energy. It’s simply not tempered in a way that can be accurately measured by time. That brief? It didn’t take me two hours. It took me two hours and two months…or two hours and twenty years. I am definitely not alone on this—I think many can relate—but it means that when we’re bound by eight-hour days and clock-watching, we quickly burn ourselves out.

Now that I feel truly on my knees energy-wise (IBD or no), I recognize that it’s time to finally heed Anne’s warning: I can no longer flog myself according to the parameters of an eight-hour day. I need her to re-program my mind about productivity, so I can recognize when enough is actually more than enough.

I had to laugh this afternoon when I opened a package from An Organised Life in Australia. I had ordered a fresh (and embossed) 2023 planner along with a stash of their vegan “leather” notebooks. I transitioned to a physical planner this year and have loved writing things down (and crossing them out), rather than relying entirely on Google. While I was looking to replicate my 2022 experience, I don’t read fine-print very well, particularly when it comes to measurements: I accidentally ordered a planner that is 2x the size. So, you know, I can theoretically fit twice as much in every day. I thought about ordering the smaller version, but decided this is the perfect god-wink and an invitation to leave empty space…to do nothing…every single day. Here’s to relief in our days, re-imagining the equation of output/time, and refusing to measure ourselves by the world’s accounting of productivity.

Two Monks Approach a River…

I first read the following parable in a Mark Epstein book—I can’t figure out which one, it’s not in my notes (anybody know out there?)—and was so happy to find it again in Cynthia Bourgeault’s The Wisdom Jesus. And here it goes:

Two monks are traveling together, both of them sworn to a strict celibacy that proscribes any interaction whatsoever with the opposite sex. They come to a deep river and see a woman standing beside it, obviously desperate to get across but unable to swim. One of the monks simply slings her up on his back and swims her across. When they reach the other side, the woman goes on her way and the monks continue on theirs. Two hours later the first monk notices that his brother is silently fuming. “How could you have done that?” The second finally explodes. “You are under vows never to touch a woman. Do your vows mean nothing to you? Don’t you care that you have contaminated yourself?” “My brother,” replies the first,“I picked her up and put her down. You’re still carrying her.”

I love this parable, and not for what it says about celibacy. I love this parable for what it says about attachment, rumination, and most pointedly, judgment.

Bourgeault is careful to tease apart themes of attachment throughout her work, along with the ways that celibacy has been distorted throughout Millenia and retroactively enforced as a value or fact, that Jesus came to be fully human. She distinguishes celibacy from chastity, arguing that “with categorical certainty…Jesus practiced a path of chastity, of full singleness and purity of heart. He embraced everyone and everything but took nothing to himself for his own profit. People were not manipulated; they did not become fodder for his spiritual ambitions or his animal instincts. And when it was time to let go, he did so with the same equanimity and freedom he had shown in the original embrace.” Aside from questions around Jesus’s sexuality, quite simply, Bourgeault’s point is that he did not possess—he gave and received freely and with reciprocity. He did not hold the energy of “getting his,” of owning, of taking, of dominating. Simply holding—as illustrated by the monk above—without attachment. I’m sure you’ve all seen this demonstration: Place an object in your palm and turn your hand down to face the ground. You must grasp and clutch the item to keep it from falling. Then, turn your hand to face the sky and the object rests easily in your palm, held lightly and loosely.

Then there’s the rumination, from which I greatly suffer. I have a hard time letting things go—moments when I said or did the wrong thing; opportunities to do something kind for someone that I missed, or rushed past, or ignored; and then, of course, times when I felt slighted, maligned, victimized. Sometimes I ruminate when I’m trying to fall asleep at night, sometimes while I’m mindlessly driving around town, or when I’m walking through my neighborhood. It’s really hard to let go. But as the monk who carried the woman across the river reminds us, we can learn how to let things go—even things that theoretically tarnish our moral code—and move on. It is more harmful to carry these things with us. It’s time to put burdens down, rather than strapping them to our backs in perpetuity.

And finally, I love this parable for its subtle script on judgment. What is it to this second brother that the first picked up a woman and carried her across a river? Why does he feel like his own field of honor was pierced? He’s chosen to persecute himself by presuming he can and should patrol and control his brother’s behavior. This is how so many of us live, particularly in this country: Restricting women’s bodily autonomy, determining who is allowed to love whom. But as the parable reveals, we only injure ourselves when we involve ourselves in each other’s business. To believe you know what’s right for someone else is the ultimate fallacy: When they fail to abide by your expectations, you are only wounding yourself—or more pointedly, taking on their perceived shortcoming as your own. No thanks!

Your Vibration…

Your vibration must be higher than what you create, otherwise you cannot manage it.

This past week, I posted a video on Instagram about the sentiment above, which I first heard from Carissa a few years ago—it was part of a transmission, from what I recall, but then Carissa and I discussed it at length, both in the context of my own life as well as the collective. (I think it came up in Podcast Episode #1 and Podcast Episode #2.) I wrote the phrase on a post-it note and put it on my computer, where it serves as a talisman and consistent reminder: Your vibration must be higher than what you create, otherwise you cannot manage it.

After posting the video last week, I was inundated with requests for concrete examples: What does this mean in action, and how can we all apply it to our lives? So let me try.

First, a word about vibration. Yes, it’s been co-opted by New Age culture and become an easy word to mock and dismiss, but as its root, it’s a stunning concept—and physical. It comes from vibrat (Latin), “moved to and fro,” and then evolved into vibrate, “to give out light or sound as if by vibration.” So what does it mean to have a high vibration? How do you emanate at a higher level? Well, I go to Cynthia Bourgeault and her discussion of the Armenian mystic G.I. Gurdjieff’s work: In Eye of the Heart, Bourgeault outlines Gurdjieff’s “Worlds,” or a theory of energetic realms. She explains that we’re all connected, like ornaments on a tree, passing energy up and down. These worlds proceed from lightest (highest vibration) to densest (lowest, or heaviest vibration). Bourgeault writes: “There is no ‘divide’ but rather a single continuum of energy manifesting in various degrees of subtlety or coarseness.”

World 1 is source, or God, or that core emanation of light, however you’d like to think of it; then we get to the Christic realm (World 12), and so forth. Humans, in our denseness, appear at World 24, the “imaginal realm,” or “kingdom of heaven,” the first world we can access or touch. Bourgeault writes that World 24 “Is the world of presence, where the outer forms of physical materiality are illuminated from within by the light that pours from World 12 and above, and where human consciousness—awake, three-centered, and having passed that first conscious shock point (which it supremely tends and mediates)—fully inhabits this physical world, takes instructions reliably from the higher realms, and participates fully in the required cosmic exchange. This is the world of conscious man or woman—‘man number four’ in Gurdjieffian terminology—who lives awake and willing right there at the junction point where the ‘two seas meet,’ infusing the staleness of the lower worlds with the vivifying energy of his or her authentic presence.” I interpret World 24 as the space we can occupy when we are co-creating with the divine, vibrating as high as we consciously can, lifting the world around us.

Next, there is World 48, where most of us live in our daily lives. Per Bourgeault, “It is the world of philosophy, ethics, and religion; the world of intellectual striving and cleverness and of industry, curiosity, science, technology, and the arts—in other words, the first fruits of civilization as best we know them. It is the world of high rationality. The world of high egoic functioning and self-reflective consciousness. The world that Teilhard mostly had in mind when he described the ‘noosphere.’ But for all its giftedness, it still falls just below the first conscious shock line; hence, it is still, in Gurdjieffian terms, preconscious and ‘asleep.’”

Then we get to World 96, which many of us would also recognize as the denser energies that threaten to pull us down and out of the continuum. Bourgeault again: “World 96 is the ‘formatory’ world, as Gurdjieff calls it, where everything operates on autopilot, in clichés and thought-bites: stale, conditioned, habitual. There’s not even any real thinking that goes on here, as there is in World 48; it’s all recycled opinions and stereotypes. In Gurdjieffian terms, this is the world of personality, the world of ‘not-I’; of all that is artificially acquired and that obscures our real essence. It is monochrome, repetitive, and boring—uncreative, stony, and inanimate; the lowest world in which human consciousness can even barely hold its shape.” This is not the final world, either. The next world is one of distortion and paranoid delusion, and it gets denser and darker from here.

In the view of Gurdjieff and Bourgeault, we pass energy up and down this continuum. And it is incumbent on all of us to reach up, up, and up. At least when it comes to our vibration, our energy, our intention, and our attention. This is how we keep those ornaments on the tree, how we prevent humanity from spinning out entirely.

So that’s my understanding of our vibration. In the context of “managing what we create,” we see how this plays out (or doesn’t) across society. Socially and culturally, we can look at undeniably genius inventions like YouTube or Facebook and recognize that we do not yet possess the emotional maturity or the vibrational lightness to manage these technologies correctly. And the people who created them certainly didn’t either. We are still trying to understand how to metaphorically get these horses back in the barn, to try to control or manage this technology, to limit its harms. They are proving, unfortunately, to be out-of-control, unmanaged, and potentially unmanageable—particularly when a move to do so conflicts with the price of the stock.

In business, there are untold companies that promised to do right by people and the planet but who are now polluting and profiting to serve shareholders. This is inevitable without a razor-sharp intention, guard-railed by clearly articulated values that are unyielding in the face of pressure. This is hard to do, and it’s clear as we survey the business landscape in America that it’s so very tempting to give a bit and yield for the sake of that margin, those bonuses, or the expectations of investors or shareholders. Not many founders and CEOs retain enough control or will to truly shepherd companies according to values articulated in their infancy. And then, of course, there’s greed. It’s infectious. So is the belief that you can do well for yourself while doing well for everyone else—or more commonly, do well for yourself and then do well for everyone else. We see this in the way that some billionaires now feel compelled to solve big, cultural problems in their second acts. That instinct might theoretically be good, but that much power should not be shepherded by a few. I much prefer Mackenzie Scott’s method: Quickly redistributing her billions to worthy organizations doing incredible work all over the world.

Maintaining a high vibration in business is possible. One stunning example is Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia: By making the planet the only stakeholder in his business, he is establishing a new paradigm for all other CEOs and founders who profess to hold similar values. He threw down a gauntlet by establishing a standard for what that really means: Quite simply, it means that the earth is the only stakeholder. This is not lip service, it’s a fully realized and canonized mission, and those who don’t follow his lead but maintain the same marketing points will likely be called to the mat. If you say you’re for the planet, then show us.

Managing what we create is necessary in our personal lives. For me, it’s required clearly articulating what I want, and what I don’t want, and then catching myself when I deviate—which I do! This wavering typically comes because I’m susceptible to getting sucked into a pit of anxiety about whether what I want will be enough. As my therapist likes to remind me, I’ve been quite clear about what I want for years: To write books, host Pulling the Thread, and be available for my kids. And, if I can gather enough energy behind it, to potentially grow Pulling the Thread into a more sizable offering. If and potentially being the operative words. I’ve watched too many of my friends “fall into” businesses that are now threatening to drown them, simply because they were chasing opportunities—sometimes frantically—rather than being intentional with their vision. As their businesses have grown, so has team size and complexity, creating a vicious cycle: They’ve had to chase more opportunities to maintain what they’ve made (i.e. pay people), and in the process, they lose the thread for why they started the whole thing in the first place. I get it, this is the tough part—being open to the universe and opportunities beyond your reasonable expectations, while also being clear about what you hope to do. It’s a careful dance between faith and planning, co-creation and personal will. Obviously, I haven’t mastered it.

Again and again, I find myself returning to Carissa’s words: Your vibration must be higher than what you create, otherwise you cannot manage it. The most simple definition of vibration is also energy—not just whether you feel alive in the morning, but whether something feels like a YES in your entire body, like something you cannot wait to do. This has also become an important test for me (thanks in no small part to Gabor Maté, episode here and transcript here): Is this a yes in my body or is it a no, or in other words, does this make me want to pull an all-nighter in excitement, or climb into bed and take a nap? As I’ve learned over time, don’t disobey the body. It often knows best, and is more than pleased to make decisions for you, including to shut you down. (In this same vein, several years ago Anne Emerson told me that I am no longer allowed to reflexively respond to any request for time or plans. I have to wait and then run it through my body first.)

What is Morality?

Like many of you, I’ve spent a lot of time with my head in my hands in the past several months, worried about the implications of Roe V. Wade. I’ve made some statements on Instagram, donated, and am working on re-electing an incumbent on the Montana Supreme Court (more on that below). But I’ve spent most of my energy trying to understand what it is about abortion that puts women, in particular, in a circular firing squad—and why it’s so hard for us to come together against an impingement on our rights and bodily autonomy.

Ultimately, I've come to believe it’s the slippery issue of “morality,” and the way that this is wielded as a cudgel. I used to conflate “morality” and “goodness,” thinking of them as synonyms. But the etymology of morality comes from social customs and mores—morality is about cultural codes of behavior, what an authority out there deems proper and correct. This is the key, actually, because we each have our own moral codes. What I deem right or good for myself is not necessarily what you would deem right and good for you. 

And yes, we can argue that we have a collective moral code—officially, we don’t kill, steal, etc.—and yet we violate and/or allow violations of that moral code all the time. In this country we still have capital punishment, i.e. we legally execute people for committing crimes (insane!). We condone citizens shooting home invaders or anyone who might possibly pose a threat to their safety or security. Police continue to use overwhelming force on innocent civilians (primarily people of color). We let people and companies off the hook for corporate fraud, etc. There are loopholes all over the place for those who have power—when this comes to our attention, many of us determine these loopholes to be horribly unjust. We don’t really have a collective moral code.

We all have personal moral codes, certainly—these are typically our beliefs, our faith, the way we govern our own lives. Often our moral code is private—that’s the beauty of living in the U.S. It’s really not anyone’s business how I live my life. Except now, that’s under our threat, and I cannot stress how scared that should make all of us: It’s a function of a free and democratic society that our beliefs are our own business.

When it comes to abortion, the conflation of morality and choice is a tactic, a distraction from what's actually at play. What's going down now is not about one side taking a "moral" stand—this is a systemic attack on RIGHTS. Everyone should be alarmed, including pro-life women. We are witnessing a government that feels empowered to destroy women's sovereignty over our bodies. That's what's happening. Under Roe, it was possible for me to decide that I personally could not abide having an abortion, that it felt wrong for me, or not; but regardless of my own decision, far be it for me to determine what is right or wrong for you. Now, the government will decide for us. I hope pro-life women understand that there are other implications of state-governed procreation: Imagine being forced to terminate a pregnancy you want because the fetus doesn't meet government standards on IQ, or is expected to be differently abled, neurodiverse, etc. Or being sterilized because you don't fit an "ideal" standard (oh wait, that already happens to marginalized women). This is the sort of dystopian future that's right around the corner. When women are legally equivalent to chattel, unable to make decisions about our own healthcare, expect darkness. NOT freedom or preservation of life. Abortion is healthcare. You govern your healthcare, I'll govern mine. 

I don’t think anyone speaks to this as well as philosopher Kate Manne in Entitled: 

"It’s one thing for someone who might get pregnant to oppose an abortion on a personal level—to be disinclined to have one herself, or even to feel that it would be wrong for anyone in such a position to do so, on the basis of religious views she doesn’t expect everyone to share, say. It’s another thing entirely to think—especially as someone who cannot get pregnant, as a cisgender man—that anyone who becomes pregnant should be forced to bear the pregnancy to term, using the coercive power of the state, regardless of their age, beliefs, life circumstances, the traumatic manner of their becoming pregnant, or the devastating outcomes if they are not allowed to end it. The former is a reasonable manifestation of individual differences; the latter is a deeply draconian, deeply troubling attitude. Remember, the state doesn’t regulate certain behaviors that most people think are immoral—lying to and cheating on one’s partner, say—or behaviors that some people think are tantamount to murder—eating meat, for example. The social costs of coercion here seem to radically outweigh those of the possibility that some people will choose to do things that others believe they should not do, given the kinds of freedom to which they are entitled. So, by all means, don’t have an abortion, if you’re personally opposed to them. But the state of policing of pregnant bodies is a form of misogynistic social control, one whose effects will be most deeply felt by the most vulnerable girls and women."

I wish, with my whole heart, that we could put personal morality aside to understand what’s actually at stake here—and the potential ramifications of this erosion of rights happening across the United States. And the world. My heart breaks for the women and girls of Iran—and yet, watching students strip off their hijabs and take to the street for freedom and bodily autonomy, despite the threat of "morality police" and potential death or imprisonment, should inspire us all with what exactly is on the line. We are all connected. None of us are free until all of us are free. And while women in the West are far less restricted, we exist on a patriarchal continuum and we must use all of our weight to resist, resist, resist. And stand up for our sisters.

I’ve been working with a small and powerful crew of childhood friends from Montana, along with some friends in Los Angeles, on safeguarding the state’s constitution, which includes a protection for access to abortion since the '90s. Naturally, the Montana constitution is now under threat, thanks to a wave of extremist far-right funding (and candidates) in the state. All of the states around Montana have abortion bans in place; it’s essential for the region’s women, particularly Indigenous women, that they have uninterrupted access to healthcare and can go to Montana. Montana is an important zone for all of us frankly, and not just because I’m from there. It’s important because it’s historically been deeply purple, with many strong Democratic governors, senators, and members of congress. Montana represents an essential window into the needs of rural voters, including how we steward and protect public lands. And the women in Montana are fierce—in fact, in 1916, Jeanette Rankin (Republican) was the first woman elected to the United States Congress, four years before (white) women secured the right to vote. Montana is interesting, too, because it’s not particularly religious—it is not an evangelical stronghold—Montanans largely think for themselves. Montana must stay purple. We are raising money to protect the incumbent Ingrid Gustafson, a well-liked state supreme court justice (across political lines). There is much at stake besides abortion, including LGBTQA+ rights, public land access, and more. If you’re able, please consider making a donation.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

Kenosis

Last week, I did an interview for Dr. Lucy McBride’s podcast and she asked me what I do to take care of myself. I had to think for a minute because I don’t have much that abides by a set-and-forget-it routine, but I listed off weekly therapy, sitting in the sauna and being quiet, acupuncture every month where I fall asleep after the needles go in, and quasi-frequent walks in the hills of my neighborhood for exercise. Paraphrasing, I said something to the effect of: “I feel like such an overfull sponge most of the time—information, books, other peoples’ feelings—so I do things to get empty.”

I’d never actually had that revelation, but that’s what I’m after: Emptying. Letting go so that I can continue to take life in. That’s certainly how I feel about therapy: I know some think of therapy as self-involved—you’re really going to talk about yourself for an hour?—but for me it feels like hygiene so that I have capacity for the people I love.

I had to laugh when I finally starting reading Cynthia Bourgeault’s The Wisdom Jesus this week, which is probably her most accessible book (it’s much lighter and easier to process than some of her later work). The book focuses on “putting on the mind of Christ”—not living like him, but entering into a shared consciousness with something much bigger. Or another way of saying this is to get beyond yourself. It’s hard. She focuses a fair amount of attention on The Gospel of Thomas, one of the scrolls discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945—unearthed where they had been buried for safekeeping by concerned monks, they eventually made it to the collection of Carl Jung before being widely published. (Deemed heretical, these gospels didn’t make the canon when the New Testament was canonized in the fourth century.) The Gospel of Thomas is a series of aphorisms that Jesus supposedly said—they’re a bit like Zen koans—one of the most famous and stunning being Logion 70:

If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you will kill you.

The idea here, to my mind at least, is that the point and goal of life is to bring forth our inner gifts and share them with the world. To not do so is a slow and steady poisoning.

To figure out what those gifts are is deeply personal and requires a lot of quiet inner work and intervention. The answers are typically not “out there,” as much as we’ve been trained to seek approbation from external authorities. We’ve been conditioned to look outside ourselves for ideas about who we are. This is the wrong instinct. Bourgeault writes: “As in the Gospel of Thomas, it’s merely the ‘seek and you shall find’ part without the confusion, wonder, and reorientation—and also, without the ‘sovereignty.’ For all such spiritual sleepwalking bypasses that crucial first step, that moment when the heart has to find its way not through external conditioning but through a raw immediacy of presence. Only there—in ‘the cave of the heart,’ as the mystics are fond of calling it—does a person come in contact with his or her own direct knowingness. And only out of this direct knowingness is sovereignty born, one’s own inner authority.”

I’ve found that to get to this “direct knowingness” I must get quiet, plain and simple.

Bourgeault also examines the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), including the statement: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” I’m not a Bible scholar and wouldn’t know how to properly interpret that statement, but I love Bourgeault’s translation via the wisdom perspective, which in her words is about the “transformation of consciousness” or accessing that Christ mind. She writes: “‘poor in spirit’ designates an inner attitude of receptivity and openness, and one is blessed by it because only in this state is it possible to receive anything. There’s a wonderful Zen story that exactly translates this teaching. A young seeker, keen to become the student of a certain master, is invited to an interview at the master’s house. The student rambles on about all his spiritual experience, his past teachers, his insights and skills, and his pet philosophies. The master listens silently and begins to pour a cup of tea. He pours and pours, and when the cup is overflowing he keeps right on pouring. Eventually the student notices what’s going on and interrupts his monologue to say, ‘Stop pouring! The cup is full.’ The teacher says, ‘Yes and so are you. How can I possibly teach you?’”

This hits, but it also underlines what my rambling self-care routine is trying to accomplish: Kenosis, or the idea of self-emptying, so that you can then be refilled. By spirit, by the needs of others, by the world at large. But to do this effectively, we must learn how to let go.

Self-Retrieval

If you listen to podcasts, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard Dr. Gabor Maté through your headphones this week: It’s been thrilling to see him truly everywhere as he brings his latest, incredible book, The Myth of Normal to the world. I read this book in April, on Spring Break with my kids. While it might not seem like the sort of book you’d inhale on a beach, that I did: I read it in a day, covered in towels to protect myself from the sun, amassing 15-pages of single-spaced, typed notes in the process. I’ve been holding my breath, waiting for this book to come out so we can all discuss, ever since. Gabor and I touched on a few of the book’s salient points in this week’s episode of Pulling the Thread, though I could spend many hours working through the material with him.

There’s one short sentence in the book in particular that captured my attention, and I haven’t been able to let it go. Gabor writes: “Nor is ‘healing’ synonymous with ‘self-improvement.’ Closer to the mark would be to say it is self-retrieval.” On the podcast Gabor explained that soul-retrieval is a core Indigenous practice; self-retrieval feels adjacent but slightly different, moored in the physical and emotional rather than spiritual plane. (Although yes, one could argue it’s both/all.) It feels like a concrete action—however difficult—rather than something nebulous like achieving an idea of “wellness,” our current culture’s woefully inadequate word. Self-retrieval feels closer to returning to wholeness, a path that Martha Beck delineates in The Way of Integrity. (See below for more information on that podcast episode.)

Recovering the self feels top-of-mind, too, because I had the pleasure of interviewing Richard Schwartz, PhD this week, the creator of Internal Family Systems. While I’ve interviewed him before, this episode (coming this fall) was different: Halfway through, he asked me if I wanted to do some work together, and we went into an impromptu session where I fetched a “part” of myself, an exile, from a cold, dark basement, where I had abandoned her when I was eight.

In No Bad Parts, Schwartz explains that we are not mono-minds—this is a myth. Instead, we are made up of many different parts: These are the conversations that we hear in our heads, the voices that debate our decisions, our value, or react when scared and young parts of us are triggered. (In his model, these burdened exiles are protected by managers and firefighters—and none of them are “bad.”) As he writes, “​​We often find that the harder we try to get rid of emotions and thoughts, the stronger they become. This is because parts, like people, fight back against being shamed or exiled. And if we do succeed in dominating them with punitive self-discipline, we then become tyrannized by the rigid, controlling inner drill sergeant. We might be disciplined, but we’re not much fun. And because the exiled (bingeing, raging, hypersexual, etc.) parts will seize any momentary weakness to break out again and take over, we have to constantly be on guard against any people or situations that might trigger those parts.”

It’s a very powerful system that coordinates beautifully with the work of people like Dr. Gabor Maté. (You can find an IFS-trained therapist—I highly recommend.) Because one of the most powerful parts of The Myth of Normal is when he discusses the pull, throughout our lives, but most harmfully when we’re children, between authenticity and attachment. This is that conundrum of being yourself, and living in fear of the possible reality that you as yourself will cause you to lose the affection and attention of those you love and need. When we’re children, we exile those parts of ourselves that threaten our attachments—and then we spend our lives in desperate need of self-retrieval.

Before I go, I wanted to leave you with the six questions that Gabor asks in workshops. This is a powerful process of self-inquiry that might just make you cry.

1. In my life’s important areas, what am I not saying no to?

2. How does my inability to say no impact my life?

3. What bodily signals have I been overlooking? What symptoms have I been ignoring that could be warning signs, were I to pay conscious attention?

4. What is the hidden story behind my inability to say no?

5. Where did I learn these stories?

6. Where have I ignored or denied the “yes” that wanted to be said?

Thanks for reading.

P.S. A few of you reached out that you felt judged by Gabor when he talked about sleep training—I haven’t talked to him about this, so I’m projecting what I think he would say, but the larger thesis of the book is that our culture is toxic, and it trickles down to inform the way we must behave to survive. This push to “hack parenting” or use data as our guiding principle for getting through days with our kids makes sense in our society where we there is zero support for parents, particularly mothers. Of course we’re exhausted, sleep-deprived and in search of short-cuts. The onus is not just on parents to change society, it’s on all of us.

Tend to the Part of the Garden You Can Reach

Yesterday morning, I went to see Rabbi Steve Leder for a long-scheduled chat. I had the Rabbi on the podcast, and we went well over our allotted time together, so made plans to keep the conversation going. We went long partly because we were talking about the stunning and powerful idea of creating a living will—an articulation of your values, for those you love, while you’re still alive—which he explores in his newest book For You When I Am Gone. But we primarily went long because we were talking about Judaism, early Christianity, and what it means to be a Jew. My dad is Jewish and my mom is a self-titled recovering Catholic; growing up, my dad took us to Jewish services in a Methodist church in Montana, but I never had a Bat Mitzvah. Partly because there was no one to teach me Hebrew, and partly because I learned around that time that I didn’t qualify as Jewish because my mom never converted. Feeling pushed overboard, I abandoned ship. But when I read Sarah Hurwitz’s wonderful Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life—in Judaism, which explores her return to the faith after a long time away, I felt called. And then COVID happened. (I made it to one service first.)

 I asked Rabbi Leder, in his opinion, whether I qualify as a Jew, and he explained that originally, Judaism was patrilineal—it became matrilineal because Romans raped Jews. Since you could always identify the mother, this switch became a way to protect and embrace all Jewish children. Sordid, yes, but more inclusive than I had thought. Plus, as he explained to me, Judaism is a tribe—a tribe that also has a religion, a culture of food, etc. My Judaism is written in my DNA. I think it’s that irrefutable reality that has me knocking——50% Ashkenazi jew according to 23andMe—that and by being two halves of something, I feel like nothing. I want to belong to a community. (Ideally, a community that wants me!)

At my request, Rabbi Leder gave me a reading list, and we made time for a visit, another reason why joining a Jewish community is so compelling: Rabbi means teacher, and you know I love those.

We settled in to chat, and I touched on the fact that I feel like I’m at the beginning of a next chapter, unsure where to spend my energy and attention. Do I try to build something new? Does it need to have scale? He responded with a Buddhist saying: “Tend to the part of the garden you can reach,” a phrase I found immediately reassuring. One thing at a time. Start where you are. Go deep, not broad.

This reminds me of a Carissa/Yeshua teaching moment last summer in Sedona, where she talked about sowing a pasture and planting seeds. So often, our eyes are trained on what others are doing rather than on our own rows—instead of focusing on what’s immediately in front of us, we sow our pasture in discordant and messy rows, distracted by what’s happening over there, fruit not meant for us to cultivate. Harvesting what we plant becomes impossible, our effort for naught. “Tend the part of the garden you can reach.” Attend to what’s in front of you. It is enough.

Rabbi Leder also told me about training to become a lifeguard at the summer camp he attended where they instructed him to “Throw, Row, then Go.” When someone is struggling in the water, first, you throw a buoy. If that fails, you find a boat. Finally, you go. The argument being that during an attempt to rescue someone who is drowning, they’ll pull you down in order to get themselves up. It is easy to be swamped and subsumed by other peoples’ suffering; sometimes there are situations where you can’t, or shouldn’t, intercede. It is not possible to always be of service, even when the desire to save someone is strong.

Those of you who have read this newsletter before know that I’m struggling around the right relationship in wanting to “help.” I feel like I need to guard against my own ego, which captures so many of us unaware (do I want to serve to serve, or because of how it makes me feel?). Good intentions can sometimes have a bad effect. I found some relief this week when I read the beautiful, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet, by Roshi Joan Halifax. I have a lot more to say about this book, but in it, she explores the edge states of human impulses—when altruism, for example, bends toward toxic altruism. But there are ways to guard against this, to ensure that the relationship is right. She quotes Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen: "Helping, fixing, and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. [...] When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. But we don't serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves."

I think this is so powerful, particularly in our helping and fixing culture: Neither is shameful—sometimes both things are required—but serving feels and sounds so much better. I love the vision that the lifeguard Rabbi Leder left with me: Throw, Row, and Go—whenever possible, I hope to pull my boat alongside someone else’s. The intimacy of presence and the offer of support, without the undertow and the potential hubris of being completely out of my depth.

When Does “Inclusivity” End?

A few months ago, I interviewed Celeste Headlee, one of my favorite conversation partners. Maybe it’s her long career as a radio journalist, but she’s awfully easy to talk to—and she’s expert at it. Including hard conversations. While she wrote one of my favorite books on work (the excellent Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving), I most love her books about difficult chats, which include Speaking of Race and We Need to Talk—as well as the season of the incredible podcast Scene on Radio that she co-hosted with John Biewen on misogyny. The season on race with Chenjerai Kumanyika is also exquisite.

I’ve had the privilege of interviewing Celeste a couple of times, and I’ve been turning our most recent chat over in my mind lately, particularly a simple comment she made: Black History Month was instituted as a temporary stop-gap. It was supposed to be a momentary bridge to a comprehensive retooling of the stories we tell ourselves (and our children) about the world. However many decades later, it’s still with us though. As are equivalent months and sometimes just days devoted to other groups, including women, Indigenous communities, etc. This is a terrible precedent and not only because it means that what we learn is not integrated. It’s a terrible precedent because it suggests that women’s history, Black history are “other”—they are corollary to the main thing. Black history and women’s history is not just…history—it lives apart. Apparently forever.

I read a lot. And I’ve been reading a fair amount of work that’s called “feminist,” written by “feminist” scientists, anthropologists, and journalists. The addition of “feminist” as a descriptor drives me nuts, and not because I don’t count myself as one. (I do. Heartily.) The addition of “feminist” before historian, therapist, etc. suggests that what’s being offered is an alternate view. It implies an agenda, a slant. That what you’re going to get is a spin on the facts, a “feminist” perspective that’s a deviation from the norm. And it is a deviation from the white, male, cis narrative, but that doesn’t make it deviant—I would argue that creating a wider lens—women and people of color have always been here after all, however silenced, sidelined and erased—makes it more accurate. If we’re going to continue to do this, we should label the authors of books that dominate our core curriculum as masculinist. Sounds absurd, does it not? But it seems only fair to suggest that their view is hyper-specific and slanted as well.

Shonda Rhimes has been vocal about issues like this before: She bristles when people commend her for writing “strong women”—”I don’t know any women who are not strong,” she protests. Shonda rightly argues that we don’t modify descriptors of men with words like strong. This is something I don’t think we’re particularly conscious about, although I’m seeing lots of things on Instagram that give me hope, like women arguing that we need to banish female before founder and just call women FOUNDERS.

These might seem like small quips, but well, I love language, and I believe it’s powerful. I’m trying to be extra-cognizant about how I describe women, and whether I would describe men in similar ways. And when it comes to checkboxing around things like education—and whose perspective gets to be primary to a curriculum—well, I feel allergic. We all have a lot of unlearning and relearning to do; for me, a big part of that is thinking through and processing the perspective of those I read. Those who I deem experts or authorities. Those who I lean on for expertise. You’ll notice on Pulling the Thread that I primarily interview women; there’s a reason for that. When I launched the show, I did a quick audit of popular shows and clocked that most guests on interview shows, surprise surprise, are men—particularly on popular shows hosted by men. As I wrote last summer, I didn’t even bother auditing Joe Rogan because it is so, so male, but here are some other stats: “79 out of 561 Tim Ferriss episodes feature women as guests (15.31%); 37 out of 251 Sam Harris episodes feature women as guests (14.74%); and 107 out of 333 Dax Shepherd episodes feature women as guests (32.13%). On the flipside, 21 out of 57 episodes on Brené Brown’s “Unlocking Us” feature men as guests (36.84%), which goes slightly higher on “Dare to Lead” (44.82%). Go Brené!” We so easily slip into a narrative that men are the ultimate, sometimes only, authorities; I will resist that as much as I can. (So far on Pulling the Thread, 79% of my guests have been women; 21% men.)

Do you all imagine that we’ll ever reach a time of actual integration unless we push really hard? Can we banish modifiers and work toward a truly inclusive and accurate perspective?