Hey,
How are you today? There’s a lot happening, I know. So I hope you’re being gentle with yourself, no matter what your answer to that question is.
Since the last letter, I’ve been swinging between wildly productive and too tired to think. Two weeks ago, I started building a new visual art language, did some work on my novel, met deadlines, ate too much fried beef. Last week, I felt like a sandcastle. I need to watch my exhaustion. That’s what the meltdown told me. Outside that, I’ve been working on staying very still and doing memory work, so I’m looking through old photographs, old writing, old journal entries and moving through a lot of feelings. It’s good to remember how long I’ve had this voice for, to see that even though I left a few minds in the past, I’ve always had the same heart; to see that writing has always meant the same thing to me. I’ve also always been comfortably aware of mortality and at different stages of my life, depending on what I was holding close to my core, I did different things with that information.
Some weeks ago, I had a conversation with Shiela about growth and grace, about shame and forgiveness. The day we talked, I remember thinking: I really like learning, but I hate the shame that comes with feeling like I should have known better. There was so much goodness in that conversation, but she said this, and I keep thinking about it:
“Everything is regenerative, until I stop saying I deserve regeneration.”
That line has weight. I wrote it down. Under that line, I also wrote: everything is regenerative until I start implying I don’t deserve regeneration. I used to do the latter a lot. For me, spirals were very direct things. It never occurred to me that I could deserve regeneration, because I didn’t think I was allowed/supposed to fall short in the first place. I didn’t think I should give myself the space to make mistakes. So when I did, I heard a voice say: you did a regretful thing, so you’re a bad person and you should fold. I thought remorse and repentance meant actively denying myself of goodness until I felt forgiven. I used to be determined to be a good person, you see, so I had to taunt myself back in line when I did something that fell short of that standard.
Things changed when I realised the voice that used to imply that I didn’t deserve regeneration only believed that about me. Now I actively disagree with it because that’s not my voice. Growing up, I learned how to think in strict absolutes, but I personally don’t believe in good or bad people. The voice was just a reflexive whip from the past; a hurtful chorus that came from the cache of voices I gathered on my way to this me. But I have my own thoughts now and thankfully, I can live by them. Something I learned a few years ago is that it’s not enough to know what you don’t believe or want, you have to figure out what you do believe and want. In order to be free of what you’re running from, you don’t need to run at all, actually. You need to sit down and imagine. You have to make a new voice out of thin air, and then swallow it, recite it, rehearse it until it’s the new reflex. We overwrite the old text by creating a new syllabus. So for some months now, I’ve been journaling a lot and making mental recordings of myself saying true things, like: I deserve regeneration. I deserve regeneration. I deserve regeneration.
If I say that I believe in people, simple, then I can’t exclude myself from my own grace. There’s that Jack Kornfield quote: “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” It’s true. For my compassion to be full, I also have to turn the soft lens selfwards. I have to understand that outgrowing my own choices is part of what it means to be alive, is part of what it means to be a person. I am a person, which means that what I believe about people is what I can also believe about myself. I don’t care if people are pretty or good, I care that they’re themselves, I care that they’re honest and tender, I care that they do not stand above correction and insist on staying there, that they listen as much as they speak, that they don’t intentionally and repeatedly cause harm. I believe in the power of new choices. I believe in restoration. I believe people can be transformed. I believe we can be redeemed if we’re willing look at ourselves, what we do and the impact that has on others; we can be better if we commit to restoring the ground we broke and dedicate to making better choices. Making better choices is about more than what we say or can articulate. It’s about doing better not just by others, but also by ourselves. To do better, we have to want it first. To do better, we have to re-evaluate, we have to be intentional enough to clear our surroundings of things that cause stagnation or relapse. Sometimes that means loss. This is a type of love.
While doing a guided meditation a few nights ago, I learned that the word ‘should’ is what causes suffering. It’s true, life is easier and we’re happier when we observe more than we expect. If you think there is a way you or your life should be, you’ll hold that image over what you actually are. On the days you fall short it, you’ll feel upside down. Should is a picture we can all afford to throw away. Should is a weight with spikes. There is no shame if there is no should.
I used to avoid looking back because I was scared to discover new things to be furious or heartbroken about, things I didn’t notice at the time. But recently, looking back has felt good. Looking back has deepened my respect for myself. I’ve made brave choices, and those choices have led me to a life I love. Sixteen year old me already knew that art has the power to radically transform the world. Twenty year old me had power in her mouth and knew exactly who she was and wasn’t. Both wrote daily. I’m them now but less set in stone, more like water, and I’m living what they dreamt. I like this me. For a long time, I kept away from versions of myself I’d outgrown because I had this impression that they would become mine to save, mine to rescue from themselves, one more me to care for. That’s untrue though. I don’t have to save anything or anyone. I just have to see it/them for what they really are. There’s less agony to reflecting when I see past versions of me as complete, as lacking in nothing, as lovable regardless of what I think I’d have done better than them, as separately themselves. They existed, they were beautiful, they were kind and trying. They were thickly loved. But they’re not me. Seeing photos of them, I’m flushed with pride even knowing that they had completely different minds in their heads. Those were strong minds, or I wouldn’t be here. They did not have the information I have, and there’s beauty in what they did do with what they knew. They deserve(d) to exist. They deserve(d) regeneration.
On a related note, Timehin made a thread about Psalm 23 that I really liked:
This stood out:
“Mercy is the face that God turns to us with when we can’t face ourselves. Mercy is the hand that leads us when we are deep in darkness of our own making. Mercy is goodness following us when we are at our most undeserving.”
I find that I learn so much more when I honor what I used to want while holding my current ground, while staying in my current body, while using my new mind and old heart. I learn more when I listen without absorbing, when I remember that I am still happening in real time, that I will outgrow this me now too. I learn more when I release fear, when I remember that I don’t want perfection. I want growth. I learn more when I make important distinctions in my mind like this: it’s not the flaws we need to get rid of, it’s the shame, it’s the handed-down obsession with making things look perfect.
Other things I’m learning/remembering:
- Listening is enough. Support is enough.
- I don’t need to carry anyone else’s feelings into my body to prove I care. I just need to hear them out. I just need to sit next to them. Trusting people I care about to handle their own lives, to tell me what they need instead of trying to decode it on their behalf is a kind of kindness.
- Love is freedom. An open palm always. Not a closed fist.
- A closed fist is control. I’m not interested in control.
- So there’s no need to lock the door and swallow the key. It’s good for everyone to know where the door is, because everybody is free. Staying means much more when everyone has a choice.
- It’s okay to leave. It’s also okay to be left. Leaving isn’t always about malice. You don’t have to slam the door.
- I’m learning not to limit love in anticipation of or for fear of loss. Regardless of the outcome, it matters to me to use my heart well. Success to me is also about balance. About feeling as much as I think. It’s about staying soft, staying myself.
- How to move from abundance. How to do what’s right for me even when I’m afraid. How to give others the space to do what’s right for them, even when that excludes me.
- That Instagram post I can’t find now was right. People pleasing is a kind of manipulation. It’s better to be truthful, it’s better to lead with your real heart. It’s better to speak with your real mouth.
- In All About Love, bell hooks defines love as a “commitment to nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” I’m learning to measure my actions against that definition. I’m learning the many shapes commitment and nurture can take; the shape my own spiritual growth can take. Sometimes, this looks like space from everything. This looks like me alone in my house with God.
- Nurturing your spiritual growth can hurt, can sometimes make things too clear for comfort, can sometimes mean grief.
- Grief passes. Grief morphs.
- Practicing a gentle voice in my head. Quarrelling less there. Gently redirecting thoughts instead.
- Boundaries are an act of love. Even with yourself. Even with your mind.
- The answer is not to become unkind, more hardened, less sensitive. The answer is to step away from whatever makes it difficult for me to stay well. The answer is to stand still and breathe.
Here are a few beautiful things:
Futureme.org is a gorgeous idea. Write yourself a letter.
For music: Colors
We’re Not Really Strangers put out a free quarantine PDF edition of their card game. Play it with someone you love. It’s a good way to check in.
Also for music: NPR Tiny Desk Concerts on Youtube
On Netflix: Midnight Gospel, Bojack Horseman, Sex Education, Money Heist
A story: Noviolet Bulawayo’s Hitting Budapest
Florence Welch on Addiction, Eating Disorder Recovery, And Finding True Happiness In Her 30s
Something I’ve been trying: Making two to-do lists. To-do for work and to-do for joy. I’m starting to see that being overwhelmed isn’t always because I’m doing too much. Sometimes, it’s that I’m planning work with more intention or seriousness than I am joy.
On my to-do for joy list today:
Listen to Rihanna / Keep your phone off for at least an hour / Take a nap in the afternoon / Long drive / Practice writing a full sentence with your left hand
Lockdown Journal is collating journal entries from people around the world during these times. They have a rolling open call.
I saw this post on instagram earlier. It helped me. If you’re feeling pressure to be outraged and ‘use your voice’ right now, read this:
There are many ways to be present. Take care of yourself please. For me, that looks like staying off social media as much as possible, listening to music daily and listening to my body. You know what that means for you more than I do. So here’s a little nudge to do it.
You deserve regeneration. Yes, you.
With love,
E x
Thank you so much. Reading this, I realized how I have been starving myself of goodness as a punishment for the wrongs I did. I do not need to wait to be forgiven before I forgive myself
absolutely incredible,needed this in this instant. grateful