To seep in your own wisdom juices

a year in reflection, and new soul story

Dear You,

This year…this year. What can I say about this year that has not already been lived through you? Your body is a quiet and personal story of the greater cataclysmic trauma of our collective, and therefore your body, my body, our bodies are living, breathing, intimate stories of our time. 

I believe in cracks. They are places that are most fertile within us, where our psychic ground has been furrowed so that new life can fall into its peaty darkness.

Cracks are what connect us to the greater whole - without them, we isolate ourselves into thinking we can do everything on our own. They are the rips that carry us straight into the tide that is US.

What you’ve been through this year is a cell in the body of the cosmos. And so healing is our individual and yet very universal responsibility.

Everything that is, casts a shadow.

What is healing to you, dear friend? And what does progress look like to you? 

We cannot evolve if we are fixed. Even if we were to be cured of an illness, we would not be spared life’s challenges.

Evolution relies on our anomalies, our tender spots, like tree branches that only grow from irregular cells in their bark. I would personally like to evolve from my vulnerabilities too. Perhaps healing is like an upward spiral then, where we never go back to whom we once were, but keep becoming something else. I think that’s why we feel deeply un-grounded during times of personal transition.

Healing hasn’t looked the way I expect it to this year. Discomfort made me hold onto the ground and throw my body at what felt most stable. It made me humble and revalidated my need for a very simple life.

This year, I was diagnosed with complex PTSD and suffered from an intense period of depersonalization as a result of unresolved anxiety. I became sober (finally) and dedicated myself to evenings of weaving and tea, which have been a cornerstone in my recovery.

I realized too that although I suffered, it has been within a container of something much greater. Each depression was held within a greater Love so that depression didn’t become who I was. Each anxiety was held within a greater Acceptance so that anxiety didn’t become who I was. Each loss was held within a greater Compassion so that loss didn’t define me.

Through it all, I have come to know that we are what’s greater. 

I am so tired of our collective idea of wellness being this linear journey with a start/middle/end. I am so tired of assuming that I will return to myself, undamaged. Every regression this year has felt like a failure under the lens of our new healthism norms, and it was only when I looked at my own expectations that I realized the weight of the collective expectation that hangs over all of us to get better and be better.

I wonder if we could briefly surrender how things should have looked this year and join up with the kind of aliveness that comes from being torn open? It’s the kind of discomfort that comes from molting our shells when we are about to grow into our something greater.

What if our sensitivities weren’t something to heal but to live through as a way of connecting to one another? So wide we would become, too wide for the binary words of good and bad, health and disease. 

Walking the wilder path toward healing means accumulating less knowledge and practicing more of what we already know.

Whatever your 2022 has looked like, if you are humbler for the journey, then you are spiraling upward through your healing journey, even especially if it sometimes feels nauseating. 

Keep your ground this season by seeping in your own wisdom juices. Spend less time acquiring knowledge and more time practicing what you already know. Listen - to the birds, the sleeping roots, the quiet moon, your heartbeat...

And may we all consider tending to our wounds as if they were symptoms of what it means to be alive today, tenderly unraveling ourselves as if we were unraveling the world.

I have recorded a new paid subscriber soul story about the often misunderstood concept of finding your true north, which I gathered from a recent hike. It will be sent on Sunday (Dec. 11th) so you can enjoy it with your first lazy Sunday brew. I hope it sweetens your journey,

In sincere gratitude for your time today,

The best 7-dollar gift you will give this year. Offer yourself the wisdom of seeking less externally this year. Get full access to Sez’s pdf’s, audios, workbooks, and graphics that support your self-sustaining healing journey.