Forced by a virus to endure a long convalescence in bed, it was impossible for Elisabeth Tova Bailey to imagine a future; “All of life was out of reach.” Only it wasn’t. A forest snail that took up residence on her nightstand, living in a pot of violets, would change her life and become the impetus for a remarkable book.
Read MoreA Guide to Glimmers and Where to Find Them
Lately, we’ve been hearing about glimmers, tiny moments of awe and beauty that spark joy, calm, well-being and help our nervous systems feel relaxed and balanced (the opposite of stressors and triggers.) Glimmers can be the seemingly ordinary things, as well as very unexpected ones.
Read MoreZiwe’s Meditation on Feet and Shame
Writing about the public rating of her feet on the celebrity foot database wikiFeet— who knew?!— She describes the strange reality of social scrutiny and all the shit it puts in our heads and that we have to find ways to antidote. Which she does, in the last beautiful paragraph…
Read MoreShort Meditations to Get You Through (Vivek Murthy, Wild Man Yogi Bryan)
Dr. Vivek Murthy, 21st Surgeon General of the United States and a Yogi Bryan, a wild man meditator we recently discovered, share their quick meditations for regaining connection and calm. Similar practices, VERY different approaches.
Read MoreTo Make the Unwanted Wanted (Jane Hirschfield)
The New York Times’ Ezra Klein’s conversation with poet Jane Hirshfield yielded many remarkable insights. But what dazzled us most was her reading of her poem A Cedary Fragrance, and the story behind her writing it, and its big lesson and challenge.
Read MoreAdvice for An Anxiety Situation (Maira Kalman)
Maria Kalman recently arrived in our Inbox with an invitation to buy a signed and numbered edition she created. It’s called “Don’t Think too Much” and it has much to say on the subject and how not to… (think too much)
Read MoreRam Dass on ‘Allowing’ + Turning People Into Trees
Psychologist, yogi, spiritual teacher Ram Dass’ devised a simple method for softening judgments of the people around us.
Read MoreMarsha Linehan on Building a Life Worth Living
We got interested in psychotherapist Marsha Linehan after a reader told us that it was she who first used the Buddhist concept of Radical Acceptance as a therapeutic tool in psychotherapy. It was a groundbreaking approach, as were the treatments she pioneered for patients who were previously written off as hopeless. The story of how she developed it — as a young woman she had been one of those “impossible” patients — is a marvel of resourcefulness and creativity.
Read MoreEscaping Prison Through The Natural World (Merete Mueller)
Blue Room is a beauty of a New York Times video editorial by filmmaker Merete Mueller. It shows incarcerated men and women watching nature videos on loop, in a mental health experiment to see how seeing nature impacts their experience of isolation and the relentlessly bleak environments in which they must live. Its quietly powerful 11 minutes took us way beyond its subject.
Read MoreBoosting Wellness Through Language
Over the years, we’ve come to to view illness as a path that can, if we are lucky or open to it, provide a lot of illumination and healing. When we mentioned this to our remarkable physical therapist Rachel Miller Williams she nodded and offered this surprising view.
Read MoreTricia Hersey’s Radical Nap Ministry: “Rest is Resistance”
During a particularly stressful and exhausting time in her life, Tricia Hersey had an epiphany: She started napping where ever she had a few moments. It was transformative and led her to research the idea of rest as a healing mechanism and form of resistance against societal oppression. It would become her ministry, and she The Nap Bishop.
Read MoreChloe Cooper Jones on Creating a “Neutral Room” in Your Mind, for Pain Management, Focus and Creative Thinking
We found many compelling ideas in this New York Times interview with Chloe Cooper Jones about her new book Easy Beauty and the disconnect between “our real self and the way that self is perceived”. We’ve been trying out the remarkable technique she learned that she found provides unexpected “agency and peace and power”.
Read MoreIlluminating Ways to Think About Climate Change
Amid the daily deluge of bleak, enervating news about the effects of climate change, we’ve been noticing a strain of defiance: Messages that engender energy and activism rather than despair and paralysis. They offer a thought-provoking and heartening view.
Read MoreTools for Living: Peak Experience Essential Oils
When a talented perfumer I know let slip that he bought some of his base scents from Eden Botanicals, I went to the website immediately. The descriptions of essential oils were much like good wine writing, with notes about terroir and nuances of specific geographies, cultivation methods and fragrance notes. The offerings are a far cry from vin ordinaire essential oils I’d been accustomed to using for relaxation and healing: an order of magnitude more pleasurable, effective, illuminating…
Read MoreDeconstructing “Normal” (Betty White)
We found this short video made for kids curiously clarifying. “Are You Normal?” explains the origin of idea that has become a source of so much modern anxiety, and deconstructs it. We are reminded of the great Betty White in this deeply wonderful Saturday Night Live sketch.
Read MoreHow to Take Control of Time (Without Digital Detox)
Behavioral scientist Michelle Drouin thinks it’s fine to be dependent on your phone — it’s a useful and illuminating tool — and she doesn’t get with the idea of digital detox. If she feels her screen time is out of balance, she uses a simple practice to shift regain time doing things that mean more to her.
Read MoreAdvice for Giving Advice
I was dismayed to see MYSELF in the brilliant, funny New Yorker piece “Wait but have you tried?” about the advice-giving that is everywhere. It pulled me up short and got me wondering what an antidote for this rampant habit might be?
Read MoreReasons for Not Doing the Thing Today (Madeleine Dore, Maya Angelou, Louise Bourgeois)
The other day, a newsletter arrived in my inbox with a list that made me instantly relax. “Some reasonable reasons you didn’t do the thing today” was from Madeleine Dore, author of Extraordinary Routines, which explores “how we navigate the pendulum swings of our days”, i.e. how to live with meaning and creativity and unleash our productivity. Her brilliant list grew out of her realization that there is no secret to productivity, and that the very notion is deeply awry.
Read MoreCaring for Our Nervous Systems on Covid
The most helpful 50 minutes I’ve spent recently was listening to What’s Happening in Our Nervous Systems, a podcast from On Being with Krista Tippet. Clinical psychologist Christine Runyan discusses the physiological effects of the past years of pandemic and the profound changes its wrought in daily life. Knowing “what’s been happening on a creaturely level”, I’ve felt better, more grounded, despite the escalation of a new variant.
Read MoreHoliday Uplift During the 4th Wave (Eddie Izzard, James Brown, Yoko Ono, Toni Morrison, Shirazeh Houshiary)
What started with the hopeful return to old ways of celebrating the holiday season suddenly turned into exhaustion and disappointment at yet another wave of a scary variant. Again. Right now, we want relief from it all: momentary escape, joy, illumination, uplift.
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