Summer 2025: “WE CAN DO HARD THINGS.”
Ah, what to write about here. As you may have noticed, there’s been a hiatus from writing the newsletter this summer. There’s been a lot of LIFE happening. It’s been busy— externally and internally. And I realize as I write this blog alongside writing another letter I may or may not send to my family (again)— I have been writing A LOT these past few months. Using up my writing energy for myself and my own deep processing, as we all must do when the big scary waves of life start crashing on your inner world.
We need to take care of ourselves before we can care for others and the world in a grounded way. That’s the lesson I’ve been trying to learn and practice and embody these last few months of summer.
what do I want?
what feels good to me?
what actually is my pleasure?
and as a lifelong people pleaser and fawner…
(the oft forgotten sibling of the fight, flight, or freeze trauma response)
…how can I quiet all these outer voices and desires (and my sometimes made up stories and fear) of others so that I can actually hear me?
Sometimes life confronts you with a situation and/or people that bring up all your “stuff.”
All your triggers, all your challenges, all your repressed and suppressed stuff that most days we’re fine to just ignore or “push through”… for other people’s convenience, for fear of the dark cave and the unknown, for survival.
Sometimes life sees that you’ve been learning about your patterns and how to compassionately shift them and then decides that today is the day. She comes right up to your doorstep with all that “stuff,” knocks loudly at 4:02 am and says “now is the time. you cannot continue ignoring me. you’re ready.” And she pushes you straight into that vast ocean of dark and murky water.
And there go you on your emotional deep dive. all you can do externally is show up and try your best to be present, while internally you hold on for dear life through the giant waves of emotional processing.
It’s been one of those summers.
I didn’t feel ready. And at first I did not accept. I cursed life and the situations and the people that were causing my triggers to activate. Sometimes I cursed myself for getting activated.
I resisted that it could be happening… was happening… is happening.
I resisted the knowing that it was affecting me so much.
But all the while, I just kept trying to hold space for the waves to move through.
Sometimes I carved space out to be with the waves— retreating into the woods, rivers, ocean… journaling the night away, tarot carding for answers… so much therapy, conversations with trusted friends…
Sometimes I just showed up for life and was present. I let the external busy-ness of summer and invitations whisk me away into right here right now. It was a huge relief, escaping into the present moment. The present moment where I was safe, alive, and connecting to humans who were not my trigger sources. There were no bears waiting right next to me to attack, and so I let my self be.
And then I came home…
And all of those emotions and triggers I’d swept to the side in the name of being present,
were right there waiting for me.
To notice. To hold. To feel.
To tell me their secrets. To move through.
It wasn’t pretty.
It was raw, wild, and overwhelming.
I was a shell of my former self, just going through the motions for a while.
And sometimes I needed to hide and rest.
(which I promised myself was also totally okay and normal)
In the midst of the water treading and learning to swim,
when there was a gap in the waves,
there was also a lot of “disassociation time” …
reading or gaming or literally just sitting outside and staring.
Escaping my world for a few hours and days.
Eventually returning.
And then, like life always does if you pay enough attention,
things started to shift.
to change,
to move.
And they’re still moving, and I still don’t feel like I’m at max capacity. I still feel agitated and sensitive and like my window of tolerance is so small.
But what I can tell you is I’m holding on.
I’m okay.
I’m not great.
Things are still hard.
And I still don’t like it.
But I’m not dying.
I’m learning I can swim, I can float.
That I can do hard things.
These waves keep pummeling me, knocking me under the surface
And sometimes, I stay down there for a while, looking up at the surface, doubting life and its challenging ways, wondering when things will feel mellow again…
But then I rise.
Sometimes (many times) I come up sputtering and spitting, not trusting I can float.
other times, I burst forth from the waters with righteous knowing and trusting of me.
But either way,
To quote my friend’s therapist— I’m buoyant.
Dealing with relationships, ourselves, our lives…
Can be really fucking hard sometimes.
And sometimes sometimes feels like a long time.
And it is.
But there’s a secret to being human that we often forget,
which is that we can do hard things.
In fact, it’s kind of our heritage and M.O. as humans and life.
To continue. To hope. To try again.
And maybe…
To keep growing and changing to meet each moment.
To meet ourselves in each moment.
To meet life in each moment.
If we want to be fully alive anyway.
This is my confession and my encouragement.
There’s nothing wrong with us if we feel like life is hard and too much, because
Life is hard, and it is a lot.
But if we practice looking for the pause, the brief moments between crashing waves, the sun shining, flowers blooming, how we feel when we’re with humans who do meet and support us, a tasty snack, a good book, a video that makes us laugh, music playing…
If we practice noticing the glimmers and realizing that we are alive and still with breath in our bodies,
It can help us remember
That we’re already floating.
And I’m floating right alongside you.
Meditation of the month:
Keeping it simple with present moment anchors
Anchor into the present moment: 5 minutes mindfulness meditation
Using the present moment anchors of sensation, sound, breath to find our way back to presence and peace in body and mind. These 3 anchors are always in the present moment, so when we are feeling overwhelmed by thoughts or emotions, we can practice tuning into the neutrality of right here right now to bring ourselves back to regulation.
I’ve talked about these present moment anchors before as being the foundation of presence + mindfulness. Our brains are so powerful. Even thinking about or remembering something stressful that is not happening right now causes our bodies to start pumping adrenaline and other stress hormones into our bodies and preparing our fight-flight-freeze-fawn response.
Unless there is a bear or attacker right there in the room with us RIGHT NOW, our bodies do not need to prepare in this way. And yet our brains software developed at a time when we did need to prepare for this physical reality, and so it applies the same physical “There’s a bear!” stress response to when we’re thinking about that upcoming presentation or difficult conversation we have in mind.
This makes tapping into the physical world of cues that help us ground back into the present moment an essential skill for helping us calm down our nervous systems so that we can do what we need to do with less panic and fear (physically and emotionally).
Practicing coming back into these anchors again and again helps make calmness more accessible when we need it, and in general. Practice liberally and notice which anchors are easiest for your mind to tap into so that it can be your “home base.”
Latest offerings:
Upcoming offerings
Stay tuned for some website updates with new services being offered next month! Meditation 1:1s and relationship therapy.
Online Meditation with Meditation Momma
Meditation for Modern Mystics summer mini-series
3 weeks or drop-in, August 13 - 27
Wednesdays 6:00–7:20pm PT
Sign up here!
Meditation for Modern Mystics Fall series
8 weeks, September 17- November 5
I’m SUPER excited about this series as we’ll be learning one of my all-time favorite techniques and resources for truly tapping into feeling supported by the universe in our bodies minds and hearts.
Kids meditation groups (ages 8-13) Fall Series
8 weeks Sept 15 - Nov 3
In-person meditation at Fern and Thistle Massage and Spa (previously St. Johns Spa)
Monday evenings, 7-8 pm
Opening with Ease
Friday mornings, 9-10 am
Start Centered
Songs of the summer:
when you’re feeling like everything including you is on fire:
Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger
Remember this one? “I’m not sick but I’m not wellllll…”
when you’re feeling like okay I can do this and I’m still breathing:
Float On by Modest Mouse
Resource of the summer:
Being Well podcast with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson (there’s also a YouTube channel of all their episodes live-recorded, if you’re a YouTube person)
Check out this episode on the fawn response if you’re a people pleaser or in a relationship of any kind with a people pleaser (hint: you most definitely are).
Books of the summer:
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
If you identify as a woman and/or people-pleaser, I implore you to read this book.
Not because you have to agree with everything the author says, or even to relate to every bit of her experience, but because you will recognize yourself and what you’ve been taught and led to believe in these pages, and because it’s important for us to see the rules so many of us have been led to believe are truths, but which are made up ideas that have so often kept us silenced and pleasing to others while abandoning ourselves.
Fantasy version: What the Lady's Maid Knew by E.E. Holmes
I don’t know about you but I have been going through a thing with MEN lately. With the patriarchy. With my dad. my husband, my brother. with the ways myself and other women have been trained to consciously and unconsciously fear men and the violence of men. with the ways men so often refuse or think themselves unable to do their own emotional work and then the rest of us feel and act like we have to move through the world carrying the load for them, quieting our emotions so that they are “palatable” to these delicate and easily overwhelmed creatures.
i know I’m not alone in this. I could go on at length. but I’m going to pause here and save my full on ramble for probably another blog entry down the road.
suffice it to say this fantasy series was the women-led revolutionary fantasy series i didn’t know i needed.
quotes about interacting with dads as a daughter: “It was just that conversation you walked in on just now—the one with my father. I had been hoping—foolishly, it seems—that he might have felt badly for what happened at my Presentation—that he might even offer me an explanation or an apology. Instead, I received a lecture on the importance of my duty.”
Holmes, E.E.. What the Lady's Maid Knew (The Riftmagic Saga Book 1) (p. 298). (Function). Kindle Edition.
Journal prompt for the summer:
Write out all the things you’d like to say to that person you’ve been too afraid to say it to. Stream of consciousness, no filters. You can share it or not, but the important thing is for you to see yourself how you really feel and what you really want to express, and to help it move from inside your body/mind/heart, to the outside physical world.
Words of the summer:
““We can do hard things” becomes my hourly life mantra. It is my affirmation that living life on life’s own absurd terms is hard. It isn’t hard because I’m weak or flawed or because I made a wrong turn somewhere, it is hard because life is just hard for humans and I am a human who is finally doing life right… You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever supposed to be easy.”
Glennon Doyle, Untamed
“When we are loving, we openly and honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment, and trust.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
Sending love and buoyancy,
Kelsey aka the hopeful hermit
