Yesterday, I woke with very familiar feelings of anger, sadness, and overwhelm. All of it felt uncontained and wild, ready to erupt into everything.

I reached out to a few of my dear friends, whose presence and listening did help to calm some of the forest fire maelstrom whirling and stirring inside. Not unexpectedly, I couldn’t quite focus during the first Zoom meeting of a Freedom from Overthinking class, as I watched the wildfires burning and burning and destroying and destroying. That was my experience in the moment, and I left the call after ten minutes past the promised end time. I felt a bit guilty, and I felt so restless at that point to get on with the day.

Yeah. The irony.

I moved to Western Massachusetts 3 1/2 years ago after a long time living in West Hartford, Connecticut. Up to that point, I had been living a pretty conventional life of working and raising kids. It’s what I thought I wanted. What marked that time was an immense load of responsibility, a strong sense of purpose and direction, and persistent feelings of roller-coastery restlessness. Believing that life here would offer so much more, I arrived here the day after dropping my younger son off at college.

Within a few days, I met one of my dearest friends who is a longtime teacher of a system of movement/dance called contact improvisation. Within weeks, I attended my first class and jam with him and entered into a whole new world in which exploration, openness, invitations, and gentleness were welcome through this beautiful form, through my form in contact with others. During the closing circle that day, my heart felt so full of gratitude and wonder at the discovery of this space as I exclaimed, “THIS is how the world should be!” A place where we can freely explore our relationship to ourselves and to others creatively with lightness and fun. And then, every so slowly, my life started to deconstruct again.

With the passage of every season, I have mostly faithfully attended a seasonal Underscore, during which many people come together within a specifically-set 3 1/2 hour container in which to experience yourself through ranging dynamic states of movement, stillness, by yourself, with another, or with many others. I mostly sat at the sides of the room, witnessing and marveling the beauty and artistry of many who have been dancing in this kind of setting for years.

During the closing circle of the Spring Underscore yesterday, all of us were invited to reflect on our experience. One woman shared that she noticed that she’s often looking for the fiery, faster-moving duets and yet had moments of slowing down that felt just as satisfying. She spoke of dropping the idea of any outcome, any idea of what she wanted to happen. This is the essence of improvisation and, frankly, of living a liberated life.

I’ve only shared once at an Underscore event because generally I don’t have much to say. Yet, I was on the edge of sharing yesterday and I didn’t quite work up the courage even though I really wanted to. I wanted to share vulnerably, to be honest about how awkward I still feel coming to dance events, how much I judge myself to be dressed wrong, moving wrong, not belonging, not being diligent enough about learning, feeling off-balance, feeling scared about truly letting go. And how I’ve judged that I’m not making progress.

And then, I stepped back just briefly enough to question whether all the rubbish I was recycling again and again was actually true.

I remembered that I am moving through my life now with more dancing in my heart, my kitchen, my backyard, sometimes in the aisles of Whole Foods, and how harshly I judge myself when I am not.

Yes, the same themes over and over again.

When I returned home that afternoon after dancing, I sent my dear friend an audio message. He and another beautiful dancer organize the seasonal Underscore, and I am so grateful to them both for what they curate and cultivate. I thanked him and I told him that I keep coming even though I’m not sure I belong. I continue to arrive because I still sense that something is moving within me, even if I can’t quite articulate it fully yet.

After being inspired to declutter the house recently, I reread and skimmed Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up a few weeks ago. Years ago, I used her suggestions to move through clothes, then books, papers, and komono, the catch-all of all the accumulated miscellany, and found great satisfaction in that tightened-up tidiness that seems to bring some semblance of calm and ease back into the home.. After all, won’t that transform my life somehow?

Ah, transformation. Oh, how I want transformation. Calgon, freaking take me away. Now.

As I started to sort through all of the books that somehow fit on two shelves in my living room, I took account of how many spiritually based books I have along with some remaining self-help and health-optimization books, Sufi poetry, and a smattering of fiction that I still think I’ll read again. Pema Chödrön, Thich Nhat Hanh, C.S. Lewis, Don Miguel Ruiz, David Hawkins, and so on, sitting beside a pile of teaching texts and workbooks I studied assiduously years ago after formally committing to being a student of my Buddhist teacher.

As I leafed through some of the Hinayana and Mahayana teaching workbooks, I remembered how very devoted I was at the time to studying and meditation in this tradition. Sitting silently and still for one hour daily to attain mastery, first in calm-abiding meditation. Attending and organizing retreats. Reading and studying so that I might remember my true nature and shed the layers of accumulated mental formations, clinging, and suffering, to move toward bliss emptiness, even for a moment. And it did help a great deal. And it was part of a pattern I repeat often.

I often want relief from the overthinking, the anxiety, the depression, the dysregulation, the seeming unsteadiness of ongoing activation and reactivity. So I turn to many things, the primary of which has been spiritual practice and then also integrative and functional medicine approaches to wellness. I have enough discipline to do the current thing for a while, and for a quite a long while if I’m partnered with another. Yet it all seems to unravel over time when I don’t trust what I perceive as an ongoing mismatch between the practice and the people who practice it. I feel repeated disappointment, the story that I’m not being met and I don’t belong.

And then mourn and complain that I don’t have community and a sense of belonging.

Then, I find the next big thing and start to engage with that.

After returning from the month-long healing retreat, I started to formulate the next big plan to transform my life. Sell the house. A two-week healing energy retreat in Bali in September, followed by free-form travel in Asia, and then extended Karma Yoga service at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram in the Bahamas. Sounds great, yes?

Perhaps, if I wasn’t dealing with the immediacy of grieving the loss of an important relationship and ongoing health challenges. The insomnia, fatigue, and brain fog feel more persistent now as I dream big, searching for the next thing that will fix me and set me up to do what I think I’m meant to do. I understand that I want relief. Makes sense. And is this big, dreamy plan going to get me there? To anything sustainable that leads to true ground and ease? Probably not. I’ve done dozens of big, dreamy things in the past, and they have genuinely moved me further along the path. Yet I still struggle with very familiar patterns.

Big sigh…

Like many who experienced difficulties and challenges while growing up, I’ve learned to stay in motion, to approach and then leave, thousands of times. I’m steady enough to have raised two happy sons pretty well, to have practiced medicine for twenty-five years, to be present for others as a physician and life coach. I know how to guide others back to calm and ease within their lives.

Yet always in the background, there is still the thrum, and sometimes the thunderous noise, of the pressure to find the next place of momentary relief. And when I sense that ongoing mismatch within myself, I leave and land in the familiar territory of shame and disappointment. Gah. I see the loop, and I repeat it anyway.

So, this morning, I deconstructed the big plans to sell the house and so on, and reflected on the next tiny steps I can take to soothe my system. Oh, how it helped to slow down, assess, and see clearly, with kindness, the loop looping again. Makes sense given what I’ve been navigating.

And rather than feeling disappointed and leaving myself swallowed up by crushing, collapsing shame, I felt deep gratitude that I could witness any of it and move again with small steps to find a place to land, with grace, right now.

I feel better this morning.

I feel rested and grounded, without the dull frontal headache, body-wide aches, and familiar fatal-feeling fatigue. Grateful.

Then, I start to scroll through the things I did yesterday and the day before. What made the difference? Why am I feeling better this morning? What do I continue doing? What do I stop?

Is it the smoothie with MCT oil, avocado, collagen powder, and organic frozen blueberries? Is it the supplements I’m taking? Is it the supplements I’m not taking? Is it because I resumed my long daily walk? Is it because I nourish myself with meaningful connections every day? Is it because I’m running the air purifier in my bedroom and in the living room 24/7? Is it because I made a point of taking multiple physiological sighs at the first sign of anxiety yesterday? Is it the big salad I’m eating every day for lunch after watching a series of YouTube shorts and craving freshness and aliveness?

This morning, I read this essay on quitting all of the healing protocols, practices, and rituals, and it rang true to me. What is the true root of wellness? Oh, how the mind wants to know.

As I write this, I can feel the feelings of feeling better start to feel a bit more distant with a heaviness way down low in my belly. Pay attention, Jessie. Pay attention to how you’re feeling, not what you’re trying to accomplish with writing this…

Makes sense that I want to know.

And I wonder if it’s the reaching, the trying to know, that keeps me feeling unwell.

I don’t know.

Grateful to catch myself in it.

Time to go for a walk in the colder raininess of the day. Onward! Spring is here.

Over the past few days, I’m watching myself think the same thought over and over again, “I don’t want to sell this house.” I’ve been deeply grieving the loss of a close relationship (or at least the form of it living together) while visioning about the future and dealing with the present. So many emotions and thoughts tumbling out, cluttering my days with feelings of excitement, overwhelm, inspiration, sadness, and frank confusion.

While I was away, I started to reread The More of Less by Joshua Becker, as I contemplated living a minimalist life, more of one anyway. I felt inspired to start decluttering my house as a step toward letting go of this house altogether, this life I created. Minimalism sounds so good to me, to let go of the consumerism that grips many of us, the constant filling up of space with things much of which I don’t use. Declutter my space. Declutter my life. Declutter my mind. Yes! Let’s do it!

In the spirit of donating and finding good homes for some things, I offered the Yamaha electric piano to my dear friend who is an amazing musician and singer and was moving into a new space. He had already found one and initially declined. A few days later, he asked whether I would be willing to donate it to the school for children with autism, where he now worked. “Yes!” I enthusiastically replied.

I had bought it years ago when I thought my boys might want to learn to play piano. I had learned to play quite well when I was young, and then dropped piano altogether at 16 after twelve years of lessons and performance, the moment my mother told me I could. The boys did take a few lessons, and they weren’t excited, so we dropped it then and there. Over the years, I tried to pick up piano again and it never really felt right.

The piano simply became a place for me to display photos of my boys and the Lego bouquet they bought and assembled for me lovingly a few Christmas seasons ago. A familiar part of the landscape of a home.

Yesterday, while riding an especially big wave of grief and loss, I walked by the piano and just felt that I was tearing my heart out by letting go of the piano, a place to display my children’s photos of when they were so cute and young, a place to have them stay, a place to have all of my precious things. And so I messaged my friend sharing my grief and hesitation about letting the piano go. Yet, it didn’t feel good to take back what I had promised even though I was fiercely trying to protect myself from any more huge feelings of loss.

Everything feels so big right now. That makes sense. How do I move forward without it feeling like I’m going to be swallowed up and disappear?

When I returned from my walk this morning, I decided to take a much smaller step. Move the photos a few feet away onto the sideboard cabinet.

In the moment, it felt better than trying to let go of the piano all at once.

And in a few days, I’ll pack up the piano and feel good that my dear friend may now have the opportunity to play beautiful music for the children he’s caring for. If I imagine that, I feel much better about the decision.

Taking this one small step helped to ease some of the feeling of overwhelm.

And I’m still sitting with the waves of grief and loss, and so wanting it to feel better.

Makes sense.

I walk by this cute, quaint little red birdhouse most mornings. Yesterday was the first time I saw a sparrow peeking out.

Since starting to write here in the mornings, I found myself deferring my walk until later, or not at all. I noticed myself contracting and decided to walk first after stepping into the crisp morning air to put the trash and recycling out to the curb.

I did sit down after the walk yesterday to write, but I couldn’t quite focus. I felt tired, so I didn’t write.

Since moving to Western Massachusetts, much has felt expansive. And I’ve also experienced a decrease in my ability to focus for extended periods, waning stamina, ongoing sleep disruption, increasing emotional lability, brain fog... And so in the mind’s habit of sense-making, I chalked it up to menopause, work stress, relationship stress, and ongoing healing work.

Then, in preparation for the retreat month in March, I completed comprehensive bloodwork, stool and mold toxin testing, all of which I have ordered and interpreted for so many before. After leaving my job as a virtual functional medicine doctor two years ago, I let go of the attachment to looking at lab data to guide a return to balance. I felt too burned out by so many things and didn’t really know what to believe about the true roots of wellness. I had dealt with biotoxin illness when I lived in Connecticut, and I was simply tired of looking at data. And yet the testing seemed to be telling me something about the house I love so much.

Haha. Symptoms can be variable… nervous disorders. Nervous disorders?

Even when I looked at the results, I didn’t really know what to make of it. I wanted to ignore it like I was ignoring my symptoms, turning toward spiritual practice as part of sense-making.

Then, the functional medicine physician at the retreat told me that this sensitivity to mold was very likely a major reason I was feeling so compromised along with other things like dealing with feelings of grief and loss. She also told me that the markedly elevated Verrucarin A was very likely due to ongoing environmental mold exposure in the house. She offered an extensive healing protocol which I accepted at the time even though I knew it felt too aggressive and harsh after putting myself through many similar healing protocols with many other functional medicine practitioners. This ain’t my first rodeo.

And then… so what?

How do we choose how to frame our experiences?

Do I believe that this house that I love is making me sick? That’s likely part of the truth. Is it part of why I feel untethered and at a loss to find purpose and meaning, what feels like an utter void? Maybe. Probably.

Untethered. Is it a void, or is it freedom?

Last night, a very quick and wildly intense wind and rain storm hit the house, and then the power went out. I found myself resisting the experience. Rather than lighting candles and enjoying the dark silence, the mind grew quite restless throughout the night. Familiar feelings of this is too much arose. Familiar feelings of I don’t have enough support. Familiar feelings of wanting to give up.

And then the morning light came, and I decided to start over, to stay with all of it. To watch all of it with curiosity, openness, and a still sense of gratitude.

A few years ago, I drove to Westerly, Rhode Island to spend my 53rd birthday by myself by the ocean. I had just completed my first mushroom journey and wanted to be somewhere different, somewhere I could feel myself.

I took a cold plunge in the ocean and walked and walked along the shoreline. I met a long-time resident who lived in a quaint cottage by the sea with his wife. We talked all day about many things: how things unfold unexpectedly in a life, embracing what we love and what we want, and fishing. He invited me to have a fish lunch on his front porch and told me that I was always welcome to return to stay with them anytime I felt the need to get away. I learned how to cast a line for the first time.

What an adventure! There’s something so exhilarating about traveling to a new place and meeting new people, connecting in ways you never imagined.

And I knew I would be coming back home to my beloved house, my home base.

Life continued pretty much as it had. Some insight and growth came about, and nothing fundamentally changed in how I related to myself.

Now, I’m charting a far more radical course. I’m preparing to sell the house and travel for an indefinite period of time. Because I grew up with a mother who dreamed, designed, and built custom homes that fit her tastes, it was quite the dream to do that here with this house, a privilege to have this opportunity. I’m feeling so many feelings as I write about this.

I grew up with the belief that owning a home meant the ultimate safety and security. Now I’m choosing to let go of that belief and it feels utterly disorienting and terrifying at times, as well as so very exciting.

Yesterday, I went dancing at the weekly Sunday morning dance nearby, and felt the gifts of living here in Western Massachusetts with the seemingly limitless opportunities to grow, stretch, dance, heal, and build community. A few hours later, I was lamenting with a close friend the loss of a place where I feel safe and comfortable. “I don’t want to move!” Yet, as I moved through the conversation, I could feel it. If I stayed, I would stay the same.

And I don’t want that.

What do I want? I want to learn how to fish so that I can feed myself for a lifetime. I want to find my home within myself so that I can be free of the stories I have told myself about who I am, free to live and love uncomplicated love and to serve in the ways I’m designed to give. That’s it.

Three springs ago, I was in another season of grieving after ending another important relationship. In fact, the timing of that breakdown and breakup was uncannily similar to the more recent one. A deeply nourishing Thanksgiving gathering with their families, followed by an unexpected and disorienting dissolution a few days later. This time around, I initially thought, “What the fuck?” and then curiosity and wondering about the repeat arose.

What patterns am I repeating to manifest this again three years later? Am I stuck? Am I free?

So in early spring three years ago, I began to imagine surrounding the periphery of the house with wildflowers. I love flowers and love taking pictures of flowers, so why not live among flowers? I consulted with a landscaping company to bring some much-needed life to the property. We planted three trees and other shrubbery in the front yard. However, when they sent the proposal for the wildflower meadow, I shrank back at the cost. When I reached out to tell them I had changed my mind, they had already received the 3,000 pounds of seed and told me that I would need to at least pay for the specially ordered seeds, about 1/3 of the cost of the project. So we moved forward despite my feeling pretty fucking crazy for spending thousands on what felt like some silly dream.

When they began to tear up the grass and yard to create the bed for the seeds, I felt even more nuts. What am I doing? Why am I destroying the yard? What hare-brained scheme is this? And they continued to dig and then spread the 1 1/2 tons of seed.

Then, I freaked out about how to water the damn thing. Will I not simply waste all that I just spent? What the fuck is wrong with you, Jessie?

And then the rain came and watered the seeds.

And my body began to settle as the seeds did.

And then slowly, the seeds began to sprout.

And before I knew it, the house was surrounded by beauty that I could not quite comprehend or have possibly imagined.

It feels like it’s been like this my whole life. I dream about something. I commit. I feel excitement. I feel doubt and fear. I move forward anyway. I curse myself. I doubt myself. I fear myself. Then, the dream comes to life, and I feel the beauty of being me.

Yesterday, I wrote my first comment to another creator here, . When he replied, I felt quite excited. I felt deep gratitude for the connection. When I read his reply, and then re-read the comment I had written, I felt the familiar return of cursing, doubt, and fear. OMG, what I wrote didn’t grammatically flow. I just revealed that I’m binge-watching Ted Lasso right now as I grieve.

Then, something new arose. I could feel the pull to silence myself. I can feel my excitement to connect, to feel, to dance, to bloom… and then I see it as neediness, too muchness that must be quashed and hidden away. What would happen if I chose to notice that movement away and chose to stay anyway?

To discover and rediscover that all things good are wild and free?

This morning, I’m marveling and I’m reeling. I’m feeling both grateful and completely fucking overwhelmed. Powerful and helpless. Expansion and contraction. Steadiness and inconsistency. Deep and profound grief and gratitude. Love and fear. Rage and forgiveness. All of it.

I came upon this robin sitting in this puddle a few mornings ago. I stopped longer than expected. Peaceful, and maybe confused.

Something feels so good and aligned about being here right now, embracing most moments as if I’ve chosen them.

”Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.” — Eckhart Tolle

Uh-huh. Then, the resistance of other thoughts arrives. Shit. No. Say no to the resistance. Resist the resistance. More resistance. Push. Pull. Reaching for a sense of control when it’s the uncertainty that is true. I see myself choosing this reality, and then wanting to force myself to the ground to stop the seeming momentum of doom and gloom.

And I miss him and us. And I don’t want the life we had together. Waking up in the middle of the night feeling utter terror of moving forward, letting go, allowing myself to receive all that is already there.

Thank you. Fuck you. Good-bye.

Says so much. And enough for now.

Yesterday after I published the post, I moved through another day of what turned out to be another day of revelation. I seem to process ideas and experiences quite rapidly and so when I talk with a friend about my day it seems like so much has happened. Yet, the overthinking and processing often leads to a place of confusion, a feeling of inconsistency and instability, and then ultimately, self-judgment and frankly, attempts to annihilate myself with my thoughts. Not pretty. Not fun.

I’m doing my best to make sense of my experiences and recently I find myself looping endlessly around a sense of deep conflict I have with one of my friends. I find it distressing that I keep thinking about and talking about it and thinking about it and talking about it. What is going on?

I want to be seen.

Why though? What I am playing over and over again believing that it will somehow resolve with all of the thinking and talking about it.

There’s something underneath it that feels familiar. Like I don’t matter. Like what I’m feeling doesn’t quite land anywhere. Like I can’t quite be known as I am.

Sticky. Oh, how so very sticky it seems. Gah.

Why am I here writing any of this this? For validation? Feels bigger than that really.

Yesterday, so many things happened within my mind and during the day including my posting to LinkedIn that I had created this Substack. Then to my utter surprise, my dear friend and colleague posted this. And I felt seen… and that feeling seems to feed the loop. It doesn’t close the loop of overthinking and endless attempts at sense-making.

So, then what?

I’m here.
With this.
With what is still moving through me.

And I am here to witness myself.

I take a long walk every morning. Two days ago, snow fell unexpectedly early in the day.

Along the bike path, I met this tree stump sitting among the leaves with newly fallen snow resting gently upon it. An ending with something new arising among what was already present.

While I was driving home from a sweet gathering with dear friends last evening, I felt a familiar sense of contraction after sharing my vision of selling the house and perhaps traveling afterward. When I’ve mentioned selling the house, people have asked about where I’ll be moving, and I’ve answered excitedly, “Nowhere! I’m going to become itinerant!”

I’ve bookended this movement of letting go of the house I love with the possibility of attending a 2-week energy healing training in Bali in early September. With this anchor, I’m constructing a timeline to put the house up for sale and move out by the end of August. It feels so good to reimagine this life I’ve been gifted.

Yet, as I drove back home last evening, very familiar and completely understandable fear started to creep in. Actually, it felt like something akin to utter touching moments of terror. What will happen to me if I do all of this and find myself feeling alone, unanchored, and depressed in some place so very far away from home? What will be my home? Don’t I need this house to feel safe?

Oh, there it is. Feeling safe. Familiar feels safe.

While tossing and turning last night, I texted my friends after presenting myself as so sure and certain of the path moving forward…

How often I’ve watched this pattern of expansion and contraction. I share openly what feels alive and exciting, only to watch and feel the fear roll back in. And honestly, I can be quite harsh with myself when I notice this movement back and forth. I judge it as inconsistent and therefore not valid. Why? Because inconsistency doesn’t feel trustworthy or safe.

And I’m starting to see that this isn’t inconsistency. It’s something in me returning as I navigate the process of integrating what just opened within me.

Something ending. Something new arising. Among what is already here.

This is my bedroom this morning during this transition from winter into spring.

I imagined this space into existence nearly four years ago, a space that feels exactly like me.

And I love it so much. I love waking up to the sunlight streaming through the windows and looking upon the sky and trees as they are. I love my beautifully conceived kitchen with its sage green and white cabinets and perfect flow. I love the simplicity of the one floor living with all that I need within easy reach. I love the way the back of the house opens into the beauty of a private sanctuary where I can dance freely barefoot, and commune with all that is here now.

In so many ways I feel so at home in this house. And I feel so grateful to have any felt experience of love, ease, and comfort. So blessed.

And it’s time to leave. And I feel so many things in this moment of surrender and letting go. And it’s all okay.

I recently returned from a month-long off-the-grid healing retreat and I experienced the incomparable power of leaving the familiar to find and feel new, renewed perspective. I became increasingly curious about what life might feel like if I shifted my environment to ongoingly access that power of shifting perspective. In varied ways, I rediscovered what uncomplicated love felt like. I moved through healing the belief that I was ever alone through all the challenges of growing up and living this life, and that the truth of who I am was ever truly affected by all that arose for me.

Before the retreat, I had already started to contemplate moving out of this house after ending a romantic relationship with someone quite important to me. I had never felt as in love with someone as I did with him. Ours is a powerful bond of shared spiritual practice, of expansive ideas of service, of co-creation, and of love and deep care. We lived together in this house, sharing rhythms, ideas, excitement, passion, and so much that I can’t even begin to communicate to you. And we were out of alignment with each other even in the energy of so much that felt so right.

Every morning after spiritual study and a walk with his beloved dog, we’d return to the house to make breakfast, sit down in the sunroom to gaze out onto the backyard. During this past fall and winter, we noticed an abandoned squirrel drey high, high up in a tree at the back of the yard, and we wondered together when it would actually fall to the ground. One morning I remarked that the drey would fall when our relationship was truly over as we sifted and sorted through the ups and downs of being together.

A few days ago after returning home from the retreat, I was picking up fallen branches and sticks in the backyard and I noticed that the drey was no longer hanging high, high up in the tree. I took a photo and texted him, “Drey dropped.” While I was gone, he had moved out and left the house empty of his belongings, clean and ready for my return. To my utter astonishment, he replied that the drey had dropped the day I left for the retreat, the last day that he and I lived together in this house.

Is it a strange coincidence, or is it simply part of the flow? I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe that life is unfolding in beauty and perfection even when it doesn’t seem or feel like it.

And it is from this belief, the assigning of this particular meaning to my experience, that guides me into the next chapter of reimagining what life can be. Letting go of what I love, moving toward all that is already shifted and shifting within me.