Crafted to Last

On remembering how to let go and holding on to what matters most

Dear Reader,

I am teaching meditation classes on zoom, because well, our minds can feel like seriously scary places to be, but the good news is they don’t have to stay that way.

Meditation is like a gym, and your practice of sitting and being with yourself is your training. Come to class and get thought experiments, visualizations and exercises to build mental fitness, training for your mind to feel better more secure in yourself and your capability, and more agile, and resourced in the face of what’s happening in the world.

I’m here for you. And so is your practice.

tuesdays (all PST)
🪢 already secure 8:30am
👁 inner awareness 12:30pm
❤️‍🔥 heart wisdom 5:30pm

Check out the FULL schedule and come drop in. No experience is necessary. And if you’re like what in the hell, I can’t empty my mind, or think no thoughts, or if you feel any of those other intimidating ideas about what meditation “actually is” getting in your way, I promise you, it’s not that complicated. You will get it. It’s best if you come see for yourself.

I’ve also got a few coaching slots opening up as we stretch into February. If you’re curious about somatic approaches to healing and transformation, ready to stop over-functioning and over-extending, ready to take bold steps towards what lights you up, schedule a free call so we can get to know each other and see if we’re a right fit.

And now without further ado, let’s get into story time.

I ring the doorbell, and greet a short, red curly haired human standing in the stairwell as I listen to the rain gently falling behind me.

“Too many linens,” the facebook marketer says when I ask her why she’s getting rid of her West Elm bed frock I’m here to take off her hands.

Outside her apartment, we hold the duvet between our fingers as I measure its width with my eyes.

This is niiiiiiiiiiiice I think, and smile to myself.

I bring the duvet home and pull it over the innards that have been laying naked on my bed for the last 6 months, and slip underneath it, sitting up straight and laugh.

It finally feels like a real bed.

I love nesting and setting up spaces. I have no doubt, in an alternate universe somewhere, I am a quirky, highly coveted interior designer working on lavish scales and in unique spaces including the front windows of the ABC carpet + home store at 888 Broadway in Manhattan, making a killing.

But here, on this rock hurling through space, I am just an ordinary gal, an enneagram 4 who loves beautiful things at discount prices.

I have been very intentional about not rushing my move in.

And there’s been something really sweet about it.

About not filling my room with unnecessary stuff before I’ve had the chance to get to know its energy and the pattern of my own as I move around in it.

James Clear (Atomic Habits) talks about how our most intimate environments are reflections of who we are, and that how we shape our environments, what we choose to fill our spaces with, shapes us back.

So here I am, face to face with an opportunity to be strategic about who I am becoming.

In his book he talks about how we encode ourselves into our environments by what we choose to surround ourselves with, how we arrange our belongings and how we can make certain choices to set up our spaces in certain ways that support certain thought patterns, behaviors and habits.

Essentially we can thoughtfully design our space to give shape to who we are becoming because our environment shapes us back, it happens wether we think about it or not.

Our objects become things that can activate certain parts of us, like the meditation cushion that calls me to it every morning, or the mess of paints I choose to leave spread out on my desk overnight, beckoning me to keep on with the painting that might be looking worse than where I managed to take it last week, or the picture of my younger self that sits on my altar to remember the inner kiddo that’s survived all the hard shit when I’m being hard on myself.

I’ve got to see her to remember I’m still learning it’s safe to be seen.

Let me assure you dear reader, part of me is exercising patience to find out who I’ll be in this new city, who I want to be, part of me is taking my time on purpose and part of me just hasn’t gotten around to securing the duvet cover because I’m too busy doing other things.

Regardless of the reason why, the patient and prolonged how is brand spankin’ new for this Aries sun, and believe it or not, it’s a how I’m rather enjoying.

I have been known to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and this move has been no different.

I am confronting my own expectations of immediacy at every turn.

Immediacy in finding new friends, in establishing community, in figuring out my routine, in finding success in the next iteration of my business.

I’m uncomfortable as I keep learning over and over again, in situations that feel different but confront me with the same truth, life doesn’t work this way, no matter how much I expect it to.

We don’t become new people overnight.

I know amidst the uncertainty of where this how is leading me beyond the next step I take, I know in my move away from new york city, I am also moving towards a greater wholeness within myself.

So I’m taking my time moving into my space, because I sure as hell don’t yet know who I am outside of the high stakes mayhem of go go go that new york has carved into my flesh for the last 9 years. And I know I’m not just picking furniture to fill my space, I’m setting myself up to have a new experience of my self.

And that deserves some patience.

So I ask myself…

What does each piece of art I own inspire in me? Which do I want to hang up so it can feed my spirit every day?

Where do my plants need to be to get the best of the winter light that floods my room in the early afternoon?

How do I want to function in this room and what can I put in it to encourage that?

How do I move through this space on a Monday compared to a Thursday?

Maybe this can be more than an escape room, a room safe to collapse in. Maybe there’s unexplored potential for what a bedroom could be, waiting to be discovered here.

I don’t know yet. I haven’t met the she, that might need more from her space than that.

Somedays, more than others, I still feel like I’m in a rush to figure out who I am becoming.

But for the most part, I’ve decided to see what choices bring me to the next threshold, reminding myself it’s a process that will go on forever, until my last dying breath.

Meanwhile, I’ll let my tchotchkes crowd the top of my dresser drawers.

I’ve had many moments recently where I’ve spent too much time looking for that one thing I haven’t unpacked yet, my bright red coat from Berlin, the hand me down le creuset gifted to me when I first moved to the city, only to realize it wasn’t something I considered essential enough to take with me across the country.

Plenty annoyed and slightly bewildered by what now feels like random, senseless logic as I try to recall my decision making process last December packing 9 years up in cardboard boxes and shipping a life across the country, I slap my palm to my face and let out a dramatic, exasperated sigh.

I regret how easy it was to leave parts of me behind.

At the same time I find myself refreshed by the forced detachment from my belongings now changing hands and ownership on the other side of the U, S of A.

The day before the duvet, I woke up with a feeling I thought I’d most certainly left behind.

I sat outside, having ingested 2mg of THC in preparation for a new project I was working on, suddenly sick to my stomach.

Experiencing an acute wave of nausea, reeling in my winter puffer, heart beating furiously in my chest, I tune in to wtf is happening on the inside of me and start to sort through my feelings.

I close my eyes and ask my body what is in need of my attention. My stomach drops and I recognize a feeing of disappointment I’ve been avoiding, as I reflect on the past few days, what’s happened, and what I’m having a hard time processing in the moment. I sense into the discomfort of an Indigestible morsel conflict (German New Medicine—Dr. Chris Cole’s newsletter is an excellent resource, this one covers morsel conflicts specifically).

The reality I wanted nothing to do with but had to swallow, the thing I couldn’t digest in the moment, was my annoyance, my anger, about letting someone in too quickly, about not feeling fought for, prioritized, about not advocating for my own value and feeling taken advantage of. And sitting in this altered state of conscious, the experience was threatening to hurl itself back up.

And I recognize in how loud this feeling is now, how quiet my anger got. And I catch a glimpse of the other photo on my altar, my disgruntled mother and a whole lot lines up in my mind, in a flash.

I haven’t always been honest with myself about my needs, which has protected me from feeling disappointed. In moments where I don’t feel met, don’t feel prioritized, don’t feel my time is being respected, I’ve been agreeable.

Because being agreeable is safe.

Staying hidden means no one can ever hurt you.

I’ve bitten my tongue, swallowed my pride and held back my anger. Just like her ^.

Now, choking on my gag reflex, I have an acute understanding on a biological and spiritual level what it costs me.

It costs me getting properly nourished. It’s cost my mother a kind of self acceptance.

It keeps me from being known, and in that way it ensures I won’t ever be met.

Because in the swallowing of my anger, I deny myself what I really need. I deny what my anger is protecting.

And I know my mother too, has been well trained to deny herself her own wisdom.

My most recent breakup, with whom I’ll call S, has left a substantial amount of fear residue in my body. Fear if I speak my mind, say what I really think, disagree, that I will be rejected. Discarded. Left.

The 18th month slow death obliteration came with its costs, but it also came with a rebirth. I know I’ve survived the worst of it, and on the other side of death has been a glorious, magnificent, beautiful, vital life.

One in which our angry teenage parts, mine and my mom’s have come head to head, and met, and protested, and listened.

If I got through that, I can make it through this. I know my anger isn’t something to distance myself from. Embracing it has led to to greater intimacy. So when the nausea roils in my guts again, I speak my truth out loud to myself, without hesitation.

I speak what’s on my mind even though I feel needy, petty, dare I say crazy.

And I feel better. The queasiness subsides and my anger is clarified, like it’s been digested.

And what comes after is insight about what to do next, and the necessary energy I need to see it through.

So dear reader,

I will keep planting seeds, and water them with my grief. And put my warm cheek to the soil, and whisper their growth into being.

I will be clear in my communication, I will express what I need, and I won’t hold it against other person if they can’t meet them.

I will take up space without apology.

I will remember to see the person and their personhood, in front of me.

I will keep putting myself out there, even when I think it doesn’t matter, and no one is paying attention.

I will find the resonance of my own voice, I will tune into my own rhythm, I will do what I need to do to keep feeding my soul.

I will keep finding the ground, I will stay connected, I will be loyal to my own heart.

I will go get a duvet cover for my bed.

The tag will read Crafted to Last.

I know not everything is meant to, but I’ll hold out to see what does.

Thanks for being here

xx

Z