Oh, Honey.

Fall, 2025 I’m sitting in my favorite chair in the living room. The sky is getting darker. It’s almost dusk. I check the time: 4:40 p.m. The dark starts early these days. Especially in the Pacific Northwest. I make a mental note to take my vitamin D in the morning. ✧✧✧ Most weeks I get a bit panicked that I won’t have anything compelling for the newsletter. Like now. I’m a bit panicked. I don’t have a topic. It’s not that I haven’t written. I’ve written paragraphs upon paragraphs with the hopes that some spiritualigious morsel will appear. Nothing good yet. I know, intellectually, it will work out. But that’s just an intellectual knowing. I’m still a bit panicked that a topic won’t present itself to me. ✧✧✧ Spoiler alert: I finish the article. ✧✧✧ I hear me reprimanding myself for my worry. “You shouldn’t panic.” “You’re fine.” “Stop worrying.” None of these help. And, moreover, it’s rude. Denying people (including ourselves) the validation of their own experience isn’t loving. It’s the opposite. I wouldn’t tell someone who is sad, “You shouldn’t be sad.” I wouldn’t tell someone crying, “Stop. Cut it out.” Why am I doing that? Why am I telling myself that I ought not feel how I’m feeling? Habit, I guess. ✧✧✧ So, I switch it up. I ask myself, “How would I treat a 10-year-old who is panicked?” And I know the answer. “Oh, honey… I see that you are scared. I hear you. I don’t like feeling scared either.” ✧✧✧ Magic. The part of me that was scared felt seen. The panic, almost immediately, melts off of me. And, the article’s spiritualigious theme appeared.