This was good for me to read. I, also a neurodivergent, have decided to stop reading self-help. I was never broken. I am whole. I was born this way. But, people made money telling me I was broken, and then telling me how to fix it. I can’t really listen to the same kind of music I used to. I used to go to live music, a lot. Four night runs at Madison Square Garden of my favorite band that left me wanting more. The last shows I went to I ended up covering my eyes because the lights bothered me so much. I can’t even listen to this band anymore. I find myself listening to soft jazz stations, and reading Anne of Green Gables, and knitting to YouTube knitting content. Because I can’t take more in. I don’t want to. The amount of effort I have to put into not taking more in is astounding. So, I cancelled instagram. I come on Substack to read this, and a few others I’ve found and come to love, but thats it. I won’t scroll the feed anymore. Sometimes I write something. An odd poem. I wrote a long peace about the Black Capped Chickadee and how I don’t hear it, here in Vermont, and how that makes me think about moving, because its my favorite bird. I haven’t published it. Maybe I will. But I won’t look at the news again today. I won’t listen to loud music. I won’t talk politics or spiral into doom predictions. I can’t. My heart and mind and body have said no. So I listen to that. And then, when the next protest is announced, I’ll put my boots on, and I’ll march with the beautiful people in my tiny town. And then I will come home, and make tea, and pray. And knit. And sleep as well as I can, so I can march again later.
I love you so much and this is me. I stopped going to the City. I don't stay in hotels. I don't like traveling. I like sweats. I like bird sounds. I don't like smells. I don't like my phone. I don't like having to text people back all the time. I don't like scrolling and especially scrolling the news. I am a fucking cut throat bitch about this stuff and I love it; it's saved me. I am shocked by what I withstood and for how long.
Tracey, I really loved reading this. I found myself nodding along in such recognition and agreement. I get it — that shift away from all the noise, from self-help and from taking in more than we can hold. I feel the same way about realising we were never broken to begin with. The way you describe choosing softer, quieter things — music, books, knitting — really resonated. Thank you for putting words to it, it landed so warmly with me.
As a therapist, I’ve only started noticing recently that patients are recognising the nebulous losses they experienced through the pandemic. At the time, a specific loss could be identified, but only now, for some at least, is the enormity of what they went through dawning in a way that is frequently impossible to describe but often leaves people in tears.
In these situations, as tends to be the case more generally, the questions are more important and more available than the answers.
Hi dear you. Yesterday there was this very weird "Peace Rally" in our town and my friend and I could not make sense of it; there was a person dresssed up as a massacred Statue of LIberty and a sign that said Warmerica, a guy for Jesus, pro-Palestinians, a guy yelling about China and Russia being the road to peace, another guy who admitted he was a reformed democrat and had found the light in the Republican party. We were like, wait, what? There was a show called the Leftovers and it was about the aftermath of a global event that stole norms and led to anomie and in it, everyone was in some insanity because they could not metabolize what had happened, and I was struck by how much that rally felt like watching the Leftovers.
I still don't think I've processed a fraction of the enormity. Big love to you.
I remember The Leftovers. It struck me how every one left felt unmoored, often suicidal as they felt the world was supposed to end and yet didn't or were vulnerable to something to hang on to so there were these weird cults/groups that developed and the oddest people were attracted to them because... maybe because the cult members seemed so much more certain and also they were an escape from having to figure things out. It made me think of that play by JP Sartre "No Exit" in a way.
We are a sensemaking species, but it feels like we’re in a time of wildly disparate story making from the seemingly same things happening. We can’t find groundedness because we can’t even agree on the fundamental things that are happening. It makes me want to read about other times like this.
I think you’re probably right that we need to lean into the surrender and hold less tightly to the need for it all to make sense. And I think that’s nearly impossible for us to do because it’s so central to what makes us human.
A constant practice. After I wrote this a WWII survivor told me we were going to WWIII and then another friend that night told me Everything is going to change in 2026, just you watch, and another friend told me they are moving to Antigua? and I'm like, cool cool. Cool. 100%.
Dear Holly, thank you for writing. Since I fell from the grace of my remission (2 months ago) I stopped reading the news again and limiting all input. I just talk to people, irl or in personal chats. So I can focus the little energy I have on the people that are important and on making/creating. Overwhelm is so bad for my body. Much love to you.
I agree Laura - it is so good and it was exactly what I needed to hear at the end of this fever dream of a week. It brought me back to my sacred pause, an ancient tradition both of your teachings often brings me back to. Thank you both 🤍✨
I believe this, but goddammit, it's the new moon and it's time to align with the path! Doing less and not knowing what to do can't be the path. Can it? Seriously, though, I'm in the middle of reading Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane, and I'm soaking in the Knight's logic that the industrial revolution coincided with casting God aside, and that now we're in the post-industrial time of casting Man aside. And the contemplation of work for immediate survival, work for future survival, and maniacal work with the only goal being more. I'm not religious, but I don't like this feeling of Man being cast aside, and the normalization of working simply for more. But it's hard to pull back in these crazy times. Anyway, your post felt very relevant to me right now, thank you. Maybe this is the path!
I haven't read any of those, thanks for the recommendations!
Ambiguous Adventure was very good, both the message and the beautiful writing. It allowed me to get lost in another time and place and culture, while helping me understand the current moment.
This beautiful and painfully accurate missive felt like absolution this morning. Sometimes this life of unsolved personal and social mysteries feels like me as a child trying to do my math homework and I’m not getting the answers and I’m surrounded by wadded up pieces of paper all around me. And I am chastising myself for not listening in class even though I thought I was. And even when I miraculously get the right answers I cannot show my work and I get points off bc of it even though I got the right answers through some miracle of common sense or natural knowing or intuition.
Anomie feels like trauma now, or is that just another way to sell me make-up or mushroom coffee? I do acknowledge trauma, but how has it gotten so monetized?
At this point I’m retired, but not retired. Running my own small business after running others’ small businesses. On hard days, I used to say to myself as a prayer “Keep it together” many times.
I have had a very active and resilient teenager resistance to dis-integration. From tough upbringing, from parenting 24/7 for 27 years without a present partner. From working so hard to produce as I was trained to do. I have always been the manager. And I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m not buying it as much anymore.
But by buying that, I’ve sold trust in myself~ in my intuition, my natural knowing, common sense. I’m having to dig that out from the filth of propaganda To learn to ONLY listen to THAT. And it feels risky most of the time. And I am choosing to do it anyway. I mean I get instant results! Not always what I want, but nothing is 100%. My current mantra is “I don’t have to know. Let’s just see what happens?” And it’s uncomfortable. I spent a whole year exploring my own values. The real ones. Not the Hallmark ones. It helps when I get confused by all the shiny stuff. Maybe I’m getting more accustomed to being lost, dis-integrated, more present and curious. Less judgey of myself. It’s very abnormal. Anomie. I’m trying to make friends with that more than produce something for the state.
Is anything really ever normal?
Thank you for pointing at things in such a beautiful way. Let’s just see what happens.
I want to be awake. In that curious child-like way of accepting what comes next. That's the only way I can find to be gentle. When I get into the trance of the drift, it makes me feel calloused over and unable to feel and stay sensitive to what I, myself, or another needs. Because, yes, I do need that natural knowing when I, or someone else, does not know the questions to ask ourselves, "What do I need now to be kind to myself?". This is a question I have forgotten to ask for most of my co-dependent life, or maybe what to listen to? And so I practice listening so much of the time. It's the quietest voice. It's the quietest Life. It's the truest voice. I am practicing believing it, and giving ever so gently to myself~ and others~ the wisdom it inevitably serves~ if I can focus long enough. And I screw it up plenty, so I just start again. I don't have to show my work. The answers present themselves to me when it's time. All I have to ask is WHAT? Not HOW? Never HOW? That's the booby prize.
You captured what I’m feeling in this article. There is a deep, collective need to surrender to the experience of being lost. Only then can we discover the peace waiting on the other side—the peace we so desperately need in order to move forward with much needed wisdom.
Dear Holly I have just been reading a few different things on substack as I tend to do in the morning and as always your weaving together of the experiences of your life and knitting it into a completely repurposed item feels fresh and invigorating to me. It's in such contrast to what I often experience as complaint, and have indukged in so much myself. Isn't it interesting how the experience of recovery is perhaps coming into its own as something to lean on in these times,,,,and as always you seem to be able to put words to something I was feeling but didn't quite know I was feeling it. You are in my eyes a modern day philosopher. Thank you
That second-to-last line — “Maybe the new narrative comes when we begin to make room for it.” — hit me hard. I write about overcoming addictions from the perspective of a recovering addict—and I learned that exact same truth the hard way. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
This was good for me to read. I, also a neurodivergent, have decided to stop reading self-help. I was never broken. I am whole. I was born this way. But, people made money telling me I was broken, and then telling me how to fix it. I can’t really listen to the same kind of music I used to. I used to go to live music, a lot. Four night runs at Madison Square Garden of my favorite band that left me wanting more. The last shows I went to I ended up covering my eyes because the lights bothered me so much. I can’t even listen to this band anymore. I find myself listening to soft jazz stations, and reading Anne of Green Gables, and knitting to YouTube knitting content. Because I can’t take more in. I don’t want to. The amount of effort I have to put into not taking more in is astounding. So, I cancelled instagram. I come on Substack to read this, and a few others I’ve found and come to love, but thats it. I won’t scroll the feed anymore. Sometimes I write something. An odd poem. I wrote a long peace about the Black Capped Chickadee and how I don’t hear it, here in Vermont, and how that makes me think about moving, because its my favorite bird. I haven’t published it. Maybe I will. But I won’t look at the news again today. I won’t listen to loud music. I won’t talk politics or spiral into doom predictions. I can’t. My heart and mind and body have said no. So I listen to that. And then, when the next protest is announced, I’ll put my boots on, and I’ll march with the beautiful people in my tiny town. And then I will come home, and make tea, and pray. And knit. And sleep as well as I can, so I can march again later.
I love you so much and this is me. I stopped going to the City. I don't stay in hotels. I don't like traveling. I like sweats. I like bird sounds. I don't like smells. I don't like my phone. I don't like having to text people back all the time. I don't like scrolling and especially scrolling the news. I am a fucking cut throat bitch about this stuff and I love it; it's saved me. I am shocked by what I withstood and for how long.
Tracey, I really loved reading this. I found myself nodding along in such recognition and agreement. I get it — that shift away from all the noise, from self-help and from taking in more than we can hold. I feel the same way about realising we were never broken to begin with. The way you describe choosing softer, quieter things — music, books, knitting — really resonated. Thank you for putting words to it, it landed so warmly with me.
As a therapist, I’ve only started noticing recently that patients are recognising the nebulous losses they experienced through the pandemic. At the time, a specific loss could be identified, but only now, for some at least, is the enormity of what they went through dawning in a way that is frequently impossible to describe but often leaves people in tears.
In these situations, as tends to be the case more generally, the questions are more important and more available than the answers.
Hi dear you. Yesterday there was this very weird "Peace Rally" in our town and my friend and I could not make sense of it; there was a person dresssed up as a massacred Statue of LIberty and a sign that said Warmerica, a guy for Jesus, pro-Palestinians, a guy yelling about China and Russia being the road to peace, another guy who admitted he was a reformed democrat and had found the light in the Republican party. We were like, wait, what? There was a show called the Leftovers and it was about the aftermath of a global event that stole norms and led to anomie and in it, everyone was in some insanity because they could not metabolize what had happened, and I was struck by how much that rally felt like watching the Leftovers.
I still don't think I've processed a fraction of the enormity. Big love to you.
I remember The Leftovers. It struck me how every one left felt unmoored, often suicidal as they felt the world was supposed to end and yet didn't or were vulnerable to something to hang on to so there were these weird cults/groups that developed and the oddest people were attracted to them because... maybe because the cult members seemed so much more certain and also they were an escape from having to figure things out. It made me think of that play by JP Sartre "No Exit" in a way.
Thank you for this. 9 years ago your work helped me start to get sober. You're still making me feel less alone and less frightened today.
Big big big hug.
We are a sensemaking species, but it feels like we’re in a time of wildly disparate story making from the seemingly same things happening. We can’t find groundedness because we can’t even agree on the fundamental things that are happening. It makes me want to read about other times like this.
I think you’re probably right that we need to lean into the surrender and hold less tightly to the need for it all to make sense. And I think that’s nearly impossible for us to do because it’s so central to what makes us human.
A constant practice. After I wrote this a WWII survivor told me we were going to WWIII and then another friend that night told me Everything is going to change in 2026, just you watch, and another friend told me they are moving to Antigua? and I'm like, cool cool. Cool. 100%.
Dear Holly, thank you for writing. Since I fell from the grace of my remission (2 months ago) I stopped reading the news again and limiting all input. I just talk to people, irl or in personal chats. So I can focus the little energy I have on the people that are important and on making/creating. Overwhelm is so bad for my body. Much love to you.
Me too. I couldn't be healthy and read the news. One or the other. I love you Josh, how are you doing now?
Thanks Holly. I'm recovering and doing physical therapy to get my left side working better again. Focusing on what brings joy. 😘
This is so good. I love you.
OH I LOVE YOU.
I agree Laura - it is so good and it was exactly what I needed to hear at the end of this fever dream of a week. It brought me back to my sacred pause, an ancient tradition both of your teachings often brings me back to. Thank you both 🤍✨
I believe this, but goddammit, it's the new moon and it's time to align with the path! Doing less and not knowing what to do can't be the path. Can it? Seriously, though, I'm in the middle of reading Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane, and I'm soaking in the Knight's logic that the industrial revolution coincided with casting God aside, and that now we're in the post-industrial time of casting Man aside. And the contemplation of work for immediate survival, work for future survival, and maniacal work with the only goal being more. I'm not religious, but I don't like this feeling of Man being cast aside, and the normalization of working simply for more. But it's hard to pull back in these crazy times. Anyway, your post felt very relevant to me right now, thank you. Maybe this is the path!
Ohhh I love this, have you read Wilber? Trump in a Post-Truth World? Or Spiral Dynamics?? Is this book a good book??
I haven't read any of those, thanks for the recommendations!
Ambiguous Adventure was very good, both the message and the beautiful writing. It allowed me to get lost in another time and place and culture, while helping me understand the current moment.
This beautiful and painfully accurate missive felt like absolution this morning. Sometimes this life of unsolved personal and social mysteries feels like me as a child trying to do my math homework and I’m not getting the answers and I’m surrounded by wadded up pieces of paper all around me. And I am chastising myself for not listening in class even though I thought I was. And even when I miraculously get the right answers I cannot show my work and I get points off bc of it even though I got the right answers through some miracle of common sense or natural knowing or intuition.
Anomie feels like trauma now, or is that just another way to sell me make-up or mushroom coffee? I do acknowledge trauma, but how has it gotten so monetized?
At this point I’m retired, but not retired. Running my own small business after running others’ small businesses. On hard days, I used to say to myself as a prayer “Keep it together” many times.
I have had a very active and resilient teenager resistance to dis-integration. From tough upbringing, from parenting 24/7 for 27 years without a present partner. From working so hard to produce as I was trained to do. I have always been the manager. And I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m not buying it as much anymore.
But by buying that, I’ve sold trust in myself~ in my intuition, my natural knowing, common sense. I’m having to dig that out from the filth of propaganda To learn to ONLY listen to THAT. And it feels risky most of the time. And I am choosing to do it anyway. I mean I get instant results! Not always what I want, but nothing is 100%. My current mantra is “I don’t have to know. Let’s just see what happens?” And it’s uncomfortable. I spent a whole year exploring my own values. The real ones. Not the Hallmark ones. It helps when I get confused by all the shiny stuff. Maybe I’m getting more accustomed to being lost, dis-integrated, more present and curious. Less judgey of myself. It’s very abnormal. Anomie. I’m trying to make friends with that more than produce something for the state.
Is anything really ever normal?
Thank you for pointing at things in such a beautiful way. Let’s just see what happens.
Thank you for these words, nodding along, yes yes yes. I just want to be gentle to me and everyone; we need that.
I want to be awake. In that curious child-like way of accepting what comes next. That's the only way I can find to be gentle. When I get into the trance of the drift, it makes me feel calloused over and unable to feel and stay sensitive to what I, myself, or another needs. Because, yes, I do need that natural knowing when I, or someone else, does not know the questions to ask ourselves, "What do I need now to be kind to myself?". This is a question I have forgotten to ask for most of my co-dependent life, or maybe what to listen to? And so I practice listening so much of the time. It's the quietest voice. It's the quietest Life. It's the truest voice. I am practicing believing it, and giving ever so gently to myself~ and others~ the wisdom it inevitably serves~ if I can focus long enough. And I screw it up plenty, so I just start again. I don't have to show my work. The answers present themselves to me when it's time. All I have to ask is WHAT? Not HOW? Never HOW? That's the booby prize.
"Maybe the new narrative comes when we begin to make room for it. Maybe right now, we’re just supposed to be lost." MY QUEEN
MY KING
😂🫡
You captured what I’m feeling in this article. There is a deep, collective need to surrender to the experience of being lost. Only then can we discover the peace waiting on the other side—the peace we so desperately need in order to move forward with much needed wisdom.
Yes baby <3 see you Wednesday wooot
Looking forward to it!
Dear Holly I have just been reading a few different things on substack as I tend to do in the morning and as always your weaving together of the experiences of your life and knitting it into a completely repurposed item feels fresh and invigorating to me. It's in such contrast to what I often experience as complaint, and have indukged in so much myself. Isn't it interesting how the experience of recovery is perhaps coming into its own as something to lean on in these times,,,,and as always you seem to be able to put words to something I was feeling but didn't quite know I was feeling it. You are in my eyes a modern day philosopher. Thank you
I think about this all the time. Yes. Yes yes yes. Big squeeze <3
That second-to-last line — “Maybe the new narrative comes when we begin to make room for it.” — hit me hard. I write about overcoming addictions from the perspective of a recovering addict—and I learned that exact same truth the hard way. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.