Hi friends,
It all feels rather fraught, doesn’t it, the living and the being a person and the trying to work and play and breathe and survive all at the same time.
My days have felt full of interruption lately, fits and starts of canceled school, sickness, unexpected travel, plans changing at the last minute. I know we’re supposed to somehow plan for these disruptions, to expect the unexpected, as they say, but if I’m honest I would like to call a little bullshit on the feasibility of such a thing. Humans are wired for rhythm and predictability, and when plans keep changing our nervous systems read it like threat, even when it’s just a school cancellation or a kid waking up with a fever. Layer that on top of terrible, nonstop national news and it’s no wonder we’re all collectively having a very hard time.
If this newsletter finds you feeling fragmented or out of sorts, welcome. You are not alone here.
Here’s what you’ll find in this edition of The Noticing:
Connections: is clutter a nervous system threat?
Affiliate Links: comfort is the word
Recommendations: book and show reviews
House & Garden Roundup: small glimpses from lately
If This Resonates: a few gentle questions to sit with, just in case they help
Connections
Sometimes it feels like being two different people.
I sit on my couch in the quiet morning light, in my lovely living room with the flowers and the candles and the wide sky out the window, and I think about all the things. I think about how much I love the morning and my warm cup of coffee and playing my little word games. I breathe and I pray. I read and I write. I look at my calendar and make my little lists, and everything feels meaningful and possible and manageable. Not perfect but grounded, present, here.
And then everything happens.
Breakfast and water bottles and a fridge full of containers and jars and plastic boxes of slimy lettuce taking up all the space, and still I need to order groceries. Damp laundry and forms to sign and stacks of mail that I don’t want to even look at. How can there be so much crap everywhere all the freaking time? Why am I so bad at this? How did I manage to wash one million loads of laundry and still not wash her leotard over the weekend? And oh my gosh, how am I even supposed to register all of this bad news in the world when I cannot even control my own bad mood before everyone leaves for school?
It’s the racket.
My friend Mary Lyn recently gave me that word, and I can’t think of a better way to describe the noise my brain makes when it decides I am failing at my own life.
The racket says you’re behind. You should be further. Your house should be cleaner, more organized. Everyone else can handle more than this. Get it together.
One minute I am a thoughtful, reflective, reasonably regulated person and the next I am standing in front of the washing machine on the verge of a verifiable crash out.
It’s always a little humbling, because I think about regulation and safety all day long, and still my own nervous system scans for threats as if it doesn’t remember a single thing we’ve learned.
It might feel dramatic to say a messy kitchen or a dryer full of damp towels could register as danger, but if your heart starts pounding and your patience disappears and you suddenly want to yell at everyone in the house, please hear me: your body isn’t broken or overreacting. It’s trying to protect you.
This is mostly how I do things around here. I pay attention to my own life first, to what happens in my body and my mind and my messy kitchen, and then I bring it here and ask if you see yourself in it too. Not because we’re all the same, but because we’ve been handed so many of the same stories about productivity and perfection and what it means to have our lives together. I try to weave my own noticing together with what I’m learning and what the research shows, and then we figure out how to be a little kinder to ourselves from there. We don’t do this because our lives exist in isolation from the world but because I actually think this kind of inner noticing is what lets us stay engaged with it. It’s hard to make beauty or work toward justice or care for each other when we’re constantly bracing inside our own bodies.
So over the next few newsletters, I want to stay with this and get curious together about what’s actually happening in our bodies in moments like these, and about the different ways we each try to cope or protect ourselves when something feels unsafe.
Affiliate Links
This week’s Amazon affiliate links lean toward comfort, not because I think you can outrun grief or trauma or the state of the world with anything cozy, you can’t, but because tending to your body and helping your nervous system settle is smart and grounding and deeply human. It isn’t bypassing or pretending everything is fine; it’s resourcing yourself so you have the steadiness to stay present.
Round moth puzzle. I love these round, pretty puzzles and I like that they are 500 pieces. Your girl needs to complete a project, not fail at something else.
Weighted Highland cow stuffed animal. This is slightly ridiculous and very sweet, but do not underestimate the comfort of a weighted stuffed animal.
Lavender shoulder wrap. Currently using one of these while I type.
Electric blanket throw. Very little brings me more winter joy than my electric blanket.
Origins face serum. I haven’t tried this but I have always loved this brand.
Lavender mint tea. My best friend sent this perfect winter tea to me in box of birthday gifts and it is the prettiest box you’ve ever seen.
Recommendations (or maybe just reviews)
I watched The Beast in Me on Netflix while I was on my unexpected trip to Texas. It hooked me fast, creepy and interesting in that slow-burn way, and then it veered so dark and violent that I almost bailed. The acting is incredible and the story is genuinely horrifying. It needs every trigger warning for blood and violence. Proceed at your own risk.
I finished The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, which I expected to feel meh about because of the hype, but instead it left me crying my eyes out in my bed. It made me sad and happy at the same time, which for me is the exact recipe for feeling human and connected and alive. It will break your heart in a quiet, tender way (my favorite).
I’m currently reading Theo of Golden by Allen Levi and listening to The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon on audio. Jury still out on both.
On a much lighter note, Cora and I watched the 2003 Freaky Friday and I can’t believe I’d never seen it before. It was such a delight, and honestly feels aligned with my whole life philosophy: you never really know what it’s like to be someone else until you’re forced to see the world through their eyes.
House & Garden Roundup
Cold walks in the rain to process heartbreak and fear. Beauty and light to push against the darkness. Sickness. A very unexpected work trip to Texas. We keep going.
If This Resonates…
As always, I’m sharing my own experience here in the hope that it helps you feel less alone in yours.
For me this week, it was the gross leftovers in the fridge and the laundry pileup that finally did me in. What was your version of that moment, the small, ordinary thing that somehow felt like the last straw?
When the racket starts up, what does it actually say about you?
If you slow down and pay attention, what do you notice happening in your body right then, your chest, your shoulders, your breath?
Thanks for being here with me. I hope something in these words feels useful or steadying for you, or for someone you love. I’d love to hear from you as we keep making our way through this very lifey life together.
Walking into my disaster of a garage after a difficult work/national week on Friday did me in this week. I notice my breathing is shorter, in between holding my breath. You know when a bird gets inside the house and it flys frantically, running into things? It feels like that in my belly and in my chest. My shoulders inch up & my neck muscles tighten. And I want to scream. And cry. Ugh…last week was very hard.