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There are people who write because they love the craft and there are people who write because they’ve got a huge tangled up ball of yarn taking up too much space inside them and writing is the only way they can even attempt to find that buried end, to unravel the whole mess, upset by upset, insight by insight, and fashion it into a story, one that makes sense to them, till at last they’ve created a thing of beauty, a tapestry of their own design, one that fits who they’ve become, in spite of where the material originated from.

-JLK

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In these moments, I find the only thing that helps is to move. To get up, shift my gears, get a glass of water, wash my face, take a big breath, breathe it out, and then say something in the mirror in a whisper-yell like, “Fuck my life right now!!!!” Lol. This usually does the trick. And then, I look at myself and I ask all the parts of myself: “What do we need?” And last night, it was a dark room, where I could hide in fetal position for five minutes without anyone knowing, until all that stuff dissolved enough for me to be able to access enough patience to be present and connect.

-JLK

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It's not just our eye color and hair color that we inherit—it's also the way we cope with circumstances.

When we prioritize our healing, we can learn how to cope responsibly to circumstances by communicating to be understood and by listening to understand.

And we can role-model these skills for our kids, so that they can inherit these healed parts of who we are.

And by responsibly, I mean responding to difficult moments in other ways besides being reactive.

And part of sharing our healed parts is re-pairing when we’re stressed out and we lash out reactively and impulsively because we lost access to our healed ways of responding.

Part of healing is giving ourselves grace when we’re stressed out and feeling caged in and unsupported.

Part of healing is soothing guilt and shame with compassion and understanding until guilt and shame dissolves.

-JLK

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When we notice we’re on autopilot, to me, it’s an opportunity to appreciate that we’ve noticed our default ways of surviving unpleasant circumstances.

If you’ve found yourself on autopilot today, you’re not alone. I also found myself on autopilot today.

So many of us are expanding our awareness and noticing more and more parts of ourselves that need support, compassion and understanding, instead of shame.

So many of us are making associations that connect our current autopilot reactions with the reactions we had to unpleasant things that happened in the past.

To me, our awareness invites healing and healing invites growth. And growth is what’s necessary for us to experience new things in our lives that bring us more joy and more meaningful connections.

-JLK

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A metaphor for understanding blindspots…

I am very nearsighted. And when I’m home, I hate wearing my glasses. They’re uncomfortable and they don’t work well for the work I do, which is mostly looking at stuff close-up.

But even though I’m aware that I don’t wear my glasses and can’t see well, I still judge the cleanliness of my house based on what I see without my glasses.

When a person comes over with their glasses on, or with vision that works well to see far, they can see that my house isn’t as clean as I imagine it is.

I, however, don’t realize that they can see what I don’t see.

And if, out of kindness, they say to me, “Hey, need help with the housework?”

At first I might be like, “What do you mean, I just cleaned this morning?!”

If I know them well, they might smile and say, “Are you wearing your contacts?”

At which point I might grab my glasses and feel that uncomfortable blush-inducing feeling: “Oh my god, you saw something about myself and my life that I didn’t see!? I’m mortified!!!”

But, if the person has some good communication skills based in empathy, they might laugh and say, “That’s so hysterical! You ought to write something about this!”

And with this, I don’t feel the need to defend myself or feel bad anymore, bc they’ve created me as still having skills in addition to the blindspots I didn’t know I had.

With good communication skills and empathy, we can point out each other’s blindspots from a space of being each other’s champions, as people who genuinely want each other to thrive in full awareness.

-JLK

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I don't consider myself moody.
I simply experience all four seasons every month.
Knowing this, there's no need to force myself to grow and blossom on those days that feel cold and harsh. I can allow myself to stay dormant and conserve every drop of my life force, knowing that mild weather will return.

-JLK

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Sometimes life seems like a Petri dish—all these reactions from so many of our ingredients brewing at the same time in the same space, reacting differently under various degrees of pressure, while toxic elements out of our control keep blowing in.

But instead of taking all this stuff personally, I’ve been trying to see myself as a chemist—
to take a look at all these ingredients, figure out what new ingredients I could add to create a less volatile environment, how to lower the pressure, and how to make sure I’ve got a decent filter in place to keep so many contaminants from getting in the mix.

-JLK

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It can be challenging to stay grounded when other people hook us. When they say and do things that seem to threaten the very core of who we know ourselves to be.

When this happens, I think it’s important to remember that other people are not the authorities on who we are and who we're not.

Perhaps in the past, we were forced to accept other people’s definitions of us. And perhaps we were punished for being who they mistakenly thought we were.

But as adults, we can practice listening to other people’s words without letting them hook us and define us. Because we know who we are now, and we know who we’re not. And we know we’re healing from past wounds, and we know we have nothing to be ashamed of, only everything to love and have compassion for.

We can stand grounded in ourselves, even in the presence of someone confidently misunderstanding us. And instead of defending ourselves, we can calmly choose to listen-to-understand and communicate-to-be-understood, or, if it’s not worth our energy, we can calmly excuse ourselves and continue on our way.

-JLK

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In our formative years, if everything we do is constantly shamed, ridiculed and discouraged, a pathway can get created in our minds. Even if no one’s watching what we do, we may still wind up on this same pathway, paved with all these same messages—that what we do and who we are is deeply flawed and not worthy of being adored and loved and nurtured.

Over time, because this path gets so worn, it can be easy to imagine it’s the only reliable path. Because no matter how hard we try, we always wind up taking it. But this is only because we don’t have any other reliable pathway.

Creating a new pathway can be difficult, especially if we’re still in environments devoid of loving encouragement. So what we need to do is excavate a new pathway from scratch. A pathway designed to encourage the person we still know ourselves to be deep inside. A pathway that will take us where we want to go.

And once we have the beginnings of a path, we need to keep traveling on it. No matter how rocky the path is, and no matter what difficulties may arise, we must get back on our self-created path as soon as possible.

And in time, this new path will get worn, and walking on it will get easier. And we may even forget about that old pathway, because it'll get
harder to find, and we’ll remember that where it takes us is no longer where we need to go.

-JLK

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When I was little, I spent so much time looking through my mother’s magazines. I was completely fascinated by the images, maybe even fair to say obsessed.

Sure, I longed for the beautiful clothes, and I wanted to emulate the beautiful women, but it was something more… something about the feeling of those images—something so secure in their stillness.

To me, everyone in those pages looked like they were worthy enough to be known and connected with by people who genuinely appreciated them.

And I wanted that same feeling for myself.
Not the feeling I had—where nothing was seen and everything felt neglected, especially me.

So I became very much indoctrinated into this idea that life should be a still-life—beautiful enough to be seen by everyone as mattering in the shiny pages of life.

But every time I tried saving up for things that looked similar and every time I organized myself and my belongings to look like I mattered in this way—time would pass, and I’d find myself sitting there with the same boredom and restlessness I felt before, along with the same painful longing to be seen and connected with.

I was still, like in those still-life images—but remained neglected, with nothing to do.

No matter how hard I tried to manufacture an appearance of worthiness, my thoughts always melted back into hopelessness.

It took me years to realize that the challenge of life isn’t to make things look like they matter—beautiful enough or together enough or credentialed enough—it’s about figuring out who we are—by noticing what’s beautiful to us and what’s meaningful to us—and by connecting with these things—and being involved and fulfilled by these things in the movement of life. Not the still-life of life.

Sure, we’ll get stuck, frazzled and afraid to move, not sure who we need to look like or who we need to be or what we need to do, but we can always shift from being stuck in the appearance of life by remembering to notice how we feel in the movement of life. Because everywhere, there is movement. Even in stillness.

And at any given moment, we can join in this movement of life, by simply paying attention to what’s going on and noticing what we’re moved by.

When we allow ourselves to feel moved by the movement of life, we can let it lead us towards more of what’s meaningful and beautiful to us.

And on the way, we’ll meet like-minded people who are available to connect with us as we are, instead who we thought we needed to be.

-JLK

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You can feel what brings you down and what

lifts you higher.

But if you're someone who grew up stuck in a

toxic environment, you might have learned to

cope by investing all your energy into lifting

up everyone around you with the hope that

maybe they won't let you down anymore.

But that's a full time job that's often carried

into adulthood. Not to mention it's often a

fruitless endeavor.

One way to heal is to realize that you are no

longer required to stay stuck in toxic

environments the way you once were.

You can now invest your energy into practicing lifting yourself up and taking yourself out into the

world where healthier environments await.

-JLK

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She danced to her heart but was told to stay still. She sang from her depths but was told to be quiet. She explored her own interests, but they gave her more chores. She shared something funny but was told she was rude. She spoke from her mind but was told she was wrong.

And finally, when she had no space to dance or sing or share herself or even breathe, she asked quietly for an invitation out, but no one heard, bc she was stuffed so deep inside her body.

She lived like this awhile, until one day she wondered if all the things constraining her were as real as they seemed. What if they were only beliefs? And not even hers?

So she tried moving her body past her constraints and she sang a song and the sound made her smile, and she wrote down her thoughts and they read like a poem, and abandoned the dishes and went for a walk.

And she felt the air in her lungs and it felt like life. And she realized she didn’t need an invitation to be herself—the invitation to live was being alive.

-JLK

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Sometimes, keeping the peace doesn’t actually create peace. It just keeps you silently in survival mode.

Keeping your perspective to yourself in order to protect yourself from other people’s toxic, unskilled, reactive behavior does not serve you in the long run.

Instead of keeping the peace, you can practice developing skills to communicate your truth. You don’t have to communicate your truth to toxic people. Try first with someone you trust, or even someone you hire to trust, or start a blog.

You will grow stronger and stronger by practicing communicating your truth. Not as a battle strategy or as a revenge strategy, but for the sole purpose of representing who you are in the world—your values, your perspective, what’s meaningful to you. If someone is uncomfortable with your truth, let them be uncomfortable.

If it eventually costs you the relationship, then it wasn’t really a relationship—it was that younger version of yourself, still looking for validation and safety in spaces that will never be available for such things.

Not communicating your truth can cost you your relationship with yourself, with your lifelong agreement to honor your spirit.

It’s never too late to represent yourself in the world. Your self is always right here, wanting to share itself and be seen and heard. Kindly ask your fears to step out of the way and let yourself be the spokesperson for what matters to you.

-JLK

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I think the whole world needs to agree to a gigantic truce—every single person—from our minds, our homes, our communities, cities, countries and continents.

I don’t think we need to love each other, or even love ourselves. So long as we make a promise to take time to heal. To unravel the rage, the pain, the grief, the fear, and the stuff we use to cover it up—the sarcasm, apathy and distraction.

And once the truce is agreed upon, all the money that pays for war can pay for everyone to have a house that’s safe, a comfortable bed. Groceries and a kitchen. A plot of land and a tree. A community center down the road where people can connect and share ideas and make them happen. While the children go to school and take only two classes: how to communicate-to-be-understood and how to listen-to-understand.

And we’ll spend mornings and evenings in meditation all together, until everyone begins to heal the pain of so many yesterdays, so it stops showing up every tomorrow.

-JLK

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