Category: Meditation
Tuesday, Dec 16, 2025 | Art, Exercise, Family, Friends, Laundry, Meditation, Peace, Siblings, Sick, Sleep, Source, Space, Spirit, Writing |
I’ve been drawing with my left hand. It feels like I’m asking an oracle to give insight into the hidden parts of myself, but really, it’s just my left hand, moving the pen with greater concentration and focus, and less pressure to make something “good.”
Renewal—of curiosity, of interest, of discipline—this is the working-at-home challenge. How to remove the self-induced barriers and step into liminality, slow time, enter the flow.
I think that entering into liminal space relies on a combination of factors, and it’s helpful to have different tools and tricks and modes of operation on hand, for when one method of entry loses its freshness. One habit that’s stuck for me: I sit for ten minutes, eyes closed, doing a body scan meditation, checking in with the state of my energy.
This is not a waste of time. More likely, I’ll waste my own time if I skip it.
My ability to sit in stillness and focus (aka writing) is directly related to my body’s capacity, and its connection with my mind. What’s the rush? I ask myself a lot. Usually, my restlessness is unrelated to an actual need to get somewhere else, let alone in a hurry; my restlessness is causing the sensation of needing to rush, not my reality.
I like to draw and paint after this meditation, because it’s really fun and freeing; after drawing, I write by hand in my notebook. And then I open my laptop and move onto whatever fiction-writing tasks / goals / priorities I’ve set for today. The writing itself is methodical—or my approach is; not that different from glueing spines and taping torn pages, except the landscape I’m exploring is more varied, and I’m more skilled at using the tools of grammar and structure and form than of tape and glue.
Outside the warm walls of my writing space, Life is bearing down on me and my siblings, and my own family and our extended family. It’s a familiar story to those of us in the middle of our lives—those of us who still have parents are seeing our roles flip into caregivers; and some of us have already said goodbye, and no longer have parents to care for. I’m still learning balance, if there is such a thing to learn. I go to the gym as often as possible to burn off the sadness (sometimes it’s rage).
I try to eat sensibly, get at least seven hours of sleep at night, and drink alcohol next to never. When do I let down my hair and kick up my feet and have fun? I haven’t cracked that code. Or maybe I find my release at spin class, and my friendships one-on-one. Spiritual care matters to me too, whether I’m involved in planning worship services at church, or seeking connection for my own spirit with the light that shines in and through all beings.
When in doubt, I do laundry. It’s soothing to work through the simple steps of that process.
Renewal comes in many forms. All ideas welcome.
xo, Carrie
Sunday, Nov 23, 2025 | Art, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Library, Manifest, Meditation, Work, Writing |
What if you cherished yourself, I asked my reflection in the bathroom mirror at school, one day last month. It knocked me out.
I’ve been doing art therapy this fall with a new therapist. During our first session, I drew myself as two distinct bodies, each on one side of a river that flows between them, separates them. The one self sits in peaceful meditation, untroubled, calm, gently smiling, eyes closed, inward-looking but attuned, while the other self gazes at her, lying on her stomach on the river bank, also looking somewhat relaxed, dangling one hand in the river, but she’s frowning, her mind full of muddled thoughts, trying to let them go by placing them onto leaves that are floating by.
What I could express to the therapist was that I longed to be the peaceful self on the other side of the river. She could think clearly. She was untroubled by change. She represented an ever-ness.
The therapist wondered: What if you were the woman on the other side of the river? What would that be like?
I laughed. I couldn’t imagine it. If it tiptoed toward imagining it, I sensed that the muddled self would spoil the peace of that other self simply by attempting to unite them together. It was almost like whatever was contained over there, in that self, would be spoilt by exposure to the rest of me.
It reminded me of a habit I’ve had since childhood. I withhold whatever is most desired from myself. It’s difficult to convince myself to use something that will get used up. A favourite tea, for example, will stay in the box and I’ll brew a different flavour instead. I save things, hoard them. Others eat or consume them instead. Or I tuck away something that I want to enjoy, and never get it out again. I enjoy it by hiding it away. For example, as a child I would hide my Easter candy in my drawer, not sharing it with my brothers, yet never ultimately eating it myself. I could never find an occasion worthy of eating that special candy. Because if I’d eat it, it would be gone. Better to keep it till melted together and spoiled than enjoy it? Strange, right? Interesting. Curious.
Immediately after that vision in the bathroom mirror at school, I went back to the library and scribbled down these words in my notebook:
What if you were the woman on the other side of the river? What would you be like?
How would you treat yourself? What if you treated yourself like a previous vessel? A sacred vessel? An honoured presence?
What if I honoured my presence fully? What if I trusted myself? What if I could just write like it was normal life and not an existential crisis?
Okay, friends. That’s a big what if, but I’m going there. All week I’ve written like it was normal life. It’s been so enjoyable.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Nov 18, 2025 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Fire, Lists, Meditation, Peace, Source, Space, Spirit, Work, Writing |
Today is the first day that I’m not going into an elementary school (a library or a school office) in about three years. It’s wild to be out here and not in there. I’ll miss the kids in the library. I’ll miss them coming in and basking in the light of my attention. To thrive out here, I need to be sure that my attention pours onto someone else, something else, every day.
Why give yourself away? Because it returns to you, tenfold. What you give returns. So know what you’re giving, give with honesty, give what is true to your experience, and what you’d hope to receive.
Dear school library, thank you for re-tuning my focus. Thank you for healing my heart and mind.
At the library: I’ve learned better boundaries, I’ve learned the value of structure in trust-building, I’ve learned the importance of recognizing what’s holding me back (so often a blockage in my own mind), I’ve learned how to seek what I want. How to ask—wait, is this what I want? Or—how can I improve on this process? what’s not serving us? how can I set us all up for success? I know that I am part of a community, I am part of the larger world.
There are things that I don’t want to return to from my life and routines before this job.
Looking back, I see my own self-pity. I recognize a tendency toward self-inflicted martyrdom. If I could change anything about my past self, I would excise the self-pity. Tell yourself the truth! That’s what I say to myself often, when I hear myself tipping toward self-pity. I could pretend that it’s other people stopping me from speaking my mind; I could pretend that I have to work a “real” job because of financial concerns rather than it being a choice I’m making; I could pretend that I don’t have the time to write; I could pretend that an artist can’t be a “good person” and that’s why I don’t want to be an artist.
But I am an artist. Many people are, possibly even most people. (And why this obsession with being “good”? Still trying to figure that out.)
An artist is someone who seeks beauty and wants in some way to interpret it and preserve it and share it.
I’ve learned that it works just as well, if not better, to share my art with kids, to pin it to a bulletin board, to ask questions, to witness others who have found a voice in small part due to my being there to listen.
I’ve learned that it’s okay to want to publish—it’s one way a writer finds connection with the larger world, but it’s a way, not the only way, and that’s often confusing and the experience of publishing can feel really disconnected from the effort and play and experimentation that went into a project. So I like to think of projects differently.
I learned that every day there is the possibility that I will be connecting with someone else, in some way that feels meaningful to both of us. I hope for that, out here too.
Unconditional positive regard. I hope to walk with this into the world, into relationships, to the best of my ability, and when I can’t or when I struggle: box breathing, 5 breaths; a walk in the wind; music and watercolours; notebook, 5 minutes, what’s on your mind?; go to the gym; find a repetitive menial task; or cook a homemade meal and hope for lots of takers around the table.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Oct 1, 2025 | Adventure, Big Thoughts, Driving, Job, Manifest, Meditation, Source, Space, Spirit, Work |
Leaving work, driving out of my school’s neighbourhood, I saw a woman walking, alone. She looked like she was walking for no particular reason, just because she wanted to. Envy. That’s what I felt. I wanted to be her. Instinctively, I tried to squash that feeling, crush it, shame it into disappearing; but like all feelings, envy is not bad or good in and of itself, it’s neutral, it exists, it’s information.
The woman was walking, alone, coming from a wooded trail, there was still a lot of afternoon left, the air was warm, the leaves on the trees sun-soaked. I’d already swerved swiftly, effortlessly into envy’s twin, self-pity. She’s so lucky, she looks so content and free, that’s not for me, I don’t have that kind of time. All of this happened — seeing her, feeling envy, swerving to self-pity, squashing down both — in approximately ten seconds while I was turning a corner to get onto the highway. I had decided to run errands between work and home, and my first stop would be the library, about a ten minute drive away. I was listening to a political podcast and quickly became distracted by an aggressive driver who tailed me onto the highway, then floored it to pass me. So I wasn’t thinking about the woman, or envy, or self-pity anymore, or not consciously.
But as I walked into the library, I thought, you could just go for a walk.
It was there for the taking — the very thing that had sparked my envy. There are trails near the library. I didn’t have to be anywhere in particular. I actually did have the time (self-pity wasn’t a reliable source of information; it rarely is). I could just go for a walk.
And I wanted to. I wanted to be outside, to see the trees and feel the sun’s heat on my hair, and hear the insects humming.
I wonder: without that flash of envy, would I have known that this was what I wanted?
Of course, it wasn’t simply about wanting to go for a walk. I wanted what she’d represented to me, what I’d projected onto her. In her ease, she looked free to me, content, autonomous, capable of giving herself time to enjoy this beautiful day. I wanted those things, and driving away from work, those things seemed inaccessible. But maybe those things were inaccessible precisely because I had not even known that I’d wanted them.
I was like a sleepwalker and envy was a jolt, a pinch, a pain, a mirror.
This seems a little messed up, now that I write it out. I’m sure there are other ways to identify my wants and needs, but the truth is that I don’t always know what I want or need. I often have no idea. My responsibilities as a mother are changing and I have more time, and I will fill that time mindlessly if I don’t know what I want. I am attempting to wake up in the middle of my life and in the process not become an asshole or a raging void or a restless narcissist or a frightened recluse. So I’m open to taking whatever prompts arrive.
I went for that walk. I walked and walked and walked — alone, for about an hour. My senses opened, my body relaxed, my mind softened. I had to remind myself continuously that everything was okay. It was okay to keep walking. You don’t have to be anywhere. You can walk a little further. It’s okay. No one needs you right now. You are free to do this. But those cues only deepened my contentment, because my inner voice was reassuring and kind, which is also what I want. I want an inner voice that gives me permission to enjoy my life.
On the way back, I said to myself, you should do this more often. But that didn’t sound reassuring or kind. A should do is not the same thing as a want to do. So I began to list alternative prompts. What do you want? What do you long for? What do you yearn to do? (These made me laugh, actually, they sounded more earnest than I was feeling.) What do you wish to do? What would you like to do?
Ah. What would you like to do?
That question sounds like an invitation to my ear. What would you like to do? I’m asking it now. I was asking it as I stared into space about half an hour ago. I picked up the travel mug of leftover coffee from work and came into my office, I sat down in my great aunt Alice’s tiny rocking chair, I opened this app and I began to write.
And now, I ask it again. What would you like to do? And will you do it? Will you tell yourself it is okay to do it?
xo, Carrie
Friday, May 9, 2025 | Art, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Job, Meditation, Peace, Source, Space, Spirit, Spring, Word of the Year, Work, Writing |
I am in another world, other reality, a different place in my mind, life, body. But where? I’ve disconnected from the version of writer I believe I was — before — before
— before I’d released my idea of what I’d need from writing, what I’d expect, what I’d value, what I’d receive from writing.
In truth, I need little from my writing; or — nothing? None of the things I thought I’d wanted.
This is my third spring working my job-job. I’ve approached it as a practice, as training, and as an antidote to my writing career’s boundary-less culture of under-compensated demands, spoken and unspoken, external and internalized. Before — I strived to meet those demands, spoken and unspoken; before — I tried to make a home for myself in a writing-adjacent career; bitterness ensued. And the bitter taste was justified, painful though that is to acknowledge; a person should not be required to work without security or for free just because she loves what she does. That’s not service, that’s exploitation.
I’ll still publish, and I still participate; but on terms that feel sustainable for me, and that grow rather than shrink my heart and capacity.
The job-job grows my heart, and my capacity.
The job-job offers me a clear role, agreed-upon terms and responsibilities, expected hours, and fair compensation. Also: security (as long as our school board doesn’t eliminate library staff … but that’s another story and in any case, it’s not the specifics that matters; the job-job is a practice, not an identity).
The job-job has trained me, continues to train me, for this mid-life, squashed and squeezed time that I’m occupying — this time of devotion. Devotion to tasks, to responsibilities, to community well-being, to small gestures of kindness. Devotion to the practice of gentleness. To the practice of seeing others, recognizing, easing the way for others to move more freely and joyfully and openly, appreciated and known. Devotion to the practice of invisible labour. It is this training that teaches me: I have enough, I am enough.
I tape and glue and clean and relabel. This is my training. I stand at the counter and listen, I respond with kind regard. All life deserves respect and dignity. This is my training.
I am the least interesting part of my writing life. The writing itself, whatever gift there is in it, flows through me. I am a channel.
I am content to be — A mirror — A kind ear — Invisible, or partially seen, or seen only in reflection.
I am content to write what I want to write and share stories and ask questions and to sit in silence. I am more than content, I am fulfilled beyond words to accept this mission of kind regard. What do I train for, if not this? This sense of being present. Able. Having the capacity to serve. Not to be in servitude to, but to serve.
Practicing. To be kind, secure; flowing, humming, through.
xo, Carrie
Thursday, Feb 13, 2025 | Art, Big Thoughts, Library, Lists, Manifest, Meditation, Source, Space, Spirit, Winter, Word of the Year, Work, Writing, Yoga |
The creative life — what is it? Where does it live? How is it fed? These are my ever-questions, or, more accurately, fodder for ever-explorations and experiments. How does creativity squeeze itself into the gaps and cracks of every day existence; or is it so interwoven with every day existence as to be indistinguishable from it? Or are these formulations simply part of a greater whole? Creativity burrowing in gaps and cracks and spreading like moss or mold or weeds to inhabit the all of things.
There is no separation between my expressions of every day self and creative self. To exist in the world is to risk exposure, transformation. The risk of exposure is that it may harden me — the defended me — to rigidity or certainty, through fear. But the alternative seems riskier: without exposure to contradictory paths and ideas and ways of being, I become the most boring and limited version of myself, gazing into a self-reflecting mirror, defending what I see at the cost of real connection. To risk transformation is to risk becoming someone I won’t/don’t entirely recognize. But to try to stay the same is death, or zombie-hood, or cynicism, isn’t it?
I’m sorry, this is oddly theoretical. I wanted to write about practical steps, tasks, routines, choices. The actions that make possible the pursuit of beauty.
What if the purpose of life is to seek beauty?
Where do I find beauty? In order to seek it? And what do I do with it when I find it?
Beauty appears to me in so many forms, and in so many interactions. I know it by the delight it brings; or the tears. I know it by the way it changes time, softens and broadens it. Beauty is always available, and that is why every day existence is indistinguishable from the creative life, in my own experience. There are only a few rules (or considerations) to follow. Beauty happens in the living of it. It is naturally occurring and always present, but not always visible. It is easy to miss. Easiest to miss when distracted. Busy. Cut off from the world. The cellphone (standing in for our digital lives) has made it easier to miss altogether, or to confuse with a simulacrum. Beauty happens, too, in the mind that inhabits the body (not the mind that lives inside a screen). I’m not convinced that beauty happens here, on my blog, as I type these words, but this space allows me to reflect on its existence. I don’t know why I need to do this thing: this turning of one thing into another, this keeping of ideas and emotions inside the hard form of words.
But words — they’re not hard, not to me. They’re malleable and slippery and musical. They are the material of play — or one of the materials, and one of my most reliable. We dance together. Words dart under the surface and burst through it, carrying an image, a roar, a need.
To seek beauty, I …
practice moving my body in concert with my breath (yoga, meditation, gym-time)
invite play and spontaneity in every possible forum (bulletin board artwork, notebook scribbles, singing in the car)
surrender to the task at hand, no matter how menial (fixing books, cleaning the bathroom)
practice listening, tuck my phone out of sight and out of mind (coffee with my mom, walks with friends)
slow down, allow for space to open (speaking in front of a group, leading meetings)
practice humility by staying attuned to the needs of others (asking questions, looking into a child’s eyes)
fill my spaces with living beings (plants, children & their friends, dog, strangers, family, friends)
care for my body, challenge my mind, trust my heart, honour spirit (seeking a balance: to stretch & rest, write & read, socialize & connect, worship & reflect)
xo, Carrie
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