0:00

People take risks every single

0:02

day yet this one asking

0:05

somebody to be courageous

0:07

enough to open up a blank notebook

0:10

and write dear love What would you have me

0:12

know and then imagine? What

0:15

unconditional love would say to them feels like well,

0:17

that's a bridge too far I'm not doing that

0:19

and I call people out on that because

0:22

I'm like I've seen this I've seen the

0:24

risks you've taken in your life You

0:27

know, I dare you to take this risk

0:29

and to see and I think that

0:32

Largely the reason that

0:35

we're so frightened to do it

0:37

is because we've never experienced it

0:40

Like nobody ever loved us unconditionally

0:43

So I would ask that you try it

0:46

and then I would ask that you try it again And

0:49

then I would ask that you try it again because this is your

0:51

inheritance You are allowed

0:53

to be loved. It's

0:55

too hard without it So

1:00

when you think of the author Elizabeth

1:02

Gilbert what immediately comes to mind for

1:04

so many it's the journey that

1:06

she took that led to the blockbuster book eat

1:08

pray love or Maybe it's

1:11

her viral Ted talk on creativity or maybe

1:13

the many additional books that have come over

1:15

the years But there's another

1:17

reason Liz has stayed in my heart and mind

1:19

for so many years after I first sat down

1:21

with her on the Podcast think a nearly about

1:23

a decade ago It was her

1:26

heart her kindness her wisdom and her sense

1:28

of lightness and laughter Even through

1:30

profound struggle and loss her willingness to

1:32

be utterly Liz and love herself Holy

1:35

that faint line from when Harry Metz

1:37

Sally scrolled through my consciousness I'll have

1:39

what she's having and over the years

1:42

building on that early conversation with Liz

1:44

I came to learn how far from

1:46

that place she'd spent so

1:48

much of her life how Consumingly

1:50

negative so much of her inner

1:53

talk had been until a single

1:55

revelation turned practice Changed

1:57

everything for her one that's available

2:00

to all of us. So with

2:02

the launch of Liz's Letters from Love

2:04

newsletter and community on Substack last year,

2:06

she revealed this simple yet transformative writing

2:08

practice that brought her back to how

2:10

loved she is and has always been

2:13

even when it felt so far away.

2:15

Every week in her Letters from Love

2:17

community, Liz shares a letter that she's

2:19

written to herself from a place of

2:21

love, one that begins with the same

2:23

prompt every time. Dear love, what

2:25

would you have me know today? And

2:27

alongside hers, she shares a letter from

2:29

a special guest, coupled with a

2:31

video of them reading it aloud. So

2:34

this week, we decided

2:36

to do a bit of a fun

2:38

collaboration. Liz asked me if I would

2:40

be her guest letter writer, sharing my

2:43

own personal letter from love, written from

2:45

love to me and through me. I

2:48

have to admit, this kind of scared

2:50

me. It is a

2:52

profoundly vulnerable act for me to not

2:54

only write, but also to share and

2:56

then read aloud. But I

2:58

said yes, because she asked and I

3:00

trust her implicitly at all so, because

3:03

something in me knew that I needed it.

3:06

And you can read her letter and

3:08

my letter over at Letters from Love

3:10

now. We've published both simultaneously, this episode

3:12

and that letter. We've included a link

3:15

in the show notes, but that's not

3:17

all. I was also just really curious

3:19

about the genesis of this practice. Where did it

3:21

come from? What did it look like over the

3:23

years? How do you actually do the practice? Especially

3:25

as I was about to write mine, what

3:28

are the quote best practices if they even exist?

3:30

The do's and don'ts, the desires and fears that

3:32

come up. And how can we

3:34

all embrace the juicy wisdom and feeling of

3:37

being deeply held that accompanies this

3:39

practice? So Liz and I

3:41

decided to record this conversation. One that

3:44

dies into all of this and more.

3:46

And as you listen in to Liz's

3:48

wisdom, her stories and simple approach to

3:50

crafting your own Letters from Love emerge.

3:53

And you'll also hear about how I was going

3:56

about writing my own letter with a little too much

3:58

head. And I'm. not

4:00

enough trust and heart, and how she invited

4:02

me to take a different tact that was

4:05

so helpful when I finally sat down to

4:07

do it. So listen in as Liz

4:09

walks us through the practice of writing

4:11

Letters from Love, and then

4:13

be sure to head over to her Letters

4:15

from Love Substack, where she shares

4:17

her letter this week, and then to read

4:20

and hear me speak my own letter from

4:22

love today. Again, that link is

4:24

in the show notes. And finally,

4:26

if you're game, take a

4:29

deep breath, grab a journal, and

4:31

write your own first letter from love.

4:34

So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm

4:37

Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life

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uh1.com. Hey there, it's Michelle Norris.

5:49

I'm host of a podcast called Your Mama's Kitchen.

5:51

When I travel, I'm usually looking for a way

5:53

to find a taste of home when I'm not

5:55

at home. And one of the things I love

5:57

to do when I am at home is entertain.

6:00

an Airbnb allows me to do that. When

6:02

I was in California recently, I rented a

6:04

house that had a great kitchen. And when

6:06

we were sitting around the table, we're all

6:08

thinking, we're in someone else's house. Someone could

6:10

be in all of our homes as well.

6:13

If you have a home, but you're not always

6:15

at home, you have an

6:17

Airbnb. Your home

6:19

might be worth more than

6:22

you think. Find out how

6:24

much at airbnb.com/host. I

6:30

think an interesting starting point for us is you

6:33

have been writing these letters from

6:36

love to yourself for many, many,

6:38

many years now. Before

6:40

we dive into what these are and how

6:42

they work and all the details, I'd

6:45

love to take a little bit of a step back in time. And

6:48

my curiosity is what

6:50

was happening with you? What was happening

6:52

in your life when the idea first

6:54

came to you to say, you know

6:57

what, I need to sit down and

6:59

literally write this thing to myself.

7:01

What was going on? Oh, man.

7:05

It was my dark night of the soul. You

7:08

know, I mean, we have many of them, I

7:10

think, over the course and journeys of

7:12

our lives. But this was the lowest.

7:16

This was the worst of the worst. And partially,

7:18

it's because I didn't

7:20

have any tools yet. I was so

7:22

unformed as a spiritual being. And

7:25

my living as a human

7:27

being based on everything I had

7:29

ever been taught to the best of my ability

7:32

was totally failing me. But I didn't have

7:34

a backup. I didn't really have

7:36

a backup ideology. You

7:39

know, I think probably everybody must know this.

7:41

I was 30 years old. I'm 50

7:43

falls almost now. And

7:45

I was going through a divorce. I

7:47

had ill advisedly but very

7:49

innocently thrown myself into a passionate

7:51

love story right on the heels

7:54

of the breakup of that marriage.

7:57

That was a disaster. But,

7:59

you know, everything... that I had been planning for

8:01

my life and then my other plans, besides

8:03

those, had fallen apart. Like, I

8:06

couldn't make anything work and I

8:08

was so full of shame and

8:10

so full of despair and longing

8:15

for love on the

8:17

heels of two in a

8:19

row of just, like, shattering

8:21

heart failures and lonely,

8:25

depressed and anxious and I didn't,

8:27

I just didn't have any of,

8:30

my toolkit was empty because I

8:32

had not been caught any of

8:34

the things I needed to survive something like that.

8:37

And I since found out that this is

8:39

very common in people who

8:41

have, are going through a really bad depressive

8:44

or anxiety episode. I was always waking

8:46

up at like 4 30 in the morning

8:48

wide awake and in terrible

8:50

despair and that's like the literal darkness.

8:54

Because it's, you can't do anything at

8:56

4 30 in the morning. Like, you can't just, you're

8:59

too exhausted to just get up and

9:01

start the day. There's nothing to be done,

9:05

but you can't go back to sleep. You can't

9:07

take a sleeping pill at 4 30 in the

9:09

morning. You can't call anybody at 4 30 in

9:11

the morning. Like, it's the

9:13

real reckoning hour and

9:15

a wrecking ball of an hour if

9:18

you're in a bad state. And I was in

9:21

one of those fits of despair and

9:23

I to this day don't know where

9:25

it came from. I mean, it was

9:27

a gift from the beyond, but the

9:30

message came, open up a

9:32

notebook and write to yourself and

9:34

this was the exact direction, write

9:36

to yourself the exact words that you

9:39

have always wanted to hear somebody else

9:41

say to you. And

9:43

that's a really easy direction

9:45

for most people. I mean, it's

9:47

difficult sometimes when I tell people to

9:49

write themselves a letter from unconditional love. They don't

9:51

know what that means. But if

9:54

I say, write the thing

9:56

that you wish somebody would

9:58

say to you. they

10:00

know the answer to that, right? It's like the

10:03

thing we've been longing for

10:05

or dreaming of or fantasizing about.

10:08

And so for me the letter was not

10:11

much different than the ones I get now.

10:13

25 years later or 30 years later it

10:15

was like, first of all I love

10:17

you. I don't need you

10:20

to be any different than you

10:22

are in order to love you.

10:25

You don't have to earn my love. You

10:28

can't lose my love. You

10:30

were born with this. I'll

10:32

be with you through all of this.

10:34

I'm not going anywhere. You're

10:37

not alone. And for

10:39

me I think the most transformative

10:42

language in that letter was,

10:44

there's nowhere else in the universe

10:46

I would rather be than sitting here

10:48

with you right now. And

10:51

I have nowhere else that's more important to me.

10:54

That's what I had been missing my whole

10:56

life was, you know, even

10:58

in childhood, I mean especially in

11:01

childhood, was somebody's

11:04

undivided attention. You

11:06

know, somebody's undivided attention saying, I know

11:08

you're having a hard time. I'm going to sit

11:11

with you and I don't have 27,000 other things

11:13

I need to be doing. I'm just

11:15

going to sit here with you. I'm just going to

11:17

be with you. And the letter went on to say,

11:19

I was debating whether or not to go

11:21

back and I took a presence at that time and it

11:23

said, if you need to do that, I will

11:26

love you. If you decide not

11:28

to do that, I will love you. If

11:31

you're depressed for the rest of your life, I'll love you. You

11:34

know, these major points of like, you don't

11:36

need to be different than you are. You

11:38

don't need to improve because

11:40

when you're in that state that's so

11:42

low, improvement just seems

11:45

so impossible. And

11:47

to have some entity say

11:49

to you, that's all right. It's not required

11:51

that you get better. It's not required that

11:53

you ever become happy. It's not required that

11:55

you become successful. I just

11:57

love you and I'm not going anywhere. And

12:00

that was the beginning of this practice that

12:02

I've now done for almost

12:04

three decades since then and that has gotten

12:07

me through. I've never had really hard times

12:09

since then, but I've never gotten as low

12:11

as that because this

12:14

is the ultimate safety net. This

12:16

practice is the thing that will catch

12:18

me before I get that low. Yeah.

12:21

I mean, it's so powerful, right? There are a couple of things that

12:23

really strike me about that. Part

12:25

of it is this surrender to the notion of the fact

12:27

that, you know what? I may or

12:30

may not ever hear these words from somebody outside

12:32

of me in my life. God

12:34

willing, I'm fortunate. You know, like I have blessings

12:36

and I do, but what

12:39

would happen if I almost

12:41

assumed that I won't?

12:44

This is sort of like brings up the

12:46

Buddhist notion of abandoning hope. When

12:48

I first heard that notion, I was, that's

12:50

a terrible idea. Like who made that up? I

12:54

want to be filled with hope. But when I

12:56

really understood what it meant, which is that there

12:59

may be some things that you can control in your

13:01

life. There may be plenty of other things that you

13:03

can't, but to the extent that

13:05

sort of like this is me now, if

13:07

I assume I'm not going to rely on that

13:09

external thing to come and fix something for me,

13:12

if I abandon hope of that, then

13:14

what? What do I actually start to

13:16

do? It's so

13:18

odd that, and this is partly what

13:20

you're describing, that this notion of abandoning

13:23

hope can also really cede

13:25

agency in so many ways,

13:27

which is a little counterintuitive, I think. Yeah,

13:30

you know that line in the Tao Te Ching,

13:32

hope is as hollow as fear. And

13:35

I also, as a good, red-blooded American,

13:37

did not like that when I read

13:39

it. I was like, well,

13:41

no, that's not okay. And hope

13:44

and fear are not the same thing. And you have

13:46

to have, you know, but in fact,

13:48

hope is a weird varietal

13:50

of fear. It's

13:52

like I'm fearing that I won't be

13:55

able to endure. If

13:57

this continues, and so I have to have hope that it's going

13:59

to be a good thing. going to end. Usually

14:01

that's founded. Most things end. Like

14:05

most things change eventually, but

14:09

when you're in the crucible of

14:11

pain and you can't find that

14:14

and you can't reach that, to

14:17

be told to have hope is

14:19

almost cruel. But to

14:21

be told that the way that

14:24

you're feeling is okay

14:26

and understandable and

14:28

nobody's going to make you advance

14:31

beyond where you are.

14:35

One of the things that unconditional love often says

14:37

to me is, I'm never

14:39

going to make you do anything before you're ready.

14:41

And that's something

14:43

that no human has ever said

14:45

to me either because we're

14:48

humans and I've never said to anybody else because I've

14:50

got my own agendas of what I want and

14:52

when I want it. And it's like

14:54

this idea that there could be a force

14:56

in the universe that

14:59

is perfectly comfortable with

15:01

you exactly where

15:04

you are and what state you are

15:06

at what level of evolution doesn't need

15:08

you to hasten

15:10

that, knows that you can't. In

15:13

a strange way, there's this

15:16

serenity in which then transformation might

15:18

actually be possible. Once I'm

15:20

off the hook, once

15:23

I've been promised that I'm worthy and

15:26

loved and valued whether or not

15:28

I'm happy or

15:30

contented or productive or efficient

15:32

or admired, now

15:35

I have a little space. I have a

15:37

little space and I might actually be able to

15:39

move to the next step. I'm

15:41

curious what your take is on

15:43

this. I love the word transformation.

15:46

Years back when I was sort of deeply immersed in

15:48

the world of yoga, I was

15:51

introduced to the concept of not transformation

15:53

but liberation like the Sanskrit phrase jivan

15:55

mukti or jivan mukti literally

15:57

translates to liberated being. And the notion

16:00

It struck me as being different from

16:02

transformation because the notion was I'm not

16:04

becoming something else I'm

16:07

stripping away all that obscures my ability

16:10

to see who I've always been and

16:13

That's enough. I'm curious.

16:15

Do you make a similar distinction there? I

16:18

mean, I don't think I've put it as eloquently because

16:20

I haven't been living in the thought

16:22

of it as you obviously have but I'm grateful For that.

16:24

I like that it resonates within

16:27

my body Moksha

16:29

is the other word that I

16:31

love of liberation and

16:33

Moksha is what we've been promised I

16:36

really do feel that that like Liberation

16:38

is what we have been promised But

16:41

boy, do you have to let go of a

16:43

lot of stuff before you can

16:45

have it. I mean you sort of trade Everything

16:49

for it. That's what I think

16:51

and as somebody who's Recently meaning

16:53

in the last five years come into

16:55

12-step recovery and that

16:57

voice of love has been The

16:59

higher power that's been guiding me through addiction

17:01

recovery You know,

17:03

I hear again and again in these dialogues

17:05

that I'm having with unconditional love Sweetheart

17:08

I want you to put that down now You

17:11

know, I want you to put that down now. We don't

17:13

need that now You needed

17:15

it. So you're not in trouble that you needed

17:18

it. You needed it very much But

17:20

you don't need it anymore. And the phrase

17:22

I always hear in my head or read in

17:24

these letters is Put it

17:26

on the divine fire and walk away

17:28

and whatever it is I mean anybody

17:31

who's listening to this knows what they heard what

17:33

their it is Whether it's

17:35

a substance or a person or it or

17:37

it or an outcome Or

17:40

even grief, you know or

17:42

rage or resentment all of it The

17:45

promise of liberation and the promise of Moksha

17:47

is you can have it But

17:49

you got a lot you got a lot to put

17:51

on the divine fire and that's your role in it

17:54

Right, like and also don't reach back

17:56

in and take it back be

18:00

putting your asbestos gloves on

18:02

and raking a few things back out.

18:05

It's like, no, put it down. Put

18:09

it down. Walk away and walk toward.

18:12

It's not even a walking away. It's a walking

18:14

toward. Walk toward

18:18

love and liberation. The

18:20

other thing that jumps out at me also, the

18:22

way you describe especially that first experience of it,

18:25

was this notion that you

18:28

asked the question, what would I love somebody

18:30

else to say to me in this

18:32

moment? And then it's almost

18:35

like you're not anthropomorphizing love because love

18:37

just is, right? I don't think it's

18:39

like, oh, this other person is saying

18:41

it to me, but you're

18:43

very intentional about saying, this

18:46

is coming from outside somewhere and

18:48

it's almost like pouring into, it's pouring through

18:51

me. And yet it's coming from you

18:53

at the same time. Both,

18:55

both. Yeah. I mean, it's, I

18:58

have a friend who's an IFS

19:00

practitioner and she was

19:02

telling me about, that's internal family

19:04

systems therapy for those who

19:06

don't know, but it's essentially family therapy within

19:08

your own mind. It's group

19:10

therapy with all the different voices in your head, learning

19:12

how to help them all speak to each other from

19:15

a place of understanding and respect. One

19:19

of the things that she was telling me

19:21

about is that there's neurological research, which I

19:23

am so into all the crazy

19:25

wild neurological research that we have at our fingertips,

19:28

and I would back up this stuff, that if

19:30

I say to you, Jonathan, how do you feel

19:33

about yourself? And then I say

19:35

to you, how do you feel toward yourself? It's

19:38

going to feel differently. It actually

19:40

takes you into a different part of your brain.

19:43

How do you feel about yourself is

19:45

judgment. And how do you feel towards

19:47

yourself creates a sense of

19:49

empathy, where you

19:51

can see this being who

19:54

is maybe suffering and maybe

19:57

struggling. You can have some sympathy for that

19:59

pretty much. predicament, the karmic predicament that they're

20:01

in. Like, wow, it's tough to

20:03

be a person. It's tough to be Jonathan.

20:06

Like, some days it's, wow, I see

20:08

that. I feel a lot of sympathy toward this

20:10

person. I feel a lot of care toward this

20:12

person. They're really doing their best. And

20:14

that's a very different mindset than asking someone

20:16

how they feel about themselves. Because

20:19

then you're gonna bring up the grocery list of all your

20:21

faults and all your things that need to be transformed

20:23

and everything that's wrong with you. And we have enough

20:25

of that, you know? Like, we have enough of that.

20:27

Most of us got enough of that. In our

20:29

families and in our cultures. And we

20:31

carry that in. So writing a

20:34

letter from love is turning

20:36

toward yourself. Depression

20:39

and anxiety is thinking about

20:41

yourself. And writing

20:44

these words of kindness is

20:46

turning toward. You know,

20:48

I refuse to believe that it's not coming from

20:50

an external source. I don't have any reason not

20:52

to believe it because I don't

20:55

even know where that idea came from. That

20:58

initial inspiration, I

21:00

never know what it's gonna say. I never know

21:02

what love is gonna say. It changes by the

21:04

day. I mean, the basics are always

21:06

the same. Like, I love you, there's nothing you

21:08

can do to lose that. You're my

21:10

beloved, there's nowhere else I'd rather be than here

21:12

with you. I've got you, I'll be with you.

21:14

Everyone else can come and go. We're

21:17

here. That's

21:19

the same. But then there's often a

21:21

very specific direction. And

21:23

sometimes love tells me what it wants me

21:25

to do. And sometimes love tells me

21:28

what it wants me to stop doing. Sometimes

21:30

love tells me who to

21:33

call and how to show up

21:35

in service to the world and the work that

21:37

it wants me to be doing. And then sometimes

21:39

it tells me to retreat

21:41

and to let the world

21:43

take care of itself and to find my

21:46

center again and to turn off my phone.

21:48

And it's different by the day because my needs are

21:50

different by the day. You know,

21:53

this is not a one and done practice. It's not

21:55

like I got that letter downloaded once

21:57

and I never needed love again. I

21:59

need love. I needed every day and I need its direction

22:02

and its reassurance. And I also need

22:04

to know that even if I am

22:06

not able to carry out what it asked me to

22:08

do, that it will still be there

22:10

tomorrow. I love how

22:12

you describe it existing outside of you. And

22:15

it's also really consistent with sort of your

22:18

broader thoughts on things like ideas, creativity,

22:21

the muse, God. However,

22:24

people like do or don't

22:26

understand or describe that experience.

22:29

It seems like there's also,

22:32

there's this openness to

22:34

accept the fact that there is

22:36

something out there. You know, just

22:39

call it what you may. There is some tachic

22:42

feel, connectedness. There's some energy. Maybe

22:44

it's, maybe there are different energies.

22:46

Maybe it's all just the

22:48

same cosmic soup, you know, that we're floating

22:50

around in without any sense of, you know,

22:52

like awareness. But I

22:55

wonder if that notion that

22:57

there's something else out there that

22:59

is always there that

23:01

has a benevolence to it and that

23:03

part of our work is actually to open to it.

23:06

It takes a bit of the pressure off of us.

23:08

Do you have that sense? A hundred

23:11

percent. And one of the things that

23:13

I put on the divine fire and walked away from

23:15

and gave up on was living

23:17

a life of non-duality. Because

23:20

I chased that for a really long time because,

23:22

you know, I read a lot of books and it sounded

23:24

awesome and I wanted to be that and it

23:26

seemed like that's what enlightenment was and I

23:29

need there. So

23:32

far, I mean, this might change and I

23:34

might have some sort of massive spontaneous awakening

23:36

experience but I don't need that.

23:39

I, the way that my mind is

23:41

constructed and the way that my heart is constructed,

23:44

if anything, I'm more of a Bhakti yoga. I'm like,

23:47

I'm here for the path of devotion and

23:49

for devotion, you have to have two. There's

23:52

no, you can't really Bhakti yogi your

23:55

way into one, like,

23:57

oneness because then there's no one to be diverse.

24:00

eroded to and there's no one

24:02

to love me and my

24:04

love language is love, you know? So

24:07

I need there to be something,

24:09

an intelligence, a

24:12

consciousness, a presence, a

24:15

creation, an ongoing creation in the

24:17

universe that I'm separate from, like

24:20

made from, part of, but stand

24:22

apart from and look at. You

24:25

know, I gaze at it with wonder and it gazes

24:27

back at me. That really works

24:29

for me and so for that

24:31

I needed God and I

24:33

get to have one because I need one. I

24:35

get to have one. That's

24:38

the great thing. I had this wonderful moment when I

24:40

was working the 12th steps in

24:42

recovery in my sponsor when we got to

24:45

step three which made the decision to turn

24:47

our will and our lives over to the

24:49

care of God of our

24:51

understanding. You know, I thought I had that

24:53

sort of down because I've always been a spiritual

24:56

person but she gave

24:58

me this extraordinary assignment for

25:00

that step that was like, like really

25:02

blew my mind open. She

25:05

said, I want you to write a list

25:07

of what you're looking for in a God, like

25:10

a want-out, like

25:13

what are the traits that you would

25:15

need to have in a higher power

25:17

for you to turn your life over to that higher

25:19

power because no one's... Yeah,

25:21

exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like higher power with...

25:23

Like thinking with animals, you know. Long

25:27

walks on the beach. Precisely,

25:31

right? And I was like, I

25:33

think of myself as an open thinker but I

25:35

was like, well you can't do that, you know,

25:37

like you can't do that. I mean, you

25:39

get the God that you get, you know, like you get

25:41

the God that's been assigned to you. But

25:44

why one of the features of

25:46

a God that I could love would be allowing

25:49

itself to move into the

25:51

shape of whatever I needed it to be

25:55

because I needed that and it would

25:57

provide that and be like, okay, you need a God in this

25:59

form here. I'll be that, right?

26:01

I'll be that because I want to connect

26:03

with you and this is what's going to work, so

26:05

this is how we're going to do it. And

26:08

my list started with unconditionally loving.

26:11

It just has to be, there can't be a

26:13

small-minded judgmental God. It can't be, I won't

26:16

survive that. I can barely

26:18

survive my own small-minded judgmental mind. So

26:21

I need a God who's more expansive and living

26:24

than I am. And then

26:26

when I have that, and I

26:28

have the love of that being, then I

26:30

can start to put things on the divine fire a long way.

26:33

I can let go of certain outcomes. So I'd be like,

26:35

okay, that's actually really

26:37

might be all I need. And

26:40

the less I need, the more I can serve because

26:43

the more my needs are met. My needs are

26:45

met, then I'm not manipulating people and I'm not

26:47

trying to hustle anybody and I'm not

26:50

subtly trying to make sure that I get

26:52

my needs met through other human beings. So it's

26:55

working for me. It's a beautiful exercise.

26:58

You're allowed to do it. You're allowed to design your, it's like

27:00

a build a bear. You can design

27:02

your own deity. I

27:05

love just that notion of like a wanted

27:07

ad. What would that look like? And

27:10

the way you're describing it also, it's so

27:12

cool because how many people have stayed in

27:14

relationships way longer than they know they should

27:17

have been in them. Because we're afraid that,

27:19

well, it's not healthy, it's not nourishing, it's

27:21

not giving me what I want and need

27:23

and yearn for, but it's there. And

27:26

it's gotta be better than, and

27:28

what if nothing ever comes along again? And

27:31

what this tees up is this notion that, well,

27:33

that would still be okay actually, because

27:35

you're still held by something bigger

27:38

that exists outside of yourself. It

27:40

may still suck, it may be brutal going

27:42

through whatever that transition moment is, but there's

27:45

always going to be this thing.

27:48

And it creates a

27:50

bit of like a soft landing

27:52

or a softer landing maybe for

27:55

experiences that we grasp desperately to,

27:58

it may not really be for us. So

28:00

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amazing at your Lexus dealer. I

31:24

want you to write a letter of love and speak

31:27

to this. My

31:56

first impulse was, oh hell no. you.

32:00

I love

32:02

you and I was like and I've been

32:04

following along with the letters that you've been

32:06

sharing and I'm like yeah this feels like

32:08

it's actually um it would be

32:10

really good. So I've been thinking a

32:12

little bit more and just thinking about it while

32:15

I think about it you know questions come up

32:17

like how do I actually do

32:19

this and is this sort of

32:21

like a hit list of do's and don'ts

32:25

or is it completely contrary to what the

32:28

entire thing is even about in the first

32:30

place. So even when

32:32

I'm thinking about this when I'm sort of saying

32:34

okay so I want to sit down and actually

32:36

do this thing and you kind of keyed up

32:38

like the basic things I think early in our

32:40

conversation but one of the

32:42

things that comes up sort of like right

32:45

away is and you and I have

32:47

been writing in various forms for quote the

32:49

public for a long long long time or

32:51

recruiting for the public a long time and

32:53

granted hopefully recruiting for ourselves at the same

32:55

time it just happens to resonate with people beyond

32:57

ourselves but at the same time it's

32:59

really hard to get that voice out of your head that says

33:02

I'm not just writing for me this

33:04

has got to be something let me extol on

33:07

this so let me think about the language let me you know

33:09

oh this is phrased in the way I need to

33:11

work this sentence right and

33:14

I started I caught myself like even in the

33:16

very beginning parts of just noodling on this

33:18

it caught myself just drifting into all these

33:20

different places and wondering I'm

33:22

like is that okay or is that just completely

33:24

not what it's about oh

33:26

gosh well thinking

33:29

is of course not what we're doing here

33:32

so right away lost

33:37

the game and

33:40

you know it's interesting the

33:42

people who seem to sometimes have the

33:44

biggest obstacles doing this practice

33:46

are people like you and

33:49

me are used to writing

33:51

and creating content for

33:54

the public and so we're very self-conscious

33:56

writers this is an

33:58

intuitive and mystical

34:00

experience, not an

34:03

intellectual or in a weird way

34:05

even emotional experience. There's

34:08

a surrender in it. There's

34:11

a leap of faith. And what I

34:14

would invite you to do is

34:16

to instead

34:18

of noodling on one letter, to write

34:21

one every day and

34:24

set the timer for five minutes and

34:27

when you're done, step away from it. Because

34:30

my experience is anything much more

34:32

than five minutes and now I'm

34:34

involved, right? I'm going to

34:36

be editing. I'm going to be

34:38

improving sentences. The letters that you've been seeing

34:40

me read on the

34:42

sub-stack, on the newsletter, I write those in

34:44

five minutes and I

34:47

don't edit them because it's

34:49

better if I'm not the one writing it. So

34:52

the way that I teach it, there's

34:54

also, if anyone is interested in

34:56

this, I found out 20

34:59

years after I started doing this that there's this,

35:02

this is an official practice called Two-Way

35:04

Prayer. I didn't know there was a

35:06

name for it. Interestingly, it

35:08

came out of the

35:10

early Alcoholics Anonymous groups.

35:13

Bill W. did it. Dr. Bob did

35:15

it. Any of you who know these like early

35:18

AA all-stars, they had

35:20

this practice, the Oxford group that people

35:22

who started their first Alcoholics Anonymous fellowships,

35:26

for some reason it didn't end up in the big book of

35:28

AA, but it's

35:30

in their history that Bill

35:33

W. apparently believed that there was

35:35

no more important practice that

35:37

a recovering addict of any kind could

35:39

have than death as a daily

35:41

practice. That it was more

35:44

important to write these, what

35:48

he called Two-Way Prayers and the way that

35:50

they taught it, but it was more

35:52

important to do these Two-Way Prayers than it was to go to meetings, than

35:55

it was to have a sponsor because

35:57

you're getting direct divine revelation.

36:00

specifically tailored for you. If you're

36:03

reading spiritual books, you're reading

36:05

somebody else's divine spiritual revelation

36:07

that was specifically tailored to them. But

36:10

interestingly, the way he suggested that you begin

36:13

the practice is you sit quietly for a

36:15

minute and then you read a spiritual

36:18

text of some sort that opens your

36:21

heart, that moves you

36:23

profoundly. So for me,

36:25

it's reading any page of Song

36:27

of Myself by Walt Whitman, which

36:29

is like a psalm to me. Anything

36:32

by Mary Oliver, David White's

36:34

poetry. It's the poets who do

36:36

it for me, right? So if I were having trouble

36:38

accessing love, I would read

36:40

one of their poems. And

36:42

the way I have heard it described

36:45

is, you know, those people had Hafiz,

36:47

Rumi, other fantastic, right?

36:49

They were hearing love's voice

36:53

and they were writing down what they heard. So when

36:55

you read their work, they

36:57

were kind enough to leave the door open. That's

36:59

how I see it. It's like, so you're gonna draft

37:01

in right after them, right? Like, so you're gonna, they

37:03

left the door open to love. Your

37:06

heart opens, you get that

37:08

residual heart, you know, the contact high of

37:10

being around Hafiz or Rumi or Mary Oliver

37:12

or Walt Whitman or the psalms or any

37:14

of the great spiritual writing. You're

37:17

open and then in the next moment you open

37:19

up a notebook and you write, we only want

37:21

to hear from you once. It's

37:24

not a deposition, it's not an

37:26

interview, because once you're dialoguing, you're

37:29

breaking your intellect back in. And

37:31

that's what we're trying to do a work

37:33

around, right? So the question that opens the

37:35

door, you say, dear love,

37:37

what would you have me know today? And

37:41

better not to ask about a specific

37:43

thing. Better because I don't even know

37:45

what I don't know, you know?

37:47

And if I bring love, a problem

37:50

that I'm working on, I'm gonna bring the problem

37:52

into the page, right? Lots of times I open

37:54

up the page and I write, dear love, what

37:56

would you have me know? And I'm expecting that

37:58

they're gonna solve some interpretation. personal problem I

38:00

have, but I always call them they.

38:03

The answer is something entirely different.

38:06

It's like, sweetheart, first of all,

38:08

we need you to drink a big

38:10

glass of water. Oftentimes

38:13

it's like the most basic care. It's

38:15

like, why are you wearing a bra?

38:18

It's four o'clock in the afternoon. Take

38:20

that off. Drink a big glass of water. Take

38:22

your shoes off. Turn your phone off and sit

38:25

with us for a moment because we have things

38:27

to tell you and you're tense and

38:29

we want you to hear. Sometimes that's what

38:31

comes through. What I

38:33

would invite you to do is to not

38:36

noodle on it and to

38:38

not think about it and to not plan

38:41

it and to not bring a problem to

38:44

love's feet, but to

38:46

just bring yourself empty-handed after

38:48

having read something that opens your heart and

38:51

that one question, dear

38:53

love, what would you have me know today? And then the

38:55

other thing that's advised is that the first

38:58

line that you write back to yourself should

39:00

be an endearment because that

39:02

softens your heart towards yourself. A

39:04

nickname, sweetheart,

39:07

honey bunch, love head,

39:10

my little tiny turtle, my

39:12

precious little striver, my tendril of

39:15

ivy, my little pine cone,

39:17

my little bunny ass. I see

39:19

you and I love you. Something

39:21

that's very dear. One of the

39:23

first exercises that I had people do when

39:26

we did this was just to write lists of

39:28

endearments because they make you

39:30

laugh and they're silly and we all call

39:33

our pets by a

39:35

thousand different endearments. We all call children

39:37

by a thousand different endearments and my

39:40

dad used to say the much loved

39:42

child has many nicknames. You are a

39:44

much loved child of God. Honey head

39:46

is the thing that I'm always called

39:49

in love like honey head, honey head, calm

39:51

down. So the next line should

39:55

be an endearment, my sweetheart,

39:57

my darling, my precious. I'm

40:00

right here and then see what it has to say and

40:02

at first it's going

40:04

to be The act of

40:06

faith at first is that it's going to start

40:08

as an act of imagination Before

40:11

it becomes an act of faith. So

40:13

the imagination that you step into

40:15

is imagining What would unconditional

40:17

love say if it could speak to me? What

40:20

would it want me to know? What would it say?

40:23

That's the act of imagination. But very

40:25

soon. I promise if you do this for five minutes a

40:27

day and you Think about

40:29

it too much Very soon. It

40:31

will stop being an act of imagination Something's

40:37

just going to start flowing out of that pen I

40:39

also recommend that you write by hand and

40:41

not on a laptop because There's

40:43

something more connected about paper and pen than

40:45

there is about like I've got an assignment

40:48

and now I'm going to type it And

40:51

yeah There's something tactile about that and and

40:54

you set the timer for five minutes and

40:56

you just see what what unconditional love has

40:58

to say to you and And

41:00

then you just look back at it. And

41:02

if it sounds like the voice of

41:04

love then it is You

41:06

know, like you don't have to wonder like was this

41:08

God? Is this an angel?

41:10

Am I connected to source? Is

41:13

there anything that you wrote that doesn't sound

41:15

loving? Probably there won't be so

41:17

even if it feels very Facile

41:20

and sort of embarrassing and weird and

41:22

self-conscious even if it's just saying I

41:24

love you You're doing a

41:26

good job. I'm not going anywhere. I'm proud of

41:29

you. I'm with you That

41:31

is the voice of love. It doesn't have to be

41:33

more complex than that We

41:35

don't need you to be smart. You're

41:37

plenty smart Like I'm super fit

41:40

and smart and I've nearly killed

41:42

myself a few times because of lack of

41:44

love You know, so it's not

41:46

about being poetic. It's not about being

41:48

a good writer. It's not about being

41:51

Having something to offer the world.

41:53

It's original You know, we

41:55

have enough originality what we don't have is love So,

41:59

I don't know if that's it that's helpful but that

42:01

would be my guidance. Super

42:03

super helpful and the

42:05

notion of because I was also kind of like

42:07

yeah it's like I gotta write this one letter

42:10

and like a I just used the word phrase

42:12

got it in there which like already nope

42:17

let's just rephrase like like I get to do this

42:19

you know like this is a beautiful thing and then

42:21

and then the notion of thinking of it's

42:23

like well what if your phrase is not just like I'm gonna

42:25

sit down do this with one time what if I just say

42:27

yes to this as a practice for a while and see how

42:30

it feels and the stream

42:32

of consciousness part of it is also

42:34

so much lighter as

42:36

you're describing it one of the questions that

42:38

came up to my mind also is so

42:40

you know as we have this conversation about

42:43

in California and you're in New York but

42:45

um very fortunate to have Colorado

42:47

as my my home these days and I'm

42:49

in the mountains all the time I hike

42:51

all the time that's my the place I

42:53

touch stone is when I'm in the woods

42:56

and also by the ocean but um I

42:58

just completely lose myself and I find as I

43:01

do that my mind clears I

43:03

feel connected to whatever it is that thing that

43:05

you might describe as source of God a

43:07

universal ever maybe that that's my place

43:09

and and at the same time often

43:11

things just feelings flood me

43:14

but also language flood me ideas um

43:16

concepts and I'll often find myself I

43:19

generally I try not to actually listen to anything when I'm

43:21

out there I just want to be immersed in the sounds

43:23

and the sights and but

43:25

sometimes something will just come to me a revelation

43:27

and awakening some whatever it may be and I'll

43:29

pull out my like telephone and

43:31

I'll just want to record it my voice as quickly

43:34

as I can because it's just I

43:36

feel like it's kind of pouring through me at that

43:38

moment and I wonder

43:40

if you see that as a

43:42

potentially viable way to say yes

43:44

to this also you already are it's

43:47

happening yeah

43:50

don't you see it yeah you're in it

43:52

you're soaking in it it's already there you

43:55

know as close as that I also was

43:57

thinking as you were sharing about that um saint odd Augustine

44:00

had a phrase, solvatore

44:02

ambulando, that means it is

44:04

solved by walking. We know this.

44:07

If you're able-bodied and lucky and privileged enough

44:09

to be able to walk, going

44:11

for a walk I've always thought is sort

44:13

of like resetting a grandfather clock. We're meant

44:17

to move at that speed. We're meant to

44:19

be in trees. We're meant to be outdoors.

44:22

So it definitely opens it up. And I

44:24

would say, while you're out there, since

44:27

that channel is already open to you and you trust

44:29

it, and it wants to commune

44:31

with you, obviously, because it's

44:34

pouring words into you and wants to

44:36

talk to you, ask

44:38

it directly, what do you want

44:40

me to know right now? What

44:42

do you want me to know is such a good question, because

44:44

it's not, what do you want me to do? Who do you

44:48

want me to become? What do you

44:50

want me to change? What's your mission

44:52

for me? We're so mission-driven in

44:54

the West. I think love just

44:56

wants to be known, and it

44:58

wants you to know that it knows you,

45:00

and that it cares, and

45:04

that it sees you and sees you seeing it. I think

45:07

this is so revelatory for me, because I was

45:09

taught to pray in a

45:11

way that's really just me talking, or

45:14

reading prayers that other people wrote. I

45:16

was taught that that's what prayer is,

45:18

that you're just pouring out

45:20

of yourself into the emptiness, or into

45:22

the void, or into the oneness, or into

45:24

the God. Are you there? God, is there

45:26

anybody listening? Prayer was really

45:28

a lot of my voice, and

45:32

two-way prayer, there's

45:35

very little of me. There's just me

45:37

asking a question. It's a very humbling

45:39

practice, and I always, when

45:41

I teach it to people, I warn them

45:43

against getting into a dialogue as

45:45

tempting as it is, because that's

45:48

my ego wanting to be involved. That's

45:50

my ego wanting to be like, who

45:52

are you? What are you doing? My

45:54

ego's like a three-year-old who

45:57

has a million questions, but

45:59

I really only... need the one. Which

46:02

is what would you have me know right now? What

46:04

would you have me know today? And sometimes

46:06

if there's a difficult situation, what would you

46:09

have me know about this situation? But

46:11

what would you have me know right now really works

46:13

and then you're not talking, you're listening. And

46:16

isn't that better? As you're describing

46:18

that nodding loud and then crushing

46:20

sort of popped into my head, which is, and

46:23

this hasn't happened to me yet, there's

46:25

always opportunities. But I would

46:28

imagine that there's somebody listening to this right now.

46:30

Like, that sounds really cool. And maybe they even

46:32

tried it. And either they've had this experience or

46:34

there's a fear built around it, which is, what

46:37

if I say yes to this and I sit down

46:39

and flip open, you know, like my notebook and have

46:41

a pencil, my favorite pencil in hand. And I say,

46:43

Dear love, what would you have me know now? And

46:46

nothing comes. Would that

46:49

reinforce a sense of abandonment

46:52

that you were stepping into this

46:54

experience with? Has that ever happened to

46:56

you? Or have you had

46:58

that happened to other people where you had a conversation around

47:00

it? It's never happened to me that

47:02

I've asked for it and it's not there. And

47:06

there have even been times when I've been

47:08

enraged at it, where

47:10

things were happening in my life that were so

47:13

unfair and awful. And

47:17

I've just been enraged. And

47:20

that voice has been there saying, I see

47:23

your rage and I see your disgust

47:26

and your exhaustion. And I don't

47:29

have any answers for you, but

47:32

I love you. And I don't know how you're

47:34

going to get out of this. I remember

47:36

when my partner Raya was dying of

47:38

cancer and had relapsed into drug addiction

47:40

and it was an absolute nightmare. I

47:43

remember demanding answers of love.

47:46

I mean, this is going back to the dialogue, right?

47:48

Which is my ego inserting itself and

47:50

saying like, how is this going to

47:53

end? And love said to me,

47:55

I don't know. The

47:57

future isn't my department. And

48:02

I said, well then what good are you? Like

48:04

if you can't tell me what's going to happen

48:06

and you can't tell me what

48:09

to do, then what use

48:11

are you? What good are you? And love

48:13

said, I am company

48:15

for you in your darkest

48:17

hour. And that's really all love is,

48:19

right? It's like it's not here

48:21

to solve. It's not here to fix. It's just

48:23

here to be present, like to keep

48:25

you company when you're going through something. As

48:28

for the fear that you're going to ask, love

48:30

would have to say, and it's not going

48:32

to answer, this is I think the main

48:34

reason people won't do this exercise. That

48:39

risk seems so terrible and

48:42

so frightening. And

48:44

if you've been following along with the

48:46

sub-stack and the newsletter, so it's

48:49

been six months now that I've been doing this, and

48:51

every week I have a special guest, and almost every

48:53

week it's the first time somebody is doing this, and

48:55

they're terrified. They're so terrified that

48:57

they're going to knock and the door is not going to open.

49:00

Glenn and Doyle spoke about this. Abby Wambach

49:02

spoke about this. They all

49:05

spoke to this Clover Stroud, this great British writer

49:07

who's this week's guest spoke about this. I don't

49:10

believe that anything is going to be there. I

49:13

dare us to be courageous enough to

49:16

take that risk. I dare us

49:18

to. I see the things that people

49:20

do that are so risky. I

49:23

see, I live in New York, I see the

49:25

way people cross the street with their headphones

49:28

in and a hood up over

49:30

themselves, jaywalking against traffic. I

49:32

see how people drive and text at the

49:34

same time and take that risk,

49:37

that they might die. I see the way

49:40

people abandon themselves

49:42

into substances and take

49:44

the risk of cigarettes and take the risk

49:46

of alcohol and take the risk of a

49:49

lover who's abusive and take

49:51

the risk to gamble, even what

49:54

we call recreation and fun. Like

49:57

most of what I see people doing. This

50:00

called recreation fun just seems like, wow,

50:02

I'm really kind of throwing my life away into

50:05

this thing. Like I could die. People

50:07

take risks every single day,

50:09

yet this one asking

50:12

somebody to be courageous

50:14

enough to open up a blank

50:16

notebook and write, dear love,

50:18

what would you have me know? And then

50:20

imagine what unconditional love would say

50:23

to them, feels like, well, that's a bridge too

50:25

far, I'm not doing that. And

50:27

I call people out on that, because I'm

50:29

like, I've seen this, I've seen the risks

50:31

you've taken in your life. You

50:34

know, I dare you to take this risk and

50:37

to see. And I think that

50:40

largely the reason that

50:42

we're so frightened to do it

50:44

is because we've never experienced it.

50:47

Like nobody ever loved us

50:49

unconditionally, because I

50:51

don't think humans can. I

50:54

mean, we're supposed to allegedly get that

50:56

from our parents, but

50:59

if you're like me, you had beleaguered

51:01

parents who were exhausted and traumatized and

51:04

just trying to get through the day and

51:06

overwhelmed and were not available to that. Through

51:09

no fault of their own, their parents weren't either.

51:12

So if we've never experienced

51:14

it, and all we can associate it with

51:17

is human love, which is by

51:20

nature limited and

51:22

conditional, even the

51:24

most vast human love has its

51:26

limits. Somebody can love you

51:28

unconditionally and they can die. You

51:30

know, like they will have to die. They

51:33

might not be there tomorrow. You

51:35

know, like we can't count

51:37

on that. And I

51:39

don't say that in a way of like,

51:41

count on people. You know, we

51:43

count on people as much as we can, but we're

51:46

fallible and we're fragile. And you

51:49

know, I know somebody whose father was her closest source

51:51

of unconditional love. And then he got Alzheimer's and he

51:54

didn't even know who she was anymore. So

51:56

these things can be taken from us, but

51:59

there is a... The source cannot be taken.

52:02

And I would submit that

52:05

you have had experience with

52:08

comforting another living being in your

52:10

life, even if you haven't

52:12

been comforted. I would

52:15

suspect that everybody who is listening

52:17

to this has at some point

52:20

in their life, held someone

52:22

in their arms and said,

52:24

I'm right here, I've got you, held

52:27

a trembling animal, held

52:29

a crying child. You

52:31

know how to do it. So

52:33

I'm not buying that you don't know how to do

52:36

it. You know how

52:38

to hold something and how

52:40

to reassure it with your presence. You've done

52:42

it, you've done it. You just

52:44

haven't done it toward yourself. And

52:47

maybe you haven't gotten enough of it toward yourself

52:49

that you believe that it's out there, but

52:52

you've done it. And so if nothing's coming

52:54

on the page, imagine

52:56

that you're speaking to somebody

52:59

who's suffering. Imagine that

53:01

you're speaking to somebody who's afraid that love

53:04

isn't real. Imagine that

53:06

you're speaking, I mean, it shouldn't be hard to imagine

53:08

that. We've all been afraid of

53:10

it. You know, like, imagine

53:12

that you're consoling somebody

53:15

who's going through whatever you're going through right now, or

53:18

a pet, or an animal, or a child. It's

53:21

in you, it's in you. And

53:24

this is what I find astonishing as I'm

53:26

reading the letters that people share on this

53:28

newsletter that people are writing. People

53:31

who never had it shown to them have

53:34

it in them. It's not a

53:36

prerequisite that you were tenderly and gently

53:38

loved as a child for you to

53:40

be able to find this within. Your

53:43

longing for it is

53:45

in fact it, the doorway to it.

53:48

You know, walking through that doorway of longing

53:51

into love itself is how you'll

53:53

find it. So I

53:55

would ask that you try it, and

53:58

then I would ask that you try it again. And

54:00

then I would ask that you try it again. Because this

54:02

is your inheritance. You are

54:04

allowed to be loved. It's

54:07

too hard without it. We

54:09

can't survive without it. And we all know

54:11

that, but we all think it means that

54:14

we have to go seek it out and

54:16

drag it out of another person or manipulate

54:18

it or force it out of another

54:20

human being. Or who's going to see me, love

54:22

me, care for me? And one

54:24

thing that love says to me often in

54:26

the pages why would we set the system

54:29

up to make it so hard

54:31

for you? Why would we set

54:33

the system up so that the only place you

54:35

could get this was if you could coerce another

54:37

human being into giving it to you? That

54:40

would turn you into a beggar. That

54:43

would turn you into a desperate beggar for your entire

54:45

life. And I'm like, well, that's what I've been. That's

54:49

what I've been. And love's like, well, you don't

54:51

have to beg. You

54:53

have a fountain. It's Tolstoy's beggar

54:56

sitting on the pot of gold, begging for

54:58

its spare change, not knowing that he's sitting

55:00

on a pot of gold. This is all

55:02

in you already. I

55:04

believe that. I believe it

55:06

because I found it. After

55:09

years of looking, it's the last place I looked.

55:12

It's like, car keys are always the last place you look. It's

55:14

like the last place I looked for love was from within. But

55:18

there it was. Now, that

55:20

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58:32

Pong.

58:35

You referenced a couple of times in conversation

58:37

that about six months

58:39

ago, you decided, you know,

58:41

this practice is not just

58:43

for me. This practice is

58:46

something that I want to really

58:49

share more publicly and to invite a global

58:52

community into and you launched

58:54

this newsletter and Letters

58:56

from Love and we'll link to this. And

58:59

every week you share one letter from love

59:01

that you've written to yourself and you also

59:03

invite others to share a

59:05

letter on a weekly basis. I

59:08

will be sharing mine with that community

59:10

as well. And then the community

59:13

around it often shares so

59:15

deeply and so beautifully and

59:17

so openly like what

59:19

their voice is saying to them. I'm

59:22

wondering six months into this experience

59:25

now, how has it been

59:27

for you? What surprised you?

59:30

Oh my gosh, it's so magical.

59:32

I mean, this is

59:34

something that was born of my

59:36

darkest moment of pain and isolation.

59:39

And now we have 90,000 people

59:42

across the world practicing this

59:45

together. Like what? You

59:47

know, if I were to flashback to

59:49

my 30 year old self and say

59:51

like in those awful nights of the

59:53

worst and be like, Oh,

59:56

sweetheart, something

59:58

so incredible. gonna come

1:00:00

out of this? Oh

1:00:02

gosh, just keep going. You've almost

1:00:04

reached the door, right? Like

1:00:06

you've almost reached the door. Like something

1:00:10

extraordinary is going to come out of this.

1:00:13

This is so worth it. Every

1:00:15

lifetime from now till the end of

1:00:17

time for this outcome, for

1:00:20

sure. So there's that sense

1:00:22

of astonishment. I'm amazed at how

1:00:24

quickly people take to it. How

1:00:27

it's, again, the less

1:00:29

thinking the better. Dive

1:00:31

in. And how

1:00:33

vulnerably and openly people are willing to share. Part

1:00:35

of it is because of the way we've structured

1:00:37

it. I also love that I'm

1:00:40

creating this project with my best friend Margaret from

1:00:42

college. She's been my friend for 35 years and

1:00:44

she's doing all the administrative stuff.

1:00:46

I'm doing the writing and the videos

1:00:49

and responding to people's letters.

1:00:51

But sub-stack

1:00:54

is this relatively new format

1:00:56

that people are just learning their way through

1:00:58

and that a lot of people, there are

1:01:00

refugees from social media. And social

1:01:03

media having become such a toxic and addictive

1:01:05

and disturbed development, really

1:01:08

all sub-stack is just a blogging service.

1:01:10

It's really going backwards. It's

1:01:12

like back to the original, get

1:01:14

people's email addresses and send them an email

1:01:16

every week. And that's all it is. It's

1:01:19

a 1990s technology. But it's

1:01:21

much less addictive for

1:01:24

that. And more specific, and

1:01:26

people are subscribing. And then

1:01:28

once they subscribe, I put out

1:01:30

everything that I do for free.

1:01:33

But I have the lowest

1:01:35

paywall that we could get through sub-stack,

1:01:37

which is $50

1:01:39

a month. Or $50 a year

1:01:42

rather. So it's 94 cents a month.

1:01:44

Sorry, 94 cents a week. 90 cents

1:01:46

a week for this is the lowest

1:01:48

we could get the price down to have

1:01:50

a little bit of a paywall. And

1:01:52

behind the paywall, people can

1:01:54

comment. And that tiny

1:01:56

paywall prevents trolls. It's

1:01:59

an absolute... Absolutely safe space.

1:02:01

That's the thing that I find so incredible and I was

1:02:03

promised that I mean I have a lot of trauma about

1:02:06

social media and things that get said in

1:02:08

social media But I was promised by people

1:02:10

who are on sub stack like you're not gonna see

1:02:12

any of that. There's no attacking There's no, you know,

1:02:15

this is genuinely a safe space And I also

1:02:17

put the letters that my special guests right behind

1:02:19

the paywall because it's vulnerable I

1:02:22

mean people are showing The heart

1:02:24

of their heart and the pain of their pain

1:02:26

and the longing of their longing at the deepest

1:02:28

level and so There's a little

1:02:30

wall around it and that I think of it as

1:02:32

like a walled garden like a Persian walled garden inside

1:02:35

of that wall is safety

1:02:38

is abundance

1:02:41

is fellowship and now The

1:02:44

people who have been writing letters and sharing them are

1:02:46

making friends with each other and they're having meetups

1:02:49

They're teaching their kids how to do this They're teaching

1:02:51

some of the worst their teachers and they're teaching their

1:02:54

students how to do this practice and

1:02:56

then they're adapting it to themselves One

1:02:58

woman said that every morning when she wakes up now, it's

1:03:01

before she even opens her eyes. The first question she

1:03:03

asks is Dear love, what

1:03:05

would you have me know right now? And And

1:03:08

she can hear it. She can hear an answer

1:03:11

So she's starting her day with it. People are using it

1:03:13

to get themselves through deaths of

1:03:15

loved ones and you know the horrible

1:03:17

tragedies of life and their

1:03:20

own cancer diagnoses and their fear of the

1:03:22

world and What I

1:03:24

find also astonishing after having read How

1:03:30

similar the letters are it's

1:03:32

like we are all tuning into the

1:03:35

same radio station here

1:03:38

Like something is speaking to

1:03:40

each one of us With

1:03:42

the same tenderness the same humor even you

1:03:45

know There's a lot of like sort of rueful humor

1:03:47

that comes through in these letters where Where

1:03:50

love will be like, oh, don't you love

1:03:53

your little plans? We

1:03:57

love watching you make your little plans

1:04:00

keep making them, they're adorable, they're

1:04:02

probably not all gonna come true, it's

1:04:05

okay, it doesn't matter, you're not supposed to.

1:04:07

The other thing that I hear resonating again

1:04:09

and again and again and again in these

1:04:11

letters, which I think is amazing, is

1:04:15

that love often says to people, I

1:04:17

don't care about good and bad and right

1:04:20

and wrong. It's a

1:04:22

very interesting thing for me, and I've heard this

1:04:24

in my letters too, because I can get into

1:04:26

such guilt spirals if I think that I've

1:04:28

done anything wrong and I'm

1:04:30

so desperate to be morally perfect and

1:04:32

I'm so desperate to be ethical and

1:04:34

to have integrity and I'm

1:04:37

always so afraid that I'm doing it wrong. And

1:04:39

I'm hearing not just in my letters, but in

1:04:41

the letters that unconditional love is writing to people

1:04:43

like, I don't care about your morality, I

1:04:46

don't care about your ethics, I'm not here

1:04:48

to gauge that, I'm not here to judge

1:04:50

that. You're killing yourself with

1:04:52

these morals, you're killing yourself

1:04:55

with these standards. You're fine,

1:04:57

like you're fine just the way you are.

1:05:00

I know all the stuff you've done, it's okay. It

1:05:03

doesn't matter. And this idea

1:05:05

that like good, bad and right and wrong

1:05:07

don't matter, it's like that line of out

1:05:10

there beyond right doing and wrongdoing,

1:05:12

there's a field, I'll meet you there. We

1:05:15

seem to be meeting on that field. And

1:05:17

that's a really scary thing, talk about things to put

1:05:19

on the fire and walk away from. That's a scary

1:05:21

thing to walk away from, because I'm like, well if

1:05:23

there's no morality and there's no right or wrong, how's

1:05:25

anybody gonna be safe and what are the rules and

1:05:27

how do I know if I'm good or bad? And

1:05:30

love's like, I don't care. You know,

1:05:32

I don't care. I just

1:05:35

love you and care about you and I'm here with you. And

1:05:37

it's all right. I'm not judging

1:05:39

you. You're not getting graded on

1:05:41

any of this. And what

1:05:44

an incredible relief that is. So to

1:05:46

see that show up in the letters

1:05:48

of so many strangers and to be

1:05:50

like, wow, okay, that's

1:05:52

what unconditional love is? That's

1:05:55

amazing. It really

1:05:57

is powerful to see so many people. showing

1:06:00

up and being willing

1:06:02

to be seen is

1:06:04

really powerful. Also, because it isn't, I think it

1:06:06

inspires you. You're like, wait a minute. They're

1:06:09

doing this. And oftentimes they're doing it week

1:06:12

after week and at scale and

1:06:14

it's okay. It's better than okay. You

1:06:16

know, like there's something really

1:06:18

magical about it. And

1:06:21

it's just deeply compelling. From

1:06:23

the outside looking in, having seen what you've

1:06:25

created, it's deeply compelling for me. And I

1:06:27

was imagining from the inside looking out, it

1:06:29

had to have been for you as well. And you've

1:06:31

confirmed that. We are

1:06:33

going to air this episode on

1:06:36

the same day that you'll

1:06:38

be sharing my letter from love

1:06:41

to your community. So

1:06:43

for all of our fabulous listeners,

1:06:45

if you've enjoyed this conversation, you're

1:06:47

inspired and you're curious after,

1:06:51

Liz very explicitly told me stop noodling.

1:06:53

Just do it. What

1:06:57

actually comes out, you

1:06:59

will be able to find it. We'll include a link in the

1:07:01

show notes. By all means head over there

1:07:03

and explore this practice

1:07:06

yourself. There's something truly powerful about

1:07:08

it. And then even being in community when you're

1:07:11

doing it, I think is really, there's

1:07:13

something really cool about it. So

1:07:15

Liz, as we always do, and I've

1:07:17

asked you this a couple of times over the years now, but

1:07:20

you know, years pass and we

1:07:22

change in this container of a good

1:07:24

life project. If I offer up the phrase

1:07:26

to live a good life, what comes up? Well,

1:07:30

just say what just came to mind, which

1:07:32

is to be careful with

1:07:34

yourself. I've never

1:07:36

said those words before or thought them,

1:07:38

but that's what came to mind.

1:07:40

And it just actually made me get a little teary.

1:07:43

I understand that to mean to

1:07:46

know your own preciousness and

1:07:49

to know your own just

1:07:51

exquisite, tender sweetness, and

1:07:55

to treat yourself accordingly

1:07:58

as a very rare, miraculous

1:08:00

being and to know

1:08:02

that you're worthy of all

1:08:04

gentleness and kindness.

1:08:08

One of the things that inspired me to want to take

1:08:10

this practice public was

1:08:12

making famous within these circles, I

1:08:14

don't know if it's famous, but in the wider

1:08:16

world that Sharon Salzburg, the great

1:08:19

meditation teacher, was one of the first Americans

1:08:21

to meet the Dalai Lama.

1:08:24

And she was in the room with him when he came

1:08:26

to California. I think it was California or

1:08:29

somewhere in the Pacific Northwest maybe,

1:08:31

but long ago. And

1:08:33

like kind of no one knew who he was. And so

1:08:36

this group of intellectuals and

1:08:38

theologians and spiritual people gathered

1:08:40

to hear him speak. And

1:08:43

they had questions and somebody in the room asked him

1:08:46

if he could give any guidance about how

1:08:48

to handle self-hatred. And he

1:08:50

had to speak to a translator for like 10

1:08:52

minutes to even

1:08:54

understand the question. Because

1:08:57

he kept thinking that he was misunderstood.

1:08:59

He was like, who

1:09:01

do you hate? Who is the

1:09:03

enemy? And people were like,

1:09:05

when it's yourself, when it's yourself, who

1:09:07

is the enemy? And he

1:09:10

had never heard of this. Now,

1:09:12

this is the most common headset of

1:09:14

the Western mind. To us, it's just

1:09:16

a normal Tuesday. But

1:09:19

to him, he was like, this is

1:09:21

not okay. And he

1:09:23

was saying, you know, you

1:09:25

are the one

1:09:28

who you're going to be traveling with

1:09:31

through this entire journey of life.

1:09:33

Like you are your own companion.

1:09:36

How could you turn on that

1:09:39

person and hate them? You're

1:09:41

left with nothing. If you hate

1:09:43

that person, what do you have? You've got nothing. This

1:09:47

is who you're supposed to be the

1:09:49

most tender to and the

1:09:51

most kind to. Later,

1:09:54

he would write that he had

1:09:56

to start telling people like, treat yourself the

1:09:58

way your mother would treat you. And then

1:10:00

he found out what mothers in the West are like.

1:10:02

And he was like, okay, nevermind, grandmother. Like how far

1:10:04

back do we have to go to find somebody

1:10:06

who was kind? But

1:10:10

that's what I hear is a good

1:10:12

life, is a life where you really

1:10:14

are careful and tender

1:10:16

with your own preciousness. Thank

1:10:20

you. Hey,

1:10:22

before you leave, if you loved this episode,

1:10:24

safe bet y'all also loved the earlier conversation

1:10:26

we had with Elizabeth Gilbert about navigating love

1:10:29

and loss and finding lightness again. You'll find

1:10:31

a link to that episode in the show

1:10:33

notes. This episode of Good

1:10:35

Life Project was produced by executive

1:10:37

producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan

1:10:39

Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez,

1:10:41

Christopher Carter, crafted our theme music

1:10:43

and special thanks to Shelly Adele

1:10:45

for her research on this episode.

1:10:47

And of course, if you haven't

1:10:49

already done so, please go ahead and

1:10:51

follow Good Life Project in your favorite

1:10:54

listening app. And if you found this

1:10:56

conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and

1:10:58

chances are you did since you're still

1:11:00

listening here, would you do me a

1:11:02

personal favor, a seven second favor and

1:11:04

share it? Maybe on social or by

1:11:06

text or by email, even just with

1:11:08

one person. Just copy the link from

1:11:10

the app you're using and tell those

1:11:12

you know, those you love, those you

1:11:15

wanna help navigate this thing called life

1:11:17

a little better so we can all

1:11:19

do it better together with more

1:11:21

ease and more joy. Tell them

1:11:23

to listen. Then even invite them

1:11:25

to talk about what you've both

1:11:27

discovered, because when podcasts become conversations

1:11:29

and conversations become action, that's how

1:11:32

we all come alive together. Until

1:11:34

next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing

1:11:36

off for Good Life Project. Thank you.

1:12:00

Thank you.