This post was first shared on March 1, 2023 from Lilliwuap, Washington as part of my monthly Love Letter series.
I’ve decided to slowly share the love letters here on my blog. If you’d like to receive these letters straight to your inbox and in real time, Subscribe here.
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March 1, 2023
Hello to my beautiful wolf-pack! Happy March! It absolutely blows me away that we are already heading into the third month of the year. What an experience 2023 has already proven to be. I hope that it’s been wonderful for you, and if not, I have no doubt it will turn around.
I am here writing to you in my period underpants while sitting on a meditation cushion that is propped up on a bolster. I’m using a built-in window bench for a table so I can face the windows and look out beyond the mossy green forest.
Last I wrote to you, Shane and I were about to pull up to our little airbnb home for February and March in a little town bordering the Olympic National Forest. We have now been at this dream cabin for a month, and while it’s been nothing but pristinely quiet here, so much change has popped in to say hello.
During the first week we were here, Shane and I decided to do a water fast. Both of us had water fasted in the past, and really liked the spiritual cleansing component of it. I had also been dealing with gut issues really badly since living in Tulum, and wanted to give my digestive system a chance to rest and recharge. In my “What I’m Currently Reading” section of this e-mail, you can find a link to a great book on fasting.
After day 4 of my water fast, I was feeling incredible, and decided to incorporate an immunity tonic broth that was recommended to me by the magic herbalist we met in Astoria, Oregon. I drank the nourishing broth and water for the remaining 3 days of the fast, and decided that I felt complete.
On the same day I broke my fast, Shane and I headed to Whidbey, Island to see if we could imagine ourselves living there. Although we very quickly decided that it wasn’t a place we could live, we did really enjoy taking the ferry over, and staying at Captain Whidbey Inn, built in 1907. Since we visited during low season, Shane and I were the only people staying in the historic portion of the hotel. They upgraded our room, and we felt as if we were living in our great-grandparents era. It was beyond special. Outside our room, sea lions lay on the dock and talked (loudly barked) at each other for the entirely of our stay. We didn’t mind, and luckily had a noise machine so we could get some shut eye.
How do you want to feel?
One of the most interesting parts of the fast for me was how habitual “grabbing a snack” is. I am definitely the kind of person who relies on food for comfort, or as a procrastination tool, or as an outlet to focus my attention on if I want to avoid something else. I didn’t realize all of that until the fast, but during the first 3 days of not eating, it feels like literally all you can do is think about, talk about, and dream about food. During that time, my typical relationship with food became obvious.
On about day 5, I had a BIG cry followed by a BIG realization about work. Although I’ve loved the ebs and flows and changes of my online presence for the past 7ish years, I have now started to feel very misaligned with where social media is going. And maybe, where I’m going? I see social media really shaping the way we think, breathe, and relate and I don’t want much to do with it anymore. At least for now. Obviously as an online creator and coach, this brings up a lot of questions around what do you want to be doing, Lauren?
I do want to stay connected with you, and I still want to serve you (which is why we’re here! yay!) I still want to coach and I want to share what I’ve painstakingly learned about our inner worlds, sexuality, and self-love over the past decade!
That’s what I want to do. AND something else is coming through too.
When I got really quiet with myself, I realized that the question “what do you want to do” wasn’t bringing through a deeper part of me. Instead, I changed the question to: “How do you want to FEEL, Lauren?”
With that question, the gates opened and I was able to touch it. What’s coming through feels like a life I used to know. A life where theater, and performance were staples in my daily life. A life where break-a-leg was my favorite thing to hear.
New York, New York
As I sat, and laid, and walked, and danced with this feeling, this realization, I shared with Shane that although I love being in the middle of nowhere, I am powered by people too. My energy source so often comes from eye-contact with strangers, and an exchange of pleasantries. I am half people person and half off-grid forest Queen.
More specifically, what I shared with Shane is that if I don’t move to New York City to pursue this call in my chest, I feel like I’ll die with regret.
And so, that very day, we found the most perfect apartment in The Big Apple, connected with the landlord who is currently living in an Ashram in India, and wrote up a contract.
In August, after all our incredible upcoming adventures, we’ll be packing up my Prius, and making what we have deemed “The Great All American Roadtrip” from California to NYC.
WHAT AN ADVENTURE!
I’m being a bit vague with what it actually is that I’m pursuing on purpose 🙂 I’ll share more as it feels right!
Managing Expectation
With any huge change like this, I always find that my expectations of “what life could be like” really clouds my experience of THE NOW. My energy will get eaten up by fantasies and visions of who I’ll meet, who I’ll be, and where this new adventure might lead. I imagine my outfits, and try on different versions of myself.
Ooooh! Ahhhh!
This kind of thinking actually makes the journey less sweet because we miss the process of getting there. Additionally, reality more often than not, doesn’t match the fantasy. It we’re attaching to the expectation of what something will be like, the perfection of reality slips through our fingers and we find ourselves in a suffer spiral.
It’s okay to be excited, or to have moments imagining this, or that, but it’s not okay to live running toward a future version of yourself if you want to enjoy this life.
This moment is perfect. This moment is perfect. This moment is perfect.
Life is happening right here, right now. How present can we be for it? Meditation is so important to practice this state of mind, and I’m grateful to have this practice as part of my daily life.
More time leaning into presence
The more change that happens around me, the more I know I need to come to stillness. To come to my meditation. I’ve recently been incorporating breathwork too, thanks to Shane.
Camille and I just recorded this episode about our daily meditation practice and how you can get started on our podcast, The Den Mothers. I’ll be sending out a more detailed summary of that episode soon. You can also find this blog post that I wrote about “Being Bad at Meditation”. It’s a good blog to read if you feel like you’re not good at meditating, or like you’re doing it wrong.
There truly is no other practice in the world more imperative than sitting down, getting still, and learning how to observe your mind, and then to just BE pristine consciousness.
Talk about LIVING FOR SOMETHING.
My e-book!
In addition to pursuing this new heart mission, I’m so excited to share with you all that I am really plugging along on my first ever e-book! The book is all about sexual embodiment and coming home to ourselves. In the book, I detail many rituals, practices, journal entires, and new frames of mind in regards to sexuality. I share a lot about my personal experiences in addition to what has worked for my clients.
I’m about 80% finished! It’s really a process to get out a completed work. Just when I think I’m wrapping up, I remember another section to include – and so it goes.
This book is an accumulation of my last two years of work, and I can’t wait to share it with you. My e-mail list will be the first to know when it launches, so you’re in the right place. I just love it here.
What I’m currently reading:
I mentioned that I finished Waking Up by Sam Harris last month. In his book, he recommends On Having No Head by Douglas Harding, so I am now reading that. I really enjoy it and think that Harding does a wonderful job at describing emptiness from the perspective of having no head. I had a harder time getting into it than I did with Waking Up, but I think it’s just the concept and writing style are much different than Harris’.
In short, read both. You won’t be sorry you did.
During our fast, Shane read Stephen Buhner’s The Transformational Power of Fasting: The Way to Spiritual, Physical, and Emotional Rejuvenation. If you’re considering fasting, I’d recommend this text.
I’m still working through these babies on rotation:
Ensouling Language by Stephen Buhner
No Bad Parts by Dr. Richard Schwartz
Loving What Is by Byron Katie
So far, they’re all phenomenal. Highly recommend.
What I’m thinking about:
I am thinking a LOT about identity this week. While I ramp up to change directions, I notice how easy it is to attach our worth to what we’re doing, how much money we’re making, and who we’re perceived to be.
On considering deleting my social media, I notice how I have attached to my online presence in many ways. Who am I if I’m not @shewolflauren? Who am I without the ability to show others that I have a bit of a following? What does it mean if I am just Lauren, hanging out in the woods with my fiance?
It’s so fascinating for me to ponder these different questions:
What does it mean to have a following? Why do we follow who we follow? How much mental space does social media take up for the average person? How has account engagement become such a marker of status or success? What do we place importance on as individuals? As a society? If we didn’t spend so much time there, what would we be doing instead?
What once seemed like a fad, social media, has now likely changed the human race forever. What will it all look like in 100 years?
Before I go,
I’d like to suggest that each of you go to an art store of some sort (or Amazon) and get a HUGE sketch pad and some colored pens. When you have some downtime, or need to move through a decision, get out those pens and paper, and write all your fears, excitements, frustrations down. You can draw it, scribble, really express yourself. Once you have it all down in front of you, it no longer just lives in your head, and you can really start to map out what’s happening upstairs.
This practice has been incredibly helpful for me, and I wanted to share.
Alright, that’s all for my monthly love letter to you.
I love you, and I love writing in longer form to you. Thank you for being here with me through all the change. It means the world to me. Happy March! I’ll be writing in April. xo
