My friend and collaborator Brittany Veenhuysen and I have been writing letters back and forth for several weeks now. We started this project on substack. For us, a fun and explorative way to share what we are learning and creating from the intimate perspective within our relationship. Every other Wednesday morning, I excitedly open my email to see the letter Brittany posted in response to my previous week’s letter. It feels like the pen-pal a younger-me always dreamed of having. These letters are for us, but they are shared publicly because they are also for you. If you are curious to be a part of this conversation, subscribe for free and the letters will arrive in your inbox every Wednesday morning too.
Read and subscribe on substack
Here is the letter I wrote this week, and perhaps if you feel yourself leaning in, you can head to substack for more.
Dear Brittany,
Thank you for your beautiful words. I love hearing and feeling your expanding sense of what it is to be relational with yourself. You are exemplifying a fascinating and important journey. You expressed this so eloquently as your evolving felt-sense of a Sovereign Self. Not as just a peaceful essence you have access to, but new operating instructions for how your internal system organizes itself, what you pay attention to, and the qualities you are expressing through the way you are paying attention. In other words (words, words, words…), a felt-sense of an intentional relational stance towards what’s here. To conceptualize this as a possibility is one thing, to feel it taking shape and impacting your moment to moment experience in life is the nectar, and maybe even what some parts of us are seeking everywhere but right here. Your words said it best, as:
“being simultaneously in the emotion, with the emotion, and witness to the part of me experiencing the emotion with a calm and ancient presence that I feel is often better unnamed.”
I am sitting with that for a few moments before I move on. I might even pause and come back to your words there a few times while writing and organizing my words, because they center me, they echo in my ancient bones of knowing, and they settle my whole system into being right here, breathing, being.
I am now sitting with the question you finished your last letter with. What role does this deeper work serve beyond our mere selves?
I notice parts of me that are trying to figure out how to explore that, how to speak to that, and the layers or various perspectives that could be utilized to give me some ground to stand on and a path to follow. So I smile at these wonderful parts of me, so helpful, and so cognitive, and so familiar with their skillset of dancing and weaving complexity into another form or shape of complexity. Often helpful, serves a purpose, and yet, can only go so far.
So, once again, I drop down. I feel my breath. I feel my body in this moment, and my fingertips tapping these keys as words take shape in my mind and appear on this screen. How fun, how magical, how truly amazing this is. Thinking and seeing words in my mind while simultaneously - or with a slight lag - tapping these keys and writing them to be seen. I am attuned more deeply now to communication itself, and the quandary I love to explore…who or what quality of attention is leading or am I expressing from? What we communicate, how we communicate, what we think is important and needs to be expressed, all will differ depending on what part or perspective is currently at the wheel. Now back to your question so I can begin to formulate my “answer” by prompting a pause and imagine….imagine what would be possible if we could all notice our inner states and be with what arises until being relational benevolence becomes second nature. To get to know what triggers us, what it feels like various parts take over, why this choice or behavior feels so important, and what is being protected. No rush or urgency in having answers, allowing the unknown to here, because the nature of a relationship is that trust takes time. And all we can do is meet ourselves in presence and maybe do something different than what we have done before. And now back to your words to ground myself, and back to your question to weave this all together.
“being simultaneously in the emotion, with the emotion, and witness to the part of me experiencing the emotion with a calm and ancient presence that I feel is often better unnamed.”
“What role does this deeper work serve beyond our mere selves?”
What if we slowed down and truly listened, and then with gentle and firm guidance offered our parts some broader insight, and even some honest and hard truth that it’s creating what it’s trying to avoid. To deliver hope and confidence that there are other ways of being, or perceiving, of meeting the moment; that more support is available, and that this beautiful space in the present moment is where we access the love and peace we need.
Imagine what would be possible in your life if you slowed down to be with your own moments of distress and confusion in this way. Now imagine what would be possible in your relationships with others if you noticed discomfort or ruptures and you slowed down to tend to what’s happening inside of you, to listen to the hurt and the pain or the anger and annoyance, and then turned outwards to engage from a more centered and holistic sense of your internal system. Now imagine what would be possible if more and more people were able to move through life in this way.
A few breaths with that.
So now I turn my attention fully back to your Brittany. How does this land for you? What feels possible now that wasn’t possible before? And because I love your deep knowledge and passion for archetypes, what types arched through your mind as you read this, I may have intentionally emphasized one or two when I felt them naturally expressed in my words ;)
As always, I look forward to your response.
xo Marin