There is a deep knowing, in the center of our being, that we are okay and everything is going to be okay, regardless of what chaos and pain surround us. And every once in a while that soulful knowing comes to the surface.
Driving through The Woodlands after making the last amends of my first 9th step. All the pain, the guilt, the shame, in that moment, was gone. I felt a peace and a freedom that had gone missing. So grateful
Laying in a fetal position on a low-hanging cot at dawn as the first flames caught in the stove at the centre of a yurt thousands of miles from everyone and everything I knew. I was in my early twenties, my body was broken, I ran away to Mongolia.
One recent experience was on a golf course on Grand Cayman Is. I was invited to play with some new and an old friend, 18 holes of golf; an unexpected opportunity while cruising in the western Caribbean. Living in northwest WA, the winter weather pretty much discourages me from playing golf, so I didn’t have high expectations for my game. Lo and behold, I found my sweet spot, in the so-called zone with my driver. It was amazing! I made sweet smooth swings, hitting the ball long and straight for most of the round. I felt as if I was caught up in the warm Caribbean winds and in the flow of being well with my soul.
Thinking of Frankl again and his concept of freedom as exactly the human ability to relate to our circumstances as odd, frightening or cruel they might be. You turned this idea into loving writing. Thank you.
I am thinking about a tree house I climbed as a child in the garden of my parents overlooking the parsonage, the cemetery and the fields all the way to the horizon. I sat there with my sadness, my loneliness and my longings. Feeling the breeze on my face, listening to the birds sing, watching the harvesting machines on the fields and the air vibrating from the summer sun I felt embraced by peace eternal.
I'm not 100% sure but I think crying alone has been my most authentic moments that only happened a few times in my life. Feeling my absolute worst is the only thing that comes to mind when I think of my genuine self. I have expressed moments of freedom and happiness I have felt and I've had quite moments like others reflect on in your story and in the comments. Still, being quite doesn't make me think of authenticity. It makes me think of being shielded and protected from hurt. It's feeling the hurt and crying out to God to help me deal with it that strikes my mind otherwise. I've felt a sense of purity after repenting of my wrongs in sincerity. Knowing I was not my best and maybe even my worst but that God still loved me. Knowing that I could change from what made me not right and that my imperfection was not the end of me. It was just me and I could improve and there was a way forward.
These kinds of questions make me feel my truest version of me! I’m embracing self-reflection and awareness. It’s juicy.
Recently, my 3y/o son was at the playground and he started pumping his arms and kicking the air. I asked him what he was doing and he reported, “Mama, I have to do my stretch ups!!”
A combo of shadow boxing and air-push ups??
I still don’t know what stretch ups really are, but I laughed at his vigor and wildness. Watching him be HIS truest self, makes me feel safe being in that state too. All hail toddlers.
It is Well With My Soul" is my favorite hymn. The moment Kelly's post evoked was walking to the mailbox one morning. I was recovering from surgery after a perforated intestine and this was my first morning to walk outdoors in three weeks. It was a bright, freezing cold day, and sunlight glistened on new snow. I felt fortunate to be alive after dancing so close with death. In the moment I thought, "Never forget this wonder of life. Savor the moment and make space for it every day." That moment has been a constant companion for the last 16 years. I'm restacking Kelly's Substack "Humaning" to see what it bring to anyone reading.
Wonderful question, Kelly. I too associate the question with a peaceful moment, which is so telling (i.e. this is my most natural, intended state of being).
Mine was encountered within a moment of feeling deeply betrayed, sinking deeper and deeper into that feeling until I peeked through the bottom of it all. And on the other side was this feeling of gratitude—essentially, that a wish I had been holding to feel more aliveness had come true. And the pain was a catalyst to that aliveness.
PS: I like the potential double-meaning of "well" as a place in the soul to draw my truest self from.
Arms and heart full of my children when they were little and when I can, my grandchildren. In lieu of that now, it’s connecting with a beloved friend. It’s just... connecting. It’s the absolute court and spark of human relationship.
Bike riding as a young girl, through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco with a friend, randomly choosing the directions we’d ride so we would end up in different surprise locations. Riding downhill with no hands. The freedom, the wind in my face, the experience of nature all around me. It’s so cool that my natural path doctor suggested my husband and I go for bike rides to get back into shape at age 70 and 71, so the joy of riding through my quiet and peaceful neighborhood is bringing me back to that place of my childhood, freedom, joy, delight in the world around me. Thankful. And that’s just one thing. I’ve had many more such experiences of my true self, but this is the one that came to mind this morning. Thank you to all the stories, I could relate to all of them. It is well with my soul.
This is such a great question (I seem to be taken with your questions lately!). I wrote a post about this experience recently. Essentially, I had gotten out of bed having heard a noise that my catastrophizing brain had turned into, “someone is breaking in the house.” After I’d checked the doors and gone back to bed, I lay between waking and sleeping for a bit and felt a profound sense of peace and o.k.ness. “Everything was ok, everything would always be ok.” I’ve enjoyed reading other people’s experiences here in the comments.
When I’m singing in harmony with others. Voices lifting skyward together, the vibrations entraining my heart to theirs. It has never mattered where I was if I was singing; in a church, at a wedding or a funeral, Christmas carols in the great hall, a 40 foot fir tree scenting the air, the first rehearsal I was welcomed to of an elite chorale (I stood near the basses and their notes rumbled in my chest during warm ups) tears slipped quickly down my cheeks. I was home.
When I was 10 or 11 my mother allowed me to pick the color of my room and to paint it myself. I went with a crayola paint color of bright orange with a lighter orange trim. When I was done painting and had put my room back together, I sat with great joy on my bed and admired my work. The feeling of manifesting what I had wanted, being allowed to do it, and loving the results was a satisfaction and empowerment I was unfamiliar with and made me deeply, truly happy. I felt in control and could not stop smiling.
Of course for the next few years when the sun came up it was like living IN the sun. The room so bright, no sleeping was practical.
The next time I painted my room I was in my teenage years and painted it dark brown!
But the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction, along with the control over my environment started me on a long professional career road of property renovations both residential and commercial.
It still makes me smile ear to ear when my visions are manifested:)
Love what you do!
And clearly you do Kelly because your vision of uplifting the souls of your followers is true!
I read this yesterday, and an immediate moment came to mind. I desperately wanted to come up with a different answer because it wasn’t really a peaceful moment. I wanted it to be a pleasant, happy memory and to be honest, it wasn’t. But the more I’ve sat with it, the more I’ve read through other people’s comments, I feel compelled to just share it.
At 16 years old, I was a member of a team. In front of parents, team, members, board members, coaches, and school staff, three members of the team were asked to stand up and announce their resignation, as they had been caught drinking after they had signed a contract to not drink as a member of the team. Everybody in the room sat and watched as these three girls were, literally, publicly shamed. The room sat in silence and 50+ people stared on. In the silence that followed, I stood up, ran up to the front and gave them all hugs and said, “you guys just happened to be the ones that got caught. I drank after I signed the contract, so I guess I’m resigning from the team as well.” After I stepped forward, every member of the team stood up and resigned, except for two people. I didn’t do it for spectacle. I did it because at the root of it, I value honesty and truth. Sometimes that’s the harder place to stand. Lying feels like a great protective shield. It ends up being a suffocating prison, a bubble that keeps me from connecting with others.
I was afraid to be honest, but I craved authenticity. I did this for no one else other than myself and God. Ironically, today, 30+ years later, my dad still tells me that it’s one of his proudest moments. Such an odd feeling to know that a moment of discomfort can also carry the most truth and beauty.
I don’t know how old I was, less than 12 for sure. We were driving up north in Michigan for a family vacation, car stuffed with four giggly girls, their dolls, and my parents. I had a rare spot at the window on the back seat. I remember to this day the stillness and awe I felt just looking at the passing forest next to the road. The towering pine trees seemed to go on for miles, I couldn’t stop staring at them. I had never hiked before that but I felt drawn to being in the woods. I’ve never lost that sense of reverence for nature.
I bookmarked this amazing question and just read all of your incredible responses. I LOVE THIS GROUP. I love the shares, including yours and your responses to each one Kelly. What comes to mind immediately is being chosen to sing a solo for the entire camp at age 6, but it was not about the performance, but the moment I realized my music teacher saw how much I loved to sing. And the magical feeling of just doing what you love, and the ability to say YES to it! I have joy filled moments throughout my life dancing to hit singles in the 60's as a little girl in my living room as my mom played music all the time. Dancing and singing with my kids while I cooked dinner in the kitchen. The joy it bought me, dancing alone but not worrying about anything other than feeling and expressing my love of the melody, the beat and how great it feels to just SING. The Carpenters wrote a song called SING and it is beautifully expressed, it 'Dont worry that it's not good enough, for anyone else to hear...Just Sing, Sing A Song'. I wish life would allow us to Just Sing our Own Song much more easily.
Fast forward, from that solo song at camp at 6 to me still singing and dancing to songs in my living room today at 60, It is the Most Me I can Be!
Driving through The Woodlands after making the last amends of my first 9th step. All the pain, the guilt, the shame, in that moment, was gone. I felt a peace and a freedom that had gone missing. So grateful
Laying in a fetal position on a low-hanging cot at dawn as the first flames caught in the stove at the centre of a yurt thousands of miles from everyone and everything I knew. I was in my early twenties, my body was broken, I ran away to Mongolia.
Love this question, Kelly. Thank you.
One recent experience was on a golf course on Grand Cayman Is. I was invited to play with some new and an old friend, 18 holes of golf; an unexpected opportunity while cruising in the western Caribbean. Living in northwest WA, the winter weather pretty much discourages me from playing golf, so I didn’t have high expectations for my game. Lo and behold, I found my sweet spot, in the so-called zone with my driver. It was amazing! I made sweet smooth swings, hitting the ball long and straight for most of the round. I felt as if I was caught up in the warm Caribbean winds and in the flow of being well with my soul.
Thinking of Frankl again and his concept of freedom as exactly the human ability to relate to our circumstances as odd, frightening or cruel they might be. You turned this idea into loving writing. Thank you.
I am thinking about a tree house I climbed as a child in the garden of my parents overlooking the parsonage, the cemetery and the fields all the way to the horizon. I sat there with my sadness, my loneliness and my longings. Feeling the breeze on my face, listening to the birds sing, watching the harvesting machines on the fields and the air vibrating from the summer sun I felt embraced by peace eternal.
I'm not 100% sure but I think crying alone has been my most authentic moments that only happened a few times in my life. Feeling my absolute worst is the only thing that comes to mind when I think of my genuine self. I have expressed moments of freedom and happiness I have felt and I've had quite moments like others reflect on in your story and in the comments. Still, being quite doesn't make me think of authenticity. It makes me think of being shielded and protected from hurt. It's feeling the hurt and crying out to God to help me deal with it that strikes my mind otherwise. I've felt a sense of purity after repenting of my wrongs in sincerity. Knowing I was not my best and maybe even my worst but that God still loved me. Knowing that I could change from what made me not right and that my imperfection was not the end of me. It was just me and I could improve and there was a way forward.
These kinds of questions make me feel my truest version of me! I’m embracing self-reflection and awareness. It’s juicy.
Recently, my 3y/o son was at the playground and he started pumping his arms and kicking the air. I asked him what he was doing and he reported, “Mama, I have to do my stretch ups!!”
A combo of shadow boxing and air-push ups??
I still don’t know what stretch ups really are, but I laughed at his vigor and wildness. Watching him be HIS truest self, makes me feel safe being in that state too. All hail toddlers.
It is Well With My Soul" is my favorite hymn. The moment Kelly's post evoked was walking to the mailbox one morning. I was recovering from surgery after a perforated intestine and this was my first morning to walk outdoors in three weeks. It was a bright, freezing cold day, and sunlight glistened on new snow. I felt fortunate to be alive after dancing so close with death. In the moment I thought, "Never forget this wonder of life. Savor the moment and make space for it every day." That moment has been a constant companion for the last 16 years. I'm restacking Kelly's Substack "Humaning" to see what it bring to anyone reading.
Wonderful question, Kelly. I too associate the question with a peaceful moment, which is so telling (i.e. this is my most natural, intended state of being).
Mine was encountered within a moment of feeling deeply betrayed, sinking deeper and deeper into that feeling until I peeked through the bottom of it all. And on the other side was this feeling of gratitude—essentially, that a wish I had been holding to feel more aliveness had come true. And the pain was a catalyst to that aliveness.
PS: I like the potential double-meaning of "well" as a place in the soul to draw my truest self from.
Arms and heart full of my children when they were little and when I can, my grandchildren. In lieu of that now, it’s connecting with a beloved friend. It’s just... connecting. It’s the absolute court and spark of human relationship.
Bike riding as a young girl, through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco with a friend, randomly choosing the directions we’d ride so we would end up in different surprise locations. Riding downhill with no hands. The freedom, the wind in my face, the experience of nature all around me. It’s so cool that my natural path doctor suggested my husband and I go for bike rides to get back into shape at age 70 and 71, so the joy of riding through my quiet and peaceful neighborhood is bringing me back to that place of my childhood, freedom, joy, delight in the world around me. Thankful. And that’s just one thing. I’ve had many more such experiences of my true self, but this is the one that came to mind this morning. Thank you to all the stories, I could relate to all of them. It is well with my soul.
This is such a great question (I seem to be taken with your questions lately!). I wrote a post about this experience recently. Essentially, I had gotten out of bed having heard a noise that my catastrophizing brain had turned into, “someone is breaking in the house.” After I’d checked the doors and gone back to bed, I lay between waking and sleeping for a bit and felt a profound sense of peace and o.k.ness. “Everything was ok, everything would always be ok.” I’ve enjoyed reading other people’s experiences here in the comments.
Here’s the post of your interested.
https://econway.substack.com/p/dirty-kitchens-and-profound-peace
When I’m singing in harmony with others. Voices lifting skyward together, the vibrations entraining my heart to theirs. It has never mattered where I was if I was singing; in a church, at a wedding or a funeral, Christmas carols in the great hall, a 40 foot fir tree scenting the air, the first rehearsal I was welcomed to of an elite chorale (I stood near the basses and their notes rumbled in my chest during warm ups) tears slipped quickly down my cheeks. I was home.
A moment in time for transformation.
When I was 10 or 11 my mother allowed me to pick the color of my room and to paint it myself. I went with a crayola paint color of bright orange with a lighter orange trim. When I was done painting and had put my room back together, I sat with great joy on my bed and admired my work. The feeling of manifesting what I had wanted, being allowed to do it, and loving the results was a satisfaction and empowerment I was unfamiliar with and made me deeply, truly happy. I felt in control and could not stop smiling.
Of course for the next few years when the sun came up it was like living IN the sun. The room so bright, no sleeping was practical.
The next time I painted my room I was in my teenage years and painted it dark brown!
But the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction, along with the control over my environment started me on a long professional career road of property renovations both residential and commercial.
It still makes me smile ear to ear when my visions are manifested:)
Love what you do!
And clearly you do Kelly because your vision of uplifting the souls of your followers is true!
Dianne
I read this yesterday, and an immediate moment came to mind. I desperately wanted to come up with a different answer because it wasn’t really a peaceful moment. I wanted it to be a pleasant, happy memory and to be honest, it wasn’t. But the more I’ve sat with it, the more I’ve read through other people’s comments, I feel compelled to just share it.
At 16 years old, I was a member of a team. In front of parents, team, members, board members, coaches, and school staff, three members of the team were asked to stand up and announce their resignation, as they had been caught drinking after they had signed a contract to not drink as a member of the team. Everybody in the room sat and watched as these three girls were, literally, publicly shamed. The room sat in silence and 50+ people stared on. In the silence that followed, I stood up, ran up to the front and gave them all hugs and said, “you guys just happened to be the ones that got caught. I drank after I signed the contract, so I guess I’m resigning from the team as well.” After I stepped forward, every member of the team stood up and resigned, except for two people. I didn’t do it for spectacle. I did it because at the root of it, I value honesty and truth. Sometimes that’s the harder place to stand. Lying feels like a great protective shield. It ends up being a suffocating prison, a bubble that keeps me from connecting with others.
I was afraid to be honest, but I craved authenticity. I did this for no one else other than myself and God. Ironically, today, 30+ years later, my dad still tells me that it’s one of his proudest moments. Such an odd feeling to know that a moment of discomfort can also carry the most truth and beauty.
I don’t know how old I was, less than 12 for sure. We were driving up north in Michigan for a family vacation, car stuffed with four giggly girls, their dolls, and my parents. I had a rare spot at the window on the back seat. I remember to this day the stillness and awe I felt just looking at the passing forest next to the road. The towering pine trees seemed to go on for miles, I couldn’t stop staring at them. I had never hiked before that but I felt drawn to being in the woods. I’ve never lost that sense of reverence for nature.
I bookmarked this amazing question and just read all of your incredible responses. I LOVE THIS GROUP. I love the shares, including yours and your responses to each one Kelly. What comes to mind immediately is being chosen to sing a solo for the entire camp at age 6, but it was not about the performance, but the moment I realized my music teacher saw how much I loved to sing. And the magical feeling of just doing what you love, and the ability to say YES to it! I have joy filled moments throughout my life dancing to hit singles in the 60's as a little girl in my living room as my mom played music all the time. Dancing and singing with my kids while I cooked dinner in the kitchen. The joy it bought me, dancing alone but not worrying about anything other than feeling and expressing my love of the melody, the beat and how great it feels to just SING. The Carpenters wrote a song called SING and it is beautifully expressed, it 'Dont worry that it's not good enough, for anyone else to hear...Just Sing, Sing A Song'. I wish life would allow us to Just Sing our Own Song much more easily.
Fast forward, from that solo song at camp at 6 to me still singing and dancing to songs in my living room today at 60, It is the Most Me I can Be!