Hello Subscriber First Name, and welcome to my first newsletter!

In my work to connect with others on their health journeys, I feel called to share a bit of my own. Each one of us is on our own well-being path, which overlap and intersect with each other. There may be a bit of comfort in this, to know that each of us is experiencing this life, each minute passing, sometimes alone, and sometimes together. So, I’d like to bring in some of my own transparency here to this work- to share with you what I have come across in my own health and well-being journey.

I am sitting in the space of summer. My kids are home from school and are now too old for most summer camps (not that summer day camps made this time of year much easier, given their super-limited hours of 9 am-3 pm). My kids are now both teenagers and don’t need me as much as they used to, or at least not in the same ways. I monitor their whereabouts when they venture out with friends and make sure that they have a steady stream of snacks. I make sure they are occasionally cracking open a book and aren’t on Roblox for 16 straight hours. I’ve been grateful to the World Cup for giving us some structure these past few weeks- what will I do without a soccer schedule to organize our days around?

Summer has never been my favorite season, to be honest. There can be so much ‘shoulding’ on ourselves in the summer and each year I feel the pressure to make this season GREAT. YOU MUST ENJOY SUMMER! You should get outside. Your kids should run around with sparklers on the 4th. They should spend full days riding their bikes or building sandcastles on the beach. You should set them up so that all of this is possible.

Our apartment faces west, and when dark clouds roll in from the horizon, I find myself able to finally relax. The pressure lifts on rainy days. I don’t have to try so hard, and the weather agrees. Suddenly, it’s okay if we don’t do anything. On rainy days, I can even crack open my own book.

This is my summer of un-schooling, of finding my own worthiness in my being and not in my doing, of allowing my rainy day energy to be more than enough on sunny days as well. Can I make this time easy peesy lemon squeezy, but with no pressure? I’m trying. I left my career 6 months ago and am still adjusting to that massive change. My health coaching business has been born (yay!). But with that, I feel like I am in my own personal fourth trimester- those first three months after a baby is born where they need to be wrapped up tight and soothed with white noise and movement. Even in adulthood, we go through moments where we need extra comforts. We humans prefer to feel safe. We prefer to stick with what is most familiar. Change, on all levels, is inherently uncomfortable.

To breathe through my own discomfort, I am attending to my own daily anchors when I can. For me this includes writing, going for walks when it isn’t a million degrees out (preferably ending up at the Art Institute member’s lounge), reading, tapping, and going to my early morning Pure Barre classes where I can visit with lovely people.

I have been reading a lot of fiction this summer, but I did finish a book recently that I will mention here- How to Live a Meaningful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. This book is one that takes a while to go through- at the end of each chapter are different activities that take a fair amount of reflection and working through. There are formative exercises in the book, which include developing your own inner compass values and coming up with a focus question, both which serve as a guide for where your life is heading, and who it is that you are becoming. You can see just based on this alone that this isn’t a book that you breeze through!

I have been thinking a lot about what it has brought up for me. The two concepts that speak strongest to me out of this book are radical acceptance and availability- which bring me into the spirit of allowing.

In following along with the book, I fine-tuned my current list of compass values, which are:
Health
Connection
Creativity
Beauty

Rather than seeking the activities we enjoy and checking them off an imaginary list in our heads each evening before bed, or labeling a day as successful based on their completion, we can be on the lookout for instances that are connected to our values. The book calls these moments ‘coherency sightings.’ I can’t always get to Pure Barre or join a silent writing session with my writing group, especially in the summer, but I can notice those moments that ushered creativity or beauty or connection into my being. It’s a subtle shift, but a powerful one, and it takes ‘planning’ and ‘doing’ out of the picture as well, which benefits many (if not most!) of us. Instead, we just become more open to noticing what is already there around us.

I will launch back into some non-fiction as we head into fall, but for now, I am letting How to Live a Meaningful Life sit with me- while I do some other reading this summer that is purely for pleasure.

What I would like to share with you this month-

• The authors of How to Live a Meaningful Life were on Rainn Wilson’s podcast several months ago. This was a good interview, especially if you are considering diving into the book.

• Have you heard of EFT tapping? I was first introduced to EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) tapping through Brad Yates on YouTube over a decade ago, and now use an app called The Tapping Solution, which was created by siblings Nick, Alex, and Jessica Ortner (I have used the paid version for years, which is worth every penny). Tapping is my favorite way to connect back to my body and to process my own feelings. If you have ever wanted to try it, The Tapping Solution has a five day challenging coming up with what they call the Core 5 tapping meditations, focusing on these five resets- calm, release, center, soften, and ignite. They are each just 6-7 minutes in length (6-7!!!) but I have found them to be incredibly soothing. The challenge begins July 20, and this would be a nice and easy way to try tapping if you’ve never done it before- sign up here.

• I have followed Dr. Elisha Goldstein online for many years, and will share more about him here at some point. He has a new book out called Tiny Shifts that I really love. I want to share this particular podcast episode with you, where he interviews Claire Bidwell Smith on the topic of grief and how it lives with us. I found it to be a touching reminder of what it means to be a human on this earth, and how important the grieving process is for all forms of loss- people, hope, childhood, situations, jobs, health, places, etc.

• Anne-Laure Le Cunff, author of the book Tiny Experiments, has a newsletter that I’ve been enjoying. Check out this one that she wrote this week about error. Society equates the word error with failure or a mistake, but in science, error is simply the measurement of the difference between the predicted and actual outcome of an experiment. It’s good food for thought. I wrote more about her book a few months ago.

• I also wrote a blog post about committing to more analog experiences in today’s world (with the risk of being left behind).

GLIMMER CORNER!

Deb Dana is a social worker whose work is organized around the polyvagal theory and providing nervous system support. I have found every interview with her to be filled with so many comforting messages. I will share more on the polyvagal theory in future newsletters. She created the idea of looking for glimmers – those moments where you are captured by something that brings a sense of connection, awe, safety, and warm fuzzies. It can be anything- your dog, a flower, a sunrise, the decorative foam on your latte. It is a beautiful gift to be open and available to our own glimmers. I know that life challenges can make it hard to ease into these moments of noticing at times, so the practice is to observe, with a gentle heart, what is around us.

For this month, I would like to share this picture from my friend Sarah in Atlanta. I so appreciated her sharing these wee mushrooms with me, and I in turn share them with you!

Send me your glimmers! If you come across a glimmer that you would like me to feature in my newsletter, please email it to me at hello@lindsayrhodescoaching.com !!!

Thank you for reading to the end! Reach out if there is anything on your mind that you would be interested in me including here.

If you know of anyone who is working on their own health and well-being and may wish for additional support or to work alongside someone else during this process, please feel free to send them to my website. I am happy to meet with them for a free discovery call to see what is on their mind and how I may support them in their journey.

Sending you all my best wishes,

Lindsay