Contentment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Wild (2012)

  I sat in my tent with my feet propped up on my food bag, reading the book I’d gotten in my box—Maria Dermoût’s The Ten Thousand Things—until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I turned off my headlamp and lay in the dark. As I dozed off, I heard an owl in a tree directly overhead. Who-whoo, who-whoo, it hooted with a call that was at once so strong and so gentle that I woke up. “Who-whoo,” I called back to it, and the owl was silent. “Who-whoo,” I tried again. “Who-whoo,” it replied. I hiked into the Three Sisters Wilderness, named for the South, North, and Middle Sister mountains in its boundaries. Each of the Sister peaks was more than 10,000 feet high, the third-, fourth-, and fifth-highest peaks in Oregon. They were the crown jewels among a relatively close gathering of volcanic peaks I’d be passing in the coming week, but I couldn’t see them yet as I approached from the south on the PCT, singing songs and reciting scraps of poems in my head as I hiked through a tall forest of Douglas firs, white pines, and mountain hemlocks, past lakes and ponds. A couple of days after I’d said goodbye to the Three Young Bucks, I took a detour a mile off the trail to the Elk Lake Resort, a place mentioned in my guidebook. It was a little lakeside store that catered to fishermen, much like the Shelter Cove Resort, only it had a café that served burgers. I hadn’t planned to make the detour, but when I reached the trail junction on the PCT, my endless hunger won out. I arrived just before eleven in the morning. I was the only person in the place aside from the man who worked there. I scanned the menu, did the math, and ordered a cheeseburger and fries and a small Coke; then I sat eating them in a rapture, backed by walls lined with fishing lures. My bill was six dollars and ten cents. For the first time in my entire life, I couldn’t leave a tip. To leave the two pennies I had left would’ve seemed an insult. I pulled out a little rectangle of stamps I had in the ziplock bag that held my driver’s license and placed it near my plate. “I’m sorry—I don’t have anything extra, but I left you something else,” I said, too embarrassed to say what it was. The man only shook his head and murmured something I couldn’t make out.

• From Wild (2012)

  “They have cinnamon rolls,” said Rex, trying to tempt me to join them as they walked away, but I waved him off, and not only because the idea of eating made my stomach roil. Between the burger and the wine and the snacks I’d purchased the afternoon before, I was already, and yet again, down to a little less than five bucks. When they left, I culled my resupply box, organizing my food into a pile to pack into Monster. I’d be carrying a heavy load of food on this next stretch—one of the longest sections on the PCT: it was 156 miles to Seiad Valley. “You and Sarah need any dinners?” I asked John, who was sitting at the table, the two of us briefly alone in camp. “I’ve got extras of these.” I held up a packet of something called Fiesta Noodles, a dish I’d tolerated well enough in the early days but now loathed. “Nah. Thanks,” he said. I pulled out James Joyce’s Dubliners and put it to my nose, the cover green and tattered. It smelled musty and nice, exactly like the used bookstore in Minneapolis where I’d purchased it months earlier. I opened it and saw my copy had been printed decades before I was born. “What’s this?” John asked, reaching for a postcard I’d bought in the convenience store the afternoon before. It was a photograph of a chainsaw carving of a Sasquatch, the words Bigfoot Country emblazoned across the top of the card. “Do you believe they exist?” he asked, putting the card back. “No. But the people who do claim that this is the Bigfoot capital of the world.” “People say a lot of things,” he replied. “Well, if they’re anywhere, I suppose it would be here,” I said, and we looked around. Beyond the trees that surrounded us stood the ancient gray rocks called Castle Crags, their crenellated summits rising cathedral-like above us. We’d pass them soon on the trail, as we hiked through a miles-long band of granite and ultramafic rocks that my guidebook described as “igneous in origin and intrusive by nature,” whatever that meant. I’d never been much interested in geology, but I didn’t need to know the meaning of ultramafic to see that I was moving into different country. My transition into the Cascade Range had been like the one I’d experienced crossing into the Sierra Nevada: I’d been hiking for days in each before I felt I was actually entering my idea of them. “Only one more stop,” said John, as if he could read my thoughts. “We’ve just got Seiad Valley and then it’s on to Oregon. We’re only about two hundred miles from the border.” I nodded and smiled. I didn’t think the words only and two hundred miles belonged in the same sentence. I hadn’t let myself think much beyond the next stop.

• From Bold Move

  How many of you would just not show up at all for an important doctor’s appointment, especially if it was potentially lifesaving? I bet only a few of us. So, by making an appointment with yourself, you are more likely to keep it. If you find yourself in a pinch, in which you know you are about to miss your appointment, I urge you to do the same thing you would with a doctor: reschedule it! In my well-being plan, I had to exercise at 9 p.m. one night because I just could not get it done during the day. Before lunchtime, I looked at the rest of my day and moved the appointment to the only time that was free: 9 p.m. Once I realized that ambition no longer guided me at my work, I arrived at impact as my professional core value. Specifically, I wanted to find a way to decrease the mental health crisis and as such impact the world in a positive way. For my value of impact, I focused on creating steps related to this book. After all, I am writing Bold Move because I believe that the science and experiences in these pages can help make a real impact out there, but writing on a publisher’s deadline is challenging. Given that I’m still relatively new to this whole thing, writing is one of these things that ebbs and flows for me. Sometimes my brain gets locked in negative thoughts and stops me from writing. So I realized that the goal could not be about the practicalities of creating the book, per se. I actually didn’t set workable steps around the book until I got to chapter 6 and realized that my first draft was horrible, I was frozen in terror, and I needed a kick in the ass to keep this wagon moving toward its deadline. Here is what I committed to: writing sessions of thirty minutes, three days a week, for three weeks. I often can write for two hours without noticing, so the time commitment and number of days were definitely measured and achievable, but I still ran into a snag. Can you guess what it was? I couldn’t picture it! So, I thought some more and came up with a plan I could actually envision. It turned out that to be successful, I needed to adjust it to: writing at 9 a.m. (when Diego is off to school), Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, for thirty minutes for three weeks. This is the plan that made its way onto my calendar. But just because I created this plan, it doesn’t mean it was easy. Sure, it was easier than no goal at all, but keeping it up for three weeks was tough, and I wish I had made a commitment for fewer weeks.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  The shilling was nothing compared to the pleasure of having you here among us all.’‘Shall we see you here again, Nan?’ her friend with the tattoo called then. I nodded: ‘I hope so.’‘But you must sing us a proper song next time, on your own, in all your gentleman’s toggery.’‘Oh yes, you must!’I made no answer, only smiled, and took a step away from them; then I thought of something, and beckoned to Jenny again.‘That picture,’ I said quietly when she was close. ‘Do you think - would Mrs Swindles mind - do you think that I might have it, for myself?’ She put her hand to her pocket at once, and drew out the creased and faded photograph, and passed it to me.‘You take it,’ she said; then she could not help but ask, a little wonderingly, ‘But have you none of your own? I should’ve thought...’‘Between you and me,’ I said, ‘I left the business rather fast. I lost a lot of stuff, and never cared to think of it till now. This, however — ’ I gazed down at the photo. ‘Well, it won’t hurt me, will it, to have this little reminder?’‘I hope it won’t, indeed,’ she answered kindly. Then she looked past me, to Florence and the others. ‘Your girl is awaiting for you,’ she said with a smile. I put the picture in the pocket of my coat.‘So she is,’ I said absently. ‘So she is.’I joined my friends; we picked our way across the crowded room, and hauled ourselves up the treacherous staircase into the aching cold of the February night. Outside The Frigate the road was dark and quiet; from Cable Street, however, came a distant row. Like us, the customers of all the other publics and gin palaces of the East End were beginning to make their tipsy journeys home.‘Is there never trouble,’ I said as we started to walk, ‘between women at the Boy and local people, or roughs?’Annie turned her collar up against the cold, then took Miss Raymond’s arm. ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘Sometimes. Once some boys dressed a pig in a bonnet, and tipped it down the cellar stairs...’‘No!’‘Yes,’ said Nora. ‘And once a woman got her head broken, in a fight.’‘But this was over a girl,’ said Florence, yawning, ‘and it was the girl’s husband who hit her...’‘The truth is,’ Annie went on, ‘there is such a mix round these parts, what with Jews and Lascars, Germans and Poles, socialists, anarchists, salvationists... The people are surprised at nothing.’Even as she spoke, however, two fellows came out of a house at the end of the street and, seeing us - seeing Annie and Miss Raymond arm-in-arm, and Ruth with her hand in Nora’s pocket, and Florence and I bumping shoulders - gave a mutter, and a sneer.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  When I was working in television, the phone rang constantly. I had to go to endless meetings to discuss shooting schedules and talk for hours at a time with colleagues about the concept. But now, researching A History of God, I found that the telephone rarely rang, and I would sometimes go for two or three days at a time without speaking to anybody. I was alone with my books. I would get up each morning, eat breakfast, and drink a cup of coffee while I walked around my long, narrow garden, examining the plants or my elderly apple trees, and then go up to my study. The street outside my window was deserted; the clock on my desk ticked steadily, hypnotically, and nothing came between the words on the page and me. At first this silence had seemed a deprivation, a symbol of an unwanted isolation. I had resented the solitude of my life and fought it. But gradually the enveloping quiet became a positive element, almost a presence, which settled comfortably and caressingly around me like a soft shawl. It seemed to hum, gently but melodiously, and to orchestrate the ideas that I was contending with, until they started to sing too, to vibrate and reveal an unexpected resonance. After a time I found that I could almost listen to the silence, which had a dimension all of its own. I started to attend to its strange and beautiful texture, which, of course, it was impossible to express in words. I discovered that I felt at home and alive in the silence, which compelled me to enter my interior world and walk around there. Without the distraction of constant conversation, the words on the page began to speak directly to my inner self. They were no longer expressing ideas that were simply interesting intellectually, but were talking directly to my own yearning and perplexity. I was no longer just grabbing concepts and facts from my books, using them as fodder for the next interview, but learning to listen to the deeper meaning that lay quietly and ineffably beyond them. Silence itself had become my teacher. This, of course, is how we should approach religious discourse. Theology is—or should be—a species of poetry, which read quickly or encountered in a hubbub of noise makes no sense. You have to open yourself to a poem with a quiet, receptive mind, in the same way as you might listen to a difficult piece of music.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  But instead I felt a great calm and an occasional flicker of excitement. It was time to go, I acknowledged as I stood with the other members of staff at the back of the hall for the final assembly. I recalled my first morning at the school, when I had stood up in the gallery with the sixth form, looking down at the hundreds of girls in the hall below, and felt suffocated by the all-too-familiar rhythms of institutional life. Against the odds, I had gained something from these years, but now it was time to move on. I listened to the very generous words of the headmistress as she thanked me for my contribution to the school in her detached way, almost as though she were speaking of somebody else. It felt as if I had already gone. Later that morning I was able to joke in my farewell speech to the staff and admire my present: a set of elegant cocktail glasses with dark red stems. I smiled to myself. Not an obvious present for an ex-nun. As I left the school grounds to wait for the bus that had been the bane of my life during the last six years, I felt as though I were beginning a new journey. Other people seemed to progress much more smoothly through life, I reflected wryly, as the bus finally crested the hill and roared toward me. They went through college, chose a career and a partner without all this drama. But that didn’t seem to happen to me. I kept getting derailed, ejected from one job, one lifestyle after another. Doors kept slamming in my face. But had I really wanted to be ordinary; had I really wanted what T. S. Eliot had called “the usual reign”? I forced myself to remember all the times I had been bored and frustrated by the school, despite the regular salary. I couldn’t have it both ways. And now, here I was again, heading into the unknown, and yet I felt in some strange way as though I were back on track. The bus was taking me away from my nice safe job, but it seemed to be going in the right direction. 3. I Renounce the Blessèd Face Looking around my new room, I smiled with relief and delight. Yes, I would be able to work here. This would be the place where I would write my doctoral thesis. The walls had been painted a long time ago in a pale green, which had now faded into a pallid, dreamy wash. There were two pretty leaded windows, surrounded by a leafy creeper, which gave the low-ceilinged room a cottagelike air.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  Chances are, you’ve heard this prayer enough times to have some or all of it memorized. It even shows up in movies, often chanted by an overly solemn priest and a bored congregation, or recited by some poor soul facing an impending apocalypse. Hollywood loves its stereotypes. However, the Lord’s Prayer is anything but a boring chant or a prayer of resignation. It’s actually a simple but revolutionary way to pray. KEEP OUT OF THE GUTTER Think of the Lord’s Prayer as bumper bowling. If you’ve ever been bowling with little kids (or if you are terrible at bowling and don’t care who knows it), you know what bumper bowling is. Normal bowling involves rolling a ball down a long lane to knock over a triangle-shaped group of pins. We all know that. The problem is that on both sides of the lane, there is a gutter. If your aim is off, your ball ends up in the gutter and does a long, slow roll of shame into oblivion. Hence, bumper bowling. Bumpers are placed in the gutters on both sides of the lane. Now, if your child (or you) can get the ball rolling in the right direction, it will eventually knock down some pins. It’s not cheating—it’s just bowling with a little help. The Lord’s Prayer is like having bumpers for prayer. It’s praying with a little help. It gives you an outline to follow, some topics to cover, and even some language to use if you’re unsure what to say. If you’re intimidated by prayer and/or feel like your prayer times often end up in some cosmic gutter, following this model can help. Let’s look briefly at each phrase in this prayer. Again, prayer is not meant to be a ritual, so don’t turn the Lord’s Prayer into one. Notice Jesus begins by saying, “This is how you should pray,” not “This is what you should pray.” It’s not an incantation. You don’t unlock a heavenly level by getting the words right or nailing the intonation. We humans have an amazing ability to take truths and turn them into formulas. Something about structure makes us feel safe, I guess. But if we exchange heart for structure, we’re missing the point.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  Our perspective shifts in prayer: from our weaknesses to His greatness, from our failures to His holiness, from our need to His supply, and from our goals to His purposes. No matter what words you choose to pray, beginning with these two truths—God is our Father, and life isn’t all about me—is a powerful way to start seeing reality as God does. If you can, take a moment right now to make this personal. Meditate on what the truths in this first line mean for you and spend a few moments praying about them. That might look like telling God thank-you, asking Him to help you understand these truths, or something else entirely. It’s up to you. There is no script. Practicing the Lord’s Prayer Our Father in heaven What emotions come to mind when I pray to God as, “My Father”?How does He view me?What rights and benefits do I have as God’s child?Hallowed be your name How big and great and powerful is God to me?Have I made life too much about me?Where is my focus—on God or only on myself? Does He want to shift anything in my perspective?“YOUR KINGDOM COME, YOUR WILL BE DONE” The second line of the Lord’s Prayer says, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This doesn’t mean that God is not sovereign here on earth. Instead, it is a recognition of the current reality of sin, shame, disease, death, hatred, and a host of other things not found in heaven. And in the midst of that chaos, we are asking God to be just as sovereign, just as powerful, just as triumphant, as if none of those things had any power. Because they don’t. Well, they do and they don’t at the same time. On one hand, the pain and evil of this world have real consequences. We can’t deny that, and prayer should embrace reality, not ignore it. But on the other hand, nothing we face in this life is bigger than God. The “real reality” is that God is more powerful than our circumstances. That’s the point of this line: recognizing the sovereignty of God. Before God, nothing stands. There is no failure, no weakness, no enemy, no problem that lies outside His power and authority. So when we come to God in prayer, it is with a recognition that He has all we need. Notice that up until now, the prayer has not even mentioned our needs, wants, or desires. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The prayer begins by recognizing who God is and surrendering our will to His. Now, your prayers don’t always have to start with this lofty, mature perspective. A lot of mine don’t. They go more like this: “Dear Jesus . . . help!” And I’m in good company with that prayer.

• From The Fermata (1994)

  She went to her mailbox, checked that the mail had been delivered, but left it in there. She nodded to a bicyclist going by—he was wearing a kind of skin-tight black cycling shorts that she normally didn’t like, but now she didn’t mind seeing his thigh definition. She stood at the end of her driveway for several minutes with her arms crossed, breathing deep breaths of spring air and feeling peaceful and content, or playing at looking like the woman out in the garden breathing deeply and feeling content, while actually part of her was thinking over what dildic wickedness was waiting for her in her back yard. On her way back, she bent and felt a leaf of one of the peonies in the tractor tire in her front yard, very casually, giving the road the chance to appreciate her shape under her dress, and murmured to herself, “Hmm, I think it may be time to do some watering.” She went in and got the water temperature just right in her shower, and then drew the hose into the bathroom window and hooked it to the shower spigot. Outside, she turned the stopcock on (the plumber had fixed it so that she could turn the flow of water on and off at the end of the hose) and toured her side yard, sending a frolicsome misty spray from her mobile water-source over the grass and over the mock-orange leaves. She hummed “Private Dancer.” She heard a truck drive past on the road. When she rounded the back of the house, she surprised a deer who had wandered by, drawn by the tasty-looking tulip blossoms. It appeared to be licking the pink head of the Armande Klockhammer with its equally pink tongue. “Now, now, enough of that!” Marian called, and the deer sprang away. She glanced around to verify that she was indeed in private, and put her foot up on her lawn chair and hiked up her jumper, holding it in a one-handed bunch just below her breasts, and directed the crown of water-jets on her clit-site. The water was just right. “Oh, nice,” she said, watching the flow disappear into the grass. The idea that she could carry her daily shower around with her, outside, pleased her quite a lot. She dropped her dress and began watering again, working up the nodding tulip beds. Her maraschino tingled. She pretended to notice for the first time something alien and fleshy sticking up, pinkly out of place in the general verdancy beyond the near bed of tulips. “What’s this now?” She pointed the shower-water at it (making sure to rinse away any deer saliva). “What’s this sex organ doing sticking straight up in my garden? Does it need something to fuck?” She pulled up her dress. “Is this what Armande wants?”

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  You could not have spent three minutes in that house without noticing it; but after three days there I began to sense a kind of system to her mania which, if I had had routines of my own, like an ordinary girl, might have proved rather maddening. When, on my first Wednesday there, I went down to breakfast in a yellow waistcoat, Mrs Milne flinched: ‘Gracie don’t quite like to see yellow in the house,’ she said, ‘on a Wednesday.’ Three days later, however, we had a custard for tea: food on a Saturday, it seemed, must be yellow, or nothing ...Mrs Milne had grown so used to the fads, she had almost ceased to notice them; and in time, as I have said, I grew used to them, too - calling, ‘What colour today, Grace?’ as I dressed in the mornings. ‘May I wear my blue serge suit, or must it be the Oxfords?’ ‘Shall we have gooseberries for supper, or a Battenburg cake?’ I didn’t mind, it came to seem a kind of game; and Gracie’s way was quite as valid a philosophy, I thought, as many others. And her basic passion, for the vivid and the bright, I understood very well. For there were so many lovely colours in the city; and in a sense she tutored me to look at them anew. As I strolled about I would keep a watch for pictures and dresses that I knew that she would like, then bring them home for her. She had a number of huge albums, into which she pasted cuttings and scraps: I would find her magazines and little books, to worry at with her scissors; I would buy her flowers from the flower-girls’ stalls: violets, carnations, lavender statice and blue forget-me-nots. When I presented them to her - producing them with a flourish, from under my coat, like a conjuror - she would flush with pleasure, and perhaps dip me a playful little curtsey. Mrs Milne would look on, pleased as anything, but shaking her head and pretending to chide.‘Tut!’ she would say to me. ‘You will turn that girl’s head right round, one of these days, I swear it!’ And I would think for a second how queer it was that she - who had been so careful to keep her daughter from the covetous glances of fresh young men - should encourage Grace and me to play at sweethearts, so blithely, and with such seeming unconcern.But it was impossible to think very hard about anything in that household, where life was so even and idle and sweet.And because, since losing Kitty, thinking was the occupation I cared for least, this suited me best of all. So the months slid by.

• From Bold Move

  Yet, our modern culture has divorced physical and emotional health from each other. Somehow, our culture has ignored that the brain is just another organ. And that, as such, it also needs “exercising.” Sure, you can’t do push-ups with your brain, but by working on the skills in this book, you are building cognitive flexibility . But just because we’re talking about the realm of ideas and concepts, that doesn’t mean you will just “get” this overnight. You must consider this in the same context that you would consider any other skill, whether it’s building up a powerful back squat or learning a language. But I get it: waiting sucks. And I, like perhaps some of you, have tried skipping the line. In 2000 when I got to graduate school, my great friend Berglind talked to me about yoga and how it was helpful to her. She encouraged me to join her for a beginners’ yoga class. I loved it; it was (and is, after twenty-two years) very grounding for me. But at the end of that first class, I went up to the teacher and said, “What do I have to do to get to the next level? Can I do it by the end of the semester?” In other words: “I want enlightenment, an iron core, and a gymnast’s mobility NOW!” The kind and gentle teacher looked at me and said, “This is a journey, not a destination.” I hated hearing this kind of trite mantra, as I still thought of life as goals to be mercilessly achieved. To hell with this journey nonsense! But I kept going to yoga and chipping away at it, and I am glad I did, because it was the only way I got through graduate school. And by the end of the semester, although I had not learned the secret to levitating, I had definitely made real progress, to the point where I actually felt comfortable trying things like handstands (something that terrified me at first). I share this with you to encourage you to embrace values work not only through the course of this book, but also as you travel through the journey of your life. I hope this can become something you return to anytime you reach a major crossroads or transition in your life. It may be trite nonsense best uttered in a yoga studio, but the journey really is the thing. Or, if you prefer, choose progress over outcomes. So, let’s progress—it’s game time.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  My head whirled, I closed my eyes - and sank upon her doorstep in a swoon. Chapter 13 D iana’s wider circle of friends, I believe, thought our union a fantastic one. I would sometimes see them look between us, then overhear their murmurs - ‘Diana’s caprice,’ they called me, as if I were an enthusiasm for a wonderful food, that a sensitive palate would tire of. Diana herself, however, once having found me, seemed only increasingly disinclined to let me go. With that one brief visit to the Cavendish Club she had launched me on my new career as her permanent companion. Now came more excursions, more visits, more trips; and more suits for me to make them in. I grew complacent. I had once sat drooping on her parlour chair, expecting her to send me home with a sovereign. Now, when the ladies whispered of ‘this freak of Diana Lethaby’s’, I brushed the lint from the sleeve of my coat, drew my monogrammed hankie from my pocket, and smiled. When the autumn of 1892 became the winter, and then the spring of ’93, and still I kept my favoured place at Diana’s side, the ladies’ whispers faded. I became at last not Diana’s caprice; but simply, her boy. ‘Come to supper, Diana.’ ‘Come for breakfast, Diana.’ ‘Come at nine, Diana; and bring the boy.’ For it was always as a boy that I travelled with her now, even when we ventured into the public world, the ordinary world beyond the circle of Cavendish Sapphists, the world of shops and supper-rooms and drives in the park. To anyone who asked after me, she would boldly introduce me as ‘My ward, Neville King’; she had several requests for introductions, I believe, from ladies with eligible daughters. These she turned aside: ‘He’s an Anglo-Catholic, ma’am,’ she’d whisper, ‘and destined for the Church. This is his final Season, before taking Holy Orders ...’ It was with Diana that I returned to the theatre again - flinching to find her lead me to a box beside the foot-lights, flinching again as the chandeliers were dimmed. But they were terribly grand, the theatres she preferred. They were lit with electricity rather than gas; and the crowd sat hushed. I could not see the pleasure in it. The plays I liked well enough; but I would more often turn my gaze to the audience - and there was always plenty of eyes and glasses, of course, that were lifted from the stage and fastened on me.

• From Bold Move

  Mira is not avoiding dating or being in a committed relationship; she has just decided to prioritize her work life. She often tells me this will change in her thirties, and while time will tell whether it does or not, at least currently it is clear to me that there is no long-term consequence associated with how she is engaging with her dating life. Let me share with you another example that often plays out in my own home to illustrate how the same action can be avoidance for some but not others. As you learned, from an early age, I managed my stress, anxiety, and fear—especially in moments of high intensity—by eating cookies. For me, when I eat a cookie, I feel slightly better. So, the next time I am stressed, what do I want to do? You guessed it—eat cookies. If you have ever engaged in any emotional eating, you know what I am talking about: anxiety goes up, you start to feel distress, and certain foods come to the rescue. But listen: if you are eating a cookie while reading this chapter, don’t worry. Eating a cookie is not always a form of psychological avoidance, as my husband David is fond of saying. If he could, David would have a cookie every hour on the hour, because he loves sweets. He’ll finish his dessert and our son’s any day of the week, and yet he never comes down to the kitchen to get a cookie when he is anxious or scared. Cookies for David are not a form of relief for his discomfort; they’re just something he loves. I’m eating a cookie to feel better fast, while David is eating one just because it’s something he likes. Yet, eating for emotional comfort is not sufficient to define my behavior as avoidance. There is a second part to this equation that is essential: What is the price tag (or long-term consequence) of engaging in this behavior? For something to be considered avoidance, it must be associated with a long-term cost, something that keeps you stuck. For me, eating a cookie to numb my anxiety as a child and now as an adult has led to a lifelong battle with obesity—in fact, I am forty pounds overweight as I write this book. This has never been the case for David, who often fights to keep his weight up. The reality is that all our avoidance tactics are unique to us, and regardless of how creative, interesting, or seemingly helpful they might be, they always keep us stuck.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  Christians in many churches use written prayers as part of their corporate services and private devotional times.Prayer cards or templates , such as the one we use at Zoe Church (included at the end of this book), are useful, especially if you have a daily time of prayer and want to pray for a number of things.Writing down your own prayers helps you focus your thoughts, process and articulate what you are feeling, and remember what you have prayed. It also provides a written record you can go back to later. Often after God answers our prayers, we promptly forget about them. Going back occasionally to read through our prayers from the past can be a powerful reminder of how faithful He has been to meet our needs.Journaling involves writing not just your prayers but what you hear God saying to you, what you are feeling or thinking, or anything else that comes to mind. It has similar benefits as writing your prayers. Your journal can be handwritten, typed, or recorded as audio notes. Hey, you could even create a contact in your phone called “God” and text your thoughts to Him.MOVEMENT The following ways to pray have more to do with your posture or location than the words you say. Sitting in your favorite chair with a Bible and a weighted blanket might be the ideal way to pray for some people, but for others, that’s just a clever way of saying “nap.” Regardless of your personality, try adding movement to your prayer times and see what happens. Remember, we are wholistic beings. Our bodies and brains are linked in ways we don’t often realize. Involving ourselves physically in prayer is natural and delightful. Walking or pacing while praying helps with alertness and burns a few calories at the same time. If you’re the fidgety type, it also helps direct your energy so that it doesn’t distract you. Kneeling, lying down, or raising your hands in prayer can be surprisingly powerful postures. When you feel in awe of God or sense a deep hunger to understand His sovereignty and power, try kneeling, lying prostrate, or raising your hands.Hiking or camping in the silence and beauty of God’s creation are life-giving, soul-healing ways to commune with God. Go outside the city at night and find somewhere you can see the stars, then just meditate on God: His power, beauty, faithfulness, and love for His creation (which includes you).Going for a walk or a drive is a creative way to expand your prayers. Pray as you travel—for yourself, your neighborhood, your town. For the neighbor you see on the street. For the homeless person on the corner.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  The second part of this verse says, “hallowed be your name.” To hallow something is to recognize it as holy. God’s holiness is an integral part of who He is, and it is foundational to our relationship with Him. This reminds us of another simple truth we often forget: It’s not about us. Our prayers tend to come out of our needs and desires. That’s natural, and there’s nothing wrong with it. But it means our prayers are likely to be a bit us- centered. One of the most important aspects of prayer is that it helps us reframe our lives. Our perspective shifts in prayer: from our weaknesses to His greatness, from our failures to His holiness, from our need to His supply, and from our goals to His purposes. No matter what words you choose to pray, beginning with these two truths— God is our Father, and life isn’t all about me—is a powerful way to start seeing reality as God does. If you can, take a moment right now to make this personal. Meditate on what the truths in this first line mean for you and spend a few moments praying about them. That might look like telling God thank-you, asking Him to help you understand these truths, or something else entirely. It’s up to you. There is no script. Practicing the Lord’s Prayer Our Father in heaven What emotions come to mind when I pray to God as, “My Father”? How does He view me? What rights and benefits do I have as God’s child? Hallowed be your name How big and great and powerful is God to me? Have I made life too much about me? Where is my focus—on God or only on myself? Does He want to shift anything in my perspective?

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  you know, or just play music without words, and offer that to God. He hears the wordless song of your spirit. Draw or paint. Art can be a way of communicating emotions, dreams, and desires that run deeper than words. It is also therapeutic, and when combined with prayer, can be a powerful way of bringing deep emotion to the surface and processing it with God. Build or make something as an act of worship. In medieval times, people used their resources and skills to build breathtaking cathedrals. It was their expression of faith, their means to glorify God. 2 You might find that crafting or building something is a way for you to feel closer to God. CONTEMPLATION Life for most of us is incredibly active, busy, and noisy. Social media and streaming services have only added to the temptation to fill every waking moment with something. Silence is rare. In fact, sometimes it seems like we avoid it, as if its presence makes us uncomfortable. But silence is a gift if we embrace it. Stillness is a treasure if we are willing to experience it. Sometimes, not doing anything is the most valuable thing we can do. Meditation is an ancient practice. Thanks to movies and TV shows, the word often conjures up images of yoga poses or exotic monks. The biblical concept of meditation is a bit different. Meditation in the Bible means contemplating or reflecting on God’s Word (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2–3). One way to do this is called lectio divina. It dates to the early centuries of Christianity and is still widely used today. 3 It’s simple to do. Choose a passage of Scripture and read it slowly, line by line. The goal isn’t to dissect its meaning so much as to receive what God wants to say to you through it. This isn’t traditional Bible study; it’s prayer. Take your time as you read. Listen. If a word or phrase stands out to you, stop and pray about it. Don’t hurry. Don’t be quick to move on. Meditate on that word or phrase for longer than you would usually do. See what comes to mind. Journal it if you wish. Then throughout your day, remind yourself of the word or phrase that came to you while reading. Silence is another way to commune with God. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Rather than filling your whole prayer time with words, set aside time to just be still. It’s surprisingly difficult. You might need to start with just one minute of silence, then work your way up as you

• From Wild (2012)

  “For sure,” he said, and looked at me in this delicate way that made me swoon, though I realized that in spite of the fact that I liked him perhaps a thousand times more than a good number of the people I’d slept with, I wasn’t going to lay a hand on him, no matter how deeply I longed to. Laying a hand on him was as far away as the moon. And it wasn’t just because he was younger than me or because two of his friends were in bed with us, pressed up against his very back. It was because for once it was finally enough for me to simply lie there in a restrained and chaste rapture beside a sweet, strong, sexy, smart, good man who was probably never meant to be anything but my friend. For once I didn’t ache for a companion. For once the phrase a woman with a hole in her heart didn’t thunder into my head. That phrase, it didn’t even live for me anymore. “I’m really glad I met you,” I said. “Me too,” said Rick. “Who wouldn’t be glad to meet the Queen of the PCT?” I smiled at him and turned to gaze out the little window at the moon again, intensely aware of the side of his body so warm against mine as we lay together in an exquisitely conscious silence. “Very nice,” said Rick after a while. “Very nice,” he repeated, with more emphasis the second time. “What is?” I asked, turning to him, though I knew. “Everything,” he said. And it was true. 19 THE DREAM OF A COMMON LANGUAGEThe next morning the sky was clear blue, the sun shimmering on Olallie Lake, views of Mount Jefferson framed perfectly to the south and Olallie Butte to the north. I sat on one of the picnic tables near the ranger station, packing Monster for the final stretch of my hike. The Three Young Bucks had left at dawn, in a hurry to reach Canada before the High Cascades of Washington were snowed in, but I wasn’t going that far. I could take my time. Guy appeared with a box in his hands, sober now, breaking me out of my contemplative trance. “I’m glad I caught you before you left. This just came,” he said. I took the box from him and glanced at the return address. It was from my friend Gretchen. “Thanks for everything,” I said to Guy as he walked away. “For the drinks the other night and the hospitality.”

• From Wild (2012)

  It was midafternoon when we arrived. In the lounge the five of us took over a pair of couches that faced each other across a low wooden table and ordered terribly expensive sandwiches, then afterwards sipped coffees spiked with Baileys while we played poker and rummy five hundred with a deck of cards we borrowed from the bartender. The slope of Mount Hood rose above us just outside the lodge’s windows. At 11,240 feet, it’s Oregon’s highest mountain—a volcano like all the others I’d passed since I entered the Cascade Range south of Lassen Peak way back in July—but this, the last of the major mountains I’d traverse on my hike, felt like the most important, and not only because I was sitting on its very haunches. The sight of it had become familiar to me, its imposing grandeur visible from Portland on clear days. Once I reached Mount Hood I realized I felt ever so slightly like I was home. Portland—where I’d never technically lived, in spite of all that had happened in the eight or nine months I’d spent there over the past two years—was only sixty miles away. From afar, the sight of Mount Hood had never failed to take my breath away, but up close it was different, the way everything is. It was less coolly majestic, at once more ordinary and more immeasurable in its gritty authority. The landscape outside the north windows of the lodge was not the glistening white peak one sees from miles away, but a grayish and slightly barren slope dotted with a few scraggly stands of pines and a smattering of lupine and asters that grew among the rocks. The natural landscape was punctuated by a ski lift that led to the crusty swath of snow farther up. I was happy to be protected from the mountain for a time, ensconced inside the glorious lodge, a wonderland in the rough. It’s a grand stone-and-wood structure that was hand-hewn by Works Progress Administration workers in the mid-1930s. Everything about the place has a story. The art on the walls, the architecture of the building, the handwoven fabrics that cover the furniture—each piece carefully crafted to reflect the history, culture, and natural resources of the Pacific Northwest. I excused myself from the others and walked slowly through the lodge, then stepped out onto a wide south-facing patio. It was a clear, sunny day and I could see for more than a hundred miles. The view included so many of the mountains I’d hiked past—two of the Three Sisters and Mount Jefferson and Broken Finger. Hop, skip, spin, done, I thought. I was here. I was almost there. But I wasn’t done. I still had fifty miles to walk before I reached the Bridge of the Gods.

• From Wild (2012)

  It was still raining and wretched outside, so I walked to the little store, where I bought a cup of coffee from the old man who worked the cash register on the promise I’d pay for it once I opened my box. I sat drinking it in a chair by the woodstove and read my letters. The first was from Aimee, the second from Paul, the third—much to my surprise—from Ed, the trail angel I’d met way back in Kennedy Meadows. If you get this, it means you’ve made it, Cheryl. Congrats! he wrote. I was so touched to read his words that I laughed out loud, and the old man by the cash register looked up. “Good news from home?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.” I opened my box and found not only the envelope that held my twenty dollars, but another envelope that held another twenty dollars—the one that was meant to have been in my box at the Shelter Cove Resort, which I must have mispacked months before. It was all the same now. I’d made it through with my two pennies, and my reward was that I was now rich with forty dollars and two cents. I paid for my coffee, bought a packaged cookie, and asked the man if there were any showers, but he only shook his head as I looked at him, crestfallen. It was a resort without showers or a restaurant, there was a driving, drizzling rain, and it was something like 55 degrees out. I refilled my coffee cup and thought about whether I should hike on that day or not. There wasn’t much reason to stay, and yet going back out to walk in the woods with all my wet things was not only dispiriting but possibly dangerous—the inescapable wet chill put me at risk of hypothermia. At least here I could sit in the warmth of the store. I’d been alternately sweating hot or freezing cold for going on three days. I was tired, both physically and psychologically. I’d hiked a few half days, but I hadn’t had a full day off since Crater Lake. Plus, much as I looked forward to reaching the Bridge of the Gods, I wasn’t in any hurry. I was close enough now that I knew I’d easily make it by my birthday. I could take my time. “We don’t have showers, young lady,” said the old man, “but I can give you dinner tonight, if you’d like to join me and a couple of the staff at five.” “Dinner?” My decision to stay was made.

• From Bold Move

  Stephanie wanted to be able to integrate the different parts of her culture within herself in such a way that she would be able to bring her whole self to the table. When we explored this further, Stephanie’s bold vision was related to authenticity . When I asked her what it meant to be authentic, Stephanie told me that she would like to embrace the East and West within her cultural identity and to not be compromised by the externalities of life. So, if she wanted to watch TV in Mandarin, she would do so—not because her parents would approve, but because she liked it. Alternatively, if she decided to dress more “American,” she would. She would have sets of friends that embraced both of her cultures and would mostly get to live according to her own internal compass instead of letting cultural norms tell her what was acceptable. Reflection The Magic Wand Anchor this reflection on the value that you identified in your sour moment reflection. Take a moment to imagine having a magic wand that could remove all the pain related to this value, and consider what it would take to Align your life to this value that is so important to you by answering the following questions: Where would you end up? [Your Notes] What is this life like? [Your Notes] What are you doing? [Your Notes] Who are you with? [Your Notes] What are the key values driving this bold life? [Your Notes] Please don’t censor yourself. I am not asking for a practical plan here (we have the next step to do that). I want to urge you to really see yourself accomplishing this bold vision. Again, I don’t care about the how yet, only the what . What does your bold vision look like? [Your Notes] Acculturation is challenging, but having gone through it myself, I could relate to Stephanie’s desire to always show up authentically, without feeling the need to apologize for the different, seemingly contradictory, parts of herself. A little secret: I still wear the corporate gray uniform, but not because I want to fit in. Nowadays, when I wear it, I do so because I feel more like my academic, studious self. Though of course, with the Latin touch of a red scarf! If I were to wave the magic wand for myself with a focus on well-being, my life would look very different. I would live a more balanced life, with less chaos and more time to actually create the well-being I so desire. I would engage in more physical activities, with and without my family, but I would also add joy to this by incorporating hikes, longer walks, and a deeper connection with nature. Courage would also be a value I would align myself with in this magical life. Courage to help me continue to move toward health, especially in moments of avoidance.