These are strange and tender days to be alive.
Every time we turn on the news, the world feels more and more frightening, more and more out of control. It can feel as if there is no solid ground to stand on, no stability, no safety, no real sense of security anywhere outside ourselves.
And what I keep coming back to, again and again, is this simple truth: when the outer world feels shaky, what matters most is the inner ground we stand on.
An unshakeable foundation.
An inner sanctuary.
Not some woo-woo place of denial or bypass, but a palpable place inside where we can come home to ourselves, where the body softens, the breath deepens, and we remember what is still good, still beautiful, still alive.
This is where peace and joy are not postponed to someday, but practiced gently, here, in the middle of ordinary days.
Earlier this week, I caught myself holding my breath while watching the news, feeling despair rising in my chest, tears coming to my eyes.
What came to me then was not an answer, but a remembering. The practice we return to each month in The 100th Woman Project, where we gather as women not to fix the world or ourselves, but to sit together in love, breathing ancient practices of compassion into lives that are often tender and overwhelmed.
Practices that have slowly taught me something I continue to forget and relearn, that the way through fear is not to harden or look away, but to soften. To begin by offering compassion inward, letting myself feel what I feel, allowing the tears to fall, the breath to deepen, the body to relax its grip. And then, only then, allowing that same compassion to move outward, holding the suffering I am witnessing with as much tenderness as I can manage.
This is the quiet work of tonglen and metta, where every breath becomes a prayer and every moment of remembering is a radical act of love.
If you feel a pull toward this way of meeting the world, I want to invite you to join us this Sunday (5PM GMT) for a free 100th Woman Project meditation circle. We will sit together, breathe together, and practice holding ourselves and the world gently, just as it is.
Afterwards, I did what I have learned to do when the inner waters feel stirred. I stopped. I looked out of the window at the sheep in the field and went to put the kettle on.
There was nothing remarkable there, just winter light over the Solway, the kettle beginning to whistle, noticing my breath, my feet on the floor. And in that simple noticing, the wee scared part of me lay down and settled, not because the world had changed, but because I had made space for how I was feeling, because I had invited in compassion and love, for myself and for the world.
I remembered Rainer Maria Rilke’s words again,
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going.
No feeling is final.
I also recalled something I had just read in Being with Dying, where Joan Halifax speaks of cultivating a strong back and a soft front. The strength to stay present, to not turn away from suffering, and the softness to keep the heart open, undefended, tender. This feels to me like exactly what these times are asking of us, not collapsing under the weight of what we see, and not armouring ourselves against it either, but learning how to stand steady while staying open.
That, I think, is the work now.
The willingness to come back to inner sanctuary, again and again, remembering that we do not have to be overwhelmed by everything we see. There is a place inside that knows how to breathe, how to rest, how to stay open without breaking, a place that knows, too, that no feeling is final.
Joy is possible.
Here.
Now.
The Sacred Dance of Life Hafiz I sometimes forget that I was created for Joy. My mind is too busy. My heart is too heavy for me to remember that I have been called to dance the sacred dance of life. I was created to smile, To love, To be lifted up, And to lift others up. O’ sacred one Untangle my feet from all that ensnares. Free my soul, that we might dance, and that our dancing might be contagious.
Free Gift
This week, I want to offer you a wee gift to support you in finding joy where you are.
I’m sharing Day One from my 7 Day Joy Experiment, an audio contemplation called The Horizon Story, which explores the way we so often postpone joy to some imagined future, the subtle habit of believing I’ll be happy when……………., and gently invites us instead to notice what is already here.
Listen to the audio, then watch the video.
Practice:
Throughout the day, take time to pause and engage your five senses. What can you see, hear, touch, taste, or smell? Let your senses be the portal into joy today.
Journal Prompts:
Where in my life have I been postponing joy to the horizon of “when…”?
What moments of joy were here today?
If this speaks to you, this is the kind of contemplative space I offer each month inside Sanctuary Circle, a slow, devotional rhythm of audio, poetry, writing and presence.
Beginning this year, I’m offering a full contemplative audio practice each month, exclusively for members of Sanctuary Circle.
These are not lessons or instructions, but gentle ceremonies of guided meditation, poetry, and journalling prompts, created to help you return to and live from your own unshakeable foundation.
The January audio is woven around Derek Walcott’s poem, Love After Love. I guide you through a practice of meeting yourself “at your own door,” and reconnecting with the inner sanctuary within you.
As a Sanctuary Circle member, you also receive:
access to a growing library of contemplative audios
an invitation to member-only quarterly live Zoom gatherings with me for seasonal check-ins
For the rest of January, I’ve halved the annual subscription from $100 to $50.
I would love to welcome you to Sanctuary Circle and support you as you build your own unshakeable foundation of inner peace and wisdom.
with much love
Susan 🌹
A portion of this month’s Sanctuary Circle subscriptions goes directly to
End of Life Doula UK, helping provide free end-of-life care to those who need it.