On the Great Work of Meeting Ourselves

This isn’t the self we’ve built up in response to our surroundings, or the self we manufacture to please the people around us, but instead, our most intimate self, the one we visit in dreams, the one that calls to us from a glimmering future. With a mix of short lyrical musings and her signature stunning poetry, Yrsa Daley-Ward gently takes readers by the hand, encouraging them to join her as she explores how we can remove our filters.

Where You Are, What You Want and the distance between

But why the difficulty, you wonder. You’re pushing twenty, thirty, forty. Life is not what you imagined.

Things are tougher than you thought. You put out the trash or wash the dishes in the sink, but there is always more waste. Waste. More to wash, either of the house or yourself. And when will the work end? you ask yourself. When?

Everything needs upkeep, and it’s tiring.

Everything needs upkeep, and it’s terrifying.

You work and go to bed and wake up and work and go to bed and wake up . . . and then it all begins again. It all begins. Again. You stretch. You try to work out and you try not to eat late.

You kiss better people than before and you’re careful

(as careful as the lonely can be . . .) of who stays,

who gets in your bed. All reasonable problems. Nothing too dire.

So why do you feel so dead?

* * *

We are held in an uncomfortable space — the chasm between what we really want and what we have come to understand as reality. The more that we want something and are aware that we do not have it, the more despondent we feel. This trouble is yours and it is definitely also mine. Know that your inner being (the deepest part of you) recognizes the space and distance between, feels you slipping further into the crack. But it is good to feel this conflict, this vibrant sign of budding and wanting. The growing unease is how to know that you are not living your deepest wishes. That you are not in alignment with your inner truth.

When I feel the most lost and out of sorts, I know that I am in disconnection with the very voice that has carried me thus far.

I can’t hear myself, nor can I think what to do next. I flip-flop. I second-guess myself. I feel unsure. My lack of confidence causes others to lose trust in me.

But how to catch the honest voice? How to lay our eyes on the truth when we are distracted, and don’t know what we’re looking for? First, know that the versions of yourself that are in connection with your source are present, and living and growing inside you. (It doesn’t only happen in sci-fi, this multiplying of yourself. It is happening all the time:

when you trip up on yourself in some old doorway to a behavior you have outgrown,

when the pit of your stomach makes room for a powerful new instinct,

when you love but you leave for your own good.)

What a natural gift it is to be as multidimensional as you are, to foster a growing awareness of the possibilities running alongside you. What an entire experience it is, to exist inside the full range of our lives and capabilities. There is so much available, but a certain amount of peace must be fostered, a certain tranquility, a certain sureness and alignment with your inner being, before you feel those versions. Before you can make out the sounds.

How do we improve this listening/awareness?

If we want to thrive, accessing joy right here where we are is one of the first muscles to strengthen. There have to be things that we are happy about today, even if they are small. I call this a skill, because there is work required to conjure these up, especially if focusing on them is not intuitive to us yet. Don’t worry if you’re more used to spiraling or obsessing than thinking about the beauty. So am I. This very act is all about making new roads into yourself. Thoughts are magnetic. Begin practicing your awareness of the small things. They will make more of themselves, and they will save your life.

When gratitude lists and affirmations (the act of introducing new stories) are suggested to us, plenty of natural (and understandable) resistance may arise. The first time someone spoke to me about making daily gratitude lists, I rolled my eyes. I felt sick. It sounded like a cliché and I would have done anything to avoid cliché. Even depression felt more worthy and real to me than gratitude. The idea of listing the things that were going well and ignoring everything that was going wrong seemed disingenuous. As someone who considered themselves an active problem solver, I naturally tended to place my attention and focus on the difficult. I prided myself on what I thought was one of my best attributes: the dogged will and keen ability to focus on what I needed to get done or change, as opposed to what was thriving and solid. More often than not, the results came at a cost. I was chasing my tail, expending energy that would have best been placed somewhere else: In loving the things that were around me. In living in this moment. In affirming and creating more of that which I wanted.

And I was stubborn. How will making a list or chanting sentences in the mirror every day change my life? I wanted to know. Do I want to become a “spiritual type,” all detached from reality, one who just ignores troubles? Also, wasn’t this an overly simplistic fix to real-life problems? It took a while, but I eventually learned that gratitude and affirmations are so effective because they are about tuning into a new frequency. They are about perspective and creation. Further to that, they are life decisions.

Our old, overdone habits are ingrained, worn, soft, as are the thoughts that created them. We deserve as much grace as possible in reworking them. Begin slowly, as the largest, most powerful things do. Rest in the promise that new pathways will appear to you in the midst of these new practices, often when you least expect it. Sometimes it is a feat to stay open and willing against the growing scenes of stress and difficulty, but it is all you really need in order to begin.

Try it. Every day, practice writing down all the things you feel good about. A quick, regular inventory of everything that you treasure and everything that is working out for you. See if you can commit to a month of this daily practice. If you need more inspiration and accountability, do this with a partner or a group. Practice having these kinds of discussions on an email thread, or in person. Spark each other. Remind each other on those days when it feels far away. There will surely be those days,

and on those days, this is how we swim.

But Listen,

Your Life Is Telling You

What It Needs

“Your joy will come,” says the universe. “So will your love, of course. But first I must show you yourself — your actions and thoughts again and again, in the mirrors of your own life. You must come deeply to terms with yourself and know and understand your many wild and hidden parts, not simply for what they are, but what they will show you. Then you will hold them to the light, gently letting go of what must leave. You will come to know more and understand that you know even less. This is only the very beginning.”

Why Is Everything Work?

the never-ending work of living

Once we come of age, everything suddenly feels like work. All at once, there seem to be a million steps to getting anything done. Searching for joy feels like work. Creating feels like work. Life itself feels like work. Since everything seeps into everything else, the art of arranging our lives in order to be most constructive can appear as a never-ending medley of tasks.

The word work has been vastly confounded with struggle, with slog, with difficulty, with toil, drudgery, and grind. A lot of our ideas about work align with some toxic idea about productivity — the idea that we are simply what we produce, when what we produce is just a part of it. No wonder we don’t want to do the work. We were not designed to shuffle from point to point, merely fulfilling errands and collecting digits in the bank account.

If we want to do more than survive, if we want to do more than just get through the days, an interior adjustment must take place. It is more than cognitive; it is something entirely spiritual. In some cases, we need to redefine what we think life is all about. In many cases, we need to redefine what we think work is, and to release the idea that we must suffer and struggle for the things that we want.

A degree of everyday effort is natural. We are constantly up against things that make us stretch, wonder, and sweat. Problem-solving, starting something new, keeping things up, staying away from things, pushing ourselves into new, unfamiliar territory. But we need to remember, the experience of life itself is as important as the doings. Movement and stillness. Eating and breathing. Talking, tending, and loving.

There is much to learn about our inner selves; much work, and not all of it will feel amazing. But it does not have to mean strain. We can breathe deeply the whole way through, even when it is nipping at our harder memories and tender points. We can proceed with gentleness and intent. In doing so, we will shake ourselves loose.

In doing so, we are allowing more varied and encompassing types of love and expression, more honesty, deeper inspiration, and we are able to take larger risks with our hearts, careers, and minds.

On a piece of paper, note the “work” you are looking forward to doing. Now note every single type of work that scares you.

Note the work you would say that you are currently doing. Now note the work you think you must do, whether you are excited about it or not. Are there overlaps? Patterns? Surprises?

Who wants to do all of this? Who has time for it? We do.

Wherever we are, let’s start from there.

LOOKING AT WAYS IN WHICH WE SHORTCHANGE OURSELVES. SETTING ASIDE WHAT FAMILY AND FRIENDS EXPECT OF US. PRIORITIZING OUR HEALTH. NOTICING WHAT BEAUTY SURROUNDS US. GETTING THINGS OUT AND DOWN ON PAPER. BEGINNING THE LONG ROAD OF BECOMING ABSOLUTELY ACCOUNTABLE. PLEASURE SEEKING AND GIVING. LEARNING. MORE CONNECTION WITH THE BODY. ASKING FOR HELP. DEEP, INTENTIONAL REST. MOVING ON FROM OLD THINGS. DECIDING THE CONDITIONS IN WHICH WE WISH TO LIVE. HAVING THE COURAGE TO BECOME MORE SPECIFIC ABOUT THOSE CONDITIONS, BECOMING EVEN MORE AUTONOMOUS IN EVERY CORNER OF OUR EXPERIENCE. MAKING AND SPENDING MORE TIME WITH LOVED ONES. INTUITIVE AND GENUINE FORMS OF ACTIVISM. LEARNING HEALTHY BOUNDARIES, EVEN IN SERVICE TO EACH OTHER. HOLDING THOSE BOUNDARIES, EVEN WHEN IT IS UNCOMFORTABLE. ADMITTING THE THINGS THAT WE REALLY WANT. SAYING YES TO THEM. KNOWING WHAT WE DON’T WANT AND SAYING NO. NO MORE. NO WAY. NAVIGATING GRIEF. GRATITUDE AS EXERCISE.

Excerpted from THE HOW by permission of Penguin Books. Download Buzz Books 2021 to read more of this title, as well as dozens of other excerpts of forthcoming books.