A few months ago, I shared the Letters to Love project. It is a powerful practice and community started by Liz Gilbert. She recently shared one of her own letters and it deeply resonated with me. I wanted to share it with you and encourage you to explore more of her work on Substack.

Dear Love, what would you have me know today about finding a sense of calm?  

Oh my dearest little jitterbug, what a sweet question! Where indeed can a body find a sense of calm? In this world? In this economy? Surrounded by these monkeys-dressed-in-human-garb? Sometimes it seems impossible, doesn’t it?

I can start by telling you that you aren’t going to find it out there. Your calm is not located in the outside world, nor does anyone else besides you hold the keys to it.

I mean, yes, you can find temporary fixes to a nervous body by reaching for things outside of yourself to settle you down, and heaven knows you have tried them all over the decades: prescription and non-prescription drugs, alcohol, food, mass media and social media, somebody else’s body or attention upon you, perfectionism, success, shopping, adventure . . . oh, my dear little twerky bean, the world has so much to offer you that will alter your nervous system. Yes indeed it does — and all you have to do to get it is pay through the nose, or beg, or hunt, or manipulate, or compromise and exhaust yourself.

But is that really what calm is? Really? Something you pay for, or barter for?

Why would we have designed you that way? Why would we have made it so difficult for you, such that finding a sense of ease in the world would require you to work so hard in the material realm? And why would we have made it so that your sense of calm is so fragile and fleeting that all it would take to disturb your serenity is for you to lose any of those temporary fixes that you have clutched at in order to settle yourself down?

Why would we have made you so DEPENDENT, when we love you so much?

Well, my dear, we didn’t. It’s all been a big misunderstanding. Your calm is not dependent at all upon what happens outside of you. You know this intellectually, my love, and you’ve certainly read enough spiritual texts to believe it to be the truth, but it’s time for you to know it in your body. And that’s what we are working on here.

My love, your sense of dis-ease and disturbance has always come from within you, but so does the remedy. Doesn’t that make sense? The same brain that can produce cortisol and adrenaline can also produce oxytocin and serotonin. If the trouble is within, then so is the fix. Doesn’t that sound like how nature works? It is how nature works.

And this should be incredibly good news for you, given that the world has become more unstable than ever. How dreadful it would be if you had to rely upon people, places, or things in the outside in order to feel okay on the inside. (How long are you planning to wait for that, by the way? For everything in the outside world to be put in order, such that you can relax? How’s that going so far?)

Why would we do that to you, when we love you so much?

My child, it is no accident that I have been telling you more strongly than ever that it is time to go within. Every day in our communion, I have been telling you that all the relief and connection you need are to be found within the autonomous nervous system that we have provided for you. That your moods and fears and indeed your HOPE does not need to be tied to anyone else, or anything else, ever again.

We have a plan for you. It involves things you already know how to do. It’s just a matter of your doing it with more love and commitment than ever. Meditate, my dear one — but I want you to sit for more time each day, and sometimes twice a day. Get married to meditation. All the answers you will ever need will be found in the space of meditation — including my voice. And remember — listening to my voice is the same thing as meditating. If you’re sitting quietly conversing with me, that is meditation. If you are writing letters from me, that is meditation. And if you are reading and responding to letters that I have written to others, that is also meditation.

So ask me to come and visit you, while you are sitting still and quiet. I will talk you through it. We will be together. I will tell you everything you need to know.

Your breath is my breath, sweetheart. We share the same breath. I am your breath. Which means that approximately 12 to 20 times a minute, I come to visit you, to replenish you, and to tell you how much I love you.

Your heart is my heart, child. We share the same heart. Now go there and roam. Your heart is our home. I’ll meet you there.

Have a quiet day. I love you —

Love, LOVE