LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Lidia Yuknavitch!

Swim for it

Dear Lovelets,

I heard a lecture once by the great Ram Dass in which he expressed a fascinating spiritual idea that I’d never before encountered.

Someone in the audience had asked Ram Dass whether reincarnation was real, and he explained that not only was it real, but (here comes the wild idea!) it’s something that happens to you every single day.

Every morning when you wake up, he said, you are reincarnated into new life. It’s like the sleep process is a kind of ego-death, or a hard reset on your brain and being. Whatever happened to you the day before has died away, never to be regained. The deep future, the mysterious far-ahead place is an utter mystery. And so you must wake up into a world of presence — a brand new world that has never existed before. And you must face that world as a “self” who has never existed before, tossed into ocean waves of new challenges that have never existed before.

No matter how similar this day may seem to the one that came before, it’s all new, and so are you. You can only ever be reincarnated.

The question, then, is this: Who am I going to be in THIS lifetime, on THIS day?

People sometimes laugh when I tell them that I play this fun game every morning when I wake up. Before I am allowed to open my eyes, I try to see if I can identify, literally, where I am. Because I travel so much, and because I’m rarely in one place for more than a few days at a time, this is always a super interesting game, and not always simple!

I start by trying to figure out what country I am in — and then, from there, what town or city. What bed, what space? Is this a hotel, or am I at home? Visiting a friend? Staying in an Airbnb? Am I working today? Am I writing today? Am I teaching today? Am I traveling today? Is there anyone else in the living space with me? Is my dog here? Do I have to leap out of bed and catch a plane?

Sometimes it takes me five minutes of “life review” before I can piece together a pretty good guess at where I am. And then I get to open my eyes and find out if I was right!

After which comes the even harder part: Okay, now that I know where I am, WHO am I?

Sometime my guesses are correct. Other times, nobody is more surprised than me to find out that I have just woken up in San Diego! How curious it is to be reborn every day.

Who are you now, in this fresh new reincarnation?

Where did you wake up, and where are you going?

Who is with you, or not with you?

What is being offered in this 24-hour lifetime?

What is being asked?

And where might be the hidden treasure in all the apparent chaos?

Our special guest this week is a writer whom I admire immensely — the powerful, lyrical, mystical Lidia Yuknavitch. Her letter from Love is an achingly vulnerable and poetic and emotionally vivid meditation, I feel, upon the theme of starting over — for Lidia has been waking up every day lately in a life she did not plan for. She is waking up in a “dumb apartment” where she never expected to be living; inhabiting a moment of personal loss and grief which she never saw coming; abiding within an emotional landscape that she never expected to inhabit again; finding herself in a self that does not feel anything like herself; searching for an “I” who needs not only to be reborn, but totally reimagined. She is starting a new reincarnation, we could say, which she neither asked for nor knows exactly how to live within.

And yet.

Here she is.

The morning dawns, and she is born, and she starts all over again.

New day, new life.

Maybe the same for you?

This week, let’s each ask our own Spirit of Unconditional Love (what we call SOUL around here) what it would have us know about being reincarnated, as it were, into a totally new life, day after day.

Let’s ask, “What would you have me know about starting over?”

Let’s keep going, dear hearts.

Let’s keep being born.

Love,
Your Lizzy

Dear Love, what would you have me know today about starting over?

Do yourself a favor and agree in advance to every single wave of it.

Oh, hi Lizzy. Sorry. We jumped right in without a greeting. Let us begin again, more politely:

Dearest Bed of Spring Violets, good morning. We love you. We are the Spirit of Unconditional Love. We are here with you. We love your questions. We love your little heart. We love your community. We love the voices that uplift amongst you and ask, “How? What next? Wherefore?”

But you asked about starting over.

Let’s discuss.

We have some terrible news for you, for your tremulous and frightened human mind: you aren’t done yet. You have not started over for the last time. Your mind groans when it hears this, for you have had to start over so many times already, and each time it is so unspeakably hard. You hate it! But kiddo, tough luck. We promise that there will be more changes, no matter how carefully you try to walk a path of least disruption. Brace yourself: it’s coming. Change knows where you live, it knows your home address, it’s coming. You will have to start over dozens of more times before you leave this body.

Now, we have some wonderful news for your courageous and infinitely curious divine spirit: you aren’t done yet! You have not started over for the last time! Your spirit soars when it hears this, for you have gotten to start over so many times already, and each time it is so astonishingly transformative! You love it! But kiddo, blessed good fortune upon you! For we promise there will be more changes, no matter how much you feel you have already learned, and how blessed you already know yourself to be. Rejoice: change knows where you live, it knows your home address, it’s coming. You will get to start over so many more times before you leave this body.

Do you see how what the mind perceives as a dire warning, the spirit knows to be a delicious gift?

And do you see how changes will inevitably come to you, whether you decide to remain mind-centered (terrified), or whether you remain spirit-centered (amazed and excited)?

And do you see how all these episodes of starting over that are threatened/promised to your mind and spirit in the future cannot be known in advance, or prepared for, or avoided?

This is why we wanted to jump right in at the start of this letter and suggest that you agree in advance to every single wave of it.

Make a pact with us, that you will not only allow “starting over” to happen again and again, but that you will decide to love it, exactly the way we love you. We have loved you solidly and thoroughly and unwaveringly through every change — can you love the changes, with that same thoroughness?

And can you decide to bring us with you through every future transformation and reincarnation (which is the only way you CAN love future transformations)? We have a song to offer you — a strong song, a refrain of reassurance and grace.

It only has one line, but you’ll love it:

We are with you.

We are with you.

We are with you.

That is all for now.

That is all forever.

Stay spirited, dear. Stay together with us — with all of us.

Let’s go.

Prompt

Did you notice that I snuck the prompt into my note to you this week? Here it is again:

Let’s each ask our own Spirit of Unconditional Love/SOUL what it would have us know about being reincarnated, as it were, into a totally new life, day after day. Let’s ask, What would you have me know about starting over?

BOOK TOUR! Let’s do this!

Is that a professional enough heading? Dear Lovelets, I have just announced the first 18 events (!) for my new book coming out in September, ALL THE WAY TO THE RIVER. As always when I hit the road, I hope to see your friendly faces there — and as we get closer, we can start new chats so that you can find fellow Lovelets to meet up with before or after (or during) events! I can’t wait.

All the info is HERE, with more locations to come!