LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Jane Chen!
Surrender before the crash
Dear Lovelets,
Happy new year to this beautiful crew of “like-hearted people,” as a Lovelet named Ferial called us in a recent comment. Yes! That’s us!
Standing here at the cusp of 2026, I want to share a practice with you all that a fellow of mine in 12-step recovery taught me, and that I now share with my own sponsees. It’s called an approval inventory.
My friend suggested that taking a weekly inventory of things about yourself that are actually worthy of your own approval can be a wonderful (and yes, loving!) way to build self-esteem and to create a new and more gentle relationship with yourself — one that is based more upon self-acknowledgement than self-criticism.
And so I took up the practice, and now, every Friday morning, I answer these radically positive questions about my own life:
What was the bravest thing I did this week?
What was the biggest challenge I survived this week?
What was the most creative thing I did this week?
What was the most generous thing I did this week?
What was the most sacred thing I did this week?
What was the most boundaried thing I did this week?
What was the most self-respecting thing I did this week?
What was an unhealthy thing that I did not do this week, that previous versions of myself might have done?
Where did I use my voice to tell a scary truth, to share my feelings, or to risk intimacy?
What was the most joyful thing I did this week?
If you would like, Lovelets, please feel free to take these questions and answer them for yourself . . . but here’s my idea: how about you try to do an approval inventory about yourself for the entire year of 2025?
I’ll share mine.
The bravest thing I did in 2025 was to complete and publish my memoir about addiction. The most challenging thing I did last year was to navigate some of the intense criticism, fierce attention, and challenging scrutiny that publishing ALL THE WAY TO THE RIVER brought upon me. The most creative thing I did was to continue my Spanish studies — even at my advanced age! The most generous thing I did was to freely offer my service on a daily basis in my various 12-step recovery programs. The most sacred thing I did this year was writing myself these daily letters from love, continuing to teach the practice to y’all, and building up this glorious community with Margaret. The most boundaried thing I did in 2025 was to not cave when it came to expressing some very big and difficult “no”s — against a great deal of societal and family pressure. The most self-respecting thing I did was to stay emotionally and physically sober. The unhealthy thing I did not do this year, that I might have done in years past, was to try to seduce anyone into rescuing me — nor did I attempt to rescue anyone. Where I told scary truths and risked intimacy was in every single interview and public event surrounding the publication of my memoir. And the most joyful thing about my year can be summed up in one simple, shining word: PEPITA.
If any of you wish to share your approval inventories for the year in the comments section, I will happily read them! This, too, is a kind of letter from love — a way of saying to yourself, “I see you, and I validate how much you work, and how hard you try.”
Or you can share a regular letter from love, using my prompt for the week about burnout — which was inspired by the sublime letter of our special guest, the author and social entrepreneur Jane Chen. Jane’s deeply moving letter shares about how she found her spirit again after a period of profound losses, changes, and painful overwhelm.
Please do take note of how much SOUL, the Spirit of Unconditional Love, approves of Jane.
Please do take note of how much SOUL approves of you!
Happy new year, precious Lovelets. You are all so beautiful. Let’s keep going.
Love,
Your Lizzy
Dear Love, what would you have me know about burnout?
Oh sweetheart, I feel the tears spark in your eyes as you write this question. Don’t you already know me well enough to know the answer? That it will be the same answer every time, year after year, day after day?
Burnout is a case of cognitive misunderstanding. Burnout is the direct result of the innocent belief that you have more power than you have — and that if you just try harder, learn more, put in more hours, you will be able somehow to shape a world where there is less damage happening (damage to you, to others, to the planet as a whole).
Burnout is trying to flex influence where you have none. You push and push against boulders and boundaries that cannot be moved, and it exhausts you, and then you think you have failed.
Burnout always comes with the belief that you have failed.
But remember that thing Leonard Cohen said in the documentary about him: “There is a feeling we have sometimes of betraying some mission that we were mandated to fulfill, and being unable to fulfill it. And then coming to the understanding that the real mandate was not to fulfill it. And the deeper courage was to stand guiltless in the predicament in which you find yourself.”
Guiltless in the predicament in which you find yourself.
It’s okay to cry when you read those words. Everyone you will ever know will also stand at times in that same predicament — having pushed themselves to the limits of their body, mind, and spirit, to make something happen (or prevent something from happening) that they had no power over. That they could not BELIEVE they had no power over.
It’s okay, darling — it’s okay to have emotions rise up when you hear these words, to have heat rise in your body, tears rise in your heart and eyes. It’s okay even after all this time to feel a kind of overwhelm at what you still perceive to be the impossible assignments of Earth School. But my little star pupil, would you consider, would you gently consider, recognizing that impossible assignments are only impossible when you take on battles that were never your responsibility to begin with? Battles that could not be won, that were not meant to be won?
Can you soften into a wiser understanding that surrendering before all that you are powerless over creates a beautiful space of peace — the most beautiful space of peace the universe has to offer?
Drop the knives that you are still holding at your own throat, little one. I know you have already let go of so much. So much shame, so much self-abuse and perfectionism. But still sometimes you hold a knife blade to your own throat, and you sharpen that blade with words directed to and against yourself, words like: You should have known better. You should have tried harder. You must never make a mistake like that again. You should have spoken more carefully. You shouldn’t have lost your cool. You should have tried one more time. You should have tried ten more times. You should have studied harder. You should learn to endure more.
In short, the knife blade sings the song: “You are still not good enough. Improvements are needed.”
Honey, please listen. Who would not burn out under such a merciless system of beliefs?
Little teacup, there has to be one place in the world that you can retreat to where nothing further is expected or demanded of you. That place is this conversation, this voice that you hear when you reach out in the cosmos and ask for help.
My love, we would be so pleased if sometimes you would surrender before the crash. What we wish is that you would understand your limits not AFTER your body, life, spirit, and heart have already been fully exhausted by your efforts but way, way before that point. Way before that point.
We have never left you, even when you go running after your dreams and fears, or try to do things that are not possible. We’re here now to teach you, for the second half of your life, how to not run and chase quite so hard. We’re going to ramp up the stillness and the slow-downs this year. We’ll meet you there — at the precious holy center of your quietness, standing guiltless in your various predicaments, reaching out your hand, asking for help. We will be there as you learn to be more still and let go. We will be there all year, for all the lifetimes to come. We always have been. We are love, and we are yours.
So drop the knives, little buttercup. You’re doing just fine. Nothing further is needed right now. In this moment, you may trust and believe. You have done more than enough. We love you.
Prompt
The cultural theme of early January tends to lean toward renewal and fresh starts. We like to think we’re leaving behind our stressors or difficulties in the old year and becoming . . . what, entirely new people in new circumstances? We know that’s not how this works, and we happen to think this first prompt of 2026 is an evergreen throughout the year: Dear Love, what would you have me know about burnout?
As always, if this doesn’t speak to you or you prefer a more open-ended prompt, feel free to pose the original question: Dear Love, what would you have me know today?