LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guest Marcus Bridgewater!

Slow growth is good growth

Dear Lovelets,

When I first came into the rooms of 12-step recovery, an old-timer took me aside after one of my first meetings, offered me a hug, and said these words: “May you have a long, slow recovery.”

I felt enraged when I heard these words!

I didn’t WANT a long, slow recovery. I wanted an instant recovery. I wanted all the gains and benefits of sobriety (or “cash and prizes,” as we say in the rooms) to be immediate and obvious. I was exhausted, ashamed, depleted, strung out. I wanted a magic wand to appear, to wave away all my troubles and to heal me immediately.

And the magic wand did appear — but it’s been a verrrrrrrry slow-moving wand.

Over the last nearly six years in recovery, my healing and awakenings have indeed come. But they have come gradually, sometimes in tiny increments — and often separated by many months during which I didn’t seem to be doing much of anything at all but going to meetings and listening to people say the same stuff again and again.

Sometimes, that’s what growth looks like. It looks like nothing at all is happening.

But little by slowly, I’ve healed. My life feels more peaceful, more dignified, more lovely than ever before. And now I say the same thing to my new sponsees, when they begin their journey to wholeness: “May you have a long, slow recovery.”

Our special guest this week is

Marcus Bridgewater

, who is one of my favorite figures in the social media universe. Garden Marcus, as he is known online, is an exceptionally wise, kind, and patient plant enthusiast, who spends his time helping us understand how both plants and humans grow. And he’s a fellow Substacker over at

Life's Toolbox

— full of lovely, thoughtful contemplation on the living world around us, and dedicated to improving our mental, spiritual, and physical fitness. Yesssss.

In honor of Marcus, I thought it would be interesting this week to ask the spirit of Unconditional Love what we need to understand about the seasons of our lives. What season of growth are you in right now? Are you a fresh sapling? A new cutting, ready to take root? Are you in a season of abundant harvest? Have you lost all your leaves? Have you been cut back down to the ground? Transplanted? Recently grafted to another?

And what do you need next, in order to keep growing?

Let’s find out.

Onward,
Your Lizzy

Dear Love, what would you have me know about this season of my life?

Darling, you are in the springtime of your life right now. Don’t laugh, and don’t “at” me with evidence of your aging — yes, of course you are aging, and only last week I told you that you are entering into your elderhood, and that elderhood (perhaps even swamp-witch-hood) is just where I want you.

But springtime does not necessarily signify youth, no matter what your culture may claim. Springtime signifies renewal. Springtime brings the hopeful budding of new leaves — the early stages of what will ultimately be a tremendous, beautiful, and generous bloom.

Trees of all ages have seasons of springtime, my dear. A tree could be 500 years old and still be putting forth fresh buds every year. And so can you.

I say that you are in bloom because you have been working so hard — beneath the surface, during a long winter of hibernation and at times apparent dormancy — to get strong and well. You have kept parts of your life stark and clipped back, so that other parts of your life could have a chance to flourish.

I thank you, we thank you, for not giving your heart or body or spirit to another person, a romantic partner for the last nearly six years, so that your root system could heal, so that you could keep all the nutrients to yourself. We thank you for walking away from alcohol and drugs, so that you could become restored to sanity. We thank you for the radical, powerful, previously unimaginable boundaries that you have set around yourself — even with those who used to have the most access to you — so you could heal and rest and stop performing and stop managing THEM.

As you know from being a farmer’s daughter, cutting back only leads to more growth and flourishing later — and you have cut back mightily, and it has benefitted you mightily.

This year you are going to burst into bloom like never before. An explosion of blossoms is coming, my love — and this time, you won’t give those blossoms away in desperate bouquets to any potential suitor who comes calling. This time, you will scatter those blossoms across the entire world. And then will come the strong new limbs, the broad new leaves, the home for songbirds of all kinds. All of that is coming this year.

My love, remember what you were taught by meditation teachers about how important it is to protect your stillness and privacy when you are at the beginning of a spiritual awakening. In India they say that when you plant a young sapling, you must put a strong fence around it, to protect it from being trampled by the cows. But if you protect it well enough, it will become a vast and mighty presence under which the entire herd takes shade.

You have done well protecting your silence, your serenity, your spirituality, your creativity. Your roots are strong. You are well-sustained, well-nourished, mature. You hear our voices singing through you. The days are getting longer now. The light is getting brighter now. Watch now, and see the bloom that happens next.

We can’t wait, and we love you.

Let’s keep going.

Prompt

As always, if you like, you can pose the question Dear Love, what would you have me know today? But if you want to join us this week in remembering that like plants, we too thrive, evolve, and go dormant in phases, you can use this prompt: Dear Love, what would you have me understand about the seasons of my life?

Actually, two more things!

As you probably saw here on Thursday, I was able to announce my new book on Letters From Love first, before sharing the news with the rest of the world. That was important to me for all the obvious reasons — and I want to thank you Lovelets for your wildly enthusiastic embrace of this news! I feel so loved and cared for here — and that’s convenient, because I also love and care for you!

And! I am about to embark on a few weeks in Australia and New Zealand for a speaking tour (with a weekend creativity workshop in Sydney) and as always I love knowing that there are Lovelets among us! We will start a chat today for anyone attending my events in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide, or Auckland in case you all would like to meet one another.

Let’s go!