One Hard Thing Substack Podcast

We are each the centre of the U-ni-verse. Aren’t we? It is a little like we all have our own globe, a snow globe, in my case, surrounding us and defining the outer limits of what we can see, hear, feel, and “know.”

It feels even more this way in the hush and dark of the morning. It’s not early, but it feels early, without the daylight and the traffic and other people’s voices telling me they’re up. I am really starting to cherish these morning walks, even though I probably wouldn’t choose them, without the animals and their constant needs.

I try to “settle my snow globe” in the times I have to myself. I try to remember how I do exist on my own, without the transactions of meeting others’ needs, expectations, or simply requests for attention or connection. All perfectly wonderful ways to stay in communication, but not necessary (which is key) for my own worthiness or legitimacy as a full person.

As simplistic as that sounds, and as ridiculous as it can look, I have to believe I’m not the only one who struggles to feel fully present even when I don’t “fit in.”

I do fit in to the world around me, as do you to the world around you. More than that, you belong, and I belong, and there is space and softness and grace enough for all of us, together, separately, and in honest, respectful, but fully boundaried connection.

It’s kind of a lovely sensation, circling away, circling back, coming home, bringing home with me.

This is a little rambly sort of walk and talk, even for me. I’m thinking of so many things these days, chief among them how to organize my life this next year from a healthier and saner set of “principles,” or truths that I really believe, and which are helpful and relevant and relaxing.

I found it interesting that in doing a little “space” exercise with Tundra, she was affected enough that the entire walk from the barn back to the corral was a halt and look sort of experience. She seemed to be a little thrown by my talking with you, but perhaps also by processing my nonverbal requests for her to adjust herself to accommodate me in her stall. I’ve done this here and there before, but not with a phone, and not so slowly or deliberately. It was helpful for me to notice what confused her, what made sense, how long it took for her to figure out what I was - not cueing, but - suggesting…and how it felt for me in my body to let her make mistakes. It was nice, and a little strange. She seemed to catch that and communicated uncertainty all the way back to her “home.” I edited some of it out (because it was kind of unsettling) and kept some of it in (because it was kind of interesting) but in the end, it was what it was. And that’s the point.

Making mistakes, being a non-expert, learning through plenty of trial and error, and generally giving myself grace instead of pressure is probably the most central “resolution” I’m giving myself, as this year draws to a close and a new one opens up. And feeling in my body (if not quite emotionally - baby steps!) the difference between needing Tundra to “get it,” and simply allowing her and me to figure it out at a pace that suits us both, was very stark. I am used to a very tight bodily sensation of proactive control moves. I am going to work this year on relaxing that grip, and just…making space for both of us to learn, comfortably.

And on that very imperfect, amateur, friendly and not very expert note - Happy New Year! Enjoy the chance to start again, reset your rhythms, and, if nothing else, celebrate that your fight to live resulted in your being here. And now. You made it! That’s not nothing. It is actually quite something.

See you in 2026!

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I’m playing Il Divo’s 2005 Christmas album on my phone as I’m walking. I left it in as it sort of went with the whole experience…

May you have a very peace-filled, safe, and connected day. May you experience love in all its richness. May you keep your balance, keep your head, and let your heart flow its oxygen in, and out. May your soul feel at home.

With love,

from all of us over here.

It’s so hard to spot a problem that does not have a ton of descriptors around it. It’s disheartening, because that very lack of language suggests that maybe this is only my problem, and no one else struggles in this hard-to-describe way, and therefore probably I’m just: (stupid, weak, incompetent, ignorant, slow to understand…circle whichever favourite derogatory term you like to apply to yourself in these situations).

However, if I’ve learned nothing else from the last tumultuous 20 or so years on planet Earth, it is that we can push forward and invent terms, move the language, create complexity in our speaking to match the complexity of our experience. This is such a human occupation! And so very, very helpful.

Well, I’m not inventing terms here. I’m just trying to scour my brain to find metaphors that track, or terms which can be re-used in a particular way that doesn’t change what they mean, but does illuminate this difficult idea I have percolating.

And yes, there is some language, but like the difference between me using the word “blue” to describe the sky, and an artist’s array of possible descriptors of that very same sky, I’d like more. More nuance, more synonyms, more collections of associated concepts, more exploding diagrams of related ideas. If you look up the synonyms for “intuition,” you know what you get? Nothing. Related words that are quite different. Instinct, insight (close, but not really close) and feel. Interoception, which is very much what I’m talking about, but still not the whole concept, still doesn’t make it to most dictionaries, although AI does have an awareness of the word (if not the ability to use this very human sensory system!).

Anyway, I’m talking here about the roles we are very comfortable playing in the outer world, where complexity requires governance to maintain order and function and cleanliness and a sense of aesthetics. I really do think that, partially due to lack of language, but also contributing to this lack of language, we struggle to apply those same skills internally. To the complex team, home, voices within.

Okay, that’s enough of a summary. Download and listen if you want. And please feel free to contribute any ideas that come to mind!! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Oh, and Merry Christmas! Here’s a snowy fence to contemplate as you also think about onions and Homeland Security. :)

Have a wonderful Friday.

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Come along for my morning chores, which are often in my thoughts in July (with a slight sense of dread and inevitability), and yet which are not all that terrible, even in the very long nights around the winter solstice.

I’m reframing, for myself, home-making and its attendant repetitive drudgery, and I think I make a kind of nice discovery as to the source of my much-repressed resentment and general petulance on the topic.

You can skip the first half, if you don’t care about the nuts and bolts of feeding cats and managing horses and dogs in the complete darkness of a snowy winter day. Go to the 5:15 mark for the actual talk about chores and work and home and my place in the world.

I do think one of the more troublesome ideas that got planted in me very early on was the concept or obligation or even sort of commandment that I must make a home for other people.

I no longer think this is possible, welcomed by those other people, and practical in any respect.

I now believe (well, I’ll keep poking at this, but I think I’m on solid ground here) that it is each of our responsibilities to create our own home, for our own souls, and bodies, too. And yes, we must share houses, and public and even private spaces, but this does not take away the fact that every single one of us experiences those shared spaces in our own unique way. I cannot engineer happiness for anyone but myself, and even that is a stretch.

This takes a lot of pressure off of me, and also the horrible concept of me doing hard and extremely uninteresting work so that other people can live a full and rich life at my expense. Ugh. Not cool.

What do you think? What did you grow up thinking about the idea of home and family and shared spaces and whose job it was to make those spaces “homey?”

Lots to think about as we trudge together through my very routine and very unromantic but nevertheless chosen-by-me home work.

See you in the Magic Path!!

I really think this idea is going to do the most to help me organize my efforts, in both the “real world,” which is to say, the one we all see and share, and the Real World that animates and orients the other one, for me. If I place the ongoing demands of the outer world in a relationship with the very real work I’m doing in my inner home, I would have to put the outer world as downstream, or heavily constrained by that other one, even though the inner world is Imaginal, and therefore not visible to you, or even me, without effort.

Basically, I’m spending today’s podcast sitting on the fence between what is visible, and not, what is public, and private, what is physical, and what is (for lack of a better term) spiritual, and considering the occupation of home-making in each place.

And I’m wondering if the effort and costs associated with the regular sorts of home-making are maybe parallel to, or even indicative of, the effort and costs appropriate to my inner world, and its need for constant ordering, defending, and general upkeep.

Maybe this is why people engage in spiritual “practices,” which is to say, why they place them in a rhythm of years and months and weeks and days, rather than simply engaging in them when inspiration “strikes,” or when they “feel like it.”

I’d like to continue to work at my physical home’s ongoing need for care and construction. And I suspect this is merely a cue and a reminder that my spiritual home, my soul’s space, my inner team’s house and place of work, are all in need of regular attention.

So that’s kind of the gist of it…but, you know, you’re still welcome to take a listen…

We’re all so very…well, human. Or canine. Or whatever. We are ourselves, and this comes with certain limitations and laughable (in hindsight) errors in judgement.

The theme of this week is turning out to be something to do with gentleness, or maybe humility. You know, the ability to look at another’s actions, and my own, with grace. NOT my strong suit, let me tell you, but somehow, putting words on a “problem” that could be framed as someone else’s fault, but also could be seen as either their problem OR mine, but not really both…this is helping me.

I “ramble” a lot with the dogs, and I thought today was a nice chance to take you with. Rambling a little as we ramble, in all the senses, I guess. Anyway, welcome to the back of our yard, and the messy, snowy muskeg-y opportunity for winter exploration that it provides. I enjoy a chat, and welcome your input, from your perspective, given your wisdom and view of whatever situation you have going on. Maybe you’re doing great, and maybe not, but either way, you are most definitely welcome. As am I. No matter what mistakes or missteps I make.

It’s Wednesday, so let’s go for a walk.

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I’m glad this worked out. The weather app says it feels like -31° C. It will get a lot colder yet, but this is pretty much the first day of real “winter.” And it’s gorgeous! So pretty. And I do have the winter wear to enjoy the weather, as do the horses. I thought I’d take you outside in the blue/white palette that is this early December day.

Rejigging my life to be one based on a story that fits reality, rather than fights it, is my current “obsession.” And it occurs to me, as I find myself complaining about various difficulties and inconveniences, that reality is a large country. Even my life, with its (to me) small perimeter, and constraints, and limitations, and frustrations, is full of…well, goodness. It’s there. Sometimes I have to work a little harder to find it amidst my tendency to be disappointed in what I don’t have.

Today it’s not summer. There’s no safety in wearing shorts and a tank top, in running out in my bare feet, in planting or swimming or even getting too sweaty. It’s winter, and there are real implications that come with the drop in temperature. And yeah, I love summer and its ease, its beauty, its many options for stress-free outdoor living. This isn’t that.

But…it’s winter. And winter comes with its own gifts. Different, a little more work to access, and expensive in many ways (time, money, effort…) but still there to find.

It occurs to me as I look around on our bowl-like yard of silvery crisp lines tracing so many natural wonders I wouldn’t even see in summer, that I don’t know the half, the tenth of what I have available to me. I complain and worry and feel hard done by so much of the time, when I have not even explored all of the love, the trust, the contentment, the sensory and emotional and cognitive blessings of the home I have.

That’s too bad. And it’s a choice. Sometimes, anyway, when I can “wake up” enough to realize what I’m choosing not to notice.

Anyway, today I noticed, and in no small part because I wanted to do this Wednesday walk, and so looked for a morning that would be open and welcoming to such a walk.

Hello! Welcome to December in Saskatchewan! What about your own small, encircled life is beautiful and yet hard for you to remember to appreciate?

For me, it’s that winter can be friendly, midday. Even midnight. It’s just a different personality than summer. And that is just fine.

Happy Wednesday.

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This was a hard podcast to record. For some reason, everything that could go wrong, did. I had technical, scheduling, and sound difficulties. It took several tries to even find it once I downloaded it to my laptop. I had to persevere to get this one out! And, I don’t even know if it makes sense.

Also, it’s long, because I really wanted to try to make sense of this fence. I think this categorization is important to me, and maybe to anyone who finds themselves locked in an ongoing “transactional” relationship with another party who is not able (or willing?) to provide what looks to be on offer.

We all know of other people who seem unable to escape a clearly abusive cycle with patterns that repeat so predictably everyone can see it, except, apparently the people so entangled. Unfortunately, I also seem to get myself into those sorts of no-win situations on a regular basis. While not technically “abusive,” they are not also technically doing what I want them to do (and possibly that is the other party’s view of the situation as well!). Hidden agendas seem so possible to me to fulfill without anyone getting hurt, or anyone being the wiser, or anyone even losing anything of value (to them!). But, stealing is stealing, no matter how I try to dress it up. And stealing is Bad.

It just seems to me that I want stuff that is worth having, and I should have it, and there should be a way to strategize my way into getting it. The option of asking, trusting, waiting, and believing in the goodness of the other does not often occur to me. I suspect most of you reading also have very little faith in this alternate way of having needs met. And yet…

I ask my animals to believe me, trust me, wait for me, and even to ask for what they need or want. I think of myself as a benevolent and kind “owner.” Why wouldn’t I think of God (because I believe in God) as having this level of basic decency?

Probably because of all the suffering in the world. And again, I wonder, how much of this suffering is a direct result of all of us taking, taking, taking from each other in fear for our own survival, in suspicion of the concept of enough for all, in defiance of any trust that the world is ordered in such a way that simply staying in relationship with each other, with the land, with the Creator, would solve so many of our deep needs, and reduce money to the tool it was meant to be, rather than the end (it often becomes) that justifies so much hardship and treachery?

I don’t know. This podcast is me wondering out loud about another way to go about acknowledging my true hopes, desires, unmet needs, rather than scrounging. I’d like to not be a thief. I’d like to find a way to look around me with less avarice, and more appreciation. I’d like to relax, find my centre, relate honestly and trustfully with the God I say I believe in, and from there be able to walk forward, out of the “round pen,” and courageously move through the world with what I already have - which is possibly far more than I think I have.

Anyway, see what you think. At least I got this done before Friday ended!

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Ah! Relationships. So tough for me to navigate. I’m so prone to using them (for purposes of productivity and consequent security), rather than settling into them (for purposes of, you know, relating). I want to receive so much, but I end up flying away rather than deal with the tenderness that is necessary for true communication - at least at the level my Soul needs.

So…I’m using this week’s walk and talk as an attempt to go against my impulses and simply stay put, in a safe space, looking for the “love in the room.”

I’ll let you decide if any of that mushy stuff is apparent.