The Luminist

I can’t believe I’ve made it this far without writing about vulnerability! At least not directly. Maybe it’s because Brené Brown said it all, and trying to add anything to her words is like trying to edit a few sections of Michelangelo's mural.

But after my weekend at Duke, re-submerging myself in leadership models and the finer points of executive communication, I’ve decided a few aspects of vulnerability could use our attention. Because, let’s speak honestly — corporate America is garbage at embracing vulnerability, no matter how many inspiring signs are hanging on the wall.

I’m not going to attempt to summarize all that’s been said about vulnerability, but I will direct you to Brené Brown’s book Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. It’s equal parts insightful and self-deprecating, you’re going to love it.

But now I’m going to dive straight into where I think corporate America gets vulnerability so so so so wrong: that vulnerability is a sign of weakness, and needs to be hidden.

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The word ‘vulnerability’ has gotten a major rebrand in the 21st century.

But old ways of thinking die hard, especially when they’re tied to our sense of safety in the world.

According to Brené’s research, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

But according to Oxford Languages, vulnerability is “the state of being susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm.”

Ok, opposite ends of the spectrum. Let’s see if we can find a middle ground.

In both definitions, vulnerability involves letting our guard down. Since we aren’t often walking around with shields in the board room, modern-day examples of this include:

* revealing a struggle we are going through

* allowing others to witness our more tender emotions

* asking for support

By ye olde definition, we would assume that anyone we were vulnerable with would make a mental note of the soft spot we’d just revealed and use it later to take us down.

By Brené’s definition, the act of revealing actually makes us more resilient, because we learn that we can survive with our truth out in the open. And when we don’t have to pretend to be something we’re not, we can show up as our fullest expression, which is generally passionate, focused, and thus, powerful.

Ok, that doesn’t sound so bad… at home and with friends. But in business?

Yeah, no.

Business may not require shields, but in some ways it is still a fight. A fight for money, for status, for safety and security for the ones we love most in the world.

Vulnerability, even with its rebrand, can take a hike. We’re not risking it, no matter how many views Brené’s TED Talk has.  

That used to be me, until — say it with me! — my husband unexpectedly died and everything changed.

I’ve gone through that transformation so many times, I’ll save us the gory details. (If you’re new, welcome! And you can find the full story here, here, and here.)

The pertinent cliff notes are:

* I realized certainty is complete and utter nonsense.

* My priorities shifted from building a fortress to building a support network of connection.

* I lost all capacity to care about things like appearances, societal norms, and not crying in front of total strangers.

Today, everyone on LinkedIn, at V2X (my old company), perhaps maybe even on planet earth knows that I’m a widow. This isn’t an accident or byproduct of my work. It’s 100% intentional. When meeting someone new, I’ve learned to bring it up sooner rather than later because it makes others more comfortable sharing their “vulnerabilities” with me. That mutual sharing has gifted me with people’s true stories — so I can see clearly how they struggles have transformed them.

The straight-backed, middle-aged man who spent his early 20s caring for his mother as she fought, and lost, to cancer. He is the best listener I’ve ever met. He’s not in a rush to get to the point, rather he looks at the person in front of him as though they're the most important being on the planet. And because of that, people turn into the best versions of themselves around him. 

The woman with dark hair and perceptive eyes that spent her childhood in and out of the hospital. She will ALWAYS show up when anyone needs anything, because she understands what a difference it makes to know someone cares. When she’s on your team, you feel unstoppable.

The quiet guy who always ended up in the back, letting everyone else step in front of him, who had seen worse than most of us can imagine while stationed in the Middle East. He’s literally been to hell and back, but doesn’t wear it like a badge of honor. Instead, he is committed to being a grounding presence for every space he walks into. Unsurprisingly, he has become the person his co-workers turn to when they’re feeling rattled, because he so gently validates what they’re feeling and offers a balanced way forward. 

From this angle, vulnerabilities only seem like our “weak spots” so far as they are the conversation topics that may cause us to get choked up — aack, the horror!  

But on a deeper level, they are our superpowers. Even in business.

We all have vulnerabilities.

We’ve all been through hard times that almost crushed us… but somehow didn’t. Somehow we limped through. And that ‘somehow’ is what matters.

You are not the same person you were before; you had to evolve into a wiser, more discerning, more empowered version of you in order to survive. On this other side, why are we still glorifying infallible strength when we know it’s:

* an illusion, and

* a poor strategy for the reality of life, which requires we bend instead of break?

The world doesn’t need your performance of perfection as much as it needs the depth of your wisdom. Because anyone can be a mediocre bulldozer — pushing ahead like a personality-deficient robot — but only you can embody the hard-earned maturity that helped you survive your darkest times.

All you have to do is own it. Not even out loud. Try just starting with yourself.

Because pretending our vulnerabilities don’t exist doesn’t make them disappear. It just makes us ashamed. In trying to defend against others, we end up being the first ones to attack ourselves.

In an environment as fierce and competitive as corporate America, we have to be on our own team.

And when we can embrace all that we’ve faced and survived, we know — we’ve got this.

In vulnerability,

Sue

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Loss is an example of our environment changing, and our psyches being forced to catch up. But sometimes change happens the other way around — our psyches change while our environment lags behind.

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to the MBA candidates at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, my alma mater. Specifically, I was talking to the weekend cohort — the students who are doing most of their course work remotely so they can continue to work, raise their families, etc. Then one weekend a month they come to Duke for a flash flood of classes and conversations. 

In other words, these aren’t your typical students. They are in their 30’s or 40’s. They are already knee-deep in their careers. They have committed significant time and energy to a chosen path. They have partners and children who rely on them. Compared to your standard MBA candidate, these are fully-formed adults.

But surprisingly the most common question I heard from them was, how do you take a leap of faith? How do you pivot? How do you let yourself evolve, and bring your life along with you? 

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Though these people are “grown-ups”, they are still growing (aren’t we all?). During this MBA program, and especially during the on-campus, drink-out-of-the-firehouse weekends, their goals, desires, and ways of understanding the world are being challenged and expanded.

But their day-to-day realities aren’t going through the same transformation. 

I talk a lot about the transformational portal that is loss.

But the truth is, we are all constantly transforming. Life, with all its twists, trials, and podcasts, won’t allow us to make it out unchanged.

And who would want to? It’s a beautiful thing that we get to be in a constant process of not only discovering ourselves, but creating ourselves.

However, society isn’t set up to support that. As a collective, we celebrate and reward loyalty, commitment, and perseverance. Having a series of one-year job stints on your resume is seen as a red flag. Making a lateral move onto another career track is labeled risky. Taking a pay-cut to do something you love?? Short-sighted, idealistic, and even selfish if you have people who rely on you.

But the future we imagine from playing it safe is NOT guaranteed. Mike and I did everything “right” — climbed the corporate ladder, put our personal needs behind those of our family, ate blueberries instead of cake — and look at us now.

Again and again we sacrifice our time and lifeforce for perceived predictability, but it’s a promise that can’t be cashed out. Meanwhile, we are losing something very real — the opportunity to create a life that fits our latest, greatest evolution. To maybe even create a life that supports rather than restricts this evolution. 

I had coffee with a friend the other day who just left a decades-long job to join a new corporate environment. We talked about what it takes to make the leap, seemingly without a net. But she challenged my metaphor, “Are we really taking that big of a leap? We have learned so much, done our jobs well, been successful where we were. We bring so much to the table. Why do we assume we will not be successful elsewhere? Why don’t we bet on ourselves?”

I don’t envy anyone who has found themselves locked in a set of golden handcuffs.

And I have compassion for the very real, very difficult choice of deciding to step away from a path that feels reliable and secure (even if it’s not), especially when you have people relying on you. I also have publicly recorded times when chasing my own dreams wasn’t working out the way I had hoped. But I don’t know a single person who took a leap of faith, who made a bet on themselves, and regrets it.

However, I bet Mike regrets not doing it.

Change is constant. Even if we fortify against it, life will sooner or later derail all our plans and chuck us into the unknown. So we might as well choose the unknown when we’re called to it. It’s one of the few pieces of agency we have — to ride into uncertainty on purpose sometimes. 

Either way it’s a rollercoaster, but when we choose it, we at least have time to buckle our seatbelts.

To your evolution,

Sue

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It’s been six weeks since I last sat on this grey sectional, and now I have no desire to get off it. After a month-long pilgrimage, followed by a cruise through the fjords of Norway, a museum/show/restaurant tour of London, and the DO Lectures in Wales, I’m finally back in the woods of Virginia, and totally rewriting my understanding of home and of growth.

Home has always been a safe harbor, but that safety came with monotony and stagnation. When I pulled into the garage after an international business trip or family vacation, it felt like an anticlimax. Daily routines, to-do lists, and predictable reality awaited me, all a bit of a letdown after the invigorating unknown of travel.

Adventure was where I grew, home was where I rested until the next adventure.

But now, I see it differently. Home isn’t a mundane reality check; it’s a sanctuary. It’s where we integrate all that we’ve learned and experienced on our journeys.

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The kids flit in and out, chatting with me about their online courses, relationship status updates, and dinner plans.

I haven’t turned on a movie or even opened a book. I just stare out at the trees… and share tidbits of my time away whenever they check to make sure I’m still breathing.

I have plenty I could be doing, even some I should be doing.

But I have a sense right now that this is the most important thing: to let the last six weeks settle into my bones and breath. To have patience as I reconfigure around innumerable life-changing experiences. To understand that this feeling of being a blob isn’t a dead end. I don’t need to fix it, to jump up and start writing posts, laying out goals, or summarizing takeaways.

All of that will come in time. But if I force it, I’ll be bypassing a part of the cycle that my body has clearly decided is important — processing and integration.

We can’t skip it, just like we can’t skip the painful emotions that come after a loss.

We don’t have to understand it. We just have to trust it.

I go to the rec center and do lazy laps in the pool.

The silence under the water is peaceful when I used to find it boring.

I go to Great Falls and walk the paths I know like the back of my hand. It’s like seeing an old friend who understands I want their company more than their conversation.

I spend slow mornings in bed, looking out over the forest canopy. From this bird’s eye perspective I can look out over my life, but I’m not in a rush to change anything I see.

The action impetus that has defined much of my life is… paused.

It would be easy for me to fret about it. To worry that something is wrong with me. To force myself to get back on the horse.

But I’ve trained for this moment. I’ve learned to embrace the cycles that rule our emotions and bodies and lives.

I’m excited to see who I am on the other side.

Just as much as we need adventures, challenges, things that stretch us, we need a safe place to land.

None of the post-challenge transformation can happen if we don’t have a place to get off the ride, slack-jawed and stoop-shouldered, and rest.

That place — the place of “same old”, auto-pilot, no thought required — is actually where the change happens. There we can curl up into our little chrysalis, melt into goo… and then when we’re ready reform into something new.

Who knew grey sectionals held so much power.

At home,

Sue

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My fortitude battery was running low. Rain-soaked feet, a run-in with a herd of surprisingly intimidating cows, and a low-voltage zap from an electric fence had worn me down.

When I connected to wifi and saw more rain in the forecast, I almost cried. Not just because I was cold and tired, but because the trail was losing its magic. The days had started to blur together. I was less and less excited about the landscape unfolding before my eyes and more focused on just getting to my next bed. Ugh, this pilgrimage was starting to feel like work.

So when I walked into Åre, Sweden’s (tiny!) version of Vail, to find my 18th lodging in as many days, I noticed all the taxis lined up outside the hotel. Hmmmmm. Maybe it was time to shake things up.

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In the morning I whatsapped Ruben, my travel planner and freak-out calmer who knows everyone and everything on this trail.

“What do you think if I took a taxi to the next town and cut some time off my journey today?”

“I think it’s a great idea. Today’s route is pretty but it’s mostly tarmac. In fact, do you just want to ride with your luggage the whole way to your next lodging?”

My teeth unclenched, my shoulders relaxed. I knew it was the right decision. 

“Claus will be there in 15 minutes!” Ruben’s gray text bubble promised. 

“I’ll be waiting!” 

And there I was, on the curb of the hotel when Claus and his gray Volkswagen van pulled around. I took shotgun. We began chatting right away. About his time in Switzerland. His visit to my favorite town in the Colorado Rockies in 2015. Why it's so hard for Americans to get the Swedish accent right. Then we picked up his girlfriend Malin and headed to his family’s concession at Tännforsen, the biggest waterfall in Sweden. 

I snuggled into the little cafe where Malin runs the show, and when she sat down to join me, I had my questions ready.

“Let’s talk Fika! What is it? What time of day do you have it? Does it exist outside of Sweden?”

”I can’t really define it, but it’s more than coffee… it’s getting together to connect, to really see each other. In my grandparents' day, they did it several times a day. It’s a ritual. We thought it existed everywhere, it’s such a part of our lives.”

As much as I tried to deny it in my younger years, I am energized by Fika-like connection. I don’t need it constantly — right now my ideal ratio is probably 80% alone to 20% with others — but without it, life loses its shimmer. I look over the rolling hills of Sweden and just see all the kilometers I have to walk, instead of the giant pine in front of me with the bird’s nest tucked halfway up its trunk. My mind takes control, planning and executing an efficient path from point A to point B, while my heart and its depths are treated as distraction. My inner world shifts to calculation and critique, flattening my human experience into robotic goal chasing.

Old Sue would have been HORRIFIED by the thought of skipping 20 kilometers. “How can I say I’ve walked St Olav’s Way when I’ve skipped a day??” But I’m not here to ‘prove’ myself. If I need to take a day off to have Fika not once but twice, to trade robot mode for long-meandering conversations, and to remember why I’m actually here, that’s a day very well spent.

The body may be made to walk. But the soul needs more — reminders of its humanity and all the incredible things that come with it: connection, novelty, a hot cappuccino on a rainy day. Then the body can go on doing its thing.

Recharged,

Sue

P.S. Here are some of our favorite previous posts about connection and community:

#26: Wired to share (despite what our culture tells us). Seeking sanity between evolutionary instinct and modern impulse.

#36: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Harnessing the power of shared purpose to ignite your projects and passions.

#50: Widowed yet surrounded by love. Learning to let your life evolve after loss.

#67: The puzzle of creating community as an adult. Embracing different but good.

#80: Human connection, the easy way. My greatest learning from widowhood.

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

On the seventh day of my pilgrimage (so biblical!) it rained. Hard. All damn day. At moments, the deluge would dwindle to a sprinkle. Then I’d whip out my phone and voice note an insight. (This is how I’m keeping track of endless ideas bubbling up in my mind like a Scandinavian spring.)

“Right whenever I think, ‘oh s**t, I don’t know where to go,’ these little St Olav placards show up,” I giggled into my voice memo app. 

I had just spied another of these beloved signs. They are stuck to light poles, suspended from tree branches, crowning sticks sunk deep in the ground. When my eye lands on one, the sensation of relief is physical. An openness spreads through my chest to my arms, my shoulders relax and lower so my pack slides down to a more comfortable spot on my back. This was particularly noticeable during the second coming of Noah’s Ark, when it was raining hard enough that I did not want to have to double check my progress on my phone or paper map. 

I kept voice memo-ing: “But that’s not how life works. Right? When you don’t know where you are going, there is no sign, arrow, lighted LED floor path pointing you in the right direction. Then what do you do?” 

And with that sassy little monologue, I jinxed myself. 

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Thirty minutes later I hadn’t seen another of my saving-grace signs. That was too long. I was on the wrong path. I huddled under a tree to check google maps. The forest path I was on wasn’t even showing up as a trail. Uh oh. I knew I needed to keep the nearby lake to my left. I could see I was heading in a similar direction to the actual path, which was somewhere between inches and kilometers of monochrome green space away. Decision time.

Backtrack or forge ahead?

I decided to just keep going, and look for a route to get me back on track. Fifteen minutes later, I found one. Crisis averted.

This snafu — and another the following day, when backtracking ended up being the right choice — got me thinking about our paths in life. How we chose them. How we know we are on the right one. Whether a ‘right one’ even exists.

Mike and I were solid path followers. Get MBAs. Meet Mr/Ms Right. Get married. Have kids. Constantly advance at work. Bury our scarcity mentalities so deep under achievements and promotions and bonuses that they never resurface.

The thing was, we were following society’s prescribed path. It wasn’t specific to us. But it felt tried and true. We both believed that if we followed the steps laid out, didn’t stray far from the recommended route, and pushed through the hard times, we’d live happily ever after. Cause and effect. Effort and reward.

But then Mike died… And I became terrifyingly aware that no path can guarantee the end we think we are supposed to have. Even in less dramatic circumstances, rarely does one make it through a career unscathed. Sitting here in 2024, layoffs are rife. So that society-mandated path is a ruse. You can follow all the ‘signs’ — climb the career ladder, save every penny, eat almost exclusively salmon & spinach (all of which Mike did) — and end up with nothing.

These days, I believe a lot less in society-approved paths. They betrayed me. That’s scary. But freeing.

It allowed me to start to wonder about my own path. The path that would bring me satisfaction and fulfillment today, instead of off in some distant future.

So how do we find our individual paths? How do we look inside ourselves for signs pointing the way? How do we notice when we’ve gone the wrong direction, and how do we get back on track? I’m still figuring it out.

I think the first step is acknowledging that the standard path is not risk-free. 

And the second step is embracing movement. If I had become paralyzed by uncertainty — trying to decide if I should forge ahead or go backwards — I would have just sat in the rain, freezing, muscles stiffening.

So I keep moving. If I have to turn around and retrace my steps — on this pilgrimage, in my career, about something dumb I said to the kids — so be it. But with every step, I gain new information, see things from a different perspective, and get to know myself and the world a little better. Plus, I keep my momentum. We don’t have to know where we are going to not stop. We don’t need a promise of good things coming tomorrow to stay moving today. It doesn’t have to always be about the future. Staying out of paralysis is its own reward.

I could quote Newton’s famous first law — “objects in the motion stay in motion” — but after being soaking wet and out of sorts, I am more drawn to Dori’s mantra. “Just keep swimming.”

One step at a time,

Sue

P.S. Here are some of our favorite previous posts about facing uncertainty, missteps, and fear:

#31: Not all progress feels like progress. Sometimes it feels like limbo.

#33: It’s okay to be afraid. Allowing fear to live, but not to rule.

#62: A widow’s take on planning for the future. My word of the year.

#70: Taking the cycles of life less personally. Sometimes everything just sucks.

#75: We’re on a rollercoaster… blindfolded. When we stop pretending we know what will happen next.

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

It was 8:06 am and Connor was still talking. My precious baby boy was regaling me with tales of his final exam in public economics, then transitioning to a story of travel planning. Then a question about a trip we’d taken when Mike was alive. Then a wardrobe assessment. 

But I’d stopped listening at 8:03am. 

I had to GO.

Where?

Well, 19 kilometers (about 12 miles) down the road today. And then another 567km to Trondheim, where I hope to arrive on June 28th. 

Did I have a place to stay for the night? Yes. Did I have literally all day to get there? Yes again. Any danger of getting lost in darkness if I delayed? Nope, sun set is 10:44pm. I had over 14 hours to walk 12 miles. I could have started at noon and still made it by dinner. 

What’s the rush, Deagle?

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

At work, the madly flapping, early bird was rewarded. Get more done! Squeeze out every last drop! Half-ass listen to my son while checking my watch!

But here’s what happens when I rush on the trail:

* I miss moments of connection, with my son or otherwise.

* I walk so fast I get shin splints on day three, and then panic I won’t be able to finish the entire thing.

* I am so focused on my destination I forget the reason I am even here: to get to know the parts of myself that I didn’t have time for over the last seven years.

There was a time and place for high-tailing it through the day. During my decades as a corporate wonk, I was rewarded for pumping out presentations, staying on top of hundreds of daily emails, and meeting the most outrageous deadlines. But that once-successful strategy now works against my current goals.

Out here, when I do less and I am rewarded by more — more moments of awe, more sighs of relief, more chuckles at the local signs.

My capitalist-trained mind doesn’t know what to do with this truth. “If I’m not working hard, if it doesn’t feel strenuous, what am I achieving??” Oh wait, I’m existing. I’m experiencing life. I’m reconnecting with what I am, regardless of what I do.

Auto-pilot comes in handy when we have a million things to do — we can be doing one thing while simultaneously thinking about another. But many of us have gotten so good at hustling and grinding that we’ve lost the ability to, as Kendall would say, just chill.

We’re afraid that by slowing down we’re missing out. But oftentimes it’s the exact opposite.

What are all the good things we’ve earned worth if we’re not able to slow down and savor them?

Easy does it,

Sue

P.S. Here are some of our favorite previous posts about getting out of auto-pilot and into the fullness of life.

Post #35: Enough waiting to “rest in peace”. Appreciating the good things in life while we’re still around to do it.

Post #47: The journey and the destination. Finding meaning in each spin of the hamster wheel.

Post #57: Smashing the reset button. We all have funks. This is how I handle mine.

#61: Trading autopilot for aliveness this New Year. Why and how I choose a Word of the Year.

Post #81: Gratitude as participation in life. I choose to be immersed in it all, good and bad.

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

Greetings dear readers from… Stockholm! I’m spending a few days as a city girl, acclimating to the timezone, walking the gator (streets in Swedish!), getting a head start on my farmer’s tan. In a couple days I’ll take a four-hour train ride north into the countryside to begin my pilgrimage of St Olav’s Way.

During this week’s prep, I was knee deep in irrational big-trip anxiety. My medley of catastrophizing included car accidents, twisted ankles, treehouse snafus. I even had a good solid stress dream, watching my imaginary rowboat (???) get sucked into a vortex with my passport on the seat. Sheesh. 

Relief swept in on Tuesday when everything was finally packed (top left photo in the collage below!) and the window closed on anything that could go wrong. Passport in my pocket, my airport chauffeur Kendall gave me a kiss goodbye. 

Off I went. 

Here I am. 

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

Stockholm is an emerald green, brown-bricked delight. When I texted pics to Connor, his response: “It’s like a fairytale, ma!”

“Buddy, you have no idea!” I responded. “My taxi cab was playing ABBA, there are Volvos everywhere, and the street outside my hotel is named after Oden!”

“Too good! Thor’s dad!” 

In this land of gnomes, elves, and pagan gods, I can feel myself slowing down. Sinking in. Like a caterpillar spinning its cocoon, I’ve paused my outer world responsibilities so I can give myself to goo. I just hope that by this time next month I’ve started to reform into something with a skeleton again.

Serendipitously, my English friend Paul is 2,000 miles away, mid-pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. During our WhatsApp check-in this morning, he was extolling the virtues of the path. The simplicity and opportunity of the stripped-back life. The combo platter of nature and blisters to bring you into the here and now.

His parting words to me:

“Let’s go and get to know ourselves a little bit better.”

See you… and me… on the other side, 

Sue

P.S. Here are some of our most popular posts on transitions, facing the unknown, and getting out of your comfort zone:

Post #31: Not all progress feels like progress. Sometimes it feels like limbo.

Post #39: From lifequake to lemonade. The way you tell your story matters.

Post #48: Allowing reality to be on your side. Surrender, the hard way and the easy way.

Post #65: Reimagining transition as expansion. I’m just a crab who has outgrown its shell.

#78: Alive, awake, participatory, and engaged. A widow’s advice for facing big transitions.

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

"In case I don’t see you before you go viking, ALL THE BEST!” My face split into a wide grin at my mentee Mark’s email; his words felt like a campfire, warming my heart. Including his surprising use of "VIKING."

I'm in the midst of preparing for a journey two years in the making — a pilgrimage across Scandinavia. From June 1st to June 28th, I'll be walking St. Olavsleden, also known as St. Olav’s Way. It has nothing to do with the snowman from Frozen and everything to do with an 11th-century crusader.

St. Olav’s Way is the world’s northernmost pilgrim route, winding 580 kilometers from the Baltic side of Sweden to the Atlantic flank of Norway. It’s not famous or glitzy — some Scandinavians haven’t even heard of it.

During my 28 days of walking, I’ll pass through villages, climb foothills, stroll along rivers and lakes, and traverse forests and meadows. I’ll sleep in hostels, small hotels, rooms in houses, and the occasional cabin in the woods. The point though is to walk, alone with my thoughts, every single day.

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

Old Sue would have seen this journey as a test of mental fortitude and physical stamina. She’d have her stats, performance apparel, and nutrition plan ready. She’d approach it as a challenge that would prove her badassery.

But I have evolved significantly from that mindset. My objectives are now internal. Metrics of success will include tears shed, grief examined, loss metabolized, connections made, synchronicities stumbled upon. 

Finally, I don’t have to prove anything. I’ve done that. Now I get to see what’s under my mettle.

The last seven years have been a marathon.

In the face of massive grief and uncertainty, I’ve shown up for my kids, for people around the globe at my company, for my friends and family, and for readers through 80+ issues of The Luminist.

I’ve developed a spine of steel and a don’t-mess-with-me attitude that allowed me to forge ahead, no matter what the world threw at me. And that’s what we’ve all been taught to strive for, right? To be resilient, adaptable, agile, dauntless. For a while it felt great to be that warrior. I had “made it” — I had found my gear and could plow forward as long as I liked. 

But two years ago, while chugging through my joy-filled but overpacked life, a knowing started to sink in. I couldn’t continue like this. I didn’t want to continue like this. 

Because there’s more to being human than perfecting your bulldozer impression.

I realized that I was longing for a break from the endless striving — a moment to pause, breathe, reset, and realign after all that I had been through. Because there hadn’t been time before. I was in save-my-family mode. But with one kid in college and another almost there, I could feel it approaching with equal parts fear and relief.

And just like that, I knew. I was going on a pilgrimage.

A pilgrimage is a ritual of leaving behind the familiar to discover new depths of the mind, heart, and soul.

Historically, pilgrimages were acts of religious devotion. My quest, while not religious, is undeniably spiritual. I am unraveling so I can rebuild… so I can be reborn, if you will.

My evolution from Old Sue’s feel-nothing policy to today’s feel-everything ethos demands I confront my most-avoided emotions. Some feelings — about Mike’s death, absolutely, but also smaller losses like bone marrow biopsies and broken front teeth, babies in incubators and teenagers dangerously defying rules — remain buried and in need of catharsis. Or at least a face-to-face meeting to talk it out.

This emotional spelunking wasn’t a priority before, but with the marathon complete, its at the top of the list.

Just like our physical bodies, our emotions need space to heal. Ignoring that throb in your knee won’t make it go away, especially if you’re walking on it every day. The healing process might hurt, but it’ll be so worth it when you’re able to play beach volleyball again.

Part of me wonders if I’m a masochist or unsatisfiable or both. Because I already cry and laugh at a drop of a hat. I get the “awe chills” by watching the a sunrise from my bedroom window. My heart bursts when Connor does his own laundry. Why am I keen to open up these old wounds when my life is so full already?

Because I have to know…

* How much more deeply could I feel the love of my kids if I worked through the scar tissue of Mike’s death?

* How much more could I love my body if I unwound my feelings about my past health challenges?

* How much more could I give you, dear reader, if I went all the way? Instead of skirting around the edges?

Vikings were epic explorers.

They braved leagues of wild sea to find fertile lands… or not. Sometimes they ended up on the glaciers of Greenland.

Though they didn’t know what they would find or if it would be worth it, they set out anyway.

Ignoring the pillaging part, my pilgrim journey doesn’t feel that different. It requires boldness and faith and determination. Even after writing TL for over a year, there are places in my psyche I haven’t dared to excavate — places so sensitive that I’m afraid a feather-light touch will cause me to collapse… or reveal a roiling monster I don’t know how to tame.

But the point isn’t what I will find down there. It’s that I’m going to look in the first place.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a castle of self-control. I want to be free to explore any inner and outer landscape that intrigues me. That freedom can only come from knowing that I can bend, crack, crumble, unravel, adapt, re-emerge, and survive… no matter what. 

So in the spirit of the pilgrims and the vikings, I’m going to go see what it’s like in my caves and canyons. I’m going to see who I am without comforts and distractions. I’m going to see who I can be when I’m not afraid of any part of me.

In liberation,

Sue

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I spend a lot of time sharing about how much I love my life… And overthinking how I share about how much I love my life. I was reminded of this as I chatted with a cashier expertly jenga-ing my groceries into a brown paper bag. 

“How much longer do you have to go for the day?” I asked. 

“I only have two hours left. Whew! How about you?”

“Well, um, I’m kinda retired.” I sheepishly shared. 

“Retired? You are truly blessed!” he enthused. 

On the outside, I nodded vigorously. On the inside, I cringed.

I never know which word to use when describing the things in my life that make me beam: my kids, my travels, my freedom, my passion project, my network of friends and family, the perfect vodka gimlet.

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* If I am blessed… does that mean a god is blessing me while not blessing others? Why would I possibly deserve that?

* If I am lucky… that’s just as bad. Things I didn’t earn make me queasy; things I get and other people don’t get make me nauseous. Lucky feels capricious and unfair.

* If I am fortunate… this just feels like a three-syllabled way of saying I’m lucky. It’s lucky with lipstick.

All these words try to explain how I got this phenomenal life. They are looking for a cause that created the effect. But there is no explanation…

And trying to come up with a word that encapsulates the mystery of life feels like trying to package the ocean into a FedEx box. I don’t want to flatten the waves of life into a word, I want to just enjoy the ride.

Where’s the word that can help me do that?

“In effect, I think gratitude allows us to participate more in life.

“We notice the positives more, and that magnifies the pleasures you get from life. Instead of adapting to goodness, we celebrate goodness. We spend so much time watching things — movies, computer screens, sports — but with gratitude we become greater participants in our lives as opposed to spectators.”

- Robert Emmons, professor of psychology, quoted in Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart. 

Gratitude, rather than an explanation, is an attitude.

It is a way of relating to the good things of life that helps us experience them more fully, more deeply — no matter if we understand how or why we ended up with them. 

I haven’t used the word gratitude a lot in previous TL posts, probably because I didn’t quite understand it. But it’s clearly one of my major transformations from grief: I’m more aware of the positives. I notice them. I allow them in. They have an open invitation to hang out, to band together, to break into song, to cast a brighter light on my life. 

Awe, wonder, and joy now:

* linger longer for me;

* happen more frequently to me;

* are activated by a wider array of experiences that, prior to Mike’s death, hadn’t moved the needle on my emotional Richter scale.

It’s like I was re-wired.

I can get a “damn, my life is so amazing” shiver of gratitude from seeing Connor wash his car. From watching Kendall navigate a hairy flight cancellation. From cackling at one of Kavon’s terrible dad jokes.

Seven years ago, I could have thrown in the towel.

I could have kept a laser focus on the fact that my husband died, letting that loss and its entourage of grief, rage, regret, and fear consume me. I’d neither see nor feel anything else. I’d never have anything to be grateful for. I’d never notice anything to be grateful for.

But I discovered early on that noticing and celebrating the good helped me deal with the hard.

I wasn’t trying to plaster over the hard with the good. Instead, the good — baby leaves, deep connection, stumbling upon the world’s best bookshop — became my daily reminders as to why I would indeed survive the hard.

Because there was still good out there. While Mike’s life may have ended, mine hadn’t. I wasn’t going to waste my days when I knew how priceless they were.

So I learned to say “yes” to the kindness of life, no matter the cruelty mixed with it.

Now, I can swing from good to bad and back again. I can allow all of life to permeate me, no matter its texture. I can be knocked off my feet by awe and grief to equal degrees. 

That, to me, is living. Even though it’s sometimes hard, it is so very full. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In gratitude,

Sue

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Over the last seven years, I’ve turned into a human connection machine. This reading recluse traded in her isolation for the ability to reach out to others near and far, forming a dazzling constellation of relationships, Big Dipper style. 

This aspect of my post-tragedy transformation endlessly perplexes me. It’s the most stark change. So over the last 80 posts, I couldn’t help returning to it over and over again. 

Thus far, I’ve uncovered some very good reasons for why I made the change:

* Connection is the best safety net when going through hard times (post #12)

* Avoidance and isolation make heavy emotions worse, not better (post #13)

* Sharing vulnerably is both personally relieving and helpful to others (post #25)

* Loneliness is literally detrimental to our health (post #26)

* Fulfilling love and support can come in many forms, not just romantic relationship (post #50)

Yet over the last two weeks — with the help of Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg — I’ve finally figured out how I made the change. How, with no experience, no overt intention, no clue, I mysteriously upgraded my capacity to create deep and rapid connection… and how you can too.

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Old Sue’s strategies when meeting new people were stamped from the same three patterns. 

Pattern #1: Fun facts.

Example: “Oh, you’re from Darwin, Minnesota. Isn’t that the home of the biggest ball of twine in America?”

Pattern #2: Random connections.

Example: “You went to Michigan? Did you know Bob Jones? I worked with his sister!”

Pattern #3: Shared shallow commonalities.

Example: “You are a Steelers fan? I’m a Steelers fan too! I have a Terrible Towel in my closet!”

Recognize any of these tiptoe-through-the-tulips games? We’re trying to get to know the new human in front of us, but simultaneously trying to avoid anything intimate or emotional, god forbid. So we stick with facts.

“Well, it’s technically the biggest ball of twine rolled by a single person, but yeah, it’s pretty big.”

“How big is it?”

“13 feet in diameter.”

“How much does it weigh?”

“I don’t know. I’ll google it… Ok, here we are. 17,400 pounds.”

“Wow, that’s so big!”

“Yep, pretty big…”

Turns out conversations about facts, unless we’re problem solving something, are pretty boring.

No wonder connection feels like a chore to most people. We’re told to show interest in the other person, to ask questions about their lives, but often this piece of advice misses an essential component.

The point isn’t to feign curiosity, it’s to ask questions that we actually care about.

Asking personal questions can feel scary.

We’re afraid that we’ll:

* come off as awkward or unprofessional

* somehow say the wrong thing

* offend, trigger, or weird out the other person

* spontaneously combust

I could say, “Get over it and do it anyway!” But these concerns, if not that likely, feel real. So instead of sticking with our old, inch-deep questions or trying to strong arm our way through our discomfort, there’s an Option C: take a “safe” question and twist it a bit. Just enough that the responder has an opportunity to disclose some emotion or experience. 

As Duhigg coaches us in his book, instead of “Do you have hobbies?”, ask “If you could learn anything, what would it be?”

Instead of “Where are you from?”, ask “What’s the best thing about where you grew up?”

And instead of “What do you do for a living”, ask “What ideas or projects are you currently inspired by?”

All the modified questions have two things in common. One, their answers will tell you about the inner workings of the responder. Two, they are invitations to share something that lights the other person up. In other words, something they want to be talking about. 

What happens next is social-bonding magic.

Your conversation partner’s enthusiasm becomes infectious. They’re glowing with passion, and as social creatures we can’t help but be drawn to it. They share personal details, you ask follow-up questions, then share a bit about your own passions... Soon, you’re swapping inside jokes. Boom! Connection is born. Real connection. 

After Mike died, I did not have sufficient barriers in place to keep my emotions at bay. 

They’d all been washed away in the flash flood of heartbreak. Without those defenses, my emotions were ever-present and all over the place. What’s a girl to do? Forget all social norms and seek connection. Get a dose of someone else’s happiness, a taste for someone else’s life. Feel normal for a moment. Enjoy some shared laughs, instead of being alone on my crazy island of grief. 

Being broken made me open. Without any of my own emotional regulation, I used conversations to co-regulate. I was able to match enthusiasms and feel others’ aliveness.

In this way, asking questions that lead to deep connections was actually a coping mechanism. Maybe at first I was coping dirty, like an emotional vampire trying to absorb other people’s positive feelings to boost me up. But the more I did it, the better I got at sensing what my conversation partner was feeling… Like a dog on a scent, I could track their enthusiasm, ask the question that would bring it to the surface, and literally watch the smile spread across their face.

It was a win-win.

Asking better questions, deeper questions, questions that elicit emotions is really only scary for the asker.

The askee is just touched that someone cares enough to ask! Even when the question possibly awakens unpleasant emotions…

In Supercommunicators, Duhigg shares, “When my father died a few years ago, and I told people I had recently attended his funeral, some of them offered their condolences. But almost no one asked me any questions. Instead, they quickly moved on to other subjects. The truth was, I was desperate to talk about what I had been through, about my dad, about the eulogies that had made me so proud and sad, about how it feels to know I won’t be able to call him with good news. His death was one of the most important — most emotional and profound — events in my life. I would have treasured someone asking, ‘What was your dad like?’”

People want to be seen. They want to be thought about. They want to matter.

You don’t need to be charming or charismatic to make connections. It’s so much simpler. If a primary ingredient of our close relationships is care, why don’t we just start there when building new ones?

Care enough to ask real questions. Let people show you their depth. Let their passion spark yours.

The resulting connection is worth any initial awkwardness. It got me through grief after all. What could it do for you?

With emotion,

Sue

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