The Luminist

Last week, I attended the interment of a combat veteran in Arlington National Cemetery.

Walking along the winding cemetery roads, we followed the horse-drawn caisson through row after row of white headstones — a different name, a different story, a different life engraved on each. 

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

As the ceremony went on, I felt myself, my Sue-ness, relax and release a little: the playing of taps, the body-jolting 21-gun salute, the chaplain’s words, the otherworldly precision of military members in perfect unison. White gloves, crisp uniforms, majestic horses. The American flag. Standing among family and friends, I felt myself melt into them. We were sharing a moment beyond words. (There’s an “I” in community but it doesn’t run the show.)

At the end, the hugs were more meaningful than anything we could have come up with to say. So we didn’t really bother.

When I was younger, ritual, ceremony, and tradition seemed like things that kept people in the past, reminiscing about the “good ol’ days.” I was a modern woman, juggling a blossoming career with taking care of blossoming kids. I had stuff to do, productive stuff to do. So I bulldozed my way through life, too busy to notice what the lack of ritual meant for myself and my family.

Until Mike died and mystery entered my life.

“Ritual does not make mystery happen. It helps us see and experience something which is already real. It does not create the sacred, it only describes what is there and has always been there, deeply hidden in the obvious.” - Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom.

I have many rituals now that I treasure dearly:

* Monday night caesar’s-salad-catch-up dinners with my daughter Kendall.

* Sunday night belly-laugh-and-advice Zoom chats with my pal Juile.

* Saturday morning newspaper reading on my screen porch.

* Weekly pilgrim walks where I hike six-ish hours without headphones or conversation.

Some are seemingly more “sacred” than the others. But in their own ways, they all make space for what is “deeply hidden in the obvious” to come to the surface of my consciousness where I can properly appreciate it.

Bird songs. Dappled sunlight. The rough yet soft rustle of newspaper pages. The irreplaceable comfort and goofiness of a decades-long friendship. My daughter, soon to go off to college, telling me about her heart. The preciousness of the here and now. 

But many of these traditions are solo or duo. Just me and someone close and the present moment.

Arlington opened up a new dimension of ritual for me: how it connects you not just to the present or to yourself or to those you already know… but to total strangers. And turns them into people you trust.

While merging onto the highway after leaving the funeral, an article I read years ago popped into my head: “How ‘The Simpsons’ became a shared language for my generation” by Tom Whyman. (You’re thinking, Arlington National Cemetery and The Simpsons?? Stick with me and it’ll make sense!)

Whyman explores how The Simpsons created a new form of “language” among the early Millennial generation that could communicate with few or no words, while instantaneously creating a shared bond, intimacy, and compassion out of seemingly nothing.

For me, decidedly not an early Millennial, this happens when I learn that someone I just met went to the same Presbyterian church as me growing up, or swam the distance events (500- or 1000-yards) in similar small-town high-school swim meets, or has also watched every episode of M*A*S*H. Suddenly they become four-dimensional. I can relate to them, I feel like I know them, I can be myself around them. I see them. I trust them. I have compassion for them. I share inside jokes with them.

They aren’t just a background character moving through the TV show of my life, disappearing as soon as they move off screen.

They have a life of their own, full of joy and grief, love and loss, rituals and traditions just as I do. 

I still hardly know them but I feel a kinship with them. I feel a resonance between our shared experience, shared humanity.

Quoting The Disappearance of Rituals by Byung-Chul Han, Whyman explains, “Rituals, [Han] writes, ‘bring forth a community without communication’, by allowing participants to recognise one another through certain symbols. This, Han implies, is required for real communication to take place: without rituals, our lives lack structure, and we are unable to recognise one another as shared participants in life, in the world.”

I have been working with veterans and active-duty military daily in my defense contractor job for years. I would say I understand them well thanks to sheer quantity of time spent together. And yet, after attending the ceremony at Arlington, I see them more clearly. 

I see their devotion to protecting ordinary Americans. I see their sense of duty and honor. I see their loss — the friends, brothers, sisters that didn’t make it back.

I see what they give up to serve.

I see their hearts.

There are some levels of connection we just can’t achieve without sharing something beyond words. I can’t believe that I, Sue The Connection Junkie, didn’t see this sooner! Rituals make community out of strangers.

And in a world where everyone is talking, writing, tweeting, memeing (myself included!), it feels more important than ever to reconnect with the rituals that take us deeper, into the parts of ourselves that either we can’t or don’t dare to express through all. that. talking... Our vulnerability, our history, our mortality, our humanity.

As Emina Melonic puts it, “To be human is to have an interior life and a soul that, like any life form, needs tending and care. Rituals — be they festivals, or of a religious nature, or simply sitting down with family and friends and sharing a meal — are a way to not only connect but to relate. Every time we engage in a ritual, we affirm that human beings are relational and that our relationships transcend the chaotic impositions of the current times.”

In other words, to be human is to have an interior life and a soul that needs witnessing. Needs acknowledgement. Needs connection.

Needs to stand side-by-side with another soul, hip-deep in the roiling river of life, wide-eyed and wordless, taking it all in, knowing the other is with them, experiencing it too.

Right next to you,

Sue

Enough about me! What about you?

What are your treasured rituals? Can you look at them with renewed appreciation and notice how they deepen and enrich your life?

What is a shared ritual (watching a TV show, doing crossfit, going through communion, having a bar or bat mitzvah, burying a loved one) that immediately connects you to someone? 

Mourn a ritual you have lost over time, and reflect on what you miss about it.

What is a ritual you would like to create? What do you hope to get out of it?

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

“THIS IS SO FREAKING HARD,”

I declare mournfully and melodramatically to my editor Leona in a Sunday-night video message. “I mean, we can do hard things, and it is so worth it, and I have no intention of stopping, but damn!”

I’m talking about The Luminist. My baby, my purpose, my everything. I love my little TL (my nickname for it)... but right now I want to throttle it.

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

Writing The Luminist is not hard in the way you may think. Yes, I bring myself to tears regularly while writing about my late husband. And sometimes I dig in so deep it takes me all weekend to recover. But the yearning and longing for Mike would be in my life whether or not The Luminist was. That’s not the hard part. 

What’s hard is being utterly devoted and obsessed with a grand, planet-spanning mission (vibrant living for everyone) with only a snow-globe-sized clue on how to deliver on said mission. I don’t know what I’m doing or where I’m going! But at the same time, I absolutely cannot stop.

Mike’s death brought me life… So much life I almost don’t know what to do with it. 

And while I’m wrestling with trying to turn this geyser of passion and purpose into something accessible, relatable, and hopefully less than 1,000 words (a girl can dream), I want to shout-out the people on Substack I see doing the exact same thing. Because it makes me feel so much better to know I’m not alone!

I came to Substack looking for a simple way to let strangers read my crazy ideas… and found a group of people who believe that words have the power to change lives — and are dedicated to figuring out how.

This post is for you. And for anyone who isn't satisfied with the status quo, but wants to innovate and create and provide meaning and spark transformation. For the ripple-makers, big and small. For the ones who can’t give up, sit down, shut up, or slow down because the fire within just won’t let them.

I decided to write The Luminist in July 2022. July 10th to be exact, the last day of the Do Lectures, an idea festival in Wales.

I had spent the weekend in this idyllic setting feeling like I had “found my people.” People that were interested in innovation of all sorts, even my bright (dark?) idea that by changing the way we think about death we can better our lives.

I was packing up my stuff alongside my glamping tent-mate Harriet, chatting about our highlights from the festival, when she included my idea as one she wanted to dive deeper into.

“I love your mission to change the conversation about death! I’ve been talking about it with so many people here, I think it could have a really big impact. Where can I learn more?”

Uhhhh. Nowhere. Just me, in this tent, talking to you.

I answered smoothly, “I’m working on starting a blog soon! Let me get your email and I’ll pass it along as soon as it’s published!”

On the train back to London, I sat next to my new friend Paul, the leader of an innovative design business. He offered creative assistance for my logo (along with boundless moral support!) Then hiking in Colorado six weeks later, I met a wide-smiled woman named Leona who wasn’t just open to talking about death but actually loved it — and had a background as a copy editor. In an email to Leona in late October, I shyly asked if she thought we could have everything ready to launch by November 15th. Her “yes” was resounding, confidence-boosting, and mobilizing. Two weeks later, on the six-year anniversary of Mike’s death, we launched The Luminist.

And it felt like my entire world fell into place…

Six years after everything was knocked out of place, things had finally found a home again, a rightness. But even better, a purpose. Thanks to TL, my life isn’t just for me and the kids anymore. It’s for everyone, for the whole world. My mission breathes me awake each morning. It strengthens my voice, no matter what topic is on my tongue. It nourishes me in a way I didn’t realize I was missing until I finally tasted it.

For more context — because I realize it’s an amorphous, glittery daydream of a feeling that is very hard to wrap your brain around — Jason Silva describes it like this:

I sent this quote to Leona a few weeks after TL’s launch. 

“I can’t wait for you to find the thing that lights you up this way!” I beamed through my email to her.

It’s true. I want her, and everyone, to find the purpose that makes them feel like they’re glowing/floating/holding a puppy. But being handed a puppy isn’t the end of the road. It’s just the beginning. Because then you have to figure out what to do with all the energy of the thing wriggling in your arms! And quickly too, because it’s rapidly growing to 200 lbs.

Writing The Luminist, I have found myself on one of the steepest learning curves of my life. 

I can write you a kick-ass business memo — laying out a process, quoting a Harvard Business Review article, extolling the virtues of trust-based leadership — in 15 minutes flat. I can absorb the REI sales associate in deep conversation about innate strength and human connection after loss for twenty minutes (true story)! I can get up in front of hundreds of people at a conference and share my lessons from leading my family through the toughest times with intention and humor… with barely two minutes of prep beforehand (true again)! 

(Thank you for letting me brag a little. We all need to feel good at something sometimes!)

But this kind of writing… this is not my forte. Because we are not taking fully-baked, surface-level concepts and slapping them together.

My weekly process looks less like smoothly typing away on my glossy white iPad and more like this: bottled-up passion — along with so many sticky notes, scraps of paper, voice memos, ripped out newspaper articles, underlined and dog-eared book pages covering my desk and coffee table — spurs me to sit down and write. The stream of consciousness squirts out like silly string in a Nickelodeon skit, words covering the page with little rhyme or reason. That burst of energy then turns into the less-joyful slog of rewriting, deleting, rearranging, cmnd-z-ing, synonym-googling, meme-searching. And attempting not to sound like a textbook (Leona has had to give me that note, like, ten times).

But by Friday afternoon, no matter how humbling the writing process has been that week, Leona and I are both in pinch-myself-awe at what has channeled through us. Even when it’s not that good! 

Because we are on our hero’s journey. We are stepping outside our comfort zones, outside the walls that keep us warm and safe and a little anesthetized. We are feeling the elements whip around us — and inside of us — cheeks red from the wind and the sun, lungs burning with the effort, backs sweaty from blood pumping. We can look back, down the mountain, and see how far we’ve come. We can see the spot where we once pointed up from and said, “Do you think we can get there? I think we should try.” 

We’re not “there” yet. But it doesn’t matter. We are trying, and because of it, we feel alive.

There’s this myth out there that once you find “your purpose,” you’ll just be so locked in, so committed, so in-tune that the rest will just flow naturally. But that’s not how it’s worked for me. Deciding to pursue this massive mission has felt more like going to college: I’ve realized just how much I don’t know. From trying to figure out how to communicate literal paradoxes to teaching myself how LinkedIn marketing works to trying to find my balance on the fine line between underselling The Luminist and feeling like a sleazy salesman.

And what a gift it has been.

Struggling, week after week, to arrange the chaotic impulse inside me into a tangible, practical, death-exploring, life-transforming weekly newsletter returns me, week after week, to the raw preciousness of life. 

At this point in the post, I’d usually like to drop in a quote (like the one with the puppy) that proves I’m not crazy. And that explains what I’m trying to say more succinctly. But I haven’t been able to find one for this section yet. Everything I see about struggle talks about strength and pushing through and leaving behind the old in favor of something new.

Which is all well and good. But there’s something more here.

Something about how struggle — worthy struggle, meaningful struggle, nothing-I’d-rather-do struggle — brings us back to life.

LIFE as in movement, change, seasons, transformation, death, rebirth, pushing out of the cocoon, learning to fly, winds that spread seeds far and wide, freezing in a frost but somehow blooming again. 

LIFE as in unafraid to make a fool of yourself; willing to drop everything for the things and people and sunsets that matter; unwilling to stay quiet to keep others or yourself comfortable; screaming as you jump into the lake and then beaming as you dry off in the sun; ready to argue when it’s important and kiss and make up when it isn’t; in touch with your humility and your power, your impermanence and your legacy. 

Discovering my purpose was cool and all, but more often than not, it feels like it’s discovering me.

Calling me into my next evolution, my next greatest level of being — fully, authentically, unapologetically… And scrapping everything that gets in the way of that.

Turns out purpose isn’t a one-way street. We create it. It creates us too. We use it to make the world a better place. It makes us better people.

Which was probably part of its purpose all along…

But our human brains love to think we’re the ones in charge ;).

In evolution,

Sue

P.S. Leona wants to add — even if it’s not your purpose, if you can get behind it, if you can step out of your comfort zone for it, if you can let yourself be moved by it (with healthy work-life boundaries always)… you’ll become more of you too.

Your turn!

When you think “purpose,” do you think, “that’s for other people, that’s too high falutin’, that’s not for me”?

Or are you in the trenches, forging your purpose with blood, sweat and tears?

Been there, my friends. Both places. 

Share with us how it feels! What do you do during your moments of ugly-cry frustration? What are your little triumphs? What makes you feel more YOU?

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

Confronting chaos. Many times when we lose a loved one, there is a “reason.” A cause followed by an effect.

Old age. Chronic illness. A steady decline. Something that “makes sense.” Something that — through the grief and loss — keeps our worldview intact: things are predictable, they happen for a logical reason, with enough foresight we can prepare for the worst and even slow our trajectory towards it.

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

Mike’s death had none of these hallmarks.

He was slim and trim, disciplined to the extreme, and explicitly driven to live a long, robust life after watching his mother die of breast cancer when he was 22. Mike did all the right things.

He could turn down a chocolate chip cookie when the rest of us were gorging on a freshly-baked batch. His on-the-road, room-service meals were salmon, kale, and blueberries on repeat. After a physical exam six short months before his death, the doctor reported, “No sign of cardiovascular disease.”

Then he died of a widow-maker heart attack.

Worldview shattered.

First when the ER doc told me they had done everything they could… and again when I received the autopsy report. After that, there were no pieces of said worldview to put back together. It was all just fine powder flying through the air.

Life relieved of logic.

Chaos ensued. I became apathetic, apoplectic, nihilistic, and soon turned to worshiping Satan… KIDDING.

But seriously, isn’t this what we subconsciously suspect is around the corner for anyone who loses touch with the logic and order, the cause and effect of reality? That or they become a dead weight on society, requiring family and friends to take care of them, unable or unwilling to cope with the day-to-day tasks of living? 

In contrast, six months after Mike died I had just started a new job, regularly astonished people by how “well” I seemed to be doing, and was writing these words to the pastor that had married Mike and I 18 years before:

“His death is inexplicable in any logical sense, but I very much feel this is part of the mystery of life. I believe there are just things our human brains cannot comprehend in this world. His death at 50 is one of these. But in the six months that have passed, I can say I revere this mystery. I don’t want or need to understand everything about our lives on this earth. I am comfortable with not knowing.”

Even now, I am astonished I was able to write these words so soon after. But I was living in a brand new world, one where mystery reigned… quite literally.

The six months after Mike’s death were filled with more serendipity and mind-boggling coincidences than the 48 years before combined:

* A song from our courtship — not in my phone’s music library — came on shuffle just as I was falling into deep despair that Mike, and the love we had shared, had vanished into the ether.

* A friend randomly sent me a video created less than three months after Mike died of the same pastor telling a story from our premarital counseling though the pastor had no knowledge of Mike’s passing (sparking the letter quoted above).

* Discovering a forgotten letter Mike had written a decade before, spelling out exactly how he would want Connor, Kendall, and I to live our lives if he were to suddenly die — “know this love, and move forward with your lives, living them fully and happily.”

Ummm…WTF??

And those are just the big ones. Rarely did a day go by in those six months that I wasn’t blown away by some synchronicity. 

Turns out the opposite of control is not chaos — nor failure nor despair nor flying off the handle. It’s mystery. It’s wonder and curiosity and child-like awe.

It’s magic. 

Yep, this type-A MBA, defense-contractor executive, trusted leader of thousands just said that… with a smile and a wink ;).

This is a plot twist in my life to be sure. If someone had told me that one day I’d be writing such a sentence, I would have been too stunned to speak in anything more than single syllables. “Huh? What? Why?? No.” The thought of control waning and chaos reigning would have triggered an imaginary spiral in my mind that led straight to Satan worship or at least whack-a-doodle crazy. 

So I spent 48 years fighting it… until I was all alone reading an autopsy report. It’s weird to say — it’ll always be weird to say — but once again I’m feeling massive gratitude for the gifts of Mike’s death.

Because with my worldview pulverized to dust I was able to choose a new way to see reality. 

A way that celebrates the mystery. 

A way that embraces life’s unpredictability as a feature rather than a bug. 

A way that makes space for unbelievable coincidences and synchronicities and “miracles”… alongside unbelievable tragedies.

The only thing we can control.

At first my grief-addled brain accepted mystery, welcomed mystery, rolled in mystery like a pig in mud. And then my powers of reason started to trickle back in… Had I gone mad? Was I just tricking myself? Was I seeking a way to bypass Mike’s death? Was this way of thinking putting my or my children’s future in jeopardy?

Rationality cut like a knife through my hard-earned openness to things unbelievable. To things that made me feel like a kid again, filled with wonder and amazement, and above all, peace.

This would not do.

I wasn’t going back. I would find the middle ground. Who decided that to be a responsible adult you also had to be deeply pessimistic? (Or call it “realistic.”)

So I sharpened my blade and then turned my rationality on itself:

Let’s be real, Sue, there is ONE thing in this world you can control — and you’re going to control the hell out of it: the way you react to the chaos around you.

I didn’t have to use my mind as a knife — splitting, sorting, judging, figuring out “how” and “why” — all the time. Because that reaction means that the thing in front of me, whatever it may be, is a problem to be dissected, sliced, and solved… rather than a wonder to be marveled at. Sure, I can and will whip out my rationality knife when formulating plans B, C, and D to safeguard my family’s future. But if the knife is over-applied, life can’t help but become a series of struggles.

(I think I just discovered why Sherlock Holmes never seems to be the happiest chap.)

In other words, I don’t know if synchronicities are “real.” And I don’t really care. It’s all part of the mystery… Please, no spoilers! I am giving myself permission to notice the weird coincidences and cherish them, maybe even call them miracles, without the burden of searching for causation.

Because they wouldn’t be any less magical if I knew how they worked. I’d just be less appreciative of their magic, less touched by it, less delighted by it. I’d explain it away. I wouldn’t let it make me feel something. And I want to feel something.

(FYI, causation is still very much a part of my daily life. Just only when it’s actually constructive, rather than simply a wet blanket.)

So here I am, six years later. I don’t have faith in some specific thing — God, Spirit, the universe, the Force, the Rings of Power. Rather, I believe — and have come to love — that I have no clue who or what is running the show. I accept that I’ll never know. I never want to know. And I definitely never want to be the one in full control.

Which is how mystery became my religion… and philosophy and strategy and daily vitamin.

(Side note: I’m beginning to think the real issue is that we’ve framed magic and reality as opposites… Reality is actually quite magical when we’re not insisting that we’re so unimpressed by it.)

If you don’t want to call it magic or mystery, if you want to stick with coincidence, serendipity, synchronicity (cue the 1983 Police album with Sting belting out the words), that’s great too! 

Call it a banana for all I care. But give it a word.

Because naming it is noticing it. And noticing it is accepting it as part of your world. Without trying to minimize it, explain it, insist that you’re unimpressed by it.

In conclusion.

We live in a universe so vast and complicated and unmeasurable and unknown that it’s seemingly governed by five types of physics that the smartest people on the planet are still struggling to reconcile… Yours truly definitely has no idea what’s going on.

Once upon a time, I reacted to this cluelessness with control and cynicism.

Now I embrace it, arms wide, looking for anything I can find that makes absolutely no sense. Through this new view, the universe shivers, tingles, shimmies with magic. The same one that felt dark and inhospitable before…

Turns out we have a massive amount of control — control over whether our lives feel thrillingly unbelievable or merely unpredictable. Which are basically the same thing, but with one major difference.

In amazement,

Sue

Your turn!

What is something in your life that has felt unexplainable? Timely and unlikely and undeniable.

* A song that speaks to exactly what you’re feeling starts playing on the radio.

* You randomly run into a long-lost friend or lover and end up reconnecting. (Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck!)

* An acquaintance reaches out with a potential job right when you start thinking it’s time for a change.

* You have a dream that predicts a news story the following week.

* Your mom, spouse, sibling gets a feeling something is “off,” acts on it, and saves themselves/another from a tragedy.

As an example…

You meet your beloved collaborator and editor Leona, with whom you have co-birthed a weekly mini-manifesto on loss and vibrant living, after your paths intersect for a brief few hours on a Colorado mountainside.

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

In case you missed it, this is Part 2 of a two-part series! You can find Part 1 in the previous episode.

Part 1 recap: Cackling until I cried. 

About myself. At myself really. What else is a widow to do?

When I found myself as the new sole decision-maker in my household at a time when I really wasn’t capable of logical thought, I turned my newfound power (and emotional/intellectual short-comings) into a joke. 

I was the Despot of Deagleland. Fully in charge but probably shouldn’t be!

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

The joke, besides allowing me to enjoy some dark humor in my terrible situation, surprisingly also gave me permission to go easier on myself. Because it wasn’t me. It was the Despot of Deagleland! What else could we expect from that crazy lady?

For the first time in my life, I didn’t even pretend to handle things well. I didn’t take myself seriously. I didn’t expect myself to “rise to the challenge.” 

I asked the bare minimum of myself, and was gentle with myself when I couldn’t even deliver that. 

I admitted mistakes easily and forgave myself immediately. 

I discovered the soothing side effects of humility and vulnerability — not previously valued by Sue the Hard Charger.

I learned to ask for help without feeling bad at all. And also how to tell people to politely f*** off because I did not have the time, strength, nor concern for anyone’s drama but my own.

Finally, I allowed myself the release of laughter when I was all out of tears. The kind of laughter that leaves your face and sides sore, that makes you beg for it to stop. Laughter that is only possible when you fully let go of control (or stop pretending you have any).

There were only two things in the world that mattered to me, and my ego was not one of them…

Part 2: When the joke became reality.

One stunningly un-funny thing about death is all the paperwork. A task we don’t even like to do when our families are whole and complete.

Not only were there insurance claims and tax corrections I needed to fill out to make Mike’s death “official”, but a second mountain of paperwork was also set in front of me. As badly as I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t possibly. It was the key to securing our kids’ futures in case something now happened to me.

Holy hell, did that pile of questions, decisions, and barely translatable minutiae make me feel small. I did not feel like a despot here… just a woman flailing through choices about wills, powers of attorney, guardian arrangements, on and on and on. 

(PSA moment: Do you have all these? If not, call a lawyer! Consider it an act of love! Mike did, and it was!!!)

Thankfully, blessedly, unbelievably, I received an incredible lawyer recommendation from a literal angel (aka my friend Jennifer). Toula had been through her share of suffering, and understood the dark humor and protective shell of my despot joke. After six months and countless hours macheteing our way through paperwork, we met for our final meeting, this time with a notary and a witness. I signed multiple documents, the notary applied her stamps, Toula compiled the copies in triplicate and neatly stacked the files… And I let out a sigh of relief.

“One more thing!” Toula announced, catching me by surprise. With a flourish, she presented me with a plaque. I could see my name in big letters on it, but had to put my glasses on to read the title at the bottom… “Despot”.

I laughed and laughed, unable to pull myself together long enough to explain to the notary and witness why the nameplate was so funny. 

The laughter was a release I hadn’t been able to achieve with tears. In that conference room with lime green chairs, the final remnants of my belief that I had to do it “right” — to be the rock, to be rigid and unflinching and unfailing and perfect and selfless and in control at all times, all at the same time, in order to get anything done — dissolved into the ether… 

With the tension gone, in its place I felt something like… strength? Yes, that was it. My strength expanded. And with it, so did I. I got bigger. I became more confident. I realized I was powerful… but in a different way. 

A way that didn’t require erasing my humanity, but emerged from it. My vulnerability, my messiness, my failures — things I had been denying for decades — had been quietly nourishing this new form of personal empowerment for months. Even though it had all been a joke in my head, my body felt it as self-acceptance, as safety, as permission to be myself…

Now I didn’t have to try to be powerful. I just was. And still am.

Boom.

Power’s new definition.

Just like that, I popped out a trap door in my mind that I didn’t know existed.

Before stepping through that door, I had been aiming for powerful… but on the other side of the threshold I saw I had been aiming backwards — to my prior identity. To Sue the Hard Charger. But what served her no longer served me.

I needed to become something brand new.

Side note: Isn’t it crazy how we never know what’s around the corner — especially in our own minds — until we get there??

Only on the other side did I realize what I had truly been up to with my jokes and low expectations. I had been crawling out of the ashes of my previous life, previous way of doing things, previous power… and was now stretching my wings to discover I was stronger than ever.

In my new evolution, power no longer equated to being stiff like a steel rod. It was better likened to being powerful like the sun: expansive, radiant, effortless.

Laughter and softness, vulnerability and connection were not antithetical to power. In fact, they expanded it, broadened it, deepened it. 

Because turns out power — at least the kind that humans can sustain, versus bulldozers — is not about control or perfection. It’s about being imperfect, acknowledging your limits, leaning into love and compassion, especially for yourself.

Then it becomes absolutely clear what’s non-negotiable for you. What is worth fighting for, changing, pushing through in this one wild and precious life. Not because you have anything to prove to anyone, including yourself. But because that’s what your life is for: showing up for the people, communities, causes, adventures that light up your heart. 

In this new understanding, exerting power gives you life rather than taking away from it.

Power that ignites rather than diminishes others.

I don’t know if any other revelation from Mike’s death has transformed my daily life more. Thanks to power’s redefinition, I stand differently, talk differently, drive differently, answer emails differently, shower differently! And more than anything, see everyone around me differently.

I see the spark that wants to become a powerhouse of purpose in truly everyone. And very quickly it has become clear that a key purpose of my fire is to light the fire of others. (Could you tell??)

Like the converted shouting from the rooftops about their newfound grace, I cannot keep this revelation to myself. Because imagine what the world would be like if we were all so true and alive and expansive — without taking ourselves so seriously.

The Luminist is actually the second project born from my grief-ignited crucible (it took a few years before I got the nerve to talk to complete strangers about death constantly.) The first started to take shape when I was just a year into my new job and 18 months a widow. Working with women around the world in the male-dominated industry of defense contracting, I saw a need…

And I felt my entire being leap forward to fill it.

No thought about how it would look on my resume or help me climb the corporate ladder. It was just exactly what I wanted, needed, to be doing.

So I asked a few other powerful women in my company if they’d like to help me plan a women’s summit with our teams in the Middle East. Four short months later, we were at the Kuwait Hilton (my home away from home!) with a hundred exceptional, brilliant, strong women who worked for our company in the region. Through community and connection, we excavated each woman’s personal power and removed every barrier we could that diminished it. For ourselves, but also for everyone around us. 

We departed from the Hilton a constellation — each woman not just a star, but a Sun, connected in a network that gave every individual meaning and purpose… and community to lean on.

Finding this type of power on purpose.

I fell backwards into authentic empowerment. But my work at the Women’s Summit over the last four years has convinced me you can also walk towards power with confidence.

Power is the self-sustaining fire that just grows bigger and bigger when you’re honest about what matters and what doesn’t. When you’re real and human and messy and even broken… because you can’t care “what people will think” anymore. You’re too busy caring about the things that really really matter.

And letting them take up all the space in your heart.

Isn’t that, when we really get down to it, what we are all craving from life anyway?

So, what in your life lights the bonfire of your power? And what dims your fire?  

Finally, what is your secret trap door to focusing on the things that matter, while letting go of the things that don’t? 

It doesn’t have to feel so serious! Turns out it can even start as a self-deprecating joke ;).

(Or it can be very serious, reader’s choice!)

Your commander,

Sue, Despot of Deagleland

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

When you think of a powerful person, what comes to mind? I’d hazard a guess that “widow” is not top of the list. And yet, I feel incredibly powerful on a daily basis.

How the heck did this happen??

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

“Powerful”, according to Dictionary.com, “suggests capability of exerting great force or overcoming strong resistance: a powerful machine like a bulldozer.” Generally I cede to the wisdom of Dictionary.com… But not today! Because we’re talking about humans, not bulldozers.

In my experience, to overcome strong resistance I actually had to stop exerting great force. I found my power only when I released, released, released…

Goodbye squeegee, hello independence.

Being a modern couple of hard-charging business people, Mike and I decided early on that all decisions — for the relationship, the household, the kids — would be made by consensus. 

Though my mode has always been “good enough is good enough,” Mike was more… particular. As I related in a prior post, Mike was the kind of dad who grilled the pediatrician with 17,000 questions. He was also persnickety about keeping the house in tip-top shape. The kids’ friends would comment, “your house looks like a Pottery Barn catalog” (back when those things existed).

As part of Mike’s tidiness regimen, he was deeply committed to concluding every shower by squeegeeing the glass, wiping away the “messy” dried water droplets and streaks. I was resoundingly anti-squeegee (as were, unsurprisingly, our 10 and 12 year-old kids). But we were also resoundingly pro-Mike. So in the spirit of consensus and as an act of love, I agreed to the squeegee regime, the kids complied, and we all tediously squeegeed away after every shower.

But then, like one hand clapping, consensus evaporated into thin air the moment Mike died. 

At the end of that apocalyptic first day, the three of us were sitting shell-shocked on the couch… Breaking the otherworldly silence that often fills the troughs between waves of grief, Connor mindlessly remarked, “You know, I didn’t squeegee my shower today.” Kendall and I swiveled our heads in unison to look at him.

“Me, neither!” Kendall piled on conspiratorially.

Their young, bright eyes, still puffy from crying, turned on me. 

A slow, small smile spread across my face. “Me, neither.” 

That was our first post-Mike giggle. Followed soon after by my first post-Mike decision: squeegees in the trash.

Personal rebrand, barely-holding-it-together style.

So I began my new life as a solo decision-maker. Which was paralyzing at first… but had some notable upsides. I did not have to confer with anyone. I might solicit advice, data points, past experience, opinions. But I made all the choices myself. The buck stopped here.

I was the decider. Me, myself, and I. And since “decider” sounded boring, I decided to spice it up. 

“I am the Despot of Deagleland!” I declared to any friend close enough to laugh at my gallows humor. It was a joke, but like all good jokes, contained a kernel or two of truth… while also attempting to make that truth more palatable. And in my case, less horrifying.

Because though I could now make decisions at the speed of light, I would have given anything to have the old way back. I would squeegee my shower every day for the rest of my life!! No dice. So rather than focusing on the missing co-pilot in the household democracy we used to run, I tongue-in-cheek reveled in my ascension to unquestioned head banana.

Helpfully, this dark joke also made space for the fact that while I was totally in charge… I probably shouldn’t be. 

My mind was a shadow of the problem-solving powerhouse it had been moments before the ER doc told me they could not restart Mike’s heart. I was doing my best to hold it together for the kids, but let me tell you, the cracks were showing. So I folded them into the despot narrative.

I laughed until I cried about how I was a dictator on the edge of insanity, one battle away from burning down the city she had promised to liberate. 

Shifting expectations & releasing perfection.

It was twisted for sure, a little problematic, and probably set off alarm bells in my friends’ heads. But, looking back, I realize that this joke saved me.

Under its guise, there was space for the contradicting, hellish facts of the situation: 

* I was a mess. 

* Everything was a mess. 

* Someone had to clean up the mess.

* For my kids, I wanted to be the lighthouse in the middle of the mess.

Old Sue would have compartmentalized fact 1 to handle facts 2-4. Unfortunately, there was no compartment in the known universe — and surely not in my own head —  burly enough to hold my hurricane of mess. So I made it part of the narrative. It wasn’t me. It was the Despot of Deagleland! What else could we expect from that crazy lady?

For the first time in my life, I didn’t even pretend to handle things well. I didn’t take myself seriously. I didn’t expect myself to “rise to the challenge.” 

I asked the bare minimum of myself, and was gentle with myself when I couldn’t even deliver that. 

I admitted mistakes easily and forgave myself immediately after that. 

I discovered the soothing side effects of humility and vulnerability — not previously valued by Sue the Hard Charger.

I learned to ask for help without feeling bad at all. And also how to tell people to politely f*** off because I did not have the time, strength, nor concern for anyone’s drama but my own.

Finally, I allowed myself the release of laughter when I was all out of tears. The kind of laughter that leaves your face and sides sore, that makes you beg for it to stop. Laughter that is only possible when you fully let go of control (or stop pretending you have any).

There were only two things in the world that mattered to me, and my ego was not one of them.

Hold on… is this the right way?

There’s more to this story. But before I continue, I want this part to sink in. Because I was blown away as I excavated this section of the post from the blank page in which it was trapped.

Yes, that was a Michelangelo reference. Am I comparing myself to him and his work? No. I have zero desire to live up to the bar that that immortal artist set. I just like his analogy.

Which is funnily enough the point. The ease, the effortlessness, the freedom that is right on the other side of taking ourselves so seriously. When we stop either expecting perfection from ourselves or punishing ourselves when we don’t achieve it. Over and over again, in a million ways, all day long.

When we just let ourselves be…

And when we make space for the things that really matter, beyond the concerns of our inner critic… Which we will explore next week.

This is the midway point on our journey to power. It might feel like we’re moving backwards but I swear it’s a shortcut! It’s the point when we realize that we don’t have to hold on so tight. That we don’t have to drive ourselves with both carrots and whips, constantly switching them out when the creature of our body becomes too accustomed to one and it loses all effectiveness.

That when we stop forcing ourselves to care about everything that doesn’t matter, we’re far more powerful in the ways that do matter.

That we can actually trust ourselves. (Crazy-lady idea alert!)

And then next week we can compare notes and see if you caught a glimpse of your power and potency and focus and purpose just like I eventually did…

I could go on. But today, I don’t really want to.

I want to put down all the expectations I’ve been carrying — my own, my family’s, my work’s — and surprise my daughter with a trip to her favorite restaurant. For absolutely no reason. Just because that’s what the creature of my body wants to do.

And I think it’s on to something…

In imperfection,

Sue

P.S. Part 2 is up!

Listen to “A new definition of power — rooted in humor and humanity” now.

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

Last week one of my favorite Substackers — author — started a thread with the question:

"What words or acts did you find especially comforting or helpful when you were grieving?"

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

Katie was flipping the script on the “how were people awful” narrative, which gets the most attention in our train-wreck/outrage-obsessed media cycle. Instead, Katie was asking how people got it right. 

My answer immediately came to mind.

“Things will be great again.”

Hard but true words.

I numbly nodded along when I first received this sentence — perhaps made more palatable by the South African accent in which it was delivered.

Not four months before had we visited Wayne (a study-abroad buddy of Mike’s turned lifelong family friend) during Mike’s 50th birthday blowout trip to Cape Town. We had all — mom, dad, kids, aunt, uncle, Wayne — climbed Lion’s Head, strolled through vineyards in the Cape winelands, and had our hair blown sideways at the southernmost tip of Africa. 

The conversation we were having now, the day after Mike’s funeral, felt like it was happening in a different universe.

I don’t remember much from those early days (blessedly). But this conversation stuck. I even remember watching the shadows move across the living room as Wayne and I spoke... that useless room in so many American homes where very little living actually occurs. Ironically, it ended up being my go-to spot for death conversations. 

I let Wayne know how the funeral went, who spoke, the mutual friends that came. He shared that he'd spent the funeral hour on the beach at a spot where he and Mike had had many conversations. He had prayed for us and for Mike. It was a sweet conversation; it included all the “console better” basics.

But then he said something that no one else had dared to say. 

“You know, Sue, this may be hard to hear, but I am going to say it anyway." He took a breath and continued. "Things will be great again.”

“It is hard to see how right now. But things will be great again,” he reiterated with conviction. I nodded mutely on the other end of the line, staring blankly into the shadow next to the empty armchair across the room.

It was a bold statement.

So bold that even now, as a seasoned widow, I’d think long and hard before saying it to anyone.

So why, as a brand-new, so-raw-I-was-still-bleeding widow, was I able to receive it? In fact, why was it exactly what I needed to hear at that moment? Why, all these years later, does it still comfort me? And why has no one else come even close to saying it?

I’ve been fumbling through this analysis for a week now. But I think I’m getting close to understanding...

And simultaneously catching a glimpse of how multidimensional, nonlinear, and completely disinterested in ‘if-then’ logic the human spirit really is.

Hope & permission.

First, Wayne did NOT tell me how I should/would/could feel, nor that the Mike-shaped hole in my heart would ever stop throbbing.

He also didn’t tell me what to do. Stay busy! Focus on the positives! Keep your head up! None of that crap. 

He simply made space for the possibility that, in this alternate universe we found ourselves in, life would once again flourish. In a different way from before… but in a great way nonetheless.

In Kathryn Schulz’ grief memoir Lost & Found, she shares the consolation phrase that resonates most for her is “life will go on.” 

“I have always liked that expression, hackneyed though it may be, for its refusal of easy consolation, for everything that it declines to say. 

“It does not promise an end to pain, like ‘time heals all wounds’ and ‘this too shall pass.’ It does not have the clean-slate undertones of ‘tomorrow is another day.’ It says only that things — good things, bad things, thing-things; it does not specify — will not stop happening.”

Life will go on… The tide will flow in once again. The moon will wax to fullness. The snow will melt. The days will become longer and warmer.

There will be suffering but also joy around the corner, disappointment playing hide-and-seek with wonder, loneliness tangoing alongside connection. Hello paradox.

It’s funny how what we call “paradox” life calls “business as usual.”

Because life goes on, things will be great again. Things will be great again because life goes on. No promises about when or for how long. But definitely a little bit, eventually, sometime.

Looking back, what I heard (and needed to hear) from Wayne was that — without needing to do anything besides crawl into a hole and curl myself around my children — this season would change. And as the proverbial “things” got warmer and warmer, sunnier and sunnier, greater and greater — I could decide then, in the moment, what I wanted to do with them. I could still spend days in my dark den, cradling my broken heart. But I could also go swimming and roll in the soft grass and eat endless berries (apparently I am a bear in this metaphor). And live.

Because life itself includes greatness.

(Like how all good electronic purchases include a charging cable or, at the very least, a battery.)

Furthermore, as the days turned into weeks turned into months, Wayne’s words transformed from a promise to a permission slip. Because people have no idea how to act around those wading through hardship. They end up saying some pretty dumb stuff…

* The neighbor who, upon seeing me at the grocery store looking normal (the nerve), blurted out, “You look….great?”

* The senior executive at a job interview, after doing the math for how long it had been since Mike died, assessed I was not ready to take a new job because… “Isn’t this too soon?”

* Acquaintances, inquiring about me to my closest friends saying “How is Sue?” with a tone implying “poor thing.” (This still happens SIX YEARS LATER. Sheesh.)

Those precious words from Wayne gave me permission to let life go on when so much of society assumed that my life would be permanently less-than, diminished, small.

Permission to let my family’s future unfold in exciting ways alongside the sad ways.

Permission to let my heart feel joy again while still being broken.

Permission to let this tragedy transform my life in not all good ways, but definitely some good ways.

I don’t know if I’d be here today, writing this, if Wayne hadn’t said what he said.

Permission slips for all!

I know a lot of people who are “going through it” — stuck in a job or relationship that isn’t fulfilling, struggling to raise a child with grace, wrestling with health issues that don’t seem to get any better…

I wonder if they have someone holding the space of hope open for them, like Wayne did for me. Even when they themselves can’t, is someone believing in a better future for them?

And if no one else is, can I?

I imagine how this would change my daily interactions with them:

Greeting them with excitement rather than exclusively concern. Asking about their hopes and dreams along with their aches and pains. Replacing my pity with compassion and curiosity for their entire human experience — the good things, the bad things, and the thing-things. Not assuming that their misfortune defines their entire lives and futures. Believing — really believing — that they have something to look forward to.

The human brain loves duality — black and white, day and night, bitter and sweet, rough and soft. It makes things easy to categorize and thus recognize. But the human condition is way too multifaceted for that. We are never just doing well or doing poorly; we’re not just disappointed or excited; we don’t just need empathy or a pep talk. 

What we need is space to be complex, incongruous, even contradictory.

Especially when we are losing our minds during times of loss, grief, and transition.

As a business woman, I don’t love this conclusion. I wish it was more straight-forward, included three actionable steps, and delivered a measurable ROI.

Instead, I’m feeling like I’m trying to rub my belly and pat my head at the same time: honoring that those moments absolutely suck AND there is a very good chance that the future will include something amazing.

Yikes, this is a scary way to live! Letting our hearts feel the full depth of pain while holding out hope for good things to come…

It would be way easier to run from any and all pain (former pro run-away-er talking here), or go full Nietzsche and let pessimism make us impervious to ever having our hopes dashed.

But — in spite of myself — Wayne’s words have convinced me that the best way is the middle way. Neither preparing ourselves for heartbreak nor guarding ourselves against it. Because, according to my quick calculations, almost every human in every generation has suffered from heartbreak and — somehow — continued.

Thanks to Wayne’s belief in me, I’ve had lots of middle-way practice. Practice with possibility, practice with permission, and practice with things becoming great again… as life goes on.

This week, consider what planting a seed of belief might do for someone in your orbit. Including yourself.

I’ll start.

I believe in you.

Sue

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

Dear reader, I have a confession.

Last week’s podcast cracked me open… After beating me down.

Like wrestlers (minus the tiny uniforms and odd headgear) my editor Leona and I went toe-to-toe with that post from the first draft on Sunday night until the final version late Thursday. We changed directions, added, deleted, dug deep, and finally crossed the finish line. User error with a new microphone and some plain old boneheaded-ness had me re-recording the voiceover five times. 

It was the post about death that would not die.

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

Our weekly Friday meeting felt like a post-mortem. Why the heck was that so hard??

Because we are both dedicated to The Luminist’s mission (and stubborn as mules), we had lots of ideas. Maybe it was because:

* We were building a part of The Luminist’s foundation and we had to wrestle a big rock into place.

* We found a node in the bigger grief conversation. It was hard to know how & where to limit the scope. 

* It could have gone a million directions, we spent half the week just trying to pick which rabbit hole to explore.

Our commitment to reframing every stumbling block as a valuable lesson paid off. We waved goodbye through Zoom, satisfied. 

But as Friday afternoon turned into Friday evening and as crazy-productive-work-mind gave way to curious-soft-heart-space — generally a relief — I began sliding down a slippery slope…

Admittedly a familiar slippery slope, but that brought little comfort. 

First came vulnerability. While digging deep for the post, I had also dredged up memories of those early textless days without Mike, the ache of the blackhole, the feelings of hopelessness. Loneliness quickly followed. The portion of the hole that will never be filled still hurts. And the person who knew me best is not here to put his hand on my back and tell me it will all be ok. 

Next came frustration. “I don’t know what the hell I am doing!” I thought. “What am I even writing about? Where is the cohesion? When will I get to speak about this stuff and reach a wider audience? Am I even making an impact — or any sense — here?”

Damn. Not even the grief writer can stand in a storm and pretend she isn’t soaked, freezing, and wondering how the hell to get out of here.

Cracking open to my own humanity.

After a long weekend crying, commiserating, and finally laughing with two irreplaceable friends (shoutout to CeCe and Julie!), I’m feeling more human.

Not “more human” as in “more in control” or “more put together.” I’m still feeling fragile, raw, and humbled. But I’m also feeling more connected to my humanity, more compassionate towards my uncontrollable ups and downs, more appreciative of the fact that I don’t have to — and am not built to — go it alone.

If only old Sue could see me now!

For the first five decades of my life, feeling negative feelings was something I assiduously avoided (I can’t believe I made it that long). I wouldn’t even play sad songs on the radio for fear of catching someone else’s unwanted sadness! And if I was the one feeling sad, I just avoided friends entirely until I got it “under control.” Way better than letting them see me weak and teary-eyed (the horror!!) 

Mike’s death pretty much broke me of my emotional avoidance and isolation… trying to “control” those emotions was like trying to dam the English Channel. It just wasn’t going to happen. But that was six years ago. Even I forget... 

So I took the three-hour drive to CeCe’s with some reluctance. I cycled through several crying spells along the way… then pretended that I felt better. See, no vulnerability needed! No black clouds entering stage left! 

When I arrived at CeCe’s I deployed my craftiest avoidance technique, honed from years of practice: make the other person talk about themselves! Though CeCe could definitely tell something was off (I think I was being pretty awkward), she obliged my erratic questions about unrelated aspects of her life. She just let me spin my wheels. Her gentle voice, warm kitchen, and heartfelt responses seeped into my subconscious, soothing my stress response…

Suddenly, I realized I was tired of my own b******t. Now more than anything I wanted to let my guard down and connect. To be seen by my dear friend. To pour out all my woes to her and melt into a blubbery mess.  

Wow, was I close to falling into the old trap — the one where I let my “negative” emotions isolate me rather than connect me. 

The outdated (incorrect, widely-accepted) story goes: negatives can only take away from the positives. So I didn’t want to bring my negative emotions to my friend and ruin her day. I wanted to move through the pain as quickly as possible, coming in contact with as few people as possible, and emerging on the other side shiny and smiling, ready to be a force for good in the world. And until then… I was better off keeping my mouth (and heart) shut.

CeCe’s patient attention was the jumpstart I needed to pattern-interrupt my archaic, ineffective ways.

How easy it is to forget that it’s a choice to let our pain pull us away… or pull us closer.

Smashing the paradigm.

The next day as I was driving back home, CeCe sent me this song:

When the world is ready to fall on your little shoulders/ And when you're feeling lonely and small/ You need somebody there to hold you/ So don't you ever be ashamed, when you're only lonely/ Ah, you can call out my name... when you're only lonely.

- “When You’re Only Lonely” by J.D. Souther

 “Only lonely.” Let that sink in for a minute. Souther isn’t minimizing the feeling of loneliness. He’s explicitly recognizing the facts that: 

* we all feel lonely one time or another;

* it’s not a crime or shame;

* it can be soothed with just a bit of human connection;

* it’s not a burden, because the people who love you want to support you.

I sobbed tears of relief listening to Souther and CeCe croon together (she sent me a recording of her singing along!) 

Grief is a brutal emotion to carry around. No one can “fix” it. So it’s easy to feel like the best thing we can do is try to protect everyone else from our raincloud. And if in the meantime we figure out how to avoid or ignore the raincloud ourselves, even better! 

But it doesn’t work that way!!

Denying painful emotions not only separates us from others, it separates us from ourselves. I have tears in my eyes more often than I’d like to admit… but I still wouldn’t trade a single one away. Not one.

After this weekend, with the help of CeCe and Julie (our conversation about carrying pain is a story for another post), I feel more myself, more open-hearted, more delighted by the life I’m living than I have in weeks. 

Because I’m not putting a lid on any part of myself or my experience. I am letting all of life flow through me — the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’m not sure exactly why this is… but I’ve discovered it to be unequivocally true. Even when we are only trying to bottle up the “bad stuff” like pain and grief, we end up blocking some of the “good stuff” like love and awe too.

I needed this breakdown. I needed the reminder of how human I am. I needed the reconnection to my soft center, to the part of me that is capable of absurd amounts of pain, along with absurd amounts of love. 

And when I forget this lesson again — sometime soon I’m sure — hopefully I’ll be just a bit faster to allow my heart to do what it’s built to do. Feel. Then heal.

Learning to let the pain stay as long as it needs to stay.

The Luminist was born out of the pain. The silver linings and life-bettering lessons of the pain for sure, but also the deep desire — deep need? — for the pain to mean something, to become something, to generate something.

Maybe it’s a coping mechanism… But in the grand scheme of things, I think it’s a pretty good one. Because it helps me be with my pain rather than trying to run it off like an outlaw in a spaghetti western. It helps me accept, if not welcome, my pain because I know this self-acceptance works alchemy in my heart. And finally, it helps me express my pain, knowing that it is a bridge creating connection to the long-buried pain in others’ hearts.

Which is why I promise to:

* Show up here, week after week, even when it’s really really hard, like last week.

* Figure out how to transmit all this pain-alchemized-into-connection-fostering-love to you in its full, messy, disjointed glory.

* Continue to offer myself, my heart, and my heartbreak as beacons for the aliveness I have stumbled upon — and want to share with literally EVERYONE.

Living a vibrant life does not equal being happy-happy-happy all the time. It does mean being present for all the emotions, the highs and the lows. 

As Brené Brown says, slightly more poetically:

“Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

In vulnerability,

Sue

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

I spend 10+ hours a week writing about all the ways that Mike’s death changed me (and that doesn’t even count all the thinking, reading, note-scribbling, picture-drawing, and epiphany-experiencing). 

Yet I still miss things.

In this case, it wasn’t until I started writing about my heart, having my editor Leona pester me for more info about what was really going on in my heart, then digging even deeper into my heart that I realized… my heart is massive!

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

As measured by:

* My capacity to make meaningful connections with total strangers in minutes if not seconds.

* How I continuously welcome love from (and freely offer love to) new sources every day.

* The way my heart no longer feels like a zero-sum game, but a self-sustaining fountain of compassion and connection. 

Was I always this way? Absolutely, positively, unequivocally not.

In the before times, I neither imagined anyone could operate this way, nor really wanted to. Because honestly, it sounded like a recipe for exhaustion with a splash of neediness.

Oh, how our old ways of being get kicked unceremoniously to the curb after loss…

(Which is a good thing.)

But first, a look at how far I’ve come.

When my husband died, my brain took time to catch up.

I’d see a stunning, share-worthy sunrise, want to talk through a work meeting that had just gone sideways, or have a concern about one of the kid’s teachers. 

I’d reach for my phone thinking, “I need to text Mike!”

Then that sinking feeling. 

No Mike to text. 

Full disclosure about my grieving mind… sometimes I’d send the text anyway.

The longing for the connection that had filled my life for the prior 22 years was too strong to deny. With his now useless phone buried under papers, sticky notes, and pens in the kitchen junk drawer, no one could see the screen light up with my incoming text notification.

The semblance of our previous normalcy briefly soothed me.

If only I could have faked the text back…

The holes in my life where Mike used to fit were innumerable. Like a target ripped apart by a shotgun blast (or 12), there were more ragged edges and empty space than normal life remaining.

But compared to the hole in my heart, the damage to my life was barely a paper cut.

When not numbed by shock, the blackhole in my chest ached constantly, radiating pressure into my throat and across my shoulders. It felt like it had its own gravitational pull… and in the beginning, I was truly worried it would eat me alive if I didn’t fill it.

Luckily, the people around me were way ahead of me.

Slowly letting others fill the empty spaces.

Like first responders surging toward an emergency, those closest to me ran through the flames of my life — and their own loss — to come to my rescue. 

My mom saved my bacon a thousand times, helping me with my household logistics — grocery shopping, kid carpooling, doctor’s appointments — and giving me the love only a mom can… Dump trucks of love to soothe the aching pit in my chest.

My friends also jumped into action, desperate to do something to help. 

Initially this was a lot of listening, tissue passing, and hand holding. Quickly it became more… deep conversations about loss and my unfolding life. Brainstorming through challenges with the kids. Scenario analysis for work decisions. Many of the things I used to do with Mike. 

And to this day, six years later, my brother-in-law is now the receiver of all sunrise pictures and zany photos from my work travels. Posed in helicopter cockpits, sporting astronaut helmets, flying over giant wind turbines in the North Atlantic, and fisheye views inside the soaring NATO headquarters building.

I shoot a daily text to him sharing my adventures, which he has lovingly dubbed “SueViews”. 

Even my relationship with my job transformed.

I could no longer rely on Mike for fulfilling conversation at the end of each day. So I sought it out (aka opened myself up to it) with the people I now spent the most time with: my colleagues. 

Curiosity is the theme-park-fast-pass to connection, so I put myself in learning mode. While picking up a deeper understanding of people’s skills, capabilities, and crafts, hole-filling connection came along for the ride.  

That was a long way of saying that, over time, many of the places that Mike used to occupy were filled. Not all of course… there will always be space where he “should be”. 

But it had become clear that me (and my heart) were going to survive.

Which is where things get interesting…

My heart was still broken… but bigger…?

To be fully transparent, the blackhole in my chest hadn’t been filled — can never be filled.

But it no longer felt like it will swallow me either.

Rather, it had opened me, fortified me, and inspired me. 

Though, six years later, it still aches regularly, I’m realizing that even the vacuum of loss has its technicolor lining. 

* It keeps us present, on the razor’s edge of life’s potential and pain, absolutely unwilling to settle for anything less than a life well lived (which I wrote a post about a few weeks ago!)

* If we are able to hold a blackhole inside our chests and keep living, it must mean that — like outer space — our hearts are giant, expansive, seemingly never-ending… and capable of endless connection, care, and compassion.

A new way of living and loving.

As I began to return to the world after a long winter of autopilot and isolation, I noticed my subtle desire to connect more with everyone around me — from the postman to the barista, from the ranger checking my pass at the Great Falls Park entrance every Saturday to the new receptionist at work greeting me with her tentative smile. 

Every human interaction suddenly became a potential source of heart-filling warmth. I was a heat-seeking missile, my internal radar picking up on and targeting potential areas of connection I had never even considered before.

Yes, the loss of my husband had broken me, seemingly unrepairably for a while… but when I finally had the strength to start putting the pieces of my heart back together, I realized that they no longer fit.

Not solely because of what was missing… but because the shape of what remained had profoundly changed. 

I wasn't broken, I was broken open.

I now cried in awe, made fast friends in the back of taxi cabs, gave and received the BEST hugs. 

Going back to my old-school beliefs that love and connection can only come from certain sources (partners, family, children, close friends) was preposterous… especially after the hell I’d just crawled through to gain this new perspective.

Whoa. Zooming out for a second…

Am I saying that my heart is bigger, more welcoming, more capable of both giving and receiving love since my husband died? 

… I think I am. 

Again, some of the pain will never go away. The hole will never be completely filled. It’s not supposed to be. 

The point isn’t to go backwards. It is not to forget and get over it and move on. It’s to let the loss of every loved one leave a mark that means something. That makes you, your life, others’ lives better.

Finally, your weekly, actionable, takeaway!

You might be wondering what this all means if you have not suffered unimaginable loss…

It means the exact same thing as it means to anyone else.

It means that the limits we’ve placed on our hearts, our love, our connection, and our compassion are self-imposed.

And all we need to start cracking open that armor is seeing the human in front of us.

Finding ways big and small to acknowledge the individual universes inside each of the people around you… and offer a glimpse of the universe inside of yourself.

This was my accidental doorway into my ginormous heart all those years ago… I couldn’t unsee the humanity in a single set of eyes. I knew the impact that would ripple through countless lives if that human was lost. So I didn’t want to let a single opportunity go to waste. I had to connect with the person behind those eyes.

“Ok Sue, slow down! That sounds amazing, but like a significant time commitment… How do we do that and still live our very busy lives??”

Why, thank you for asking.

That brings us to your weekly challenge:

* Make eye contact with, even offer a genuine smile to your barista, server, retail assistant (really anyone in the service industry.)

* Ask the name of someone you see weekly, but with whom you’ve never exchanged more than a head-nod or a shy hello.

* When someone asks, “How are you?” be honest. Be genuine. Be vulnerable. Be human.

I’m going to do the same, starting with my Great Falls Park ranger.

Become your own heat-seeking — and heart-seeking — missile.

Notice how people respond when you let a little bit of “true you” acknowledge a little bit of “true them.”

Trust that it’ll ripple.

1 + 1 = 11.

With all my heart,

Sue

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

Tick tock, tick tock. Even writing that sound stresses me out.

You would think with all the time management strategies, apps, and advice out there, we wouldn’t spend so much time worrying about how little time we have.

You would think we’d have figured out by now how to reclaim spaciousness in our days. Space to be spontaneous, to improvise, to follow the scent…

Well, it’s my turn to tackle this industrial-era dilemma.

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

Not with a different strategy… but with a different definition entirely. Two definitions actually.

When time as we know it stops making sense.

When Mike died, my concept of time was irrevocably broken. 

The promised future of Mike & Sue that had stretched out to the horizon shattered. Like an ancient glacier suddenly calving into the sea, the seemingly rock-solid existence of our shared life was without warning cut short.

The remnants of my expected future, my expected life, truly my understanding of time — the icebergs — were floating forlornly near their glacier parent, but without any way to put them back together. 

Humpty-dumpty and all that. 

Amidst the broken glacier/eggshells of the life I thought I was going to have, I couldn’t hold on to time during day-to-day existence either.

Everything took longer than expected — from paperwork to crying spells, from grocery shopping to how long my chest would be crushed by the elephant sitting atop it.

I couldn’t place myself and my actions on a timeline like I always had, because my brain and my emotions were not working the way they always had.

Still, I tried… Until I was too tired of grieving, single-parenting, feeling bad about my Star Wars habit to care.

 So I gave up.

* I stopped asking myself “when will I feel better?”; 

* I stopped trying to check all the boxes;

* I stopped measuring myself by any external yardstick, including hours, days, and weeks.

Instead, when the thought struck to go out into nature, I did. When the thought struck to call Luanne because she’d listen to me weep and I’d feel better at the end, I did. When the thought struck to turn on Star Wars, I did. When the thought struck to read CS Lewis and see if his pain would make me feel less alone, I did.

I seized each opportunity the moment presented — rather than following a schedule that couldn’t possibly predict my chaotic mood, needs, or desires — and rode that wave, over and over again, into the shore of solace. 

I had never noticed the endless openings of opportunity that arise when you stop trying to plan every minute of every day.

Well, that’s not true. I had, but I’d called them something else. “Distractions.”

But now, time was at my service.

Time was my friend.

Time was a tide, gently pulling me in the direction of what would nourish my soul.

As Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time puts it,

“When we are being… [we] are freed from the normal restrictions of time.”

Which brings us back to the two definitions.

New to me, maybe to you too, but quite old by most standards.

They come from ancient Greece: chronos and kairos. 

Chronos — the root of the word “chronology” — is the linear, consistent, forward march of time. Clock time. What we use when we make a doctor’s appointment, worry about being late for dinner, and plan the kids’ camp schedules. 

As a society, we absolutely need chronos, but that doesn’t mean we always like it. 

At times, chronos can feel like our dark overlord, bossing us around and constraining us. 

“We tend to think of time as something that works against us, rather than for us, an element of life that takes rather than gives,” said Enuma Okura in her weekly Financial Times column.

We all know chronos, keep track of chronos, complain about chronos. But we lack familiarity with the alternative Greek definition of time — kairos.

Rather than a march, kairos is a pause. A swelling of the present moment. When time asks you to slow down and join it here.

But… why?

Maybe it will help to understand that the term kairos comes from the Greek God of Opportunity, Caerus.

Kairos is the access point to serendipity, wonder, flow. Where things just work out. Not because all obstacles and hardships suddenly disappear. But because we find ourselves in a different relationship to them.

From the kairos perspective, obstacles look less like mountains to climb and more like river bends to navigate… Follow the current, stay in the flow, see your opening and take it.

Sign me up for that!

But to slip into kairos, we have to momentarily release our death grip on chronos.

We have to step back from our to-do lists and tap into our inner knowing. Which, let’s be honest, we could all probably use some practice at.

When we are in sync with what we really need — along with the world around us — we make the right choices at the right times… for our personal growth, our impact on the world, whatever we are trying to accomplish.

It’s in the moment. It’s organic. It can’t be artificially replicated.

Like when a seed knows it's time to sprout because it feels the warmth of the sunlight, the snow melt softening the frozen ground, the shift of the season. Without a single google calendar alert.

And just to be clear, chronos and kairos were not independent or conflicting for the Greeks.

They worked together, maybe in opposite directions but to the same end.

Anchoring in this tension is critical. Only by being realistic about the appropriate use of chronos can we understand how to weave kairos into our lives.

Only by shattering our blind devotion to the hamster wheel of chronos can we embrace kairos:

* the pause that illuminates the opportunity…

* the opportunity that acts like a wormhole…

* the wormhole that delivers us to our destination far faster than chronos’ steady march.

What happens next.

If my experience is any indication, prioritizing kairos won’t ruin your life.

I dropped the to-do lists and deadlines associated with chronos and I did not turn into a hapless, helpless couch potato! (I already explained why Star Wars marathons are a different category.) I even kept my job and kept my kids fed!

Jokes aside, I was still doing many important things… just without treating myself like a machine. 

I had simply made living rather than accomplishing my priority. 

Living… like the seed that just knows it’s time to sprout.

Living… like trusting, flowing, being in the moment. And somehow still getting the necessities done.

While I wasn’t looking, focusing, or fretting about feeling better and moving forward, gradually I did… with the lasting benefit of changing my paradigm of time forever. 

And giving me access to a deeper part of myself. 

How to live by both chronos and kairos.

Our modern world requires adherence to chronos. So honor it! There are important bills to be paid, enjoyable commitments to be kept, rewarding goals to achieve. 

But don’t make it your sole focus. Open up to the other way to experience time — the way that leads to the deeper level of connection with the world and with yourself.  

How? Here is what Enuma Okura recommends:

“A kairos moment can open up anywhere, for any length of chronological time. 

“It can be as minute as recognizing that sudden need to take a walk in the fresh air to clear your head, trusting that such a simple act of self-care is not a waste of time, but is affordable time. 

“Meditation, leisurely reading, walks, staring out the window, fishing, gazing at art, dancing, slow cooking, conversations of intentional listening, acting in the moment when your intuition speaks, these are all things that keep you attentive, open and in tune in the present moment, where opportunity resides, in the here and now.”

Now, doesn’t that actually sound nice??

The trick is remembering that kairos has value too:

* A walk can uplift your mood, so you breeze through the big meeting with confidence and presence.

* A good book can shift your perspective, providing a stroke of insight that takes your business to the next level.

* A family dinner can create memories that provide solace when a loved one passes on.

You probably already guessed it: this week, embracing kairos is your challenge.

Carve out time to listen to your still small voice within. Plug into your intuition. Pause for the radiance in dailiness.

Prioritize the opportunities, wormholes, and transformations that only kairos can offer.

To your precious time,

Sue

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

Dear listeners,

We have arrived at Podcast #10! Hurray! 

In honor of this milestone, I’m offering you a different sort of podcast today. Not action-oriented or goal-driven, not asking you to think about a hard topic or write a challenging idea down. Instead, this is a pause-and-reflect missive…

We’re taking a moment to:

* look back and be amazed by how far we’ve come,

* reflect on the allies, ingredients, and synchronicities that got us here,

* and get excited about where we’re headed!

But before we dive in, from my very core I want to express my unending appreciation for your readership, your comments, your likes, your support, and your sharing of posts.

I’m here to change the world… which can only happen in partnership with you. 

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

The secret ingredients of The Luminist:

Being blown away every day, in a million ways.

I launched this newsletter on the sixth anniversary of my husband’s death. I’d been talking to people (incessantly!) about shining a light on death to help us console better, suffer less, and live more vibrant lives for years… because that is my personal experience.

I want to shout it from the rooftops!

I cannot continue living a life so full of meaning, connection, and — honestly — magic, without trying my hardest to bring it to you too. Without asking everyone who will listen to join me in living this way. 

Ideas for posts pop into my head at all hours of the day. If you are part of my day-to-day life, after just about any conversation you hear me say, “I need to write about that!!”

There are topics galore yet to explore. I see each post as a delivery mechanism for information, stories, quotes, observations and wisdom that in turn makes you think, talk, and act… all in the service of building your own vibrant life.

Because when we talk about death, what we are really talking about is life.

While The Luminist is my passion project, my meaning maker, my purpose in life, I also have a day job that provides for my family! I am a globe-trotting business executive.

* I recorded the first Luminist post inside the closet of my hotel room in Kuwait.

* I listened to a small child giggling gleefully at her dad’s peekaboo game in the Brussels train station and added that to post #6: The radiance of dailiness.

* I’ve written drafts on trains, planes, and in hotel rooms during 2am sleepless jags, somehow extracting words from my time-zone-addled brain. 

Which brings me to the next ingredient:

Just the right amount of chaos & random connection.

Traveling shakes up my senses, opening me to the beauty of things I have never seen, and the beauty of conversations with people I know and don’t know.

There is nothing like flying 35,000 feet above the ground in a tin can over large distances to prompt your brain to think differently.

And there is nothing like serendipitous conversations with total strangers — taxi drivers, fellow passengers, people down the counter at the bar — to remind me of how important and universal this work is! I am exceedingly grateful to be let into the most tender parts of people‘s lives and to be trusted with their stories.

The Luminist thrives on input from other brains, other humans, other experiences… (Yes, that is a sneaky request for more comments!)

Collaboration.

Although the initial ideas are mine, my collaborator and editor Leona brings her own experience with death — and living a vibrant life — to what we produce.

We iterate through the post in a week, bouncing it back and forth like a pingpong ball, until we have finally created something that neither of us saw in the first draft — magic! 

And finally, endless, endless, endless motivation to improve lives.

I am a fan the Substack . In a post late last year, Paul shared his guiding star that brings him back to write over and over again:

“Helping people live courageously so that they can thrive is one of the most important things in the world. I want to see people live the lives they are capable of, not just the ones they think they are allowed to have.”

Amen to that! I want to achieve a version of this through The Luminist too.

I want to see people live vibrant lives, not just the ones they think they are supposed to have — or society expects them to have — after loss. 

Where that mission has taken us…

We’ve quoted Joan Didion and Bruce Springsteen, referenced the experiences of Mike Shinoda and Franco Harris, and talked about how Star Wars can be a salve to your wounds in the toughest times.

We’ve shown you beautiful photos of nature and the ceiling of the DC airport, silly cartoon drawings, and lots of selfies with my kids.

We’ve swelled to over 60 subscribers! (More endless & profuse gratitude to you, dear reader.) And in the next ten posts, we’re shooting to break 100.

And holy smokes… the paradoxes and insights we’ve uncovered about life & death!

Here are a few of the mental rubik’s cubes we’ve played with so far (with many more to come!):

Avoiding thinking about death makes it worse… not better.

By not talking about death, we’re making the monster under the bed scarier.

Death and loss are scary and hard and debilitating enough. Combining it with humans’ general fear of the unknown seems like twisting the knife. 

What’s more, we are depriving ourselves of the opportunity to learn how to manage it better. To dance with it better. To make the rest of our lives better. Yes. To make the rest of our lives better.

~ #1: Why talking about grief and loss (not just when someone dies) really matters.

Equations, logic, limits just don’t work when trying to explain life & death (or the human experience in general).

Grief is not linear. (Just like love is not linear. Growing up is not linear. Pushing through limits is not linear. Accepting and surrendering is not linear.)

Grief is an individual experience and each griever's emotions will be different… At a different volume and intensity, showing up unbidden in the early days and continuously, sporadically resurfacing at times we cannot predict. 

It is messy and disordered. It is the human experience. We should expect nothing less.

So why do we keep trying to fit it — fit ourselves — into boxes?

~ #5: Demystifying the griever’s mind.

The fullness of loss helps us remember the fullness of life.

Maybe it was by some unconscious choice, or maybe it was just time for the season of grief to change…

Whatever the reason, I began to notice my surroundings in a new way. I made a new discovery in the natural world every day that lit up my brain and my body with curiosity and wonder. 

I felt like a child, but with the gratitude and appreciation of an adult… who never thought she would touch joy again. But now, I would never take it for granted again.

~ #2: Why I wouldn’t trade away the grief.

Magic, miraculous, divine are subjective titles… and thus available by choice.

While we search for fulfillment and/or happiness in all the modern places — money, prestige, beauty, success, pick your poison — the entrance to the path is hiding in plain sight. Daily sight…

The taste of a raspberry exploding in your mouth. The tinkling belly-laughter of a small child playing peek-a-boo with her father. The feeling of acceptance and intimacy and belonging as you gab comfortably with your good friend.

These aren’t unique moments! They are common denominators in many, if not all, of our lives!

~ #6: The radiance in dailiness.

Maybe we’re numb to certain miracles because they surround us.

Maybe we’re numb to others because they live inside of us.

~ #8: Then and now.

Contemplating our deaths reminds us what matters in our lives.

Defining what we are actually afraid of helps us better understand the mystery of life.

Because it turns out many of us fear something more than dying — we fear not living.

~ #3: What are we actually afraid of?

When confronted with the abyss, we realize we have few offerings more powerful than companionship, support, and compassion.

When we lose people we care about, their disappearance creates a space in their shape… a space that helps us realize their true impact.

It’s like the outer trappings of the person fall away — the parts of them that were impressive, enviable even, but superficial — similar to the layers of a Russian nesting doll.

We forget their achievements and accomplishments because they pale in comparison to their core, their humanity, their heart — the part of them that we will never stop missing.

The part that made the world a better place.

~ #9: Life beyond the Immaculate Reception.

When in doubt, offer your compassion before your logic.

Bearing witness is about abiding alongside those who have lost — just being with them as they struggle through the waves in their journey.

Not fixing, not solving, not offering advice. 

Just being. 

When we are grieving, it is all we can do to survive — to float.

And someone sitting there with us — without explaining to us that we just need to learn how to swim, that we never should have been in the ocean in the first place, that they once had a friend floating in the ocean, or that all floating happens for a reason — dignifies us.

It honors that we are doing the best we can. 

~ #4: Console better.

Connection is so much more than the sum of its parts.

When we receive, we also give something to the giver — the intangible but irreplaceable feeling of making a difference. Of not just being a helpless bystander. Of contributing to life-changing, even life-saving work.

1 + 1 = 11.

* Everyone leaves with more than they had before.

* Everyone feels more connected than they did before.

* Everyone is fulfilling their own needs more than they were before (example: the burnt-out get to sleep and the antsy get to help.)

This is the new math we have to use when doing human calculations. Here, addition doesn’t exists.

It’s replaced by exponential expansion of caring, of connection… of love.

~ #7: The art of receiving.

And after all that reflecting back, I hope you are wondering what’s ahead!

Where The Luminist is headed next…

Here are a few things I’m psyched to jump into in future posts:

* Mystery is my religion. 

* Time is not just a unit of measurement. 

* Memory is not what you suspect. 

* Paradox is the closest we can come to comprehending life. (Quoting Carl Jung here!)

Looking forward to spending future Saturdays with you discussing these topics.

And looking forward even more to continued connection with you… and your vibrant life. 

With heartfelt gratitude and excitement for what’s around the bend…

Until next Saturday,

Sue

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