Prompt 219. Grounded, Abundant, & Surrounded by Love
& Sky Banyes on the benefits of a to-feel list
Hi friend,
I often joke that I aspire to be the Tunisian Martha Stewart, throwing dinner parties and holiday gatherings that are bountiful and beautiful and decadent, with brightly colored tablecloths and bodega flowers and a chicken tagine made with love. It’s always hectic but joyous, too, especially during the holidays. (I love the holidays, and if it could get away with it, I would start setting up Christmas decorations on the first day of fall—though I’ve been firmly told by everyone near and dear to me that it’s not an acceptable thing to do.) But this year, given my health, I decided to do the opposite: to minimize stress and keep things small.
Being sick means I have the world’s best excuse for this. No one thinks twice when, rather than hosting a big dinner on Thanksgiving Day, I organize a small potluck dinner of leftovers the next. No one questions me when, during the gathering, I step away to go curl up on the couch in my office with River and rest.
What I’m realizing is that, before my relapse, I gave myself so little permission to do things in a way that felt good for my body and mind. What I’m also realizing: we shouldn’t wait for the world’s best excuse to do things on our own terms.
The holidays are notoriously stressful and depleting. They can cause anxiety about everything from preparations to clean-up to family dynamics to travel plans gone awry. They can send us into the blues, as we remember loved ones no longer with us. Strangely enough, the very ideas of bounty and plenty that these holidays are meant to promote can create a feeling of scarcity. You worry you didn’t prepare the right dish, or buy enough gifts, or that everyone around you has better friends, better family, better plans than you. It’s hard not to come out on the other side of the holiday season feeling like you’ve overspent, in all the senses—financially, emotionally, physically.
To return to last week’s question of what makes a life worth living—I know it’s not that. I think we all know it’s not that. So here at the start of a whole span of holidays, I’ve been thinking about what I want to feel on the other side of this holiday season. Recently I thought of the “To-Feel List,” a past prompt by the illustrator Sky Banyes, where rather than listing what you need to do, you list what you want to feel. Then outline what you need to make that happen.
It may be impossible to avoid the stress and overwhelm completely. Certainly there will be moments of anxiety if I have to cancel an anticipated plan, moments of sadness when I think of lost loved ones. But going in with a different intention is sure to shift the balance—so that when 2023 arrives, rather than overspent, I feel grounded, abundant, and surrounded by love. I’ll be dropping my to-feel list in the comments section. Chime in with yours if you’d like!
Sending love,
Suleika
P.S. And if you’re looking for a really wonderful grounding practice, check out this tried-and-true breath work practice from my friend Taylor Somerville. I do a version of it nearly every day, and it’s a not an exaggeration to call it life-changing.
Some Items of Note—
Last week, I sent out Dear Susu #10: Goodbye to All That. The question I answered was from “A Disillusioned City Mouse,” who longs to leave city life but doesn’t know where to go. I got to write about some favorite things, including Joan Didion, real estate, and dreaming big. Paid subscribers can read it here!
Last Sunday was our monthly meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour. This month’s theme was intergenerational gratitude, inspired by Ross Gay’s “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude.” To access a recap of the Hatch, click here.
Over at the Isolation Journals Chat, you can join us in our weekly ritual: a resounding chorus of collective gratitude. The Chat feature is in beta testing for iOS-operated mobile devices only, though it should be available for Android very soon. Tap the button below to join us!
Prompt 219. Your To-Feel List by Sky Banyes
We’re all in search of purpose. For me, the form that took was filling up my CV, my schedule and my to-do lists. I was striving for achievements—and yet I never felt deeply fulfilled.
Three years ago, I started illustrating as a fun way to make sense of things. Over time, it became much more. With reflection, vulnerability and the nourishing possibilities of pen and paper as my tools, I embarked on an essential search for meaning. It’s been a deep explorative dive, and what I discovered in the depths of every plunge was feelings. Even in everyday responsibilities such as work and family, I realized that the upstream of every “to-do” was actually a “to-feel”: useful, financially secure, loving, loved.
Now, I consciously first focus on my feelings—instead of my doings—and allow them to guide my path. It has challenged the foundation upon which I’m building my life. The experience has been transformative.
Your prompt for the week:
Write a “to-feel” list. Start by naming your deepest yearnings and aspirations. Then take a moment to reflect on each—to study your own feeling compass, teasing out the nuances of what each contains with more depth and specificity. You can make your list as a row or column, or lay them out in a fluffy brainstorming cloud. Feel free to use colors and to get creative.
Now, take a look at your list. Are your priorities, habits, and rituals serving these feelings? What steps can you take to honor the items on your “to-feel” list?
If you’d like, you can post your response in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals.
Today’s Contributor
Sky Baynes is a life enthusiast and creator of emotional illustrations... with a pinch of salt. An optimistic, passionate and forever curious student of life, she lives by the rule that one should take nothing too seriously. Her book, The Little Book of Silver Linings, is now available.
For more paid subscriber benefits, see—
A New Year’s Breath Session, a 25-minute breathing meditation by Taylor Somerville to feel rested and rejuvenated
Goodbye to All That, the latest installment of Dear Susu where I talk about making a home in the messy middle
On the Ancestor Who Loved You, a recap of our last meeting of the Hatch, where we meditated on intergenerational gratitude
When I imagine my to-feel list for this holiday season, it looks like this:
+I want to feel rested, so I need to allow myself plenty of naps.
+I want to feel grounded, so I need to make time for walks with River.
+I want to feel abundant, so I need to practice abundance, which means being generous with whatever I have—tipping my barista a dollar more, being extra thoughtful with my loved ones, extending extra grace to others when any weirdness flares up.
+Most importantly, I want to feel surrounded by love. Differences aside, the common denominator of all these gatherings—or at least let’s hope this is the case—is love.
I relate to this so much. There is so much pressure to do things the “right” way (whatever that is) that so often I think we lose sight of what we want...or for some of us don’t even take the chance to figure out what that is at all. I did a course with Tricia Huffman not long ago and she brought up both of these topics, more than once. I remember at one point, she asked what it is we wanted and I started tearing up, embarrassed and sad that I didn’t know the answer. I knew what I used to want, but either it has changed or with time, the opportunity just isn’t there anymore. Until that point, I hadn’t given myself a chance to explore new possibilities though because of the unspoken expectation that life is supposed to go a certain way, and once you make a decision you are bound to that forever. I knew at 4 I wanted to be a nurse and, while it’s only been in the last 10 or so years thats changed, at 37 (and nowhere close to a nursing degree), I never even considered another option.
We’ve been conditioned to go out of our way to do what we think will make others happy, even at the expense of our own health or happiness...to do everything possible to avoid judgement, to fit in. I refuse to do it anymore. Thanksgiving has been rough for me for a long time for different reasons - harder since my dad passed away almost nine years ago (which I’m told “I should be over by now...BS, I know). That’s why this year, rather than go to my sister’s house and be around a bunch of people, I decided to do what I wanted to do - despite the fact I knew others wouldn’t like it. I stayed home, watched Christmas movies and did art. It was the best Thanksgiving I’ve had in years.