What will be?
Can you admit you don’t know?
Can you acknowledge that you don’t control it?
Can you trust your ability to survive it?
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Orange cream sunset
Reminder to surrender
To what is, what was
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Will you practice with me?
I am arriving to this space, continuing to experiment with a format for this written offering that I hope reflects my intention to share, learn and commune with others. I had a summer that asked me to be present, creative, agile and trusting in new and expansive ways. I’m grateful for the lessons, adventures, laughter, joy, tenderness and connection that this summer season held.
As we embark on the final season of this calendar year, I am thinking of the ways we can uphold or dreams, commitments, responsibilities and joy. This current moment is the only thing we have. I am committed to sharing that sacred gift. I am taking with me a vital summer lesson: Now is meant to hold joy, even when we feel uncertain, sad or fearful. I am inviting you to join me in an ongoing curiosity:
How do I bring joy into this moment?
Are you willing to explore with me?
I hold joy as a the foundation for being present to our full human experience. Joy is not a distraction from the moment, sensation or experience. Joy is the reminder that no matter the moment, there will be other moments, with a wide range of possibilities for how we will feel, what we will experience and how it will add to the dreams we are dreaming. Joy is an essential part of action. We get to new possibilities through our dreams + dedicated, intentional actions. Summer has also helped me remember that there are things we need to release to call in the joy we desire. A season of surrender has me feeling so hopeful for our collective future.
with radical love + hope,
kelley
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I am presenting it in sections so you can check out a little or all of it, come back and quick reference sections with ease.
This iteration includes:
Resources That Spark: Things that are currently inspiring joy, curiosity, deeper understanding + contemplation
Questions I Am Holding: Contemplative questions for further reflection
Shared Understandings: context and definitions for language I am sharing in my personal reflections + contemplative practice.
Personal Reflection a sharing from my own self study and writing practice.
55: TLM, 2026
Shared Understandings
SURRENDER: to give oneself over to powers beyond your control.
DISCOMFORT: mental, emotional or physical uneasiness
RADICAL ACCEPTANCE: accepting life events that are out of your control
and not resisting what you cannot change.OVERFUNCTIONING: taking on the responsibilities, emotions, wellbeing, and needs of those around us whether others want us to or not, often as a way of managing our own anxiety or insecurities.
LONESOME: sad because of the lack of friends, companionship; remote, desolate, or isolated.
OUTCOME: something that follows as a result or consequence
PRESENT: now. a gift
TRUST: belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of.
APARIGRAHA: one of the yamas, or codes of ethical behavior, listed in Patanjali's Eight Limbs of Yoga. the concept of non-possessiveness, non-greed and non-attachment.
Resources the Spark
The Final Step of Healing Is Not Perfection- It Is Surrender [external article]
9-5 staring Dolly Parton [full movie for free online]
Semilla Learning Farm [Homeschool Cooperative]
What I have Read since 2024 [evolving list]
All The Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some Of Us Are Brave [pdf link to book]
Questions I Am Holding
What will I surrender to?
What are the creative solutions that free me/us in this moment?
What fears do I need to acknowledge and voice right now?
What practices can help me remember to trust myself?
What help do I need to ask for?
Personal Reflection
What will I surrender to?
I surrender to the lie that I need to have the answer or worry about outcomes. It is a story created outside of me, rooted in extracting and exploiting my energy. It creates so much anxiety for me that manifests as overfunctioning. When our ability to exist is tied to outcomes, it feels disorienting to say I am going to release trying to control what happens. I want to exist, with ease, peace and joy overflowing everywhere. I needed tangible practices to help me establish new ways of right action + non grasping where outcomes are concerned. In July I was laid off. It has an impact. I spent a full day being terrified about it, then I decided to practice radical acceptance. I cannot stop this from happening. Panic and worry will not support my wellbeing in this moment. How do I reckon with the things happening that I cannot stop, when I also care deeply about what is happening? How do I create the best possible conditions to imagine a solution that frees everyone involved? This is what I have been practicing.
slow down. Listen deeply. Breathe. Wait to react. Take time to notice the sensations in your mind, body and spirit. Do you want to continue breathing that way? Do you want to change how your body is positioned? Can you take a sip of water? Slow down and TRUST your body to do its divine work of reseting.
investigate. A whole world exists inside of you. It is a part of a whole universe. What is inside that is longing to be expressed? What is available as offering to the world around you? What are you afraid of? What pattern is emerging? What story informs and leads that pattern?
interrogate. What am I telling myself about this moment? Am I trusting love, joy and myself to exist in fullness? What are the needs in this moment? What are the creative solutions available that will create more love, understanding, connection and liberation? What resistance is present? What pain is being expressed? How can medicine be introduced to this momentt?
imagine. Imagine how it will feel to complete that thing. Imagine how it will feel to experience that peace of mind, belonging, connection, care or nourishment you deeply desire. Imagine how you will contribute to the future you are dreaming of. Imagine things far away from what feels possible. As abstract as you can. Our imagination is the workshop where we shape our future.
I come to you in this post, about a month into a new role. I am an art teacher. I began teaching an art based class inside the homeschool cooperative that our family joined last year. We explore social emotional learning, contemplative practice, art history, art theory and creative practice. I get to make art all day with young humans aged 3 to 13 years old. Always know that in unexpected ways, our dreams can still come true. My journey with homeschool and the role of parent-educator has surpassed a decade. I cannot believe how quickly we are approaching the end of that journey. This role allows me to use my experience + perspective as a retired nanny, artist, homeschooling parent, sometimes curator, contemplative arts facilitator and yoga teacher to deepen into a BIPOC homeschooling community that really is a dream come true for our family. It allows me to have time with my children that is fun, creative and helps me understand their inner landscape in new ways. With the fleeting time that remains of this phase of our lives together, I want to ensure best use of energy + love. I am basking in the opportunity to live into a childhood dream to be the art teacher. May you remember to ask for what you need and trust others to be there when you need it. The marketplace of right action + being agile is open.
I surrender to discomfort. to unknown outcomes. to interconnectedness. to shame. to guilt. to fear. I surrender to a world on fire and full of people with broken hearts. I do not surrender as to give up. I surrender as a practice of releasing what will not support the future I dream of. I surrender as in my hands are full of seeds and I am going to open my fist to allow the wind to carry these things into fertile soil. I trust that it will land, unfurl, grow and provide what is needed in the next season. I surrender to invite more love, joy, connection, care, nourishment and liberation into the present moment. With open hands I invite more than I think is possible.
Discomfort is not danger
It is an invitation towards self discovery. Discomfort is a signal of the possibility to try something new. Discomfort is an indicator that You could listen to yourself more deeply. Can I allow discomfort to rise in me and trust my capacity to survive it? Can I be curious about what lies on the other side of this discomfort?
Last season, I was deeply feeling lonesome. I missed my friends and family terribly, along with distance, I also exist without ongoing cell or wifi service. It meant not having the time or connectivity to talk to people I love for weeks or months. It was unexpectedly challenging. I am so grateful to my beautiful friends and family who found creative ways to “see me”, talk via voice notes, send me snail mail and take my calls because who knows when I will have a signal. I feel grateful for the beautiful life Nico, Khai, Duke and I are building. I felt loved and cared for where I was and by my friends in far away places. Still I missed everyone. I wasn’t suffering and I was feeling deep longing to actually be with people I have easily been able to do everything with for decades. It was unfamiliar and very uncomfortable.
In this beautiful forest, inside of a loving romantic relationship and with children I adore, the discomfort of loneliness was present. I had so much time to be with this new discomfort. I dreamed about laughing with my friends in my garden, swimming with them in the lake near where we live. I dreamed of foods we would cook together and adventures to share, here where I now find home. I still hold so much of it deep in my heart for a future not far away. This helped me stay with the feeling, dream about creating friendships locally and imagine how I would show up in friendships here.
My heart and imagination knew that the discomfort was not forever. I am so grateful that in this summer season I have had the opportunity to deepen in new friendships, I have laughed and cried and had experiences that answered my heart’s prayer to add deep local friendship to my very beautiful life. I have had to expand into the knowing that discomfort is not danger. Part of my own lonesomeness was my fear of making new friends. I felt unsure about trusting new people and afraid of not belonging. I had to admit to myself that I was afraid I wouldn’t be valued for who I am or cared for when I need it most.
Admitting this allowed me to see it is not true. Admitting that allowed me to let me guard down, allowing others the opportunity to do the same. Admitting it allowed me to see and more deeply appreciate the network of friends and family I am blessed to claim and love and be loved by. I exist and they are by my side and that is not changing.
This season, being inside discomfort has asked me to trust myself in ways I had not remembered in a long time. May I always remember I can trust myself. I have never failed myself.
May you remember that whatever you are experiencing you can trust yourself to know how to respond. May you trust yourself to do what you need to for the future you imagine. May you also trust that there are others around you that you can build and deepen in connection, friendship and community.
Thank you for reading.
As we head into a new season, I am offering new ways to build communities of care and help each other live into the future we dream of. We have nothing to lose by practicing, experimenting and trying. Please join me. Please share with others who could use it. Please reach out if you have any questions, concerns or needs.
kelleynicolepalmer@proton.me
Enjoy these moments of joy, art + abundance.
