View this email in your browser You've really outdone yourself And other things you should consider telling yourself out loud This is Anne’s painting, “A Shy Hello” – from her website, https://www.annejohnstone.com. I think that her work is extraordinary. It’s a little darker than the art I usually share here. But it’s not meant to be feel-good art; it’s tell-the-truth art. (And just fyi – as always, I receive no commission for sharing it!) Do you prefer quiet to loud, depth to...
11 months ago • 8 min read
View this email in your browser You've really outdone yourself And other things you should consider telling yourself out loud This is Anne’s painting, “A Shy Hello” – from her website, https://www.annejohnstone.com. I think that her work is extraordinary. It’s a little darker than the art I usually share here. But it’s not meant to be feel-good art; it’s tell-the-truth art. (And just fyi – as always, I receive no commission for sharing it!) Do you prefer quiet to loud, depth to...
11 months ago • 8 min read
View this email in your browser The two most important words in the English language Can you guess what they are? “Sarajevo Requiem,” by Tom Stoddart, © Getty Images Do you prefer quiet to loud, depth to superficiality, sensitivity to cool? Welcome to the Kindred Letters - my (free) newsletter for 525,000+ kindred spirits drawn to quiet, depth, and beauty. This is a space for finding a richer form of happiness: defining success on our own terms, and learning to thrive, as our deepest, truest...
12 months ago • 8 min read
View this email in your browser The two most important words in the English language Can you guess what they are? “Sarajevo Requiem,” by Tom Stoddart, © Getty Images Do you prefer quiet to loud, depth to superficiality, sensitivity to cool? Welcome to the Kindred Letters - my (free) newsletter for 525,000+ kindred spirits drawn to quiet, depth, and beauty. This is a space for finding a richer form of happiness: defining success on our own terms, and learning to thrive, as our deepest, truest...
12 months ago • 8 min read
View this email in your browser How to take your life’s journey The crucial question you should ask yourself Art: “We are Opening the Gates” (1922): Nikolai Konstantinow Do you prefer quiet to loud, depth to superficiality, sensitivity to cool? Welcome to the Kindred Letters - my (free) newsletter for 525,000+ kindred spirits drawn to quiet, depth, and beauty. This is a space for finding a richer form of happiness: defining success on our own terms, and learning to thrive, as our deepest,...
12 months ago • 10 min read
Dear Reader, First, a quick reminder about my SMS course, Quiet at Work (which is especially relevant to today’s “Kindred Letters” discussion). If you’re an introvert, the course is designed to empower you at work: as an employee, a colleague, and a leader. You might even want to ask your employer to cover the cost of the course. Every morning for 30 days, through exercises, strategies, and my audio teachings, all of which I’ll send directly to your phone, you’ll get the tools you need to...
over 1 year ago • 8 min read
Dear Reader, You don’t need to be a “leader". At least, not in the way people usually use that word. As the author, Victoria Erickson, writes: “Some of us don’t want to be tough alpha leaders. Some of us just want to write and wander the garden and breathe in the sky and nourish and nurture and quietly create new pathways and live our lives as our art. To know the earth as poetry.” @oamul - please check out his Instagram page! Last week, a reader named Jo Saia asked me a question, versions of...
over 1 year ago • 6 min read
Dear Reader, This is a letter about letting go. It focuses on the empty nest, but it applies to bereavements, breakups, mortality, etc. Lately, I’ve gotten a lot of letters from friends and readers facing empty nests. One friend’s son left for college in September. For two months after, she said, she and her husband were “like Sicilian widows. It is a multi-pronged grieving process. It’s not just the loss of the child’s presence, but of the whole family unit.” The late essayist, Michael...
over 1 year ago • 6 min read
Dearest Readers, Tannenwald I, by Gustav Klimt, 1901 A million years ago, when my husband and I were dating, we saw an obscure film on the poet Billy Collins, who said he was "a millionaire in time." (Many of his poems are about long walks to pick up quarts of milk.) We looked at each other and decided that we would aspire to that, too. Are you a time-millionaire-aspirant? I realize that life often intervenes with such plans. There are bills to pay, kids to raise, aging parents to look after....
almost 2 years ago • 4 min read