I Love Lou

“Her entire life led to the moment when she said
‘This is the life I want,’
& she never again wasted time on anything that wasn’t that.”

I married myself a few weeks ago. Well, if we are being technical, I am in an eternal partnership with myself, but the sentiment is the same. I chose a random Wednesday—the date had no importance. What was important was the simple act of declaring my vows of how I would show up for myself daily for the rest of my life in the presence of witnesses. It was for me and me alone. 

This is an incredibly vulnerable thing for me to share, but I want to do so because it was hard to get here, and I would love to do whatever I can to make it easier for others to reach a similar spot. Before you dismiss this as 'Louise has become a new-aged hippie and officially has lost her mind', I'd like to share my approach with the hopes that it may inspire you to find and boldly proclaim love for yourself too. 

This came out of the core realization that, ultimately, there is no one on the planet who can love me better than I can love myself. No one can read my mind, and it’s unfair for me to expect anyone to guess what I need if I can’t articulate it myself. It required the simple but profoundly difficult act of completely and totally taking agency for myself - I, alone, am responsible for my happiness. And it comes down to the cardinal rule, “put your own oxygen mask on first before attempting to help those around you.” In my world, Lou will always come first, and by attending to my needs first, I am more equipped to be there for everyone I love. 

To be clear, I am not perfect. I am also not here under any false pretenses that I am fully healed. It’s a journey I will be on for the rest of my life, but I am unbelievably proud of how far I have come. 

The 10 Commandments of Lou

In case it inspires you to write your own, these are my vows to myself. It took more than two years of dedication to my healing (and, of course, my total thirty-three years focused on living) to reach a point where I could consider putting a pen to paper and less than ten minutes to write them. I wrote them when I reached a point of being so in tune with the love that I needed that they effectively wrote themselves. It felt natural for them to be commandments. Rules feel restrictive and are meant to be broken. I don’t place much value in words alone, so regardless of how poetically beautiful I could make my vows, I needed to feel like an agreement with actions to support them. I wanted something specific I could use as my compass but broad enough to leave room for adventure and the joy of living. I plan to use them when I’m not feeling sure of something, I have some doubt, or I need an extra boost of confidence that I am on the right path. They are commandments of my self-sovereignty and reminders of how to find my way home if I ever get lost again. And I repeat them to myself as it feels right until I find the need to make amendments.

My 10 Commandments of Lou. This is how I would like to live my life from here out. These may change and grow, I leave myself room to expand and evolve.

1. Me:
   I am the most special, sacred, magical, brilliant, caring, wonderful, loveable human I know. I am so lucky to have the life that I do. I live every second and every day fully like I will die tomorrow, and I always remember how grateful I am.
   

2. My Body:
   My body is divine. I treat myself as such. I take great care of what I consume. It is my job to ensure my body can function at its highest level. I focus on what nourishes me and enables me to feel my best energetically. I focus on whole, natural, unprocessed foods vs. depressants (processed, alcohol, junk food). I focus on workouts that give me life, not wear me down. I take care of my body and thank my body for everything it does for me, especially my feet. Look how far they’ve taken me.
   

3. My Mind:
   My mind is sacred. I learn like I will live forever. I am capable of it. I am the product of what I surround myself with. I take care of the information I absorb. I focus on what will make me better versus passing the time. I fill my time with intellectual, creative, and spiritual pursuits. I let the spark of curiosity guide me. I always keep a beginner’s mind. There doesn’t need to be a purpose; my pure enjoyment of the adventure of spelunking down a new rabbit hole is more than enough.
   

4. My Light:
   I am a light to help others, but I must maintain myself and my state first. I prioritize friendships and relationships that are mutual. I surround myself with people who elevate me and help me see the world differently. I allow myself to receive and be taken care of, not just give. Most importantly, I carve out space for Lou Time. I alone am capable of maintaining my light. I live in a state of curiosity and wonder. I prioritize my spiritual path and my journey.
   

5. My Creativity:
   I let my creativity flow as it will, and encourage whatever form or flow it takes. I protect my state above all - I take great care not to criticize or question until I am in a state to receive feedback. I let it flow wildly and freely (like me).
   

6. My Roots
   I am of the earth, the ocean, the air, and fire, and I need them all to survive and thrive fully. When I am in doubt, I get outside. I aim to be in the source (the ocean, nature) daily. A friendly reminder in case I forget: my favorite way to wake up is a sunrise run in the woods and a swim in the ocean.
   

7. My Darkness:
   I will treat joy and sadness as one. Things will come, and things will go. I will “meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same”. Everything is temporary and transitory. I am never too old to start again, and it is never too late to correct my course. I focus on the world I am living in now.
   

8. My Magic:
   I infuse my life with joyful and playful magic. It is a gift to be alive in the mystical, magical world of LouLouLand. I leave notes to myself daily on how magical, special, and loveable I am. No one can love me as well as I can love me. It doesn't need to be big; it just needs to make me smile and let me know that I am thinking of myself. I send a profound thank you to the universe for every love note it surprises me with. I take nothing, myself included, for granted.
   

9. My Love:
   Love is always the answer. I lead with loving-kindness. I have an enormous and limitless heart. I am a natural giver, but it is just as important to learn to receive, too. Love is my gateway to life; I am free in love. I love fully. Everyone around me could have been me at various times or lives. I am capable of making and improving the world I live in.
   

10. My Choice:

    I always turn to the light. Darkness and temptation will always be present, but I can make the conscious choice to choose light and love every time.

My Love Story

This is the most personal story I have ever told and the most important one. It is a tale as old as time but also uniquely mine. It is my fairytale (and guess what, everyone lives happily ever after). That's kind of the beauty of realizing that you are not the product of stories that are told to you; when you can write your own stories, everything works out exactly how it should.

I met her on February 13, 2022. Like any good meet-cute, I had this feeling I had met her long ago, maybe in another lifetime, maybe in paths crossing on a subway. Either way, I had this profound realization that I couldn't mess it up. This was going to be a very special person in my life (arguably the most special), but I knew I had to tread lightly. I mean, we barely knew each other. We were strangers. She had been hurt so many times in her life by so many people. I met her crying on the street. Her heart had been broken by the world. It wasn't exactly the 'Hey you're cute, let's run off into the sunset and disappear somewhere' situation I was hoping for. It was going to take time, it wasn't going to be easy, it was going to require tangible action and dedication on my part to prove I was worthy of taking care of her completely and fully. I didn't know if I was up for it, but I realized I had no choice. She was going to continuously repeat the same spiral of pain for the rest of her life (and probably a few lives after that), and I just couldn't sit back and watch it happen anymore. It just hit a point of being too awful to bear, and I committed fully to doing whatever I needed to do to change.

In Search For the Other

Many of us spend our lives waiting for someone to solve things for us. A parent, a potential lover, a teacher, a boss. There are two sides to this. If you view the glass half-full: a romantic notion that there is someone out there who can complete us. A yin to our yang, a soulmate, a forever partner, our person. And the other side of the equation, looking at the glass half-empty: the things that hold us back, the people who caused us to be in this position, the reasons why we have failed. 

In both ways, you are limited. In both ways, you have given away your agency and ownership of self. In the search for a soulmate, you’ve hung your hope on the appearance of a magical other, a Prince Charming to save you from your plight. And in the search for someone to blame, that same hope is blocked by the inverse form. It’s an M.C. Escher picture - what you seek is also what you run from. It’s an infinite and self-replicating loop across this life and others to come. 

We start with the inverse, the darkness. It’s counterintuitive in some ways, but it’s easier mentally to blame someone else for your failures than take ownership of yourself. There is something extremely tempting about the victim mindset—it’s somewhat of a ‘get out of jail free’ card. This atrocious thing happened to me so I can be absolved from responsibility—society supports me, I can live an easy life, and so forth.

And then the reverse, the light, the love and acceptance we are looking for. We fall in love with people who fill some hole in us, who have some attributes that we wish we had. And we look to solve it externally rather than looking to solve it in ourselves. 

But what if we saw it as both possibilities at once—that there is some future state where there is nothing you need from anyone else and no one is holding you back? What if there was a way to be free?

On February 13, 2022, I committed to facing my demons head-on, not running away, not pulling the eject cord, but exhuming the skeletons in my closet, no matter how terrifying they may be or how much they may hurt those around me that I love. I committed to a complete understanding of the good and the bad—the love I was seeking and the pain I was running from. I committed to seeing both sides of the glass at once.

It started benignly with one question: What would it take for me to be the person I wanted to marry? And how could I find the love I was looking for within myself instead of in another? I followed that with a process of refinding and rediscovering myself. 

Meet Lou

Her name is Lou. I realized if I was going to go through the process of trying to date myself, I needed a pet name. I needed my true name. Lou was a name reserved for my family and a select few in my innermost circle. It is the most intimate way of referring to me. It was always extremely jarring to me when people I didn't know very well or didn't trust (pretty much everyone, Lou had some serious trust issues) called me by Lou. It was my childhood name and the complete encapsulation of a lot of joy but an overwhelming amount of sadness. It only makes sense that my innermost self, the essence of what it means to be me, is named Lou. To be clear, I love my name Louise. It is derived from the male name Louis, and stems from Germanic base hlutha (famous) and wiga (battle) translating roughly to famous warrior (and I am a warrior, so this checks out). I was born blessed with a tremendous amount of grit and resilience. I was named after a number of people, but most importantly to me, Louise Ireland Grimes Ireland, also known as Ligi. 

Louise is an old-fashioned name, proper, tongue-in-cheek, sophisticated, reserved on the surface, and then completely unhinged once you dive below - Louise is me. Louise is one-half of Thelma and Louise - ready to drive off a cliff at a moment's notice for a cause she believes in and is fiercely loyal to friends. Louise knew how to be strong and brave - Louise is an absolute shark - but Louise didn't know how to let her defenses down. Lou, on the other hand, I really didn't know Lou. I don't know any of Lou's (aside from Lou Reed, but that felt more like an opening of freedom into androgyny). Lou was a mystery to me. I needed to learn who Lou was. 

Our First Dates: Be the Person You Want to Date

You're probably wondering how one goes about falling in love with oneself (or maybe you’ve never thought about it until now, which is also reasonable). I didn't know either, so I used the only framework I had in place: how do you really get to know anyone? 

I started with a date - not a dinner date, that feels too extreme and a long time to spend with someone you don't know - but a walk around the park. A walk to a coffee shop I had been eyeing with no express purpose besides just being and attempting to enjoy my own company. As a structured, obsessive-compulsive, type-A person, it was surprisingly hard to operate with no agenda. My dates started generic - a hike, a walk - and they started free. It’s not fair to say I had never spent alone time before; I lived alone, and I traveled almost every other day by myself for work. I objectively spent more time alone than with anyone else around. But there is a difference between passively filling time and space - working, watching Netflix, reading a book, running errands - and actively and consciously deciding what would make you feel truly loved at any given moment. I was used to being taken care of, but I wasn’t used to taking care of myself. I needed a mindset shift - I was worth indulging in. 

As I started to woo myself in earnest, I reflected on the dates others had taken me. What did I like, and what did I not like? I have a hard time with words of affirmation - I generally don’t trust words without actions to back them up. I’ve been lied to too many times. I also struggled with quality time and physical touch alone - I’ve had a massive disconnect between my body and mind my entire life. As a result, acts of service and gifts mean the world to me. I feel like someone is thinking of me, thinking of what could make my life better or make me smile, and there is something tangible to show for it. I treasure everything anyone has ever given me and can’t even begin to quantify how much it means when someone does something for me.

I thought about the guys I had dated. I thought about how they each reflected various stages of my life, the learnings I had taken from them, and the ones I was yet to integrate. I was in the middle of a situationship breakup; I realized instead of mourning this guy and trying to run away from everything that reminded me of him, why not embrace all of those things instead? I thought about how I described him to my friends, I thought about the things that I liked the most about him, I thought about what I admired, I thought about what first attracted me, I thought about what I wish I could do or be. 

There is a saying from Sex and the City, “The Break-Up Rule,” that it takes half the total time you went out with someone to get over them. I would venture to suggest a new rule: It takes the time you need to become the best part of someone to get over them. And each person you integrate gets you closer to yourself. 

I circled around the core question of how I could spend as much time giving myself joy as I spend on delighting others and how I could motivate myself to become the best part of the people I loved. I found it shockingly difficult—in fact, impossible. I was completely blocked. I was caught on the notion that I was worth doing things for and spending money on. These are my biggest love languages, but I couldn’t do them. It felt frivolous. I was discouraged and demotivated. 

Introducing LouCorp

I woke up one day thinking, “I am thrilled to inform you that you’ve just gotten an exciting new job. And that job is you.” I had my systems of organization, task management, and prioritization in place to be effective at work and school throughout my life—I decided to turn them on myself to invest in my most valuable asset.

The process of rediscovering one’s self takes time, dedicated effort, and resources. If you are anything like me, you’ve made it quite far in life with your needs, taking a backseat to those of your job, your family, your loved ones, causes you care about, animals you care about, plants you care about, who knows what else. Even if you’re not completely bought into the notion that ‘you deserve it’ yet, it helped me to make a conscious point to stop procrastinating on myself or putting things for myself as a lower priority. I was no longer allowed to be the default. 

I love to make to-do lists. My work ones have always been a mixture of index cards and notebooks, depending on priority and context. I decided to make LouCorp to-dos unavoidable. They lived on a massive whiteboard that I couldn’t hide from. I made my obsessive-compulsive tendencies work for me. I had to do it. 

As things started to come up, I continuously put them on the list of things to do and then did them. I prioritized. I knew it would just be temporary, but I had a massive backlog of things I had to get done. I hadn’t taken care of myself in years, if ever. I turned down travel and time with friends to focus on me. I stopped actively dating to fit in doctors' appointments. I decided to make a conscious effort to not push things off, and not let things for myself slide. LouCorp had a sizeable budget - I anchored myself in the mindset that all of this work would make me infinitely more successful. I didn’t spend to the point of making myself stressed but I mentally prepared myself for a sizeable investment in the best-performing company of my life - LouCorp. I am a finance person. What was the ROI of my becoming who I was meant to be? How could I be as strategic as I am at work with myself?

Making a Home For Myself

The base of Maslow’s Pyramid is shelter. I would add that the first rule of shelter is to create a sanctuary. 

Somewhere in the ether, I came across a simple but powerful notion: Was my physical home and space supporting my end goal of a happy relationship or keeping me in a self-perpetuating cycle of loneliness or failed relationship doom? 

I (like many of us) was obsessively caught on the idea that my problems could be solved by finding my person, but was I filling my end of the bargain? For starters, was my home actually designed to be a place where someone else (let alone me) would want to spend any time? Did I have closet space for someone else? Did I have a usable bedside table for them? Was my furniture comfortable? Were visitors able to relax? Did I have little touches that made someone feel like I was thinking of them? Did I have drinks and snacks? 

This thought came to me after a disastrous stay at a potential beau’s house, where I felt completely unwelcome and out of place, so it hit me especially hard. 

I knew I would have to get back to wooing Lou at some point, but I always found it easier to worry about other people than myself, so that was a safer place to start.  I got extra chargers. I got another bedside table. I gave away clothes to make space. I got a couple of different coffee varieties and standby breakfast options. I got extra toothbrushes. I got extra towels. I thought about everything I loved in hotels and did that. I hired a housekeeper to come more frequently (because I hate cleaning but like being in clean places). I thought it would be nice always to have flowers if someone else was coming over, romantic or not. 

I turned my focus back to Lou. What made for a happy morning? How did the light flow into the room? How could I make it easier to go about my morning routine? How could I make my coffee or breakfast better? What would feel special? How could I compound little small actions into making Lou feel like I saw her needs and was taking care of her? I focused on what would make my life more convenient and easier. What would life be like if everything was just a bit easier and prettier? I, for the first time in my life, was trying to listen. 

I’ve always had a sense of what fits together in a room - what colors go together, how to create a layered story, what good design looks like - but I hadn’t processed what story I wanted to tell myself. Our spaces define us - how we live, how we interact, how we relax, how we inspire ourselves. I decided to go down a layer. How could I create a home that revived my soul? I desperately wanted to coax Lou out - this inner artist, fragile creature, creative dreamer who completely hid herself from the world. How could I make a home that she would finally feel safe in?

A sidebar into culture: My favorite museum on the planet is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It’s a private collection in Boston where every piece of art, furniture, and textile is intentional; every room is a multi-dimensional conversation. There is the immediately obvious first layer—a symphony of colors and shapes—and then the deeper layer of symbols, mythology, backstory, historical, and personal references. I’ve never been anywhere else quite like it, and it inspired me endlessly as a kid. My personal dream has always been to create my own museum, the physical representation of my world, the world I want to live in and create, the world I dream of. I used to dream of the museum I would make and the various rooms in it, each room centered on a piece of the human condition. Why not start with my home?

My apartment, at this point, looked like a page from a magazine. Everything was black and white and neutral. I had no personal objects. No pictures. No color. Lou had no home there. I didn’t know where to start, so I started in the most shameless but effective way I could think of: think of guys I liked and pieces of their homes that I thought were cool. Something in me had liked these men so there must be something that I am missing in myself somewhere. Someone once had an opium den. I wanted an opium den. Someone had cool things with lights. I wanted cool things with lights. I had no cohesive plan aside from slowly working towards infusing magic into my space. It was a self-referential dance - the more my space referenced the deepest parts of me, the more I felt my creativity slowly unlock and seep through the cracks. 

I had a breakthrough when I saw rainbow-colored gel-filled 1970s-esque tiles in an interior design magazine. They were completely ridiculous but reminded me of my favorite place on the planet to dance—a light-up dance floor at a bar near my family home. I looked all over and ended up with a facsimile from Amazon (unsurprisingly designed for toddler sensory engagement) to place in my entryway hallway. It shifted how I entered and exited my home; darkness gave way to cracks of joy. I started to see signs of Lou.

I rearranged, I sold furniture, I bought furniture, I painted, I found things online or at auction sites or in estate sales, I thought about each moment of each day, I analyzed how people interacted with my space when they visited - did they stay in particular spaces, did they look comfortable, could I make it more comfortable - I spent hours at art stores debating what projects I wanted to do and what I needed at home to make me feel like I had the space to do it, I worked on my lighting, I tried out different candles, I thought about the different things I would like to be doing and actively created various zones for them in my space. 

As I went through this process, I found myself becoming more carefree. I couldn’t stop doodling—it felt like my creativity was starting to explode. I got more comfortable with the idea of buying something for myself for no other purpose than making me happy. I felt like I was getting closer.

(If you’d like to go through this exercise and need support, I’m here for you. I wrote these questions as a good place to start, but please don’t feel overwhelmed, I am happy to guide you through all this. I love interior design, so it’s a joy to help, but my goal is not to design your space but rather help you get yourself there so you deeply love it and yourself.)

Making a Home Inside My Mind

A physical home worked while I was physically there, but I started to realize the limitations. I needed something I could bring with me, something inside of me. Something I could hold within me to remind me who I was.

“Make two homes for thyself, my daughter. One actual home in thy cell, that thou not go running about into many places, unless for necessity, or for obedience to the prioress, or for charity’s sake; and another spiritual home, which thou art to carry with thee always - the cell of true self-knowledge, where thou shalt find within thyself knowledge of the goodness of God.”
- Catherine of Siena

To build my inner home, I thought about what the inside of my brain looked like, and how best to organize it. It’s probably a thought you’ve never had, so let me help you out - what are things you’re very good at, and what are things you are terrible at? How did you study for tests in school? If you need to memorize something, how do you do it? If you close your eyes, what is your mind’s eye. What does it look like, smell like, feel like?

I am an incredibly visual thinker—a visual-spatial thinker, to be precise. I think in 3D, in rooms where I can tease apart the connections between various concepts. In my mind, I had a reasonably well-organized library where I cataloged everything I had ever memorized in school and random things I had read in various filing cabinets. I kept things color-coded and neat. It was a little dusty; I didn’t have a big desire to go back and revisit random accounting rules daily, but I had a clear system of finding things I wanted to find. However, once you stepped outside, it was a wild and crazy labyrinth maze of disorganized and chaotic darkness. I, for better or worse, had gotten into a very conscious practice of compartmentalizing. For those who are not familiar with it, it is a fantastic technique for dealing with things that you may not be able to handle for the sake of trying to function in regular society. When I first started doing it as a kid, I thought about it like I was putting things into a box (after neatly packaging them up, of course) and then digging a deep dark hole in my subconscious and hiding them away forever. I never had the intention of ever revisiting these boxes - the goal was to bury them, and, ultimately, the boxes would disintegrate like dead bodies in caskets in the ground over time. [Note to my past self: trauma is not compostable. Bringing it to the light of day and burning it is a more effective way of dealing with things.] 

The foundation of my mind was built on fragile boxes, and cracks were starting to show. I needed to remodel the foundation and build the castle that Lou deserved. 

I did this visually, but you could do the same auditorily or sensorily - depending on how you think. The goal is to develop a map - or in my case, a 3D architectural model memory-palace - where you can systematically build out and articulate the essence of who you are at your core. It’s a structure to anchor yourself to to enable yourself to go deeper in self-reflection, and it’s also a way to check in with yourself on whether the things you’re surrounding yourself with in the physical world reflect what would make you happiest. If your inner and outer world (your home) look stylistically completely different, you need to adjust. 

I started with one room - the happiest moment I could possibly remember - as my home base and then built it out from there. I used the framework of a pink, fuzzy, bouncy castle as my structure, mainly because it made me laugh. At first, these were just empty ‘rooms,’ moments in time I loved and remembered, but it dawned on me that I really ought to take better care of myself, so I added in spaces for me to sleep, eat, read, paint, pursue various hobbies, and you know, bounce around. 

When I first started, I looked at my favorites photo album on my phone, thinking of all of the places, moments, and people that I loved. I built out a Pinterest board of various things I loved, so I would have something to come back to. I have running lists on my phone and computer of things that I love. I took these objects—things I like, things that make me happy—and visualized them in various spaces in my head.

And then when I am ready, I close my eyes and mentally bounce around. I think about the things I love, I look around for darkness. I keep reminding myself of how far I’ve come and how much love I have around me. 

If you’re well versed in therapy, you may think this sounds like Internal Family Systems or Parts Work. I honestly don’t like those approaches. The idea of bifurcating myself into multiple selves freaks me out. I’m crazy enough as is; I don’t need to add a multiple personality disorder to the mix. I despise communicating in therapy speak. Instead, I am one person, Lou, who has lived a very full life and lives in a phenomenal castle as a result in order to make space for all of her souvenirs, her activities, her family, and her friends. 

It’s Play Time 

If you are a typical adult in the modern world, you probably don’t play. You probably barely have time to do much besides work, let alone friends, and much less yourself. When was the last time you played? Maybe let’s start by defining what play is. According to the National Institute of Play (yes, that’s a thing that exists), “Play is the state of mind that one has when absorbed in an activity that provides enjoyment and a suspension of sense of time.” Do you play? How often do you play? Do you have hobbies? Do you do anything outside of work that aims to enable you to be a kid again? Spending time and having fun with friends is great, but it doesn’t count completely. Do you do anything with no purpose aside from your own entertainment (and objectively could be considered a waste of time)? 

A brief sidebar into psychology: I had always been a student of Jung - the notion of a collective unconscious and his usage of archetypes and symbols (as referenced in my inner world) fascinated me - but I had never really processed or looked into how he approached healing himself. One day, deep in a bookstore’s self-help and psychology section, I stumbled upon one of his books, Active Imagination. 

To go back to a state of childlike wonder and joy, he utilized play. He sought to re-engage with his creative spirit - in the same way I sought to re-engage with my inner Lou - so he returned to his childhood games. He developed a practice of symbolic play that replicated the fantasies he used to enact to forge a deeper connection and relationship with himself. Play unlocked a new part of him, enabling healing and expansion. In his words, “The great joy of play, fantasy, and the imagination is that for a time, we are utterly spontaneous, free to imagine anything. In such a pure state of being, no thought is ‘unthinkable.’”

So I did the same. I thought back to things I used to like to do. I made a list and committed to trying, even if it was a waste of money and time. I signed up for classes, got supplies, and bought myself a piano as a birthday present. Before even doing that, before I could excuse myself by the sheer reality of ‘I’m too busy with work, I have no time,’ I explored how I could make a conscious effort to fit play into my schedule. 

My usual day is jam-packed, and I felt quadruple-booked with meeting after meeting. But I realized that not every minute of my day was truly accounted for. I had 10 minutes sprinkled in here and there. I’m an iPhone user; it helped me to look in my battery settings and evaluate my app usage. What if I drew a picture for 5 minutes in between meetings when I was instead mindlessly scrolling? Take 10 minutes and play scales on the piano. Get some clay and make something fun while I was waiting for my team to log onto Zoom. When was the last time I doodled? I realized I could go for it. I have time for myself. 

I started small and started carving out more space as I trusted the process. I found it was important not to be critical of what I was creating—that’s not the point. The goal was to do something without a focus on ‘getting better.’ Getting better implies skill-building. I am playing. I was not trying to make a living off of whatever I was doing; I needed to just enjoy it. It helped to shut off my inner critic when I focused on activities and hobbies I knew I wasn’t good at, or I’ve never done before. I didn’t need to impress anyone. I didn’t need to show anyone if I didn’t want to. I played with the idea of making the ugliest thing possible. I just needed to play. 

I compounded this with the other self-help practices I had started: I filled my physical home with my hobbies, displayed things that I created, and made space for my creative pursuits in my inner world. This avenue and approach enabled me to go deeper. 

Connecting Body and Mind

If you are along this spot on your own journey and you don’t know where to go from here, it’s a great time to recalibrate and remember that a significant part of depression and anxiety is chemical and no fault of your own. 

My goal was to reregulate my nervous system—my biology—so I could dive deeper into my emotional world. I held onto the belief that if my emotional body was sick, the physical body cannot get well. I believe that many chronic diseases are emotional at the root. My emotional trauma impaired my biological network of psychology, nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system. To heal the core of my physical problems, I needed to address my emotional ones. But to reach a place where I could properly access my emotional body, I needed to calm my physical body. I believe that my body, mind, and spirit are in concentric circles - as I heal one, I heal the other - and so we go.

I’m generally not a believer in pharmacology—I believe in feeling the full range of emotions—but there are days when that’s frankly just too much and not constructive toward healing. There is no shame in going on medication for a brief period to help you get through the darkness. Sometimes you just need a jumpstart. I am not a doctor and do not want to give you medical advice, but to the extent this helps you, I’m happy to be a resource. 

I found a lot of benefits in starting to view my body in terms of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)—I am a holistic system and need to nourish myself as such. For instance, I had always thought healthy meant eating salads and raw vegetables. I learned I was ‘Yang Deficient’ - I ran extremely cold, I had no energy, and cold foods are, in fact, the worst thing for me to eat. I needed warm, cozy, and nourishing. I needed tea, not cold water. 

Acupuncture has been a tremendously powerful tool for me along these lines. I used it extensively when I was younger (and a serious athlete); it helped with physical pain management, so why not emotional? 

I’ve always found solace in exercise, but with a heavy caveat. I don’t know if this speaks to anyone but my fellow masochistic former rowers, but doing anything you can to push your body to the limit doesn’t help. I needed to slow down. Instead of letting my mind drive my body to its limit, I decided to take an alternative approach. I learned how to breathe again. The goal is to let your breath drive your movement, not vis versa. Your body moves at the cadence of your breath, not your mind. Let’s take the example of going for a run. As you are speeding up and you feel breathlessness coming, make a conscious effort to breathe slower and more fully so you are running into the breath. Don’t take shallow breaths, take slower and fuller ones. Your body is filling the space that the breath is creating. The breath should power your body, not try to keep up. It will take some practice, but it helped me in a major way.

And sleep. I have found that turning my bedtime into a ritual - taking a bath, drinking herbal tea, lavender spray for my pillow, and limiting my screen time - helps me. However, if you are fresh out of a breakup, you may be facing the additional challenge of adjusting to sleeping alone. There are a couple of elements that have helped me sleep more soundly. First, if you’ve moved from living with someone to living alone, I’d consider installing a security camera and alarms (if you don’t already have them). It was hard to me to get a solid night’s sleep when I woke up every five minutes because something creaked; it helped me feel like someone else was there in case something happened. Second, I swear by my weighted blanket, weighted eye mask, and ear plugs; they make a huge difference in calming my nervous system - I think about cocooning myself and making myself feel held. Third, I run cold and was used to hugging someone to get to sleep, so I got a heating pad. And finally, I know this is silly, but I find sleep stories very helpful when I’m having difficulty getting to bed. 

A friend said this a few months ago, and it really stuck with me: “Minds kill themselves, but bodies never will.” Your body just wants to live. It is a machine of life. You need to get back to a place where you can stop trying to control it and just let it do what it knows how to do. For me, I can get my mind to shut off when I am dancing. I let go and let the music tell me where to go. That is the anchor feeling I always go back to. Do what you need to do to get into your body fully and completely.

And once you find this, how do you make it permanent? I surround myself with reminders in my home and in my life. All of it compounds to a greater understanding and compassion of self. But the core for me is simple. Somewhere along the way, I forgot how much I needed nature to thrive. In particular, the biting cold of ocean water. I used to swim every day as a kid during the summer on the East Coast and now it’s my daily practice wherever I am. I recite my vows and I swim. It’s my nervous system reset button. It is my rebirth and my baptism and my desire to be my best self.

There is a sign above one of the doors of the Dolphin Club, my swimming home in the San Francisco Bay:

“RENEW THYSELF COMPLETELY EACH
DAY, DO IT AGAIN,
& AGAIN, & FOREVER
AGAIN.”

And this choice and commitment is one that I make daily and will do so forever. 

An Ending Note: Get Another Perspective

In this search for myself, I found it important to remain tethered to an outside perspective and reality along the way. A third party is critical to avoid becoming an echo chamber in your own mind. But, it is equally important to know what perspective to take. It is easy to rely on a stronger personality to make decisions, but equally easy to lose yourself; it is a codependent trap. 

I was careful in choosing the outside perspectives that helped me - I chose professional help, spiritual help, and, most importantly, toolsets - like tarot and alternative medicines - that enabled me to gain greater insight into my own intuition. 

This isn’t to dismiss the value of friends and family. It’s purely that sometimes you need an objective voice of reason to help you see the light. 

My intention in writing all of this - and frankly being incredibly vulnerable in a way I never have before - is to pay forward the gift that others had given me. I write this because from the deepest core of my heart, I hope that anyone else out there who feels lost or who doesn’t know where to turn, can use my love story as support and maybe even a map to get there.

You May Call Me Lou

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

I write this as an invitation to call me by true name, my nickname. Lou. To be clear, I’m not changing my name. But I find something immensely powerful about being called a name previously reserved only for my family by a complete stranger; I want to see the world with as much compassion and love as I have for those closest to me. 

Throughout the last two years, I found myself anchored to the idea that I was like a butterfly. I found it helpful to view myself like a larva at the beginning, turning into a caterpillar when I was in absolute darkness. I emerged from my cocoon over new years with wings ready for flight. 

But I now realize that I am a bird. A parrot, to be specific, like the flock of wild parrots that lives outside of my window. I’ve always had wings. I just forgot how to fly. A very dear friend sent me this quote from James Hillman, “All birds, whatever their species… are twice-born: once as an egg from the mother, and then born again from the egg.” 

This journey will never end. But I will never forget that I have everything I could possibly need - the strength, the courage, the light, and most importantly, the love - all inside of me.

I love Lou, 
always forever, 
near and far, 
close and together, 
everywhere I will be with you, 
everything I will do for you. 

<3