Lost in May | A Podcast Playlist
Explore our latest podcast playlist. We curated some of our favourite recent listens to help you navigate your everyday life. Discover how these episodes can help your emotional well-being.
We’ve made a Podcast Playlist for you to take on your next walk, to accompany you on your drive, and to make tidying the house just a little less tedious.
This month, there are many new listens including Wiser Than Me, Letters from a Hopeful Creative and It’s Going to be OK. There’s season 2 of WILD, a Southeast LA Rom-Com. And some great stand-out episodes from long-time favourites The Ezra Klein Show, Unladylike, Truth be Told and Normal Gossip. Plus that Clueless episode from Articles of Interest is just Podcast Perfection.
Listening to this playlist lets you know where our interests currently go (it’s a little like reading our journal). From our emerging curiosity about plant medicine to how we think about self-care, you’ll find that we’re seeking voices that offer us more than traditional well-being and counter some long-held narratives about how we should exist in this world of ours.
Hopefully, some ideas and conversations here help you navigate your own life just that little bit better this month.
Discover some of the ways that human connection can help you feel better
We are hardwired to connect. Explore some of the benefits that simply being together can have for your emotional well-being and mental health.
Connection is complicated, isn’t it? Study after study tells us how central it is to human happiness and health, but in our everyday lives we often forget its importance.
Call a friend? But what if they don’t want to hear from us? Reach out to a family member? But what about that political view they seem to have that’s different than my own? Volunteer in the local community? But when? Who has the time?
But this is what we’ve found. When we do reach out, contribute to our community, or try to get to a place of understanding if not agreement, we tend to feel much better than we’d imagined. And we carry those benefits into the rest of our lives.
Curious about how to cultivate more connections in your own life? We’ve selected some things to read, do, watch and experience so that you can discover the benefits to your emotional well-being and mental health of relationships in all their various forms.
Read through an article about what the longest study on happiness tells us about the importance of relationships, try going to therapy with a friend, watch a talk on what empathy can do for us, and discover some cafes that are shaping the community for all.
Be open to the form that relationships can take in your life, and what they can offer you (and you, in turn, can offer them).
To read:
How human relationships fit into a lifetime of happiness
Alternatives to ‘How Are You?’
We are interwoven beings
What to do if you find yourself in the “friendship recession”
An experiment in connection across generations
How to ease your loneliness
Dating with an Expiration Date
When to end a toxic relationship
To do:
Take a quiz to learn how connected you are to humanity
Take a course in the Art of Gathering by bestselling author Priya Parker
Learn how to apologize
Go to friend therapy
Join a community like Peanut
Support the Campaign to End Loneliness
To watch:
To discover:
The Dot Cafe (Spain)
Fluid Coffee (San Francisco, US)
Milk Cafe (San Francisco Bay Area, US)
Kinfolx (Oakland, US)
What are you learning about how your connections impact your emotional well-being and mental health?
Let us know how you navigate this aspect of your everyday life.
Where to next?
How nature can benefit our emotional well-being
We’re learning more about nature’s positive impacts on our emotional well-being and mental health. But how do you access its benefits in your everyday life? We have some ideas for you.
Let’s think about nature for a moment. What comes to mind for you?
We’re learning more about nature’s positive impacts on our emotional well-being and mental health. But how do you access its benefits in your everyday life?
We’ve rounded up some things to read, do, watch and experience so that you can both learn about nature and live in alignment with it.
Read through articles about what happens to our bodies and brains when we walk in nature, try a ‘Going Outside Challenge’, watch an unexpectedly funny talk on foraging, or get to dinner on a beach with a hundred strangers. You’ll learn some of the ways nature can positively impact your emotional well-being and mental health.
Just explore where your curiosity takes you as you find ways to wander through the natural world.
To read:
Just two hours of nature a week offers benefits to our health and well-being
The unique benefits of walking in nature
Are you guilty of ‘plant blindness’? What plants are saying about us
How activism can help with climate anxiety
How buying that fleece could save our National Parks
A stunning new green lung in Hong Kong
What we’re learning from leafing through seed catalogues
Water… as a blueprint for health and well-being
To do:
Although we’re now in March, there’s value in starting this at any time: The Go Outside Challenge
How can you begin to notice the nature that is around you
We made it. Look for signs of spring
Try therapy outdoors
Discover a wild sauna
Develop carbon literacy
To watch:
To discover:
Bronx River Foodway (New York, US)
Oko Farms (New York, US)
Flora Grubb Gardens (San Francisco Bay Area, US)
How can we broaden out what nature can be for us: the micro gestures that have us listening for bird songs to the bigger-ask ones that have us hiking up mountains?
How do you see nature as something that affects your emotional well-being and mental health?
Let us know how you navigate this aspect of your everyday life.
Ways to discover your creativity for better emotional well-being
Bring more creativity into your everyday life. Discover how creativity can positively impact your emotional well-being and mental health.
Creativity can mean very different things to different people. You might consider it to be the moment you sit down with your Morning Pages before the day gets started. You might also consider it to be having a studio and being a ‘proper artist’. Whatever you consider your creativity to be, you are both right and not right.
Creativity weaves throughout our lives. It shows up in all places (in creative practice, but also our workplaces, our homes, our relationships) — if we allow it. And that’s the key. Your ideal of creativity might be the very thing that’s pushing away your ability to even make space for it in your life.
With the links below, there are ideas to get you thinking about that gap — between how you imagine creativity to be, and what you need it to be to feel good in your life. Particularly if you want to access its benefits for your emotional wellbeing and mental health.
Read through articles about the new science of neuroaesthetics, try a noticing workout, watch an inspiring talk on Imposter Syndrome (hint that’s often what’s in the gap) or get to a Sketchbook Skool. Just explore where creativity takes you, not where you think it should be taking you.
You’ll learn some of the ways creativity can positively impact your emotional well-being and mental health.
To read:
How improv can impact not just your creative expression but also your wellbeing
How music loops make me feel more present
Self-care knits and ‘reminders of how to care for oneself through challenging times’
What we actually make when we listen to ChatGPT
What if we could reframe regret as pretending
How Banksy’s work is bringing hope to Ukraine
To do:
6 ideas to fill your sketchbook
Put on an art night at home
Try an app that combines music therapy and neuroscience
Rediscover the well-being benefits of playing with Lego as an adult
To watch:
To discover:
What sparks your interest, your creativity? How do you see creativity as something that affects your emotional wellbeing and mental health?
Let us know how you navigate this aspect of your everyday life.
A Culture Therapy Prescription | March Edition by Beth Nasce
This month’s Culture Therapy Prescription will help you feel good this season. Discover the podcasts, books, websites, apps, events, and places that can connect you with more of what you need for better emotional and mental well-being.
This month’s Culture Therapy Prescription is written by Beth Nasce, a creative celebrant, writer and primary school teacher, whose passions are seasonal living and celebrating all of life's milestones (the big and small). Beth is constantly experimenting with poetry, non-fiction and short stories and helps other people explore their own creativity too.
Connection & Community
Podcasts: The Real Question, and Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, both by Not Sorry Productions.
TRQ is a place for people to explore deeper questions about life and think about how different texts can help us with those answers. The current edition of the podcast is called Should I Quit and its guests come on with a question about whether they should quit something and Vanessa the host does a sort of chaplaincy service for them.
HPST is treating the HP stories like a bible study. Each episode goes chapter by chapter reading it through a theme e.g. love or jealousy and then they use old religious practices to deepen their questioning.
This is the second read of the books (I think book 5 right now?) and they do an amazing job of holding this tension of the ultimate question about whether HP should or shouldn't be given airtime anymore given the author’s recent statements. The podcast has a large LGBTQ+ fanbase so it has been really helpful in understanding the difficulties with it.
Modern Life / Untethering
Book: The Power of Ritual by Casper Ter Keuile is a fantastic book that looks at rituals and spirituality from a secular lens.
Casper is not a Christian but has grown up sort of culturally that way, and while traditional Christianity feels inaccessible to him as a gay man at times he also sees the power and beauty of many ancient practices.
In this book, he explores the ways different religions and civilisations access rituals and explores how we can see them being used in secular contexts too e.g. Soul Cycle or CrossFit.
In the book, he talks about doing a tech sabbath every Friday night for 24 hours where he turns off his phone and all tech. He says the mantra "the work isn't done but it's still time to stop" and it's something I TRY to do. It always feels very enriching and expansive when I do it!
Nature
Podcast: As The Season Turns by Ffern and Lia Leendertz.
Lia Leendertz who writes The Almanac releases an enhanced audio version of the monthly entries of her book on the first of every month. The podcast version also includes a soundscape meditation, a herbal musing by Zoe Gilbert and a Welsh folk song.
In my newsletter Spark and Fable, each month I follow a weekly pattern - of things to look forward to this month (a combination of seasonal events and celebration days) - a seasonal recipe - field notes (where I simply write what is going on at this moment in time outside) - and a monthly roundup of favourite things (including tree, plant and flower of the month!)
Mind & Body
Book: The Self Care Year by Alison Davies is a lovely book that has different ways to care for yourself both physically and mentally in line with the seasons. There are meditations to do, pamper products to make yourself, yoga positions to try, etc.
Purpose
Podcasts: Quiet The Hive is a podcast where host Jane Galloway mixes solo musings with interviews of people in all different industries. Her linking thread is well-being and often the people in the interviews have a clear vision for their project/mission which is always very inspiring. Most people in it have simple ideas and not many resources but just go for it. Her solo episodes are also very inspiring and give lots of ideas for getting to know yourself better.
Squiggly Careers podcast. Hosts Helen and Sarah send out a weekly podcast about careers that are never really linear.
Spirituality & Meaning
Book: Your Spiritual Almanac by Joey Hulin is an evergreen almanac that can be used every year. Each month has a theme e.g. abundance, rest, and alignment, with affirmations, meditations, journal prompts, ways of paying it forward, yoga poses, fables and creative ideas.
Podcast: The RobCast by Rob Bell. Rob Bell is a spiritual writer/speaker who used to lead a megachurch back in the 90s and early 2000s until he wrote a book called Love Wins which basically said "there is no heaven and hell" or words to that effect, and he was very much ousted by the church. He is a beloved friend of Elizabeth Gilbert and Glennon Doyle (I think) and while he uses the Bible and what he called "Jesus stories" in a lot of his podcasts I do feel he comes at it from a totally different way and isn't really seen as a "Christian" podcast. This podcast is great for everyone but perhaps, especially for people who used to be Christians or who struggle with calling themselves that.
Mental Wellbeing
App: Finch is kind of like a Tamagotchi on your phone, only you're not feeding and watering it with food, etc but you're feeding it by doing little reflections or mini well-being activities.
Website: 750Words. If you've ever attempted morning pages (from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way) this is sort of a digital version of that (750 words is roughly 3 pages)
It's essentially a private place for you to write and store your words. The beauty of doing it on the website as opposed to handwriting is you get a sort of analysis afterward that details the themes you wrote about, and your predominant feelings and ways of writing (eg. introverted/extroverted). You also get badges for keeping streaks or doing certain things like writing early in the morning etc. (love a bit of gamification!)
It has become a daily practice for me in the same way handwriting them used to but I feel I access deeper thoughts and feelings, like lots of "gunk" coming out onto the screen. Perhaps it's because I find I type as fast as I think whereas my handwriting is always a little slower and I often trip over my own thoughts.
I'd recommend it to anyone who struggles with the handwriting element of morning pages but likes the idea of them! (oh and it's totally private too)
Awe & Wonder
Art: Nature Photographer of the Year Exhibition (starts in the Natural History Museum then tours the country). Just looking at how these photographers interpret a category but also the way they can capture nature in such awe-inspiring ways is enough to have you desperate to get outside!
Place: Cambo Gardens in Fife, Scotland is an absolutely stunning garden that has a "wow" moment at every turn! It's a walled garden that's lovingly looked after, which then turns into a woodland walk and before you know it you're on a beach. Oh, and it has a lovely cafe and shop.
Creativity & Culture
Book: Little Stories of Your Life by Laura Pashly is a fabulous book that looks at how we can use social media, storytelling and photography to tell more authentic and creative stories online. It feels like a perfect antidote to the showoffiness of social media (Instagram in particular) and gives a beautiful roadmap of how we could all show up online in a more positive, creative and authentic way.
Podcast: Sentimental Garbage by Caroline O'Donoghue, especially the latest season of this podcast. Caroline and a guest take a cultural phenomenon or work that society deems as "trashy" and looks at why it isn't and why it is in fact worthy of being treated like high culture. Particular highlights lately have been the movies, Chicago and Bring It On, and a discussion about weddings.
Doing Good
App: Seek (also nature really!) Seek by iNaturalist is a citizen science app that also helps you learn more about the flora and fauna around you. You begin by holding your phone on a plant/insect/bird/stone until the app identifies it, you then take a picture and save it to the app which then records where you spotted the thing you've just snapped. This then gives a clearer picture of what exists where and when. There are also monthly challenges like "butterflies" etc
In a similar vein: Joining in with RSPB's great garden birdwatch in January, and The Big Butterfly Count in the spring are great ways of helping scientists understand species numbers and placements, etc. I'm sure there are similar things with The Woodland Trust, The National Trust and there's a bluebell one too - all ways of helping people to track patterns, migrations, growth and decline etc
We’re currently reviewing submissions for April’s Culture Therapy Prescription.
Fill in yours here to be considered:
Ways to Connect Your Mind & Body
Discover how your physical health might be impacting your mental well-being, and/ or vice versa. They are talking to each other. Are you listening?
What comes to mind when you think about your mind-body connection?
What does that currently look like to you?
What would you like it to look like?
Wherever you are in relation to the idea of your mind and body being connected, we’re exploring below some of the impacts this has on our emotional and mental well-being.
We’ll run through more of the science behind it, some ideas that might spark something in you, and offer initiatives you might be drawn to try.
To read:
The “inner pharmacy” available to us when we move
Is Stutz right? Why we start with lifestyle when talking about mental well-being.
It’s not too late to exercise for brain health
How women are breaking fitness taboos
Body trust can support better mental health
Was body-positivity one big fat lie?
To do:
Add-in psychobiotics to help your emotional and mental health
We still love Yoga with Adriene. Have you also tried Kassandra Reinhardt (join her next 30-day yoga challenge), the Ritual challenge with Breathe and Flow, or Movement for Modern Life
To watch:
To discover:
We Are Fit Attitude (UK)
FitFam (Worldwide)
Soul Melanin Retreats (Worldwide)
Tennis for Free (UK)
Left Write Hook (Australia)
Owning Your Menopause (UK)
Sage + Sound (New York)
She Swims (UK)
How will you rethink what the mind and body connection means to you? How might you shift your ideas around physical wellness to incorporate your mental well-being?
Let us know how you navigate this pathway. What’s something you’re discovering about yourself as you go through this?
The Lost Together Book Club | Atlas of the Heart
We’re welcoming in all the emotions with this month’s pick by Brene Brown. Let’s discover together what our emotions are telling us.
““I want this book to be an atlas for all of us, because I believe that with an adventurous heart and the right maps, we can travel anywhere and never fear losing ourselves. Even when we don’t know where we are.””
This is the first month of our Lost Together Book Club where we figure out how to live the books we love — not in an imaginative daydreamy way but in a what-next kind of way. (Read this kick-off post if you missed it).
This book club is for anyone who believes that the right book at the right time can change lives, but also that there are so many books at all times to change our lives in so many ways, it’s all become a bit overwhelming.
In this group, we’ll experiment with the concepts we’ve read, try to apply them to our own lives, and share what we’ve learned. What worked, and what didn’t? What did we discover? What did we let go of? What do we want to take forwards?
So, choose one book. Start reading. And I’ll see you in the Zoom meet-ups to see what you learned, and what you’re curious to try. You just need to register below.
Our Emotions Pick this month is:
Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown
This is the book that inspired my path to train as an Emotions Coach Practitioner. When Brene Brown turns her formidable attention to what it means to live a life full of all the emotions you know there’s something meaningful going on there.
This book will help you learn to recognize and name your emotions. Research is now showing that this leads to ‘greater emotional regulation and psychosocial wellbeing’. But when asked, many of us can name just 3 emotions – happy, sad, and angry.
Brene shows 87 emotions and experiences that include such things as bittersweetness, resignation, amusement, anguish, and wonder.
I added this one so we can broaden together our understanding of emotions, and what to do when we realize they are there, doing all their magical and confounding work.
To join this month’s Lost Together Book Club head to Substack.
The Frome Kindness Festival
How a small town in Somerset is trying to be kinder
“Frome is already full of kindness, but there’s always scope for more – particularly towards the people that we don’t feel close to.
The scientific evidence is that simply watching someone else doing something kind can set a ripple of positive change in motion. As Aesop said: No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.”
Go here if: you would like to be a kinder person, you would like to have more kindness in your life, or you would like to make where you live and work a better place
What is it: Brought to you by The Good Heart, a local non-profit, this week-long festival aims to make Frome, a market town in Somerset, the kindest place on earth
Why you’ll love it: When else do you get to put kindness front and center in your life, and the lives of others? And how often is kindness even the aim that we have for the communities in which we live and work?
What you need to know: Now in its second year, The Frome Kindness Festival takes place from 5th to 11 March, 2023.
Each day of the Festival has a kindness-related theme, and events range from a Caravan of Kindness to a West Country afternoon tea with Radio 4 presenter Claudia Hammond.
There will be a debate about Kindness in Social Media, a film extravaganza, and clothes swaps for children and adults, including a catwalk where eco-conscious shoppers can be photographed in their new outfits.
On the streets, there will be live music, pop-ups and a flash mob featuring a specially commissioned Kindness Dance. The Boyle Cross in the centre of the town will be decorated with a super-sized hat that encourages passers-by to “put your kindness hat on.”
At heart: “the Festival aims to bring together young and old to celebrate, practice and explore the power of kindness to improve mental and physical health, transform relationships and strengthen communities.”
Something to do: Join the Kindness Challenge, where local individuals, groups, businesses and organizations have the opportunity to give back. You’re invited to do something kind, imaginative, special and down-to-earth.
Even if you can’t sign up for the Kindness Challenge, you could bring in acts of kindness wherever you are. See some ideas for how to do that here.
Read The Compassionate Project, a great book about how Frome turned to human kindness to solve the problem of loneliness.
VERVE Festival | A conversation with co-founder Anna Hayward
One of Conde Nast Traveller’s “Woodstocks of Wellness”, we interviewed co-founder Anna Hayward about how doing what you love is at the heart of any well-being practice
“Wellness can be whatever makes you feel better.”
We talk to Anna Hayward, the co-founder of VERVE Festival— a weekend wellness reset located in the heart of the Wiltshire countryside — about why you don’t need to be a wellness warrior to attend and how we can all shape a practice that reflects who we are, rather than who we think we need to be.
Where once there were music festivals, literary festivals, and ideas festivals, it now feels like there’s a movement toward wellness festivals. Why do you think we are now drawn to them?
I think that’s true although there are still only a handful of wellness festivals.
It feeds into our current moment. I know from feedback how much people appreciate just having a real me-day and not everyone these days wants to go out to a festival and drink till 4 am. We’re all starting to care a bit more about our health and well-being.
We celebrate healthy hedonism; we still have a bar, we still have cocktails, and we’ve got DJs in the evening, but it’s more of a balance.
Do you think the perception of wellness has shifted? We’re noticing how wellness has become something of an unachievable goal, ironically given its intention.
I feel like the version of wellness that you offer is more accessible; that it’s ok to be messy about it (wellness doesn’t have to be this pristine thing anymore – it’s ok to fit it in when your kids are crawling on you).
I think so too. I think the idea of wellness is for everybody and it’s for all shapes and sizes and ages and it doesn’t matter. We get all kinds of people at VERVE Festival – we had a man in his seventies and older ladies with grey hair and bigger girls and skinny girls and everything in between and that’s what it should be. It shouldn’t have ego; it shouldn’t be about anything other than just trying to be better to yourself.
Wellness is different for everyone. It can just be about having a big burger and a glass of wine (that’s what makes me happy). That’s just as good for you, isn’t it? Wellness can be whatever makes you feel better.
What do you hope people experience with the festival?
It’s different for everybody. People were coming up to me at the end of the last festival – complete strangers – hugging me and saying what an amazing time they’d had. Many people said: “I can’t believe I’ve never done this before. I’m going to go home and carry on with it.” And quite a lot of people said they were going to make changes. They’d listened to a talk, or something had happened during the day, and it was going to be a little catalyst for change in their lives.
The timetable allows people to do their own thing and most things are free once you are at the festival, so people just drift around and everyone has their own way of approaching the day.
We enable people to try some things that are different, that they may never have thought of doing in a million years. While some people literally want a day away from their children, or to sit with their friends and drink cocktails and listen to some music. That’s great too.
There’s been a huge surge of interest in nature since you started, but you built that in from the beginning.
Yes, the whole idea is health, wellness, and nature. We live in an area of natural beauty, a dark skies reserve, and the farm we hosted on the first year was so beautiful. We realized that’s our Unique Selling Point. There are other wellness festivals, but no one has got this natural space, this greenery and this beauty quite frankly. We’ve done star gazing, we once got the AONB to come along with their astronomers, we had runs along the farm, we offered forest bathing, and everything was just to celebrate being outside and being in nature.
Even a few years ago, when we held our first festival, no one really talked about nature but obviously, with the pandemic — when people were going out walking and that’s the only thing they could do in a way — people realized how important it is to their lives.
What advice do you have for someone starting a wellness practice wherever they are?
Do what makes you happy. I’m lucky I’m a glass-half-full person, but my advice would be don’t force yourself to do something if you are not going to enjoy it because whatever you do it’s got to make you happy.
Don’t do something because you think you should or someone else is doing it. Do something that is true to you. Which is what we’re doing with Verve.
We’re excited be participating in VERVE Festival this year. Find out more here.
Beyond Happy: Finding Your Way To Better Emotional Well-Being at VERVE Festival
We’re bringing emotions coaching to one of our favourite wellness festivals.
“Language shows us that naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.”
How many emotions can you name? Most people can name just three; some version of mad, glad or sad. But recent research indicates that having a wider emotional vocabulary can help people not just better express what they are feeling but cope better with everyday experiences, and live happier and healthier lives. When Brene Brown turns her formidable attention to what it means to live a life full of all the emotions you know there’s something meaningful going on there.
Just knowing the words can help better regulate our emotions and respond more helpfully in all of life’s situations. Is what you’re feeling sorrow or vulnerability? Is it anger or frustration? Is it happiness or pride? How we name something shapes our experience of it. Having access to a greater breadth of emotions means we’re able to better understand what those emotions are asking of us, and what they are pointing to, or guarding against.
I’m thrilled to be joining one of my favourite wellbeing festivals this year by offering coaching around emotions.
In my 1:1 sessions at VERVE Festival this September, I’ll start to explore your emotions. We’ll figure out which emotions you welcome and which ones you deny, which ones you think of as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and which ones have something to tell you (and whether you’re ready to listen to them).
Over the 30-40 minutes of your session, we’ll get you to a place of being more familiar with all your emotions, build the confidence to explore what to do with them when they inevitably show up, and learn how they can help you find your way to what matters most in your life.
Curious about what better emotional wellbeing would look like to you? Find me near the VERVE Stage and book a session here (you’ll need to have your tickets for the Verve Festival to book a session as this is available to Verve attendees only). The cost is £25.
These sessions can help:
If you’re stuck in an emotion – like fear, stress, overwhelm, anxiety – and need to find a way through them to create more space for the things you want in your life
If you’re struggling with even the idea of bringing joy, love and happiness into your life, and want to learn how to welcome these in so you can access all they could bring
If you have an emotional blocker on something and it’s getting in your way, and you want to learn how to let go of it/ release that to get to a better place
If you are feeling lost, and need help finding your way again
If you’re feeling all the feelings – you are unsettled and unsure – and would like to get to a place of calm, peace and equilibrium
If you’re feeling none of the feelings – just numb and disconnected – and want to figure out what emotions could offer you and the significant role they could play in your life
If you’ve looked at life in all the ways, except this one, and you’re curious to learn how transformational emotions coaching can be.
Excited, optimistic, or even hopeful about what this might do for you? Join me in getting curious about your emotional life.
For more information, you can email me at claire@ifloststarthere.com or book your emotions coaching session at VERVE Festival here.
If you’re not able to get to VERVE Festival this year and you’re still interested in Emotions Coaching, don’t worry, we can still work together. Book a quick call out to see how I can support you to find your way to better emotional wellbeing in your life.
“You are what you feel, as long as you can describe it.”
The Lost Together Book Club | The Wellbeing Pick
Possibly what happens when you smoosh together Culture Therapy, a Book Club and Coaching.
““you have to get to work being your own coach instead of your own worst critic”
”
Have you ever read a non-fiction book and had an idea spark, but then die again because hours passed and you forgot it? Have you ever wanted to do the exercises, answer the questions, and take the wisdom offered in the latest bestseller, but then left that space behind when you closed its pages?
Or have you learned some new way to well-being only to be confused about how that sits with that other piece of advice you liked that said something equally as valid, but opposite? Have you felt just a little like you were flailing with all the things to do that feel contradictory rather than complimentary, or all-encompassing rather than life-enhancing?
Or. Or, have you ever felt alone with your emotions, your thoughts, and your life and you thought maybe others felt like this too? You were sneakily suspicious that they did. (Just think about all those readers of The New York Times or Sunday Times bestsellers which must mean we’re all thinking about this too?) You believe that other people have felt this way, experienced this as well, and felt just as lost. You just didn’t know where to find them.
All of this is a preamble for telling you why I’m starting a book club and why I’m doing it differently. At its heart is the question: what if we could shift the self in self-help to a kind of collective support? Could we learn all the things together, bring a sense of acceptance and curiosity back into our days, and integrate just the bits of science that resonate into our lives?
So this is how it’ll work:
I’ll take the Culture Therapy piece from If Lost. I’ll cover mostly books, but I may also bring in podcasts, TV series, magazines — really anything that can help navigate life and all that life now contains.
I’ll add in a coaching framework — taking what we’re reading and exploring and seeing how, and whether, to integrate it into our actual lives.
And we’ll add in the familiarity and community that comes with being part of a book club. Think slightly awkward, but kind of connecting, moments together.
At the beginning of each month, I’ll announce the selections: a mix of books you might already have on your shelves with new releases you’ve been looking forward to reading.
Mid-month, I’ll send some ideas/questions/exercises that stood out for me and invite you to practice them together.
And — here’s the fun bit — I’ll organize a get-together on Zoom focusing on each book, coaching around what came up for you, and seeing where the book took you.
For this kick-off month, the Wellbeing Pick is:
This book is designed as the complete toolkit – it’s filled with the lessons we could learn through years of therapy, but that should really be available to all of us before we even sit on that couch.
What’s the baseline for our emotional and mental well-being?
What are the foundational approaches to better navigate our everyday lives?
How can we build a practice when we feel good that serves us when we’re feeling bad?
We added this because it’s a book to live through and by, with concepts to integrate and exercises to complete.
We’re curious about what happens when books go beyond reading, and this one’s a case in point: how might we actively nurture our good mental health when we spend time with it?
To join this month’s Lost Together Book Club head to Substack.
Rediscover yourself: How identifying values can guide your life
Find your way to better emotional well-being by connecting with your values
““Your personal identity comes from your values.””
Values are decision-making magic. When you know what yours are, you can better navigate your life.
They are things like: Creativity. Freedom. Purpose. Kindness. Curiosity. Love.
We once heard the idea that values are something that you can't put in a wheelbarrow — like integrity, wonder and creativity — but not like money, which could be represented by words such as safety, security, status, and belonging instead.
Indicators of meaning, of what matters to you, values are powerful when we connect with them. Values point the way to how you want to live your life, what you’d like it to contain, and how you want to spend your time. Even on what and with whom.
When your values are being met you are more fulfilled and happier. But often in life when you are not achieving something that matters to you this can be because it conflicts with your values. Feelings of disconnection, emptiness, frustration, anger, or just the sense that something isn't quite right, suggest that those values you need do not yet have a place in your life.
But here’s the thing: although our values are deeply important and are threaded through our lives, often they can be maddeningly unconscious to us.
Discovering your values can be a one-off exercise (or a session with a coach like me) so that you can get to the small handful of values you want to live by (Brene Brown swears by having just 2).
So the first step is identifying them.
Something to Try
Here are a handful of words. Choose any that spark something in you:
Adventure Community Fairness Health Kindness Play
Authenticity Courage Friendship Honesty Laughter Respect
Beauty Empathy Growth Innovation Love Tranquility
What resonates? What’s missing?
Book a Values Assessment
Want to explore more? Book a 1:1 online coaching session to capture what your values might be, and learn how discovering them can help you find your way.
““Nobody has passion and perseverance unless what they do aligns with their values.” ”
Ways to Give Back
How can you access the well-being benefits of giving back?
You might already be acquainted with the feeling that you get when you’ve helped someone, done right by the planet, and contributed to your community. Or you might never look up from your life to realize there are ways that you could participate in the world around you that might help others as well as yourself.
Being of service, living a values-driven life, and working to end systemic inequalities might sound like things other people do, or these could be the core of your very being right now.
Wherever you are in relation to the idea of giving back, here we’ll be discovering more of the science behind it and its impact on our well-being, some ideas that might spark something in you and initiatives you might be drawn to support, as well as some questions to ask yourself to get started.
To ask:
How can you see yourself as part of the bigger picture – planet, society, neighborhood? This might be the corrective you need to work on bettering something in our world – environment, homelessness, food waste —, or your answer could help you deepen a life already dedicated to the practice of doing good.
Wherever you are on this, know that even small gestures are meaningful and that there are no comparisons to be had (you do not need to be Greta Thurnberg, Jameela Jamil, or Meghan Markle to be of value to our worlds). There is space for all of our actions, however big or small.
To read:
How to motivate people to do more good (hint: make observable, remove excuses)
How to be a Changemaker wherever you are and at whatever stage in life
To Do:
Become a new kind of philanthropist / participate in a Giving Circle
Lend your eyes, use your sight to help someone who is blind or has low vision
Support FoodCycle, working to end food poverty, loneliness and food waste through community dinners
Support (or start) an Honesty Box
Join a Good Gymn
Become a Book Fairy
To Discover:
One Love Community Fridge: working to end food insecurity and the stigma of hunger in Brooklyn (US)
Farming Hope: a San Francisco-based garden-to-table job training non-profit (US)
The London Community Kitchen: working towards zero-waste and zero-hunger in London (UK)
World Central Kitchen: providing meals in humanitarian, climate and community crises (worldwide)
The Bridge: a new kind of food market fighting hunger in Wigan (UK)
Change Please Foundation: changing the world one cup of coffee at a time (UK)
Give Your Best: providing clothes for refugees (UK)
How will you rethink what giving back means to you? How might the idea of the collective shift your own approach to mental well-being? What’s something you believe in, where you could be of service?
Let us know how you navigate this pathway. What’s something you’re discovering about yourself?
The Wave
Discover a wave garden focused on bringing the benefits of blue spaces to everyone.
With The Wave, founder Nick Hounsfield has created a slice of California on the outskirts of Bristol, but this is no ordinary surfing destination. Beyond the blue waters, burrito trucks, and clubhouse, Nick and his team are rethinking issues of social health, mental well-being, and our mind-body connection.
Where do you want to begin?
Curious about coaching? Discover what it really is and how it might help you navigate your everyday life.
Before I became certified as a coach I had some ideas about what this profession was — big personalities, large audiences, lots of ‘motivational speaking’ — so much so that I hesitated to train for a very long time. Finding coaches who were nothing like this — who listened, created a safe space, and challenged yes, but supported also — led me to rethink some of my biases.
You may also have some thoughts about who coaches are and what they (or rather we now) do, so I thought I’d try and dispel some of your own myths.
Or maybe you haven’t come across this helping profession — you’re more familiar with its sister practitioners counseling, therapy, or mentoring. Maybe you are curious to just know more. Hopefully, this helps you gain an inkling of what it is and if you would benefit from coaching,
So what is coaching?
The ICF (the prestigious international accrediting body) defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”
But what I love about coaching is that we (the coach and the client) co-create the experience together. See sessions as a structured conversation, where the coach walks by your side.
Coaching is client-driven – you set the focus of the session – and the coach partners with you to identify what you want to explore, facilitate new insight and learning, and find a way to create what you need in your life.
And it’s non-directional – which means that the coach won’t tell you what to do – but will hold the space for you to think and discover, clarify and align with what you want to achieve in your life. The coach’s role is to encourage reflection and self-discovery, help you reach strategies and solutions for your life, and to hold you accountable where you need this.
Sessions can be exploratory, giving space for you to think and reflect (maybe for the first time), and enabling you to take your thoughts in new directions.
Or sessions might be more goal focused, formulating the steps to take you from where you are to where you want to be while figuring out the resources, support, and skills you need to get you there.
You may end a session with something to work on or something to process, or a shift in how to show up in your world and how you think about it.
And what coaching isn’t.
This is key: It’s not consulting, therapy, counseling, or mentoring. In coaching sessions you can work in depth – you may touch on limiting beliefs, learning from earlier experiences, and even relational dynamics – but you’ll do this in a forward-focused way and in relation to a goal or a desired change.
If during sessions, you or your coach feel that you are better served by someone else (like a trauma-informed coach or a psychotherapist), or a resource outside of the coaching practice, these may be suggested to you.
How do I work?
In my training, I learned how to coach the whole person and work holistically across different coaching approaches and modalities, including Positive Psychology, Transactional Analysis, and Neuroscience, which help to understand what it means to be a person in this world, and how we can possibly do life with all that life can contain. As a Trainee Emotions Coach Practitioner, I'm learning how to help clients make contact with the full range of their emotions and use this awareness to bring insights and shifts to their lives.
In our sessions together, clients can be assured of a safe space, thoughtful inquiry, and openness to what they would like to bring. My approach is always shaped by courage and compassion (and challenge framed within both if needed).
5 expansive questions to ask yourself:
In coaching sessions, you’ll be asked some situationally-appropriate questions to bring more awareness into your life, like these:
Where are you now in your life?
Where would you like to be?
What sits in the gap between the two?
Where do you want the first steps to take you?
What’s most meaningful to you in your life? Is this showing up in ways you like?
Grab a pen and paper and take a moment to answer these. Is anything coming up for you? Any new learning?
If you had the opportunity to be coached, how would you like to use it?
If you’re interested in knowing more, finding out how coaching can specifically help you, and curious about how to move forwards in your life, let’s chat (sounds scary but really it’s just a conversation to get to know each other and find out how we can best work together). Or check out some options for 1:1 coaching here.
Dry January and The Path to Self-Acceptance
What I’ve found, that I am not sure would be obvious in a month of sobriety, is that the impact of this process, is exponential, that life can become not only tolerable, but legitimately joyful, and it just keeps getting better.
Five years ago I would have thought the idea of Dry January was insane. (Why torture yourself for a month when life itself could be torturous year-round???)
Now, at four-and-a-half-years sober, I feel a little thrill at the thought of Dry January; at the thought that maybe some collectively repressed hope has resurfaced, the thought that someone else might find themselves down a path with the power to shift their life in beautiful and unexpected ways. (This, I would imagine, must be how Mormon missionaries feel when they knock and you open the door.)
“What I’ve found, that I am not sure would be obvious in a month of sobriety, is that the impact of this process, is exponential, that life can become not only tolerable, but legitimately joyful - and it just keeps getting better.”
For me, sobriety was a process of learning to tolerate the discomfort of existence (of being me) then shifting my life (and myself) until it all felt a bit more tolerable. I was fortunate to already be in therapy at this time; to have already begun examining all the undiagnosed mental health conditions I’d amassed and subsequently mistaken as whimsical quirks and unique eccentricities.
(It should be noted here, that sober curiosity and the need for recovery are not one and the same. For anyone struggling to get sober and in need of medical intervention, please consult your doctors, therapists, trusted support system. Bryony Gordon wrote a great article for anyone who is in that boat and struggling to stay afloat. It might be a great place to start.)
What I’ve found, that I am not sure would be obvious in a month of sobriety, is that the impact of this process, is exponential, that life can become not only tolerable, but legitimately joyful, and it just keeps getting better.
Of course I’d found joy prior to sobriety. I had a built a life, a family, had great friends, was doing interesting work. I’d succeeded in so many of the ways we are taught to strive for, but the truth was, beneath the surface, I was still struggling. At some point, I knew there was more for me (more to sift through, more to feel, more to experience) and the dulling haze of alcohol simply wouldn’t allow me to arrive there.
Congrats on Your Sobriety postcard from Okay Yeah Design and Sans Bar
Few other choices have catapulted me towards well-being so forcefully as sobriety. And, like so many things that are good for us, few other choices have made me so uncomfortable. I will never forget the first days and weeks of sobriety, the first social gatherings and family get togethers, the first girls nights. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, my feet, my face, my words, the pulsing dread coursing through my veins. It wasn’t until I’d removed it, that I realized how much I’d depended on alcohol to manage my anxiety. There were many moments in early sobriety where I felt raw and exposed and absolutely terrified. The very facade I’d created around myself (the fun and funny and care-free one) was forced to crumble. This deconstruction, I realize now, was pivotal.
By removing alcohol, I was able to meet myself (like, my actual self…the one I spent so much time running from) and in doing so, granted myself the opportunity to grapple with all the nuance and complexity that comes along with being human.
Seeing ourselves, as we are, without any filter, can be an overwhelming experience. My guess is, for any of you who are exploring Dry January, there will be a moment where you’re forced to meet yourself, maybe for the first time in a long time. The decision to maintain your sobriety after this point, is the decision to welcome the challenge of accepting the person you’ve met (with all of their flaws and shortcomings). I am not sure how scientific this is, but I think many people who have been sober for a long time will agree: sobriety and self-acceptance go hand in hand. And while one can exist without the other, they really do pair well together.
There are so many ways we hide ourselves away, make ourselves small, abandon ourselves. I think the reason I feel so hopeful about movements like Dry January is that I see it as an opportunity to turn all of that around. Sure maybe this won’t be your last attempt at getting sober, maybe it will be the first of many, but that doesn’t mean the work you do this month won’t be a powerful start towards something more impactful in your life. If we can take this time to shift our perspective a bit, I think we can welcome it as an opportunity to show up for ourselves in a totally new way. Dry January really is less about abstaining from alcohol and more about welcoming everything that comes with the clarity of sobriety, including the opportunity to rediscover ourselves.
Whether this journey lasts for 31 days, or 90, or 365, I hope you’re able to be gentle with yourself as you navigate it, because it really is about so much more than avoiding alcohol.
And if, in the process of heading down this new path, you get the chance to meet some forgotten version of yourself, I hope you’re able to do so with the same kindness you reserve for the people you love the most in this world. Falling back into yourself can be hard. You deserve a gentle landing.
If you are participating in Dry January and need some solidarity and entertainment, here are a few fun lists to help pull you through the month. Please take them lightly and feel free to share them with any of your friends who might be participating in Dry January along with you! For more resources and ridiculousness, you can follow me at The Sober Illustrator on instagram!
Four Phases of Sobriety*
Phase 1: Look at me go!
Phase 2: Oh fuck, there are some feelings here.
Phase 3: Oh that part is forever? Right. Ok, let me figure out how to deal with that.
Phase 4: Basically just phases 1-3 on repeat forever.
*probably not science
Tips For Thriving in Early Sobriety
DISCOVER WAYS TO HAVE FUN AT HOME
(Read: eat all the sugar, watch all the shows)
FIND SOBER FRIENDS
(On the internet, obviously — I would never ask you to leave the house)
CUDDLE WITH A SMALL CREATURE
(Dog/cat/lizard/tamed squirrel…doesn’t matter)
READ BOOKS ABOUT SOBRIETY
(Or just buy them then tell other people you’ve read them)
SCHEDULE TIME TO CRY
(*tentatively penciling in Friday at 5pm to Sunday at 9pm*)
MOVE YOUR BODY
(But not like super fast or anything, just kind of stroll around…vibing)
REDISCOVER A FORGOTTEN HOBBY
(It’s ok if you’re bad at it, so long as your hands are busy)
WRITE DOWN 5 THINGS YOU LOVE ABOUT YOURSELF
(Tape this to your mirror, staple it to your face, tattoo it on your eyelids — DO NOT FORGET)
Sober People to Follow (on Instagram)
Shitty Life Advice
How a bespectacled Sam Lamott plans to resolve life’s most complicated issues.
“Have you ever considered that maybe God hates you?”
“You should try degenerate gambling, or fucking strangers!”
“What you need to do is gather all the pubic hair you can find and cover every surface of the bathroom with it.”
Is this a collection of quotes from famous drunk uncles, or random bits of wisdom spewed forth by a defunct AI text generator? No friends. These are all actual words spoken by writer, artist and How To Human podcast founder, Sam Lamott…and, if I’m being honest, I think he might be on to something.
Ok, now, for some context.
Sam Lamott, as himself, probably doesn’t think God hates you, and he likely doesn’t condone the random strewing of pubic hair in shared spaces (though I can’t be sure here). He is, however, a huge fan of giving Shitty Life Advice. So much so, that he’s created an entire show about it.
A few years ago Sam took to Instagram (a sacred space for social connection and the dispensing of sound wellness advice) urging his followers to submit question about their life’s greatest issues, which he would then attempt to solve in 15 seconds. The catch? He’d would be taking on an entirely new persona and providing people with the worst. advice. imaginable.
For many people, this venture might have ended in chaos, but, somehow (miraculously) Sam had struck a chord.
In his everyday life, Sam is a kind, generous and intelligent human, well-versed in the nuances and complexities of life. As described in his bio, Sam is “a single dad, college drop-out, ex-meth head who came out of a ten-year bender at the age of 22 with severe clinical depression, a two-year-old, and zero life skills. Simply put, there is no one more genuinely curious about how to be a human being.”
Over the last decade, Sam has managed to get the hang of it. Not only is he still human-ing, but some may argue that he’s done so to great success. On his podcasts, Sam has sat down with some of the greatest thought leaders of our time (everyone from Brene Brown to Byron Katie, Gay Hendricks to Gloria Allred, Reggie Watts to Marianne Williamson) in an attempt to glean some understanding of how to human. More recently, Sam has shifted towards bringing on “ordinary" people who inspire him; people who enrich their communities, find joy and meaning in the everyday, and share their creativity with the world.
Regardless of who he’s talking to, Sam has always managed to access people at a very human level.
“For whatever reason, people just want to tell me their secrets,” he once told me. The reason of course, is that people feel safe in his presence, like nothing they can say or do will render them “bad,” or damaged, or unworthy of love. (And, at our core, isn’t that really the basis for all of our insecurities?) When giving Shitty Life Advice, Sam manages to create this same secure container, giving viewers the sense that, even behind the glasses of his smug alter-ego (who I just realized should have some sort of devious name) there is a person there who gets it, and really does want them to succeed.
Last week, I was able to sit with Sam in his Marin County studio as he launched Shitty Life Advice (2.0). Here, 15 second instagram stories would move aside to make room for an hour-long live-streamed show, complete with live callers, exceedingly shitty advice, and a panel of highly-trained therapists to make sure Sam didn’t ruin anyone’s life. Imagine if Dr. Drew’s Loveline and Glennon Doyle’s “We Can Do Hard Things” Podcast had a baby. (And then someone dropped that baby.)
Opening with an “undergrounding” meditation, viewers were welcomed to the show and instructed to move systematically through their bodies, cursing every inch of it, all the way from their stupid hearts, (“which would probably be the thing that kills you”) to their stupid brains (“the same one responsible for every mistake you’ve ever made”).
Words cannot describe how hilarious and comforting this meditation was for me. I’ve been struggling to pinpoint it ever since, and the only thing I can land on is that while I, like many, have subjected my body to a fair amount of criticism and berating, it had never felt ridiculous or funny until this moment. Somehow, this exercise had taken the charge out of the worst of what I say to myself. Like hating yourself in this way surely must be a joke.
For me, this same perplexed feeling surrounds the whole concept of Shitty Life Advice. After all, aren’t we already good at being shitty to ourselves? Do we really need a show to give us more ideas about how to be shitty to ourselves?? If I wanted bad advice couldn’t I just ask my most unhinged friend or some guy at the gas station (like I normally do)?
While Shitty Life Advice appears to be the antithesis of the wellness movement, if we look closer, I think we’ll see that it may actually be the exact complement that the movement needs. In a world saturated with wellness resources (books / podcasts / planners) there is something incredibly refreshing that comes with receiving absolutely horrific advice, and, I’d argue, that it may help us to find clarity even more quickly, and profoundly, than if we’d been given “good” advice in the first place.
Because the truth is, at this point, most of us “know” what to do. Right?
Like, we have the basics down:
Have the hard conversations.
Feel the feelings.
Uphold the boundaries.
Extend grace (but, like, not too much)
Practice gratitude.
Go outside.
Breathe deeply.
Something to this effect?
It isn’t that these tips and tricks are new. It’s just that they’re not always easy to execute. Because just as strong as our knowledge of ourselves and what is in our best interest, is our absolutely incredible ability to fuck it all up. We postpone discomfort, ignore intuition, give in to our egos, all in an attempt to keep our lives (momentarily) harmonious, to harvest every bit of serotonin we can conjure, not realizing that in doing so, we are just delaying the inevitable, and sabotaging ourselves in the process.
That’s because knowing how to human and actively humaning are not one and the same. And while one of the secrets to life is probably in understanding and accepting this fact, this understanding does not necessarily lead to action.
Shitty Life Advice is genius to me because in it, Sam is essentially saying the worst of what we’re all thinking. And something about exposing the truth of our deepest fears, desires, tendencies, frees us from that weight, gives it all some levity, and allows us to see our issues through a whole new lens.
When given advice, it’s difficult not be defensive, because there is some perception that maybe we are clueless or helpless or inept. With Shitty Life Advice, we’re immediately off the defensive because we know the advice we’ll be getting is so outlandish that anything we do/think/believe, short of that, actually seems pretty acceptable. It’s also strangely comforting to hear what someone else’s brain can whip up as a worst-case-scenario response to a difficult problem. Getting Shitty Life Advice allows us to come to the “correct” conclusions on our own (a luxury we don’t often afford ourselves).
And the truth is, even that “good advice” can go bad.
Practice gratitude? Oh you mean list all the wonderful things in my life that will almost definitely fall away from me at some point because I probably never deserved them in the first place. Great.
Go outside? To the place where the bears and murderers live? Yeah. No thank you.
Feel the feelings? Fine. I will do nothing else for 8 months. *Dies*
Because here is the thing: we can’t just make blanket statements and TELL people what to do. Every scenario we are faced with is too complex. There are hardly ever “right” answers (though after hearing Sam’s responses it is clear there are many wrong answers) just endless opportunities to shift our lives and shape ourselves more fully into the people we want to be.
And, really, maybe what we need is a little less of an emphasis on what we “should” be doing in these scenarios, and a little of an emphasis on humility and humor. Life is, after all, laughably disastrous at times. And who knows, maybe dabbling in gambling and fucking strangers is exactly the shake-up we need! (Disclaimer: probably not.)
If you’re interested in getting some Shitty Life Advice, you can submit your questions for this weeks episode in Sam’s Instagram bio. And if you’d just like to revel in the misfortune of others and take part in a series of unsettling exercises, you can catch Shitty Life Advice live on YouTube every Tuesday at noon!
Finding Myself Lost
Why being lost is sometimes the thing that points the way.
Let me tell you a story.
There’s a very personal “why” for me in co-founding with Amanda If Lost, Start Here: While working at some of the most renowned spaces for contemporary art in the world, my mum’s mind began to slip away, slowly at first, then completely. She struggles now to manage everyday tasks and has a diagnosis somewhere around Dissociative Identity Disorder, the parts of herself fragmented, doctors still confused about how to treat her.
I have seen myself in my mum’s situation, enough to shift my life’s focus. I have struggled with panic attacks, general anxiety disorder, and depression, which in London meant not being able to get on the tube some days, and in San Francisco not being able to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. I’ve been to therapists and energy healers, attended workshops, and engaged in thought work, becoming an active seeker of strategies that work for me, both in the hope of managing my own mind and preventing the same slide as my mum’s. I think part of me believed I was helping her too - if I could just find the right thing, I could save her (and yes, I’ve had years of learning on that one).
That question of how we function as people, put front and center in my life, meant that the pristine environment of conceptually oriented art exhibitions in which I worked didn’t connect with my life anymore. So I worked on swapping gallery walls for something more intimate, two chairs and slightly worse decor.
A year at CCPE completing a foundational course in Counseling & Psychotherapy taught me many things:: that ideas can shape our understanding of who people are and why they do what they do, that Carl Rogers was as cool as Foucault, that I shouldn’t try to fix my role-playing clients (more rescuing).
But most importantly for this project, I also learned that it wasn’t about just the role for me, the job of a therapist, it was about the room, the therapist’s office, the safe container. That interest would lead to seeking out the very spaces that we curate in our guide.
If Lost, Start Here began to percolate when I realized that people were starting to build brick-and-mortar places and starting initiatives that went beyond therapy (though there are now some great contemporary reframes on that) around things like community and emotional intelligence, anxiety and depression, and even the end of relationships and the end of life. They were starting to make places that hold our mental well-being in ways that the museums that I had worked in held contemporary art and the way that a therapist could hold a room.
I also realized that there was nowhere to go to find all those different things. There were, and are, incredible platforms for great interior design, or travel off the beaten path, or well-being trends, but there is nowhere to think about all the different places in the world that are now being kind to our minds and making for better lives. I realised that we needed a guide to this new sector, one that combines well-being with culture, and includes curiosity, travel, lifestyle, place-making and socially engaged art, independent cafes, and mom-and-pop stores — all approaches directed at making our lives better, and easier, and more thoughtful.
If Lost, Start Here brings together the open inquiry I learned in my years in curatorial practice – creating narratives out of disparate subjects and working across different fields of interest — and the search for spaces that act therapeutically and offer different possibilities in which to contain and explore our lives. This project is founded on the belief that the spaces that we make in the world for ourselves matter in who we are and who we are able to become.
My hope for If Lost, Start Here is that it becomes the platform for finding the therapeutic, bringing together the best places that support us as actual people in our worlds. Here we bring together that practical search for something else, for whatever it is that fills the gap in all our lives, for the thing that we need most and are still seeking. As we build this guide, hopefully you’ll find more of what your looking for to help you navigate your days.
How you can help
Help us create a guide to all the places that can help our mental, emotional and physical well-being (they are all interconnected) and you’ll be helping others find more of what they need in their lives as well.
Twenty-Five Ways to Find Yourself In the Natural World
As the seasons start to change, this week we're looking at ways to bring the great outdoors into our everyday lives.
As the seasons start to change, this week we're looking at ways to bring the great outdoors into our everyday lives.
Here are some ways you might seek out nature this week. What would you like to try? Where would you like to go? What would you like to commit to?
Take action with a Climate Optimist (Anywhere)
#FindthatLizard (Los Angeles)
Discover the UK’s only surviving Georgian Lido at Cleveland Pools (Bath)
Spend time with an emotional support squid (Anywhere)
Seek out Allotme (Pair with this guide to allotments for beginners) (UK)
Explore a former Victorian Viaduct that has been transformed into a Public Park (Manchester)
Visit an actual Schleep Sanctuary (think glamping with real sheep to count before bedtime) (UK)
Support a seed library (US)
Help make surfing accessible to everyone (Cornwall)
Nurture your digital health plants: Play Kinder World (Anywhere)
Try a new walking App like GoJauntly or FreeTree or Trigbagging (Anywhere)
Take The High Road (Massachusetts)
Join a Garden Club (Anywhere)
Discover the English Fenlands, for Annie Proulx a story of a ‘tearing apart’ (To be experienced in the UK, to be read anywhere)
Support Planting Justice (Oakland)
Garden with Heidegger (Anywhere)
Improve your emotional and physical health with Hiking for Health (UK)
Escape to an airstream in Joshua Tree (California)
Discover Diversity Outdoors (featuring London Caribbean Trekkers, Muslim Hikers, Peaks of Colour, Black Girls Hike & The Wonderlust Women)
Learn why we should all be chasing acorns (Anywhere)
Make a bucket list of places to find nature anew: On ours (Anywhere, & Norway)
Stay in a Plant-friendly hotel (Kentucky)
Pursue Ecohappiness (Anywhere)
Discover how to rewild your organization (see Ted Talk below)
And even looking at nature helps, so shop our new prints! (US only right now)
How will you find your way back to (or even stay in) the natural world this week?
Let us know what you discover, what works for you, and what doesn’t.
You may have local finds that help you connect with nature’s remedy. Tell us about those too so we can fold them into future lists and help everyone benefit from a connection with our green and blue spaces.
“The more people I meet, the more individuals I come across who are crying out for a connection with the natural world. Today, society is in many ways dangerously disconnected – people are separate from both each other and their surroundings. Mental health problems and stress are on the rise for children and adults. We need nature; we are part of it and the sooner we embrace the natural elements in our lives, the sooner balance will be restored in our lives.”
Okay Humans
With Okay Humans, founder and LMFT Christy Desai is modernizing and destigmatizing therapy to help more people feel better, stronger, and more alive.
We are constantly on the lookout for modern therapy that holds great design with great practice. We’ve sat in one too many uncomfortable waiting rooms, following frustrating booking systems, that came after equally as frustrating searches for someone we actually wanted to work with.
When we discovered LA’s Okay Humans, we knew we’d found a way of offering therapy that made sense to us, and how we live our modern lives. Founder (and LMFT therapist herself) Christy Desai tells us how she has designed a new client experience and environment around therapeutic practice. (We now just need one on every High Street and in every neighborhood).
Tell us about Okay Humans:
Okay Humans is a modern therapy practice from the founders of Drybar. We have a group of qualified and diverse therapists with degrees from places like Pepperdine, USC, Smith College, and more.
We’re all about making it easier to get to therapy. Before you even visit Okay Humans, we've simplified the process for you. Finding your therapist, booking your session, and filling out "paperwork" is all done at your fingertips through our industry-leading app or on okayhumans.com.
It was important to us that Okay Humans be on a visible street so we opened our flagship location in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles on 11710 San Vicente Blvd.
When you arrive at our brick-and-mortar location, you'll notice we've designed a space that makes you start to feel okay the minute you walk through the door – beautiful architecture, a wellness shop, mentali-tea bar, and sound diminishing therapy suites to ensure a feel-good experience from start to finish. We also built an industry-leading app that makes scheduling, booking, and paying a seamless experience.
What inspired you to start this space and app?
After unsuccessfully trying to outrun the stress of life, I finally looked for a therapist in hopes of catching my breath. What started as “3-5 sessions” turned into years of deep inner work. I learned how to be okay with conflict, curveballs, and growth, just to name a few things. My own experience turned into a personal mission to help other people feel better, stronger, and more alive so I went back to school to get my master’s in clinical psychology and become a licensed marriage and family therapist.
From my experience on both sides of the couch, I realized how antiquated and prohibitive the entire experience around therapy was. I knew that changes needed to be made to remove the barriers of entry so therapy could be more readily available and accessible.
Prior to becoming an LMFT, I was the franchise owner of a kids’ indoor playspace where I learned the ins and outs of building and operating a small business. Coupling these two experiences together, the idea of Okay Humans was born.
What do you offer?
We have a brick-and-mortar location where we see teens, adults, and couples for in-person therapy sessions and have a virtual option available for California residents.
To take even more of the headache out of the experience, we’re now in-network with Aetna & Cigna to help guests save up to 100% of their session costs. Even if guests aren’t covered by our in-network partners, we’ll submit insurance claims on their behalf so they can still save up to 80% on session costs, without the hassle.
What makes Okay Humans different?
We know therapy works. It changes lives and helps people thrive. The magic that happens between you and your therapist in session and the relationship you build together is key in accomplishing that. Our therapists at Okay Humans will provide a framework and a safe space, but there is no right or wrong way for the session to go - the important part is showing up. We make it easier for people to do that, and that’s what I’m most proud of.
With insurance benefits, an app-based booking and payment platform, qualified therapists, and a beautiful, safe space - it's the best way to prioritize your emotional wellbeing.
Our long-term goal is to continue modernizing and destigmatizing therapy so more and more people can reap the benefits. We plan to expand across the country to reach even more people and make going to therapy feel okay in every way.
What keeps you motivated?
The impact that we’re making on people’s lives each and every day is what keeps me excited about building Okay Humans. Building a business is certainly not easy but if you can wake up every morning and know that you’re making a meaningful difference in the world, then it’s worth it. You don’t need to be the smartest, loudest, or most educated person in the room to build a successful business. But you do need to believe wholeheartedly in what you’re doing. If you’re doing something you love and something you’re passionate about, the triumphs supersede the trials.
Next (or first) steps?
To book an appointment, download the Okay Humans iphone app or go to okayhumans.com. To stay in the loop and access mental wellness tips, follow @okayhumans on social media.
