Welcome, friend.

I wonder if you can relate?

You've done most of what you were supposed to do.

Not all of it, of course. There are the usual gaps and regrets. But enough.
Enough that, from the outside, it looks like a life. Maybe even a good life, or even a great one. And yet.

There are those moments. When you finally get still for the day. Without the noise of distraction. (Or before the next one loads.) There's this vague heaviness in your chest. It's familiar.

It's not depression. Or crisis. Or anything, really, you can name. It's just a feeling — more accurately, a knowing — that you're living something adjacent to your actual life.

Somewhere along the way of becoming responsible and capable and fine, you started feeling unmoored, like you'd detached from something essential, like the life you found yourself living was one you assembled from available parts, not one you actually chose and deliberately assembled for yourself. (And how could a life you actually chose and assembled for yourself not feel like your life?)

So here's where we find ourselves, feeling like our lives are missing something essential.

Essential.

Makes me think of The Little Prince.

"What is essential is invisible to the eye."

We build lives based on everything visible. Visible and countable. Metrics. Checkboxes. Achievements. Measuring up. But to what? And why? And does it work? Did it work?

Here we find ourselves. With all the boxes checked, but without the essential.

The rest of that Little Prince quote? "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly."

Our hearts and souls speak to us in those quiet moments, but because those echoes are so quiet, it's easy to ignore them. For years. Even for a lifetime.
But finally, that voice has gotten too loud to ignore. Or the checkboxes and daily busy-ness rhythm is no longer doing a good job of keeping you occupied. And maybe you're tired of being "occupied."

There's something left to do. And because it's not so visible, it's hard to find—or define.

So where do we begin?

I don't know. I'm as lost as you are. But—after ignoring my own small, relentless, essential voice for too long, I decided to finally try to pursue it in earnest.

I've heard it said, "What you seek is seeking you."* So maybe, if you search for it deliberately, there's no way you won't find it eventually.

And that brings you here, to Soul-written life.

The intention here is to provide a place, posture, and presence of mind for leaning into our highest and best lives.

Daily life doesn’t lend itself well to staying aligned with who we want to be and how we want to show up in the world. Soul-written life offers a deliberate space and practice for pursuing and finding that alignment, in order to connect with something larger than ourselves.

But it also acknowledges and deals with the everyday (and every day) reconciling of the tensions involved in being human (on this planet, with other humans), while trying to stay grounded in that elusive essence that exists in all of us.

In the words of Richard Rohr, the purpose and hope is to live out our “sacred soul tasks in service to the world.”

For some of us, that might mean creative work or social or spiritual entrepreneurship. For others, it might mean certain careers or volunteering or raising kids into kind, generous, courageous adults.

There are as many “sacred soul tasks” as there are souls, and my work is to encourage you to do it. Or, in the words of Rumi:

"For those of you whose work it is to wake the dead, get up. This is a work day."
Let's get to it.

— A.
Soul-written life

P.S. I write letters and memoir fragments, one at a time, when they're ready. If you'd like to receive them, leave your email here.

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A full excerpt of the Rumi poem goes like this: Those of you whose work it is to wake the dead, get up. This is a work day. The beautiful coin of now slaps down in your hand. Start the drumbeat. You, heart, closed up in a chest, open. You, feet, it is time to dance. Do you understand? The beloved is here.
The beloved is here, people.