January 2026
On meditation, confidence, and other good things.
new year same me
Hello 2026! I was feeling super optimistic about this year on Jan 1 and now, as yet another person has been murdered by ICE, that optimism is really being tested. Still, I’m choosing to stick with it because if we don’t stay strong and choose to focus on making a better world, we let them win. So here I am, talking about my little arts and crafts and my little mindfulness practice, trying to change the world.
One of my goals for 2025 was to meditate more, so I rolled into 2026 feeling like I had missed the mark having not established a structured daily practice involving sitting silently for at least 20 minutes a day. I vowed that 2026 would be different, so I decided to sign up for a one day silent meditation retreat to kick start this year’s practice and get into a new routine. I hoped to learn some helpful tips and tricks and secretly was also hoping to unlock some intangible unknown thing that would make me wiser and better at meditating. Because I don’t subscribe to a particular style or format of meditation (I swap from focusing inward to outward, practicing stillness to meditating with movement, from mantras to silence) I often feel like I’m not “doing it right” and hoped that going to an event like this would finally legitimize my practice.
I entered the day with an open mind, ready to experience something new and learn what I could. As I listened to our teacher chant buddhist prayers during what I thought was to be a “silent” retreat, I noted my repulsion and resistance, trying hard to dampen any judgement and remain open. As I grabbed my lunch from my car, I tried not to cringe at the teacher’s sparkling Tesla parked next to mine, complete with a vanity plate that spelled her dharma name and three little buddha statues on the dash. As someone new-ish to a field myself I was excited to learn from someone who had also recently undergone a career change of sorts (our teacher used to be a lawyer) so tried to be understanding when she stretched the truth about how long she had been practicing and spoke at length to display her wisdom.
Thankfully I attended the event with a friend and was able to unpack the highs and lows on the drive home, finding solace and confidence in the fact that I wasn’t the only one who was having trouble vibing with the tone of the zen center. Had I gone by myself, I think I could have easily seen the issues I had as faults in myself rather than simply aspects of a style of practice that isn’t for me. Instead, I left with a renewed sense of confidence in what does and does not work for me. While the prayers and “dharma talks” left me more agitated than inspired, I found the actual meditation practice super fulfilling. For me, meditation is all about increasing my mindfulness, calming my brain and body, and improving the connection between my body, mind, and the world around me, and this day left me feeling like that is more than enough. While some might need an organized religion or spiritual guide to help them maintain such a practice, I left the day feeling grateful and satisfied with my own practice.
In exploring themes and intentions to help guide my year, one desire that kept popping up for me was to be able to trust myself more and to opt for action rather than getting lost in the expectations or judgement of myself and others, which often stops me from creating anything at all. I decided to choose the word “confidence” to help me remember to trust myself and my intentions. While I have a core belief that everyone is fully capable of achieving anything they dream of, I often don’t extend that same generosity to myself. This year, I’m trying to remember that contrary to what I might think, I really do know what I’m doing just as much as anyone else (aka none of us actually know what we’re doing) and that having a growth/learning mindset doesn’t mean that you can’t start sharing your gifts with the world.
I hope that you too can share your own talents/gifts/weird hobbies/strengths with the world this year and that together all of our good things can create the change we so desperately need right now.
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Some Little Pictures
(from top left to bottom right)
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Recent Work: new year new word
As mentioned above, I decided to go with the word “confidence” to help guide me this year. I’ve always struggled with standing tall in a sea of other people who I am constantly confident know more, are more creative, are more <insert literally anything else here>, always choosing to be a student of life rather than the teacher. Recently, though, it donned on me how much hiding behind this student role has been holding me back, causing me to stop projects that I was excited about and to not share things for fear of being redundant.
This year, I want to lean into the quality of quiet confidence and to share what I know while still maintaining a growth/learning mindset. The best mentors I’ve had throughout my life have been those who treat me like their equal and who share generously with the intention of inspiring and starting conversation rather than acting as the authority on a subject. I hope that this intention can help me create and share generously with less fear and judgement.
Are any of ya’ll still also doing this word of the year thing, or any other sort of general intention setting? What words or ideas are you choosing?
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Audio stuff: Field Recordings
OK so not surprisingly, no one got back to my call for field recordings. This, combined with the lackluster non-AI content I’ve been finding on YouTube recently, has led me to believe that I need to be creating these recordings myself. I have a little zoom recorder and a fuji camera that I plan on setting up to see what I can collect— please do reach out if you have any experience with field recording, I’d love to get any tips from you!
In the meantime, I’m listening to these great reddit recs.
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Call For Testers! Therapy/Growth Journal
Firstly, I just want to acknowledge that I’ve called for testers in the past for the dinner game Adam and I were developing and I know I totally dropped the ball on that. I still hope to finish that one day and will be reaching out to ya’ll/putting out a new call when that happens— thank you to everyone who volunteered!
I am here to assure you that THIS time, all volunteers will actually be testing a thing because the thing is already ready and will be mailed to your designated address within a couple weeks! So your efforts submitting to this call will not be in vain.
I have been working on a little journal for folks to use alongside therapy or during a period where they would independently like to track movement towards specific goals. While the journal is being created firstly as a companion to therapy, I’m also interested in folks testing it who are not currently in therapy as I hope it can be useful even for people who are intentionally pursuing a self-help path to growth. If you volunteer as a tester I will send you a draft version of the print book to test out and will check in after a month or so to see how your experience has been and if you have any thoughts on how it can be improved.
I’m really excited to see what you all think of this and really can’t do it without your help, so if this sounds at all interesting to you please do fill out this form!
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Some Other Good Things
Recently watched the movie Die My Love and it was good but my main takeaway was that I needed a long white cotton nightgown so I got one and let me tell you, this is the way to sleep! I feel like a victorian lady in the best way. Easy breezy beautiful. Highly recommend! I got this one because it was on sale and yes I do love it but really I think any long white loose cotton thing will do.
This interview with George Saunders— p sure I’m a basic book bitch for being a Saunders fan but I don’t care, I’ll read anything he writes and listen to anything he says. It’s a great interview!
I’ve been really into people doing something a lil different with online publishing, from this napkin zine to this screen recorded youtube video — people are creative! people are pushing the media. I love it.
An open call for art for a “Horse Girl” themed show in the bay! What a dream— get making, ya’ll!
Love this essay on making something “heavy”— can definitely relate to the feeling that lots of “light” things do not add up to something “heavy!”
I’m also so into Wendy Van Wagner’s “Spiritual Homemaking” substack. This is one of the few emails I ALWAYS open and always enjoy. This week she shared a recipe for a seed cake that I’m dying to make!
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Thanks for reading – see you next month!
Neat to hear about the meditation class and that you're trying different styles of practice. I derived a lot of value from a scholarly class at Cal on the subject and I often think back to the syllabus. Best of luck.