On Truth, Gratitude, and the Kind of Humanity That’s Real
Dear friend,
Let’s begin gently.
This week carries a strange kind of weight — a mix of memory and longing, pressure and tenderness, ache and anticipation.
Holidays have a way of touching every layer of us at once. And while much of the world rushes toward celebration, many of us are simply trying to find our breath.
So before anything else:
Here is a moment to exhale.
A moment to sit inside your own humanity.
A moment to remember that you are not alone.
Thanksgiving carries a complicated history, and pretending otherwise helps no one. But neither does collapsing beneath the heaviness of it. This isn’t a week for bypassing, and it’s not a week for drowning.
It’s a week for truth — the kind you can touch with your hands.
Truth without performance.
Truth without posturing.
Truth without pretending it doesn’t hurt.
Truth that lets you stay awake without falling apart.
Because here’s the heart of it, friend:
We cannot advocate for truth in the world
if we’re lying to ourselves about our own.
If we are afraid to name what’s real inside our bodies — the grief, the anger, the tenderness, the fatigue — then we will struggle to stand for what’s real outside of them.
And if we’re so flooded by the world’s noise that we forget how to hear our own voice, we lose the compass that keeps us human.
Gratitude — real gratitude — isn’t about pretending things are fine.
It isn’t about minimizing suffering. It isn’t about finding silver linings in someone else’s pain.
Real gratitude is the quiet courage to stay with what’s true
while keeping your heart open anyway.
It’s remembering:
“I can hold what hurts without becoming hardened by it.”
And in a world that’s this loud, that alone is a radical act.
So as you move through the coming days — whether you are with family, friends, chosen family, or your own beautiful solitude — may you give yourself permission to be both tender and awake.
May you listen more closely to what your body is telling you.
May you recognize what softens you…and what makes you brace. May you honor the boundaries you need to stay connected to yourself. May you let the quiet moments matter.
And above all, may you remember that your humanity — your real, unfiltered, unperformed humanity — is a gift to this world.
Not because it’s perfect. But because it is true.
Truth is what holds us together.
Truth is what keeps us human.
Truth is what guides us home.
This week, let’s practice telling the truth — gently, bravely, and with our whole hearts intact.
You can do this part too, love. I’m right here with you.
From my heart to yours,
Practice Postscript
where the letter stops be reading & starts being lived
The Reflection:
So much of this week asks us to hold two truths at once:
the truth of the world, and the truth of our own bodies.
It’s easy to get swept into noise, to numb, to scroll, to override. But honesty — quiet, embodied honesty — is what keeps us human. And what keeps us connected to what matters.
Where you soften, where you brace, where you disappear, where you come back online — these are all forms of truth-telling.
Your body is already speaking. This is the week to listen.
The Practice:
Before you step into any social gathering, conversation, or moment of stillness this week:
Place a hand on your chest or belly and ask yourself: “What truth lives in me right now?”
Don’t force an answer. Don’t tidy it up. Just notice what shifts inside you when you ask. Then take one slow breath that makes just a little more room for it.
This is how capacity builds — one honest breath at a time.
Living in the Question:
As you move through the next few days, carry this with you:
“Where am I choosing comfort over truth — and what might open if I chose truth with compassion instead?”
Let this question walk beside you, not pressure you. Let it widen your awareness, not your stress. Let it reveal what’s ready — and what still needs time.
The point isn’t to solve it. The point is to stay human with it.
