I either have too much of something or I can’t find the one thing I need — like my passport. Sometimes the suitcase is loaded up with shoes. Just shoes, nothing else. One time I had three bags to get out the door…each one filled only with nail polish.

My dream-self is constantly asking — what am I carrying and do I really need all this stuff?!

Fear & Water Bottles

Last week, as I stood on the platform waiting for the train to arrive, my attention kept slipping to my backpack — perhaps it’s all the luggage-dreams?! Suddenly I was acutely aware of its weight. I started thinking not just about the physical things we carry, but all the metaphysical things too. Our stories, our fears, our family history, our self-belief. Everything just shoved in next to the water bottle and the wallet.

In the current spiritual-wellness / pop-psychology sphere there is a lot of talk about generational trauma, limiting beliefs, cutting cords, etc. The underlying sentiment is that in order to heal we must move away from, or cut away, something. To move forward, spiritually, we must cleave off parts of ourselves. It’s detox language, but for your soul.

As I waited on the platform for the train, feeling that weight on my shoulders, that idea no longer seemed right to me. What if those weights we carry don’t need to be offloaded? What if they just need to be seen?

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Trauma & Joy

I’ve been so concerned about shedding layers, trying to rid myself of things that feel heavy – self-doubt, worries, my own sharp edges. Instead of considering there might be another purpose. Some truths I need, hidden within the things I carry.

I started to think of my paternal grandparents, who — when looking at the story of their lives — arguably experienced a lot of trauma. I used to wonder if part of my role in this lifetime was to heal some of that, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. Instead I experience gratitude for the gifts of their past. The lessons they shared about always having a back-up plan — wisdom carried from when their homeland stopped being safe. The joy in sharing a fish fry and warm bread when the snow reaches the windows. And all the love they created despite the odds. Their trauma and their joy shape me now in equal measure.

My backpack can hold multitudes. And maybe these weights aren’t shackles, but roots.

Heavy & Light

Detox, shedding, cutting (etc.) — these are not the verbs for this moment.

Detoxing implies elimination — and elimination, if you’ve ever dieted, doesn’t stick. Because what we need isn’t elimination but integration. The realization that we are capable of metabolizing the hard stuff, when we stop trying to deny it a place.

Holding, accepting — these are the words that make sense to me now. We are capable of holding all of it, because it all matters. Accepting the heaviness and the lightness equally, leads us to a richness that can only be gained from both.

So perhaps my dreams aren’t pointing towards some right or wrong — a judgment between what’s “good” to carry and what’s bad. It’s simply asking me to be OK with the fact that sometimes I’m just gonna have a suitcase full of nail polish. And while it might not make sense, but it probably has a purpose.

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Quick Subscriber Update

Dearest readers! I am reconfiguring how I write Slow Fox Life. Some things have changed in my life recently:

• I started a new job that I am thrilled about

• I now have a new commute that I am enjoying, but limits the time I have for early morning writing

• I’ve discovered a completely unexpected outlet on LinkedIn for my work-related writing – a set of essays I didn’t expect to write, but came through just the same

Which is all to say I am exploring new and different ways of using Substack. Ways that allow me to share my creative endeavors, and connect with you, but not feel like I must always-be-producing. This is an anti-hustle space after all.

So, you may get shorter posts from me (a la my original format) and they may not come weekly, but they will still come on Fridays when they do!

Thanks for reading, sharing, and commenting. I treasure it.

Three months later? Images are everywhere on Notes. Everyone’s doing it, including the expert who’d previously chastised the practice.

I lost ground with my own creativity because I listened to someone who projected a loud, firm opinion because they were positioned as the “knower-of-all-the-things.” I assumed their opinion held more weight than my own, because we’ve been taught not to trust ourselves. We’ve learned to listen to the loudest voices, while silencing our own.

This person didn’t have all the answers.

They just had an opinion and a large platform.

Neither made them right.

REAL WISDOM CAN’T BE PURCHASED

There’s a lot of stuff in this world that seeks to knock us off balance. Some of it is nefarious (e.g., blatant disinformation from the government), but most of it is simply misguided (e.g., Instagram influencers). It exists because our culture allows it to — or perhaps more truthfully — because people are desperate for something that feels solid, someone with an answer, when everything else feels overwhelmingly uncertain.

People get paid to be “experts” because they’re very good at selling themselves, not necessarily because they are actually correct, or even qualified. And to be clear, I am not talking about people with advanced degrees or years of dedicated study on a subject. I am pointing toward the slew of social-media influencers who are happy to sell you their latest course for the low-low-price of $599. I’m talking about the path we’ve all been walking, where we’ve unconsciously outsourced our wisdom to the person with the prettiest videos.

For so long the fundamental message we’ve lived with is that our internal wisdom — the compass we were born with — is not sufficient. This lie of inadequacy leaves us lost, and in that lostness we are far more susceptible to marketing that offers us some kind of perfected key — the quick-fix to whatever challenge we’re facing. But the truth is someone else’s key is never going to fit your unique lock.

We’re not gifted this life only to live it the same way as everyone else. That would be terribly boring. Our job, so to speak, is to live it in alignment with the truth we were born with — the journey our soul is uniquely qualified to travel. Because…

Wisdom, real wisdom, cannot be purchased in four easy installments. It has to come from within.

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LISTEN TO YOURSELF

I’ve explored resilience a lot in my writing, and I keep coming back to this: the thing that truly grounds us, when the proverbial earth quakes, is our ability to hear our inner voice. That — sometimes very quiet — voice that doesn’t lie. You know it because it’s loving in its clarity. It’s not trying to make you be someone else. It simply wants you to connect with what makes you whole.

It sounds simple. And it is. But simplicity doesn’t equal ease. The simplest things are often the hardest things to do. Especially in a culture that taught us to tune out the innate wisdom of our bodies and the land, in service of following orders. When we try to tap back into that flow of inner knowing it feels deeply uncomfortable, because it’s foreign to us.

Because that inner voice doesn’t always tell us what we want to hear.

The answers it gives us aren’t always neat and tidy.

And what our intuition wants us to know isn’t always going to make sense to other people. Heck, sometimes it won’t even make sense to us. But that’s kind of the point.

It’s an exercise in faith.

Can we trust ourselves enough to listen? Can we trust the unseen goodness — that I believe is all around us — and follow a path we might not fully understand?

Life often unfolds in an order that is the opposite of linear — at least the most honest ones do. And frankly, there probably isn’t even a path at all. It’s just us, figuring it out as we go.

HOW TO HEAR YOUR OWN VOICE

There are as many ways as there are humans on this planet to find a connection to that inner voice. And there might be 100 different steps you take along the journey. It’s never just a single class, or a lengthy meditation, or a moment in the woods.

It might be all of those things, over time.

But the only place any of us can really start is by believing that voice matters, and then trusting that we are worthy of what it has to say.

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Two Free Months

Dearest paid subscribers! I am gifting ya’ll two free months to Slow Fox Life. You don’t have to do anything. Consider this a late spring Thank You for reading and supporting my small, indie-publication. It means more than you know.

Thank you , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with !

If you want to go deeper with the Joy Fuel series— the inspiration for this conversation — you can find that here.

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Hope has a name.

You can find it in your breath.

The inhales of the in-between, 
the parts of you that keep moving,
the same as water finds a way.

Hope has a motive.

It’s called mercy.

She arrives in quiet solitude
singing out your name.

She sits at your kitchen table 
drinking tea
and breaking bread 
urging you to look again.
Because the mundane things
hold so much beauty 
when we refuse to look away.

Hope has a family.

Her sisters are 
       
       Joy

            and Faith 

                          and Grace.

Together they dance 
in wondrous mystery 
reminding us of what remains
when everything is cracking
and we no longer know our names.

Hope has a map.

Leading us to a promise 
that all will be OK.

Not always as we thought it would 
but in that specific kind of way.
A shape and color that seems to fit
without us knowing why. 

Hope predicts the future.

Telling us of what could be.
When we place our hands along the path
and follow where she leads. 

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It’s just called life.

The central question is simply: Has life happened here?

If so, that’s a win. And if life has happened, no matter how long-lived or fleeting, its value remains — in the other lives it supported, or the soil it fed.

Sitting at my kitchen table a few weeks ago, the old refrains crept in — grand, elaborate images of what my life would look like as a “success.” Things I would have, or places I’d go. But just as quickly as those images flashed across my mind, a question snuck in: but is that what you really want?

And it occurred to me I’d never actually thought about it. Not really. Even when building my business, I simply assumed success would ultimately mean BIG things — brand deals, thousands of followers, a YouTube channel. I never stopped to think about whether I even wanted those things.

We all want to feel successful. I’m just not sure that success — in the way it’s often presented to us — will actually leave us satisfied. Our framing of success is oriented toward “more-ness”: the accumulation of more money, titles, square footage. “40 Under 40”-style lists have become a dime a dozen, elevating a narrow narrative of what a life’s impact should look like — one tied to easily measured metrics, i.e., dollars and cents.

Rarely do we tell the stories — at least loudly or publicly — of lives that were simply lived in alignment. Lives that offered a sense of clarity, truth, and purpose that was un-purchaseable. We don’t tell these stories partly because we lack the outlets to do so, and we lack those outlets because quiet lives don’t sell. It’s boring to live quietly. But so many of us yearn for it. More and more of us want to know how to do exactly that — not how to be Instagram famous, but simply how to be happy. To feel the pull of our dreams and honor them. To live so in touch with our inner life, that our outer life can do nothing but reflect it.

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When I left corporate a year ago, the world opened up to me in ways I hadn’t expected. My circle expanded, because it could, and I started spending more time with friends whose lives had nothing to do with corporate trajectories — retired psychologists, bakers, farmers, choir directors, artists. I realized how many other ways there are to build a life. This is a “no-duh” realization, I know…but when you live your life in water, you don’t realize you’re in it.

I also realized I had more say in what success could look like. A friend whose father owned a small business once said to me: “Our cup may have been small, but it was always full. You get to choose the size of the cup.” Maybe success is less about how big my life gets, and more about how alive I feel living it?

I’ve decided that, for me, success has nothing to do with life getting bigger, and everything to do with it getting deeper. Building things I care about with people who care about those things too. Meaningful conversations with friends (or strangers!) that remind us we’re loved, and that we belong. A nervous system that isn’t overwhelmed every day. Being able to hear my inner voice, and trusting myself enough to listen to it.

And any day where I can say: life happened here.

Sharing helps small publications grow.

Support isn’t always monetary. One of the best ways to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with others. It’s how small voices get louder.

If these words resonated with you, passing them along helps me reach readers who might enjoy them too. Thanks for being here!

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Do you write with passion 
and with verve?
Do you write with buoyancy—
an effervescent sense of self.

Do you conjure words from the air 
like a filament catching the breeze.
Or do you find just the right rythym—
to match the humming of the river
as it meanders through the rock.

Do you feel tone like crisp sheets on a
fresh spring bed. 
Letting the scent of the linen
meander around your fingertips
before putting pen to page.

Do you know exactly where your soul
and the words you know
meet?

Why they flow so freely through your body
or chose you for their particular
articulation that day?

Can you sense the beauty that exists
in the play between words and space
and do you ever wonder why we’ve been granted such a gift?

To carry language in our hearts, 
to make sense of the world,
particularly when all feels so adrift. 

To weave the wonders of the universe 
onto a surface made from trees
across timelines we will never see.

To ferry words, 
just like a love song whispered through the ages, 
to ears we may never meet. 

To make the meetings of two souls a single point 
along an infinite line
if only just for that moment in time.

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We can hurry ourselves

around it. 


We can pretend

it isn’t real.


But when the world

comes a calling,

because there are 

debts long been unpaid,

we will find our reckoning

greets us 

with no uncertainty.


That the very things we’ve been avoiding

are the ones we should have learned. 

We can claim some form of ignorance—

a collective fugue,

absent memory.


We may say we tried (a little bit).

Or said it once at dinner.

But until we’ve fully faced it—

until we’ve said that it is so—

we sit in stagnant water

wondering why the scenery remains unchanged.



Why this boat meant for the promised land—

some freedom far away—

stays exactly where we started.

No shores on the horizon

despite our time at sea.



Because half truths take us nowhere

we actually want to go.

They only leave us sitting

with all our baggage still in tow.

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The best way to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with friends.

If I’m honest, life right now feels less like a clear path and more like a ramble. My vibes are squarely in the aimless-hopeful-teenager realm rather than anchored adult. I’m not mad at it. But it is surprising.

Many friends are still climbing the ladder and seem quite content to do so. Others are building their own things but are also — seemingly — happy to do the whole LinkedIn song-and-dance. That might sound judgmental — and maybe it is a little — but only because I wish the performance-art of it all didn’t feel so…necessary.

And to be fair, I’m still hooking part of my wagon to that LinkedIn performance space myself — if for no other reason than my own fear of irrelevance. A fear made especially acute because it’s a space where I once felt at ease.

But fear doesn’t leave a lot of space for anything else. It takes up all the air. And if life is to move forward, we need to make room for other things to enter.

It’s a weird thing, letting go of the certainties that held us together. The paths, the places, the people…but when we decide to walk a different way, we need to find different energies to move from.

Wonder

When certainty leaves us, our next best option is to make friends with the unexpected. For me, this means leaning into wonder. Wonder on the small scale — spring signs emerging, my garden coming back to life, heart-shaped pebbles discovered on sidewalks. The universe’s way of reminding me that I am loved. Even when — or maybe exactly when — I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing.

And wonder on a grand scale — how plants heal bodies; epiphanies that change a life’s direction; new opportunities appearing right when you need them. The way life unfolds unexpectedly but also perfectly. And when I say perfectly, I don’t mean without casualty or challenge. I mean in a way that mirrors the things we hope for ourselves — even secretly — on a schedule we can’t see but that is somehow always on time.

Intuition

Pursuing wonder — much like opening to joy — means deepening self-trust and reclaiming my intuition. Learning to listen to what my body says, because my brain feels so full of sound these days. I’ve begun reminding myself — when my mind steps in to sprinkle thoughts of fear and scarcity — that my brain is very good at telling stories. Not so good at telling truths.

When I want the truth, I listen to my gut. It’s always clear, and feels like expansion. That familiar hit of oh boy is how I know a decision is going to be the right one.

I thank my mother for this. She taught me to flip a coin at restaurants when I didn’t know what to order. She always said that regardless of which side landed, it was the immediate feeling I had at seeing the outcome that would tell me what to choose. And it always has.

But intuition without structure is a feeling. Structure gives it somewhere to live.

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Wallpaper v. Plumbing

It’s a Four Year for me in numerology — the kind of year that’s about foundations. Building structures meant to last. I balked at my fate. The most boring part of any remodel is the plumbing. If you gave me the choice, I would skip straight to the decorating — give me a vibrant wallpaper and a good paint choice any day. I want the fun stuff; the parts people see.

At first I assumed that the lesson in structure was going to be akin to budgets and spreadsheets. The responsible architecture of a life “well-managed”. Adulting, essentially — all responsibility, no pizzazz. But the longer I sit with this year, the more I see that the structure I need to build isn’t outside, but within.

It’s not just about fitting parts together, but about creating something that can hold. When I lean into that, I start to see the gift in it. All the wonder I want to absorb, all the intuitive fortitude I desire…none of that is possible without the right pipes. Yes, it’s plumbing…but it’s plumbing with a purpose!

So this year I’m asking myself the questions that feel integral to this moment — do I listen to my inner voice? Do I practice what I preach? Can I use wonder as a tool for navigating life, not just an experience I allow once in a while? These aren’t rhetorical. They are keys to a whole new layer of integrity. One I’m being asked not just to build, but to actually live inside of.

Perhaps that’s the real threshold of adulthood. Not the outward stuff — house, job, kids — but the moment we realize our inner workings are the key to everything else. The moment we stop skipping to the wallpaper and tend, finally and bravely, to what’s inside the walls.

Sharing helps small publications grow.

Support isn’t always monetary. One of the best ways to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with others. It’s how small voices get louder.

If these words moved you, passing them along helps me reach readers who might need them too. Thank you for being part of this.

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This one was written during a Winter Solstice poetry workshop with the community —a group of incredibly talented and supportive poets.

They say the Earth had a mother.

I say, a mother bigger than the Earth?!

How tender

How massive

How mighty

she must be.

—

If the Earth has a mother

can we understand

that kind of power?

The potency of dreaming

that allows a seed

to become a tree.

—

If the Earth has a mother

can we know that type of kindness?

A washing

tide of mercy

that cleanses everything.

—

If the Earth has a mother

can we ever know her name?

And if we knew it

could we say it

without dissolving

right away.

—

If the Earth has a mother

then that means the love we know

is only just a fraction

of what the universe contains.

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To find the full catalog of poems go to Mostly a Poem

Joy is a refusal to bend to fear…refusal dressed in a unicorn onesie.

When I originally published the essay (that provided the foundation for this one), I said everything was changing at a rapid pace. But the truth is, what we’re seeing is simply a boil born from a simmer we’ve been sitting on for years. The long-term outcome of what’s happening now—its effects both personally and collectively—are hard to fully predict, but it is very clear we’re on a path from which there is no going back.

Our power rests now in choosing how we proceed. A choice we will need to make every day.

Like a prism catches light.

Joy is a great disruptor. It catches you mid-breath and changes everything—like a prism catches light, bending it to reveal colors you forgot the world could hold.

This is what I think about when I hear stories about protestors wearing inflatable frog costumes. Or about the Helpers in Minneapolis wearing unicorn onesies and cat ears so that the people in their neighborhoods can feel less afraid to simply be outside¹.

On the surface it sounds absurd to wear a unicorn onesie to help people cross a street, but it is an act of joy-fueled bravery. Glittering horns and pink plush stand defiant against intimidation, saying: “We see what you’re doing, and we refuse to meet you on your terms. We will transform this.”

So these people become prisms.

They bend fear, turning it technicolor, because they know fear cannot exist near joy.

Refusing to be flattened.

Those in power benefit from us being overwhelmed, burnt out and exhausted. The barrage of daily news cycles, with one tragedy and sadness after another…how do we stay afloat when surrounded by so much grief? We hold fast to what reminds us we’re alive—our joy.

Joy doesn’t abide by the rules of scarcity or conformity—and that makes it threatening to dominant systems like authoritarianism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. These systems thrive on fear and compliance. But when we claim our joy, we refuse to be flattened.

And we become steadier.

Better able to withstand the forces outside our control, we can observe what’s happening versus being lost to it. As observers, we give ourselves space to choose our reactions to the chaos. This does not mean do nothing—it means acting from a clear, rooted sense of what truly matters. It’s the difference between striking a match—a quick and reactive burst—and building a fire. One is swift, short-lived and changes little. The other is steady, enduring and has the power to change everything.

So when we don our most ridiculous outfits to help children cross a street, or we make wildly vibrant art on sidewalks, or we simply turn our faces to the sun, we are standing in defiance of the fear and hatred that would rather we shrink away.

Joy is a communal act.

What these demonstrations prove is that every time we embody joy, it reverberates—a prism shooting rainbows through space. The impact is immediate: a neighbor feels relief knowing they’re not alone. But it echoes outward too, to anyone witnessing cruelty from afar and wondering what comes next. It reminds us all that fear will not win—as long as there are people in unicorn onesies and blow-up dinosaur costumes willing to bravely channel joy in defiance of it all.

A Note

1. An example taken from the many stories being shared on Substack by writers who live in the Twin Cities. I would have attributed this one, but I couldn’t find the original note. If you see this, and you wrote it, please comment!!

2. Joy as resistance isn't new—it has fueled countless movements throughout history. You can read stories from these communities, in their own voices, here.

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I sat down with the Cedar tree

She put her hand on me

and said:

Motherhood is movement.

Constant motion towards the edge.

Pulled out into the ocean.

The deepest, farthest part.

Waves of tenderness and toughness

forever etched upon your skin.

Expanding your periphery

Until you see the whole horizon

often all at once.

From sky to land and back again

no part of you untouched.

The slow and steady

churning of a heart

that won’t stop beating.

Even after you are dead.

Because it lives outside your body now

carried,

just on different legs.

The only way is forward.

one foot to the next

carving paths made out of granite,

laying seeds with every step.

You’re breaking ground,

while making ground

in the hopes these structures hold.

That your children

can see a different path

beyond what we’ve been sold.

That hope and wonder never end for them.

That they know their worth

is gold.

And as you drift on farther,

past boundaries you didn’t set,

you begin to know what giving means

with every blessed step.

    It's love 

           on top of love

                 on top of love

                            on top of love.

© 2025, Kristen Warms

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Show of hands: How many of you have listened to a friend lament a challenge and immediately jumped in with your ideas or advice?

Yeah. Me too.

OK. Again.

Show of hands: How many of you have shared a challenge with a friend only to be met with advice instead of acknowledgment? Words that, even if well meaning, completely shut you down.

Same.

We want to be helpful. We want to make the hard stuff less hard for the people we love. But we can’t do that, not really. All we can do is make the hard feel less hard.

When we try to solve or fix, we move away from the very thing that would actually help—making them feel less alone.

Vulnerability is a house, and we need to be better houseguests.

Vulnerability is a doorway to someone’s inner space. Like a house. When they offer something tender, they are welcoming you through the front door.

The last thing we want to do is stomp in with muddy boots and old clothes, throwing them around like we own the place. But that’s what unsolicited advice is—our own stuff dumped all over their floor.

Or worse yet, start rummaging through their things. Poking into the medicine cabinet. Making ourselves comfortable in their discomfort while they do all the work of being seen. Treating their vulnerability as content to analyze rather than a human moment to meet with our own.

When we respond this way, the center of gravity shifts. The moment stops being about the person whose house it is and starts orbiting us.

Advice becomes a way to take the wheel.

Analyzing becomes a way to steer.

Neither achieves what we think they will.

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Witnessing. Not fixing.

The more we fix, the more people pull back. They learn to share the safer version of themselves; the one that won’t invite interruption or improvement.

What’s lost isn’t closeness all at once, but gradually, over time conversations become more efficient. Less risky. We talk about things instead of letting ourselves be in them together. The messier feelings—confusion, grief, longing—don’t pop up anymore, or certainly not as often. Until intimacy becomes something we remember having rather than something we’re actively co-creating.

Witnessing requires restraint. A willingness to stay with discomfort without trying to organize it into something solvable. But when someone offers us that kind of presence, it does something profound: it lets us remain whole in the moment without needing to be a better version of ourselves.

Because that’s what we’re all really looking for, isn’t it? Someone who can sit with us in the mess.

Maybe this is why vulnerability feels so rare, even among people who care deeply about one another. Not because we don’t want to be close, but because we don’t know how to remain present without reaching for usefulness or resolution. To trust that our attention alone is enough.

What vulnerability (ours or others) is asking us, is this: can we sit with what’s unfinished? What’s unresolved? And when we can—when we meet that offering with simple acceptance—we unlock something harder to name but easier to feel: the relief of not having to be fixed in order to belong.

That kind of presence doesn’t make the hard things disappear. But it does make them less lonely.

Sharing helps small publications grow.

Support isn’t always monetary. One of the best ways to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with others. It’s how small voices get louder.

If these words moved you, passing them along helps me reach readers who might need them too. Thank you for being part of this.

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I am not interested in guides 

that tell me how to do things

Or experts that trade

in certainties and silver bullets.

My head has been filled with

too many other people’s hows

and shoulds

for too many years.

There is no longer room inside

for someone else's

voice…

or thoughts…

or opinions on things.

I only have space left for my own.

When you want to tell me how

you think it ought to be

I need you to know

I am NOT listening.

You’re using your finite air

to make yourself feel bigger.

Based on the premise that

I couldn’t possibly be big enough

all on my own.

So I say this as a kindness,

so you might conserve 

all that rightness

for your own self.

Lord knows we all need

to take our own advice

and stop giving it away

so freely to people

who do not

need it.

Or want it.

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Sharing helps small voices get louder.

Support isn’t always monetary. One of the best ways to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with others.

If these words moved you, passing them along helps me reach readers who might need them too. Thank you for being part of this.

Share Slow Fox Life

It’s a circumnavigation of an interior landscape for which there is no map…and no right or final destination. It is all just circles of growth, laid down upon our souls, over time. Like trees, the rings of their interior tell the stories of their lives on Earth. We are the same in that way….

I entered last January with grand plans. I was going to take the year by storm, build a magnificent company, cement myself as some kind of herbal-business maven, and all around just crush it.

Most of that did not happen. But other beautiful and wonderful things did.

At the start of 2025, I had just left corporate life. I was excited to be free of the BS, and build my own thing. I had an unbridled optimism that probably annoyed most of my entrepreneurial friends. But they were gracious in not showing it…too much.

I was riding high.

Sorta.

I was also plagued by anxiety, and nightmares that woke me at 3am every night.

Perhaps these were aftershocks from my great leap into the unknown—I imagine a lot of people experience these after big leaps. But I also think, somewhere in my nervous system, alarm bells were ringing— sending signals to my sleeping brain that I was burning too fast. That instead of allowing spaciousness to exist—and actually breathing into this new life— I was white knuckling my way into a mold I thought I needed to fit.

The fear was, if I didn’t do all the things I said I was going to do—put all my herbalism training to good use, help people find healing through nature etc.— I would not simply fail, but somehow prove I was unworthy of the calling I’d been given.

I was determined to not let that happen.

So I did all the things. I built the website, got on the social media train, created the offers… as you do. And I was pretty good at it. But as the year progressed I started to feel lonelier and lonelier. Something didn’t fit, like my clothes were just a size too big. As if I’d pulled them out of a costume box.

I couldn’t seem to get the proportions right between who I wanted to be and who I was. And no matter how catchy my marketing copy was, or how swiftly new ideas for offerings would arrive, nothing seemed to click into place.

There’s something to be said about your readiness to occupy a new space or identity. If you’re not yet ready, or it’s not yet your time, then things aren’t going to take off. They just aren’t.

As the summer pressed into August (some sentiments I had about the month), I realized I wasn’t growing into the version of me I imagined. But something else was emerging…

Fully into Fall, my days had gotten much slower. I wasn’t frenetically tweaking website copy anymore, instead I was having fun with Substack. And my writing was becoming more authentic.

An unexpected opportunity appeared, by way of an old contact, to consult a mission-driven organization that needed help deepening their operational roots (so to speak) so their work could flourish at scale. It was surprisingly joy-filled to give myself back to that kind of work. It showed me that the work I loved could be done in spaces, and with people, who loved it too.

I started to tell people my herbalism business was hibernating, because that’s exactly how it felt. Not gone, just dormant. When I started telling people that, instead of failure, I found freedom. A release of self-imposed expectations that had become a strangling vine.

My whole life, I’ve thought the only way to achieve anything of value was through sheer force of will. To be honest, up until last year everything in my life had kind of worked that way. So I assumed this existential transformation would too. I’m laughing at myself just typing that.

But. We can’t rush our own becoming — no matter how smart, skilled, or determined we are. The soul unfolds on its own clock.

As soon as I accepted that, things changed. My writing took off—not just by finding more readers, but by achieving greater depth. I started to see that my vision of helping people find hope and healing in nature wasn’t achievable just through herbal products and protocols, but also through words.

In hindsight I see the ways in which life was working through me. I had been so focused on a central point—unlocking some version of the “perfect” herbalist—that I couldn’t see the current swirling around me…shaping me…the whole time. There was life, laying it’s layers on me. The rings of my trunk expanding without me even knowing.

I find myself now, in January 2026, holding everything much more loosely. I have things I’d like to do this year, for sure, but I’m far more interested in seeing how life will unfold. With my hands less tightly clenched, I’m open to what the Universe has in store—perhaps it will answer prayers I have forgotten about, or unveil opportunities I can’t yet imagine.

If 2025 taught me anything, it’s that I’m really tired of gripping the wheel.

I think I’ll just ride the tides for awhile.

Minneapolis

I debated whether to publish this post this week. Wondering if it would feel off base. I decided to publish—because routine can be the most stabilizing choice when everything tilts.

I don’t have the right words for what has, and is still, happening in Minneapolis. When in doubt I read ’s work (like 3 Interrupts to Stop the Freefall), and it helps.

If you are looking for ways to support our neighbors in Minneapolis, the button below links to a solid list of organizations supporting people on the ground.

And if you are reading this from Minneapolis, I don't have the right words. But I'm here, and I care, and you're not invisible to me.

Stand with Minnesota

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Pressure rises.

Ever present.

The cracks it makes across my body

seeping out

then in.

Breathing through my lungs

without permission.

A silent 

seething

coiled snake

in waiting.

Ready to lash out

at the slightest provocation.

Too much traffic.

An ill timed joke.

Fruit spilling from the grocery bag.

It doesn’t take much for

the eruption.

Heat settles,

a ring around the air.

A banishing spell

to anyone who hoped to come

much closer.

I’d like to say I mind it

but

I appreciate the quiet it brings

A distance…

Between me…

And everything…

Pass this poem along!

The best way to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with your friends.

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To find the full catalog of poems —> Mostly a Poem

Sneak peek into something different for this first post of 2026 — perhaps that’s only fitting. I’ve been secretly publishing poems on Substack under my side-publication, Mostly a Poem. This week I’ve decided to make it not-so-secret anymore, and share one with you.

We’ve got to run as far as we can

for as long as we can

until there is no more far to go.

—

Until we have met every mountain

every stream

every babbling brook, with something to say.

—

Until we can name all the plants

and animals

in their own tongues.

The names they had

before we gave them ones.

—

Until we’ve stooped to see the moss

on every stump that lines the forest floor

And we’ve humbled ourselves

all the way into understanding

our view is not the only one.

—

Once we placed our hands

on the sacred altars of the earth

the ones hidden deep within the forests

the ones man DID NOT make.

—

Then, and only then, will we know

what we are here for.

Will we find the solace we’ve been seeking

since the moment we decided

we were better than the Earth.

—

© 2025, Kristen Warms

Pass this poem along!

The best way to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with your friends.

Thanks for being on this journey with me. I’m so glad you’re here!

To find the full catalog of poems —> Mostly a Poem

Slow Fox Life

The world feels fragile. You don't have to. Nature-rooted wisdom for trusting yourself more. Find your solid ground.

By Kristen Warms

Lean on us when things feel bleak.

Do not believe that you are alone.

For you never are

and were never meant to be.

—

We exist beneath your feet,

alongside your houses,

next to your cars.

—

Ever present blades of grass,

trees of no renown

all the flowers still waiting under ground.

We are listening.

—

Simply place your hands upon us,

let your worries rest among us.

We can carry this load too,

right along with you.

—

We may seem silent

but we are always talking.

We whisper “keep on going”

“Stay the path”

Or, sometimes, “not that way”.

—

You can hear us in your heartbeat,

as fresh air fills your lungs,

when your volume is turned to none.

—

We remind you are golden.

Worthy.

And loved.

—

© 2025, Kristen Warms

Sharing helps small publications thrive.

Support isn’t always monetary. One of the best ways to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with others. It’s how small voices get louder.

If these words moved you, passing them along helps me reach readers who might need them too. Thank you for being part of this.

Share

This poem was inspired by a book I have not read, but whose title struck a chord. The book is THIS MUCH COUNTRY by Kristin Knight Pace, one of only a handful of women to have completed both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod.

When there is this much country,

how far can we roam?

—

Does it go until our wonder ends?

And will it show us the way back home?

—

If we go as far as the eye can see

towards the horizon

out where the deer and the antelope roam

the pull of an endless sky

Will we meet the promise of belonging when we finally reach it?

—

And while we’re out there…

will we dance amongst the invisible strings

that tether us to the earth?

—

To smell the dirt in our noses

and remember we are made of it.

To truly know what brown means.

—

The scent of belonging

the smell of “rightness”.

As in we are right,

here,

on this land

where we stand.

—

And as the wind whips us

with its chastising laughter

both playful and painful

will we know who we are?

Will we finally feel contained?

—

That this country

that this land

can hold all that we imagine.

Can love us still,

perhaps even more

than we know how to love ourselves.

—

That we’ve been given this much country

so we can find ourselves

at the very end

satisfied and tired.

Lying in the dirt.

—

Finally free,

from forgetting,

who we are meant to be.

—

© 2025, Kristen Warms

Pass this poem along!

The best way to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with your friends.

Share

To find the full catalog of poems —> Mostly a Poem

This will be my last essay for 2025, though there will be one more Rooted Sunday chat this weekend.

I hope you have a wonderful, joy-filled holiday season with those you love. See you in 2026!

Let silence do its job.

- Kristen Warms

This is a mantra I share with every new group I facilitate, encouraging people to curtail their need to fill gaps between words. We all have this impulse—the strong desire to fill a pause with advice or perspective—but often this is more disruptive than it is helpful.

Because silence is purposeful.

Its job—much like that of the liver in the body—is to capture and metabolize what needs to be cleansed, so the person can move forward with more ease. When we deny silence—whether in group work or in our own lives—it’s like interrupting the metabolic function of our emotions. We’re denying the release of something important.

It is difficult to sit with the discomfort that is “the quiet”.

But it is necessary that we learn how.

When I think of words spoken in a group, particularly those with emotional weight, it’s best to think of them like another guest that has just joined the circle. When they are spoken, it’s as if that person’s feelings come to life—like blowing a bubble—and those feelings now live outside of them. They take their own shape and form.

When we pause, allowing those words to linger amidst the group, the emotions they carry can expand to their full size. So that when the words finally dissipate into the ether—like a bubble bursting—they take everything they were meant to, with them. It relieves the speaker of their weight.

When we interject with our thoughts—and break the silence—we stop that process. The energy that gets left behind, before the bubble could fully mature, must be carried once again by the person, or now by the group collectively.

Silence not only changes the speaker, but also the ones who listen. When we stretch our capacity to sit in a space we’ve not filled with our own voice, we grow in our ability to be present. We learn what it means to be a witness—to witness another person’s inner world, but also our own.

When people speak, and we take a beat before responding, we actually get to hear what our hearts want to feel, not just what our minds think we should say. We give ourselves permission to go deeper into our own inner landscape, perhaps even our own discomfort, to find what’s real.

So as we close out 2025, I will leave you with this:

The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between them.

—Claude Debussy

I hope that you will invite silence in, as the great metabolizer that it is. Gifting yourself the hidden melodies held between notes.

Meet Mark, of 360 Kindness

Mark is a a therapist, writer, and creator of 360° Kindness, where you can explore Peace as Progress, Kindness as Revolution, and practical tools for inner enjoyment. You can learn more about this bright-spot-of-a-Substack here!

Sharing helps small publications thrive.

Support isn’t always monetary. One of the best ways to support undiscovered writers is to share their work with others. It’s how small voices get louder.

If these words moved you, passing them along helps me reach readers who might need them too. Thank you for being part of this.

Share Slow Fox Life