Look Up is a collection of poems and short love notes:
Encouragement for times of wild uncertainty, loving reminders for recovery and change, and ultimately, small moments of great comfort: this is not who you are, this is something you are going through.
Reminders, to look up.
About LOOK UP
LOOK UP is divided into seven sections:
HOLDING ON
Read this when you feel like you can’t let go. When you feel stuck or trapped or unable to see what’s next. When all you want is to go back in time, when the future looks hazy, when it’s easier to feel pain in the familiar than find peace in the unknown.
Read this when it’s time to begin again.
OPENING THE HEART
Read this when you know it’s time to move on. even if it hurts. Even if you still love what’s lost. even if you’re not ready.
Read this when you’re letting go.
ROAMING FREE
Read this when you feel lost in life. When nothing is certain and all that’s familiar is behind you. Read this when you feel aimless and without direction, naked and exposed, raw and unhinged.
Read this when you’ve finally let go.
INTEGRATING
Read this when you’re starting to know yourself. When you’re learning what it means to be free. When you’re bound to no one but you, and for the first time in your life, you like what you see in the mirror. Read this when you’ve met the version of yourself you always knew existed, even if it’s scary, even if it’s foreign, even if it’s painful.
Read this when you’re becoming you.
ZOOMING OUT
Read this when you’re branching back out. When you’ve healed or recovered or done the work and you’re ready to test your new wings. Read this when you’ve discovered more of who you are and what you want, and when it’s time to venture out into the world and find it.
OPENING THE MIND
Read this when you doubt yourself. When your mind plays tricks on you or old voices creep in. When you wonder if all that work was for nothing or if anything will ever change. Read this when life is testing everything you’ve worked for, and you need reminders of how far you’ve come.
NAVIGATING FORWARD
Read this when you’re at the end of things. When you’re facing more change. When your heart breaks again or you once again feel stuck.
Read this when something is over.
You’ll find what you need no matter where you start, for the truth is we are always at the beginning, constantly at the end, and forever right here, in the middle.
There is no right way, there is the only way you do it.
Think of this book as a map of sorts:
A tender guide for moving through life’s big questions, love lost, and hearts found. This guide is not meant to be a how-to or what-to-do: it serves as a hand to hold while you forge your own path.
I invite you to read from beginning to end, especially if you are finding this book in a time of grief, uncertainty, or on the precipice of change.
Of course, this is your book, your life, and your time, so if you want to flip through the pages and land somewhere in the middle and start there, please do.
You’ll find what you need no matter where you start, for the truth is we are always at the beginning, constantly at the end, and forever right here, in the middle.
There is no right way, there is the only way you do it.
A peek inside LOOK UP
Why “LOOK UP”
You will have seasons of life when you’ll wonder if anything will ever work out. You’ll doubt yourself or feel stuck. You’ll question if it’s worth trying to get up again when you’re just going to fall once more. You’ll feel seasons of hope and recovery and forget the painful ones. You’ll lose sight of how much you’ve grown and when the stuckness comes again, you’ll feel defeated. These seasons will come and go, rise and fall, and just like you, they’ll persist.
I find myself in this cycle often. Despite decades of therapy, research, and spiritual study, I return to a state of overwhelming loss. These periods can lead me to feeling hopeless and disgruntled, as if I’ve failed myself by coming back.
At times these cycles have kept me stuck long enough to wonder, will I ever emerge, or will I always find myself back here?
I remember (as I do every time I’m in this season of stuckness) that even though it feels like nothing is happening or coming together, and even though I have no idea what direction I’m going or how to get there, that one day I’ll look back on this time and say, “oh yeah, it was all working out, I just couldn’t see how then because I was in it.”
The truth is, we will find ourselves back here: in the doubt, in the stuck, in the loss. It is life’s natural balance: life and death, love and loss, pleasure and pain…to know one is to know the other, and it would be foolish to chase a life absent of any discomfort. Still, these seasons of pain have the ability to break us. Without the right support, tools, or compassion, our pain becomes suffering and we become truly stuck.
I hope this book finds you when you’re stuck. I hope this book finds you when you’re afraid. I hope this book finds you when you’re doubting that good things will come or when you’re seeped in grief or on the precipice of change. I hope this book can serve as the companion you may not have right now. The compassion you may not have access to. Wisdom you may feel too clouded to see or the tools you may feel too tired to reach for. I hope this book finds you when you’re ready to shift in the cycle and move forward in life.
When you’re ready to Look Up.
I have put my heart into this book and hope that in its pages, you find relief, hope, and a gentle reminder that you are oh so not alone.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here, for reading, and for looking up.