I’m excited to share my new book:
“Innermost: Healing Is Magic”
It explores healing, ritual, community, dreams, and magic—all through the language of the subconscious mind: a story.
You can get the book here ⤵️
ALSO,
Join me Sat. April 26th at Cygnets Way in Kingston, New York, for the free book launch event. We’ll discuss, explore, share, and transform…together.
You can RSVP here
Without any further hubbub, here’s this week’s letter—doom and gloom.
𖡎
It’s looming.
A sense of danger.
Something around the corner, ready to destroy everything.
We feel it while driving, working, and interacting.
It looms as we rest, enjoy, and create.
We see it on the news and social media.
It’s a slinking gray hovering above everything—like a putrid storm cloud following us, adding a palpable pressure.
We can’t seem to shake it.
For some unknown reason, we’re convinced something terrible will happen (but we don’t know what or when).
(This feeling is especially strong when things are going well or when we feel calm—like rain on our parade or the other shoe dropping.)
I know this feeling all too well because I spent years feeling a dreaded pressure. A constant ‘OR ELSE’ hovering above my head like an anvil waiting to drop at the slightest misstep.
But what’s causing it? Could it be:
The current state of the world?
Ancestral trauma? (or just regular trauma?)
Anxiety?
Burnout?
Something else?
Maybe we’re right, and something bad IS coming?
Maybe it’s just a bad habit of thought?
Dulls Light
Whatever the cause, we walk around jumpy, shoulders up to our ears, teeth grinding, waiting for it.
We hold our breath, looking for it around every corner—the thing we most fear but can’t describe.
This state of being is a tiresome nightmare. It grinds us under, drowns us in dread, and dulls our light. (regardless of the cause)
Fearing the unknown, we take small steps or cease moving altogether.
Seeing life as a minefield of possible danger, ready to blow at any moment, we shut our gates and clench our eyes. Decaying in a grimy vault.
Dampens Good
This doom and gloom sticks us in a mire of terror and exhaustion.
Even when good things happen, they are dampened by a sense that something bad is coming. And sooner or later, we’re right.
Bad news only reinforces our fears—tightening our grip on smothering safety.
The fear of this bad thing happening can even bring it on, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Living this way STOPS us from:
Enjoying
Relaxing
Letting our guard down
Feeling at ease
Feeling at peace
Instead, we feel a constant hum of:
Dread
Ennui
Fear
Pessimism
Danger
Darkness
We react to this hum of danger and become frenzied. We constantly need to do, prepare, prevent, and protect.
It’s a small life of small movements and big fears.
If we’re not careful, we can live in this cloud of doom forever (and many do).
Clear the Fog
BUT, if we manage to clear the fog of fear and walk into the field of sun beyond frightening possibilities, we’ll find a bigger life.
A life with more
Love
Peace
Joy
Celebration
Adventure
A life where we can let our guard down and finally enjoy our wins.
But what if bad happens?
Sure, some blows will come sooner or later, as in every life, but we won’t be so brittle and feeble in their face.
Bracing for a constant fall doesn’t prevent it; it only atrophies our bones before the drama, weakening us for the moment of truth.
With inner peace instead of doom, we can breathe through the pain, swim in open waters, bask in the sun, smile big, and love deeply—knowing none of this is ours for long; we can enjoy it while we’re here.
But we can only do this if we transform our lurking feelings of doom and gloom and heal.
Beautiful Life
When we release this tightening noose of fear and shake the fog of doom and gloom, we live as aesthetes soaking up the nectar of life, finding simple pleasure, connection, and poetry.
We melt into the soil, nourishing our souls, holding hands, smelling roses, reading, and eating slowly—savoring in quiet bliss.
We move through life as confident house cats, knowing, as if there was never any doubt, that we deserve goodness, joy, comfort, and safety.
Knowing, as if it could never be any other way, that we are OKAY and that the world is beautiful despite the grief. Feeling that even within the grief, there is beauty, meaning, and love.
This is a life worthy of a human being. A life waiting for us.
All we need to do is shed our cloak of fear, peeling away our agita like the bruised bit of an apple.
But how?
False Security
Most people make the mistake of believing their fear and acting on it to ensure everything is okay. They plant the seeds of their actions in the soil of their fear and grow bitter fruit.
They feel that if they could prevent every conceivable thing from going wrong, they would feel safe and okay. But the prevention of danger has an inverse effect.
The more we act in fear and build our fortress as tall as the sky, the more frightened we become of the sun and the more we invite mad ghouls to scale our walls.
We can’t solve fear with security.
That’s because the looming feeling of doom and gloom is within us, and acting on it externally will only build our life on cornerstones of terror, making a cold mausoleum of our living.
Those trapped in this loop of seeking security while drowning in fear try to convince others of their dire predictions, serving as patient zero in the epidemic of doom and gloom (a highly contagious celestial infection).
Battling
Others live in a state of anxiety and dis—ease. They fight their inner feelings with frustration, trying to reassure themselves with panic that everything is okay, only creating more fear.
They judge themselves and their feelings, hoping that a grave distance between what they feel and how they act will help them while they battle bloody inside themselves.
But no peace can come from a battle within.
Numbing
Other people numb themselves with substances, medication, food, and work to manage and get through the day.
This creates another problem.
When we repress emotions, we don’t get rid of them; we bury them deeply within us, only for them to appear uglier in our thoughts, deeds, and physical bodies later.
The way through this affliction is with a secret everyone knows.
So what is this doom and gloom, and how do we shake it?
1. Fear is a child
The first thing to realize is that this fear isn’t real, but it’s also not our enemy.
It’s a warning system—an alarm bell trying to keep us safe and help us.
But like a child frightened of monsters under his bed, we don’t need to be so cruel in response to his fears or take him so seriously.
We wouldn’t want to yell at a frightened child, telling him to be quiet.
We wouldn’t want to ignore him either.
And likewise, we wouldn’t run out of the house screaming, taking his claim of monsters seriously.
We’d listen to him gently with love and hold his feelings in our hands like cupped river water. Then, we’d slowly let it settle in our palms before letting it flow smoothly through our fingers.
2. Based in real experience
The second thing we must acknowledge is that this doom and gloom, this fear of something terrible happening, is based on actual experience.
Family, teachers, and guardians likely taught us to think this way.
And/or we were given reason to believe something bad was coming:
A smack at the dinner table
The loss of a loved one with no closure
An emotionally violent separation with no explanation or comfort
Whatever the origin story of these feelings, they were learned and reinforced—likely at an early age. (We’ll talk about how to shift these experiences subconsciously in the coming months.)
To heal, we must reveal to our deepest selves that these experiences were the exception, not the rule. That building a life on bad things happening doesn’t prevent them. And that love, not fear, is the ultimate currency in life (and the best path to safety).
When we heal in this way, we will begin to see the world as friend, not foe.
3. Attachment to fear
One of the most essential parts of subconscious healing is releasing our attachment to our pains. Most attachments to pain stem from a deep (and valid) need.
This can manifest in many ways. For example:
If we learned to fear the world from a parent, losing that fear may feel like losing our connection to someone we love. (Need for connection)
Letting go of our fear could feel unsafe, leaving us open and exposed to danger. (Need for safety)
Without this feeling, we may not even know who we are. (Need for identity)
I’ve often seen people use this doom and gloom as motivation to act, produce, and succeed. So, without this fear, they wouldn’t have a path forward or even a sense of purpose.
Who are we without our dragons to slay? What does a warrior do when the fight is over?
The fear of these changes can often keep us from healing or beginning the process.
By exploring new ways of feeling safe, motivating ourselves, connecting, and being in the world without heavy armor, we can begin to heal in deep, lasting ways.
We can learn new tunes to dance to without the burden of fear.
This is the path of real subconscious healing.
Reconfigure permissions
Healing is blowing out our candle and sitting in the dark, sinking into lingering fears like a hot spring until our eyes adjust and we can see the stars.
It’s a process of reconfiguring permissions, forgiving protectors, and finding new ways of being in the world.
It can sometimes be clumsy, like writing our name with our non-dominant hand, but it’s a path that enlivens and enriches our time here.
Life is a sour mistake when we live in fear, making pain our God and master.
If we can heal, shift, and find safety in more beautiful ways, our scales will fall away, and in their place, the plumage of vibrant feathers will grow, allowing us to soar in the winds of the world.
I’ll see you up there.
Warmly,
Lucas