Several months ago, someone asked me: “What does health mean to you?”

I responded:

For me, health means feeling at ease and at home in my body. When I feel good in my body, that reverberates through my mind, spirit, and relationships.

I’ve been a licensed Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine since 2012, and I’ve practiced yoga and Buddhism for around twenty-five years. These traditions shape how I understand health and how I live day to day, from the way I eat and move to my relationship with spirituality, with others, and with myself.

The exchange took place in writing, in a more formal context. But the essence of my response—and what feels most important—is this:

What health “means” to me is what health feels like to me.

This feeling of health is something no one can measure or quantify, and no one else can actually know. It’s the way I feel—the way each of us feel—on the inside. It’s also how that feeling ripples outward, impacting every single person and thing we interface with, whether directly or indirectly, in ways known or unknown.

I see this different question—how does health feel to you—as deeply important. I’ve also seen, both in my own life and when working with patients, how touching into that feeling can support beautiful choices and changes.

How do you want to feel? What helps you feel that way? In your body, your mind, your spirit? When in doubt, do more of that. I promise it will bring you closer to how you most want to feel—maybe not all of the time, but a whole lot more often.

The heart of my own answer centers on ease in body, mind, spirit. That speaks to the physical ease I feel when I eat well and get good sleep and move my body each day. But also to the ease I feel at the end of the day, when I sit down to meditate and check in with how my actions and inactions have affected my body, my heart, other people.

It all goes together, and this is good news. Because it means cultivating ease—cultivating a hunger for ease and serenity and what leaves us feeling better, not worse—gathers its own momentum. And the more peace we feel, the more settledness and wholeness and love and enoughness, the more we crave it. Until, eventually, we crave it even more than what might offer temporary relief but takes us in the opposite direction.

This is how craving what’s good for you happens. This is how a feeling of health happens. This is how tending to our own body-mind-spirit leads to us living more beautifully.

*

In case you missed it, Hungry For, a new collaborative series featuring people living beautiful lives in all kinds of ways, launched last week. In each edition, guests will answer the same set of four questions.

For all the reasons above—along with my own curiosity—the first question is: What does health feel like to you?

If you missed the inaugural edition, you can read ’s thoughtful responses here. And look for the next edition this Wednesday—I think it will especially resonate with anyone interested in gardening, living simply, or even living abroad.

Then, on Friday, look for the next TCM Deep Dives series: holistic beauty through the lens of Chinese Medicine.

For now, I’d love to hear what health feels like to you. I’ll also leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for—and an invitation to share yours in the comments.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Longer yoga practices. Yoga asana (the physical postures many people equate with yoga) are woven throughout my day: a short but vigorous practice outdoors first thing each morning, a short yoga “snack” before lunch, a longer practice in late afternoon before dinner, and gentle stretching and long backbend holds before bed.

For the afternoon session, I usually practice with a recording from my teacher, Esak, as part of his Jedi Fight Club Immersion program. These recordings are typically around 90 minutes, but lately I’ve been pausing them here and there and stretching my afternoon practice to a full two hours. While this might seem like a lot, it’s really not if I think about how easy it is to spend 30 extra minutes scrolling Substack Notes or hopping from tab to tab on the internet. These longer practices leave me in a totally different, much better place mentally. They also offer a container for whatever I’m working on physically. This month: piking with straight legs into headstand, moving from headstand into tiger (forearm stand with a backbend), then into hollowback (tiger with bent knees, chest and head drawn through the arms), then exiting the same way—over and over, with multiple one-minute tiger and hollowback holds thrown in the mix. It’s mentally and physically challenging. I just love it so much.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Green tea, pu’er tea, all the tea. When I committed to no coffee or caffeinated tea this year (as part of a program blending A Course in Miracles, Jñāna yoga, and ancient Egyptian mysticism that includes specific dietary and lifestyle parameters), I expected it to be much harder than it turned out to be. I was also amazed by how much less daily anxiety I experience without coffee.

But! We’ve been spending hours talking about tea in my Thai language lessons recently—the different types and processing methods, the history and health benefits. It’s left me very hungry for tea! I’m especially craving a lighter green tea, like sencha, and I fully expect to bring that back into my way of eating when the year is through—even if I continue with the program, and even if I stick with the other lifestyle parameters.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What does health feel like to you?

Leave a comment

Before you go, would you mind tapping the heart ❤️? It helps these letters reach more readers and genuinely brightens my day.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

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Well, right on cue, as though spiders the size of my face and lizards the size of my forearm (both living inside the house, mind you) weren’t quite hardcore enough for someone who’s just marked two years in Thailand, the other evening brought our next test.

It was after dark—around 8:30 p.m.—and I was coming down the stairs when I saw our temple cat Tucker sitting just outside our large screened front doors, waiting to come in for the night. I went to the kitchen to put down the dishes I was carrying, came back out to let him in, and saw that he was suddenly preoccupied with swatting at something. I figured it was a spider or lizard, as usual, but no. When I peered over the bottom of the screen, I saw a scorpion the size of my hand.

Tucker has zero fear, of course, and was provoking it over and over as though the whole thing was a game. (To him, it most definitely was. But when it comes to cats and scorpions, that game can become an emergency.)

I frantically shooed Tucker away. He completely ignored me. The scorpion had its tail raised over its back. Without thinking—with my legs and feet bare, wearing nothing but a tank top and underwear—I opened the screen door, jumped over the scorpion, pulled Tucker into my arms (ignoring all risk of his large teeth and claws), jumped back over the scorpion, into the house, slammed the door, and bolted it shut.

Next-level Thai living unlocked.

In other news…

I’m always pondering how to make this newsletter valuable to you—and how to offer you a particular type of experience while reading it. One that feels real and maybe asks you to slow down for a moment or two, or to consider something from a slightly different angle, or to remember what you need to do to feel your best and to live more beautifully.

Out of those ponderings came the idea for a new collaborative series featuring people who are living beautiful lives in all kinds of ways. It’s coming soon, and I’m so excited to share it with you.

Meanwhile, I wanted to unlock a couple of recent posts for everyone. One is from the TCM Deep Dives series on the seven emotions, and the other is the latest monthly link-up:

• Joy in Chinese Medicine: touches on not just joy, but also overstimulation and addiction—including what those patterns steal from us and simple practices to lessen their hold.

• Manuka honey, raw milk, and relationship advice from two celibate monks, plus holistic beauty treatments in Seoul, protein without force-feeding, faith, and health without hype.

The next TCM Deep Dives series is also coming soon: holistic beauty through the lens of Chinese Medicine.

For now, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for—and I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Laughing out loud. Okay, this one’s for the hot yogis in the audience. I mean, I also sent it to my dad and sisters—who can’t fathom willingly subjecting yourself to a class heated to 105°F (40°C)—but I suspect my fellow hot yoga junkies will appreciate this video on hot yoga etiquette on a very special level. It had me laughing until I was crying the other evening, watching it alone, playing it over and over. (Make sure to turn the sound on.)

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Hot yoga class! Watching the video above made me deeply nostalgic for in-person hot yoga classes taught by teachers who changed my life and my practice. Miss you, Frankie Bell Staples. You too, Emily Singhota!

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• How do you feel about spiders and scorpions?

Leave a comment

Before you go, would you mind tapping the heart ❤️? It helps these letters reach more readers and genuinely brightens my day.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

If you’re returning to the basics and wanting something steady to stay with, paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating (you can preview it here).

A paid subscription also includes full access to the TCM Deep Dives series, where we most recently looked at the Chinese Medicine organs and the seven emotions.

Subscribe now

Last week marked two years since my partner Randy and I, each carrying a Siamese cat, left Nova Scotia—a bundle of nerves and ceaseless meows.

After a three-day journey with layovers in Toronto and Amsterdam, we collapsed onto an impossibly plush, blissfully clean bed in a Bangkok hotel. We were exhausted, profoundly relieved, and in complete disbelief.

As those of you who’ve been around since then know, Thailand wasn’t always the plan. From around January of that year right up until two weeks before our departure the plan was Cambodia.

Then, two weeks out—tickets bought, hotels booked, cars sold, paperwork sorted, belongings pared down to matching carry-ons and cat carriers, every detail mapped out like a covert operation—we received an email from the Cambodian airline saying the final leg of our journey from Seoul to Phnom Penh had been cancelled. Not only was there no explanation, but the flight still seemed to be scheduled. Just not with us on it.

While there were other ways to get to Cambodia from Seoul, there was no way to work around my top non-negotiable: my cats were not going in cargo, and they were not getting subjected to quarantine.

So, mere weeks before moving across the world, we were back to square one. We frantically ran through countries that would meet our other requirements and let us in with cats on short notice.

Thailand was high on our list (I’d lived here decades ago), but we’d initially ruled it out because of long-term visa hurdles. Still, faced with a choice between the logical (Mexico) and what our hearts desired (Southeast Asia), we followed our hearts—but only after flipping back and forth between those two options and probably ten others at least two hundred times with no time to spare.

Ultimately deciding to go for it, we charged ridiculously priced, last-minute tickets to a credit card, pulled off a miracle with vet paperwork meeting both Thailand and KLM Royal Dutch Air’s stricter requirements, and endured a journey that was truly one of the most stressful of my whole life—not fully trusting that the cats would be allowed in when we arrived, or how any of us would survive that.

But we made it! After a few days of dazed disbelief—during which we barely left the Bangkok Airport Hotel, fearful of jinxing it all or “getting caught,” though we’d done nothing wrong—we hired a driver to take us to Chiang Mai, moved into a tiny townhouse in a tucked-away alley, and settled into our new life on the other side of the planet. Coming from rural Nova Scotia, we enjoyed city life with its vibrant markets and ubiquitous coffee shops for a while before moving to a small village in Mae Rim last September, where we live today.

Two years in, what still feels true:

• In my twenties, I moved to far-flung destinations with short notice, no real plans, and minimal possessions. In my thirties and forties, things shifted. There was Chinese Medicine school, cats, and marriage. I became a Chinese Medicine doctor, college instructor, and dean. By the time we left Canada for Thailand, I was 49 and my partner was 61. This move has reminded me that life’s path can look all kinds of ways. It doesn’t need to fit the parameters, norms, or expectations we grew up with—or the ones that surround us. Although I miss Canada dearly, I’m in love with our life here in Thailand.

• Being able to afford and access decent housing, food, and allopathic and holistic healthcare is one of the most powerful antidotes to stress and anxiety I know. Don’t get me wrong—we’re still minimalists, and all my clothes still fit in a carry-on. But now I can buy groceries without a pit of dread forming in my stomach at the register. I can make planned or unplanned trips to the doctor or dentist without spiraling into panic. We can afford regular house visits from our amazing vet. I’m not lying awake night after night worried about money. When it comes to physical health, mental health, and quality of life, moving to Thailand changed everything. Living here feels like relief.

• I knew this already, but after moving, it became more immediate and obvious—and two years in, it just feels like a matter of course: the preoccupations, urgencies, and worldviews that dominate mainstream media and online spaces aren’t the center of everything. People in every corner of the world live full, vibrant lives with their own equally important, locally relevant concerns and perspectives.

• Living in a place where you’re still learning the language and culture turns every day into an exercise in mindfulness, curiosity, not knowing, and patience. Not a day passes without encountering something wildly unexpected and absolutely delightful. It’s a practice in slowing down, seeing with new eyes, and being willing to be surprised. It’s like being a kid again—gazing with wonder, noticing patterns, making connections, finding joy in discovery.

• I love people so much. I mean this generally—people everywhere, all over the world, share the same essence. But I also mean it specifically—here, in Thailand. Maybe, two years in, I’m still wearing rose-colored glasses. But at least in our village and surrounds, people are present. They notice one another. They tend to what needs doing. They are living life—not just posting and pontificating about it online. I want more of this. And for me, leaving behind what’s familiar makes that way easier.

• Put simply, I feel more alive here… and more deeply nourished… and beyond grateful to have a partner and cats who are up for this ride.

With that, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for—and I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Slumber parties! More nights than not as of late, our irresistible yet half-wild temple cat Tucker has been staying inside overnight. At first, he preferred to have the spare bed in my office all to himself. Now, he usually joins us upstairs—where Randy and I have side-by-side bedrooms, and I sleep with our Siamese cats, LingXu and LingDao.

Sometimes Tucker wants a boys’ night and jumps in with Randy. But I think his favorite thing is climbing into bed with the Lings (who weren’t particularly pleased about this at first but are coming around). The first night they all slept in bed with me, I looked down in the still-dark hours to see them lying in a tight circle facing each other—clearly having a clandestine cat meeting. Last night, as I drifted in and out of consciousness, I was delighted to discover Tucker snuggled behind my knees, LingDao in her usual place pressed against my chest or back, and LingXu in her station at the foot of the bed. Because the little princess LingDao rarely misses an opportunity to swat at Tucker during the daylight hours (as he throws himself at her feet, professing his love and utter submission), this nighttime détente feels all the more special.

Only problem is… Tucker’s typical wake-up is 3:40 a.m. or 4:20 a.m. (not sure if those two times are programmed into his internal clock or he’s responding to my own sleep cycles). Upon waking, he lets out his little squeaks until Randy or I get up, play with him for a few minutes, and let him outside. My heart is so full! But we’re all getting less sleep than usual.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

SLEEP. See above.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• Where are you stretching beyond what feels familiar?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

If you’re returning to the basics and wanting something steady to stay with, paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating (you can preview it here).

A paid subscription also includes full access to the TCM Deep Dives series, where we most recently looked at the Chinese Medicine organs and the seven emotions.

Subscribe now

Seeing as this newsletter is called PERFECT HUNGER (although that name goes far beyond food), and because I’ve been talking a lot lately about consistency, simplicity, and staying the course, I thought I’d talk about what I eat.

If you’ve been here a while, nothing I’m about to share will be new or surprising—I’m expanding on things I’ve shared before. But since I realize there are always new folks arriving, and since I truly do consider food such a vital aspect of health and well-being, here’s a snapshot:

Meals are some of my favorite times of the day. I eat around the same time, slowly without rushing, and prefer to eat in silence while reading something light and non-stressful.

I thrive on substantial meals and rarely snack, focusing on feeling genuinely satiated at mealtimes by including enough protein and fat. Eating this way gives me sustained energy, no cravings for refined carbs or sugar, and a stable, relaxed relationship with food. My weight and metabolic health have remained steady for over a decade without needing to strategize, restrict, or constantly work on it.

As much as I enjoy eating, I’ve never been much of a cook and prefer simple meals made from minimal, high-quality ingredients. “Cooking” for me currently looks like assembling bowls: white rice, smoked or raw salmon, eggs, occasionally chicken, avocado, mushrooms sautéed in olive oil or grassfed butter, a raw carrot or two as an appetizer, spoonfuls of tahini and full-fat Greek yogurt, generous sea salt, thinly sliced hot red peppers in fish sauce. Not all at once, specifics may vary, but that’s the general idea.

I still eat sugar, mostly from whole food sources including all kinds of local fruit (mangos are my absolute favorite) and coconut water straight from the shell. Breakfast is local orange juice squeezed right in front of me plus a hot drink made with 100 percent cocoa, grassfed butter, and raw goat milk. After dinner, I’ll have a couple pieces of very dark chocolate.

After many years of experimentation, I’ve come to truly love eating this way. When I first transitioned to a predominantly paleo-primal diet years ago, that wasn’t my experience at all. Back then, I was physiologically and mentally hooked on processed foods, refined carbs, and sugar. It took time and commitment to break that cycle, but now I feel free. I can eat anything I want. I simply prefer—and feel much better eating—simple, whole foods.

My diet mostly consists of “single-ingredient” or “minimal-ingredient” foods: meat, fish, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruit, healthy fats (e.g., butter, ghee, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, and fat-rich foods like avocados), nuts and seeds in small amounts, natural herbs and spices, sea salt, and plain, high-fat dairy.

I’ve been eating this way for well over a decade now, but the details shift depending on context. To quote from my Guide to Transformative Eating:

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, we have an entire modality called yang sheng fa. While this is often translated as “dietetics,” a more literal (and accurate) translation is “nourishing life principles,” which includes regular adjustments to meet our changing needs, goals, and health conditions. It even addresses factors such as where we live and the changing seasons.

But regardless of whether we take a Chinese Medicine perspective, our needs, goals, and circumstances are always changing.

My diet looks different living in Thailand’s tropical climate than it did in wintery British Columbia or Nova Scotia. It also looks different at 51, during a time of life when my primary exercise is yoga (with a substantial strength component) and walking, compared to when I was doing CrossFit in my thirties. My diet changes when I sense I’m coming down with a cold versus when I’m perfectly healthy. It also varies during different phases of my menstrual cycle, especially during my period.

Throughout these changes, the basics stay the same (whole foods, an emphasis on protein, minimal carbs and sugar, no snacking), but the details shift as needed. For example, during my period or if I start feeling unusually cold, foggy-headed, blurry-eyed, or fatigued, I might add red meat or organ meat.* Otherwise, living in a tropical climate where red meat isn’t a large part of the local diet, I eat it rarely. During fall and winter in Nova Scotia, I ate locally raised, grass-fed beef several times a week, purchased from Farmer Ralph down the road.

Because my innate signaling system is pretty dialed in after more than a decade of eating this way, I’m able to make these adjustments intuitively. I never could’ve done this back when I was addicted to sugar, carbs, processed foods, and disordered eating and exercise. Intuitive eating required first reaching a new baseline.

*This year is something of an exception when it comes to red meat. I’m participating in a year-long program blending A Course in Miracles, Jñāna yoga, and ancient Egyptian mysticism that includes specific dietary and lifestyle parameters: no red meat or pork, no caffeine or other stimulants, no alcohol or other drugs (recreational or pharmaceutical), and very little sugar. I’m breaking the rules with chocolate.

A little more context for today’s snapshot: I ate a sometimes vegan, sometimes vegetarian diet for about a decade before shifting to a whole food paleo-primal diet in 2012. Rice has only recently found its way back into my bowl after many years of eating mostly grain-free. My eating guide talks more about how to make these sorts of choices on your own path, but here’s the short version for me:

• When it comes to my heart, I struggle to eat animals. When it comes to my physical and mental health, I’ve found that both suffer in significant ways when animals are not at least a small part of my diet. The older I get, the more this is true for me.

• When it comes to food choices generally, I view my own as a question of tradeoffs—not “good” or “bad.” As physical beings, there are consequences to how we eat. To the extent that we do have choice, we each get to decide which consequences are worth it to us personally—and what feels “worth it” changes over time. Eating rice comes with tradeoffs for me (increased water retention and dips in energy if I overdo it), but I’m okay with that. Certain other foods come with consequences that, at this point in my life, feel too expensive. I’m too attached to how good I feel without them.

I do think, in all of this, it’s important not to shy away from noticing how different foods make us feel—both in the moment and afterwards. Changing how I ate changed the trajectory of my health and my life, and as a Chinese Medicine doctor, I’ve seen it do the same for others.

With that, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for—and I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Friendship. I have this thing where, with my closest, most beloved friends in the world—who all live thousands of miles away—I think about them all the time but go far too long without reaching out. It just feels like there’s so much to say, and so much love mixed with the pain of distance, and I don’t even know where to begin. But I’m trying to get over that, and the other day emailed my dear friend Jen.

We met in our twenties, when we were both in master’s programs at Georgetown and then ended up living across the hall from each other in a rent-controlled boarding house situation. We later studied together at the American University in Cairo as part of a year-long intensive Arabic fellowship. A few years after that, I quit my job in D.C., came to visit Jen in her tiny apartment in a sha’abi neighborhood in Cairo, then cancelled my return and moved in.

I still remember sitting on the floor of that flat, sipping local coffee ground with cardamom, eating taameya and gibna bayda from stalls down the street, doubling over with laughter. I last saw Jen in person a year before leaving Canada, when she came to visit me in Nova Scotia. And I last saw her online two Sundays ago—her in Cairo, me in Mae Rim—when one email turned into a video call. God, I love her so much.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

See above. More and more and more of that. And for hugging Jen so tightly.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What foods do you consistently feel your best eating?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

If you’re returning to the basics and wanting something steady to stay with, paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating (you can preview it here).

A paid subscription also includes full access to the TCM Deep Dives series, where we most recently looked at the Chinese Medicine organs and the seven emotions.

Subscribe now

The current TCM Deep Dives series is nearly complete, with the final post coming this Friday. I have two topics in mind for what’s next and would love to get your feedback.

Over the past several months, we’ve explored the Chinese Medicine organs and are now making our way through the seven emotions, with a focus on bringing these teachings into everyday life.

What I’m considering next:

• Chinese Medicine superfoods: a look at foods that have been used in Chinese Medicine and yang sheng fa 养生法 (nourishing life principles) for thousands of years—many of which have recently been “discovered” by wellness influencers and biohackers. Think honey, raw milk, organ meats, bone broth, gelatin, tremella, goji berries, egg yolks, ginger, and more. We’d explore what Chinese Medicine has to say about these foods, who they tend to help, and when they may not be the right fit.

• TCM beauty treatments: a look at holistic approaches to beauty that support not only skin and hair, but overall health and vitality. We’d explore things you can do yourself, such as gua sha, qi gong, acupressure, teas, and yang sheng fa practices—as well as therapies you might seek from a practitioner, such as herbal medicine, acupuncture, facial acupuncture, tui na, and cupping.

Do either of those interest you? Or is there another TCM topic you’re eager to know more about?

I’m excited about the rich, intertextual resource that’s emerging from the last two series, but I’ve also had the thought that superfoods and beauty might be a little “lighter” and easier to engage with. That said, I know some of you have expressed how much you prefer the current depth, and I’m open to staying the course—or lightening things up a little.

If you have thoughts, let me know in the comments.

Meanwhile, in the Thai countryside, the neighborhood has been a bit noisy this week. Turns out our village is building some sort of community gathering space in what had been an empty, overgrown lot next door. Thankfully, it seems the three very old spirit houses that sit on the property are staying (two are large enough to fit people). Fingers crossed, they won’t cut down the huge, beautiful tree at the lot’s center. I love looking at both the spirit houses and the tree from my bedroom window.

Nature always seems to prevail in any case—all the faster in rainy season, with daily downpours interspersed with stretches of sun and everything wild and green and growing. It’s almost as though people carved out space for themselves—for us—in the jungle and wildness, but slowly, persistently, the jungle and wildness keep pushing back. I feel it in the legions of lizards dashing across our walls and the calls of the tokay gecko bellowing from our rafters. In the baby scorpion we found on the floor of Randy’s office, its tiny tail furling and unfurling. In the spider the size of my face we discovered under the stairs one evening, dead still and watching. In the vines that creep towards our porch from every direction, then twist themselves up the railings and beams and hurl themselves onto the roof.

Our landlords are always at it—chopping, pruning, fighting back the vines and the jungle. But the jungle always comes back.

I love it.

Every day, whether I’m standing in our backyard or riding on the back of Randy’s motorbike, gazing at more types of palm trees than I knew existed and the forested mountains surrounding us, I’m reminded how much I love the land here. Its beauty. Its generosity. Its resilience.

With that, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for—and I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

All the fruit! I rarely eat fruit unless it’s fresh and local, so it was never a year-round staple for me in Canada (though I sure loved farmers’ market berries come summer). Thailand, on the other hand, is a tropical fruit extravaganza. It’s growing everywhere we look here in the countryside and piled high in markets and grocery stores. Our landlords (who live next door) regularly bring over bananas.

Pictured below: three types of mango, papaya, guava, dragon fruit, and avocado. I’m also partial to noi na (น้อยหน่า), known in English as custard apple. Its exterior is covered with rough, knobby scales, but inside is white, subtly sweet, and custard-like.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

A big body of water. Although we have split-unit air conditioners in our bedrooms and offices, the house is easily above 90°F (32°C) downstairs and above 100°F (38°C) upstairs from early afternoon on. Quick cold showers help tremendously, but I sure would love to jump into a lake, river, or ocean. Still, I do appreciate not needing a hot yoga studio. All yoga is hot yoga here.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What fruits are you enjoying right now?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

If you’re returning to the basics and wanting something steady to stay with, paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating (you can preview it here).

A paid subscription also includes full access to the TCM Deep Dives series, where we most recently looked at fear and anxiety. Next, we turn towards depression and trauma.

Subscribe now

Over the years, in the online wellosphere, I’ve watched as morning routines became a thing, then became increasingly elaborate, then became so involved they weren’t really a morning routine anymore—more like a half-day production.

And then, as often happens online, the pendulum swung back again. In certain circles these days, morning routines are deeply uncool: proudly unbothered and vaguely destructive is the aesthetic. Meanwhile, on the other side, we find increasingly extensive and expensive peptide and biohack stacks, with endless ways of outsourcing health and intuition to products and gadgets.

But you know what’s held steady? Through more than a decade of morning routine and anti-morning-routine trends? Since long before we started performing all this on the internet?

My morning routine.

I’m a firm believer that what you do in the morning flows into the entire day. Over and over again, I’ve seen and experienced this in my own life.

As you know, I also place tremendous faith in simplicity and consistency. I have a deep affinity for paring things back to their essentials, doing the next thing, doing it again, and staying the course.

When it comes to morning routines and most other areas of life, this includes two components. The first is what you might expect: declaring non-negotiables, showing up, sticking with practices even when you don’t feel like it. The second is being receptive and intuitive enough to let routines and habits evolve over time.

It can be a tricky balance, especially if you struggle with consistency long term. Our inner stories can be oh so convincing. But for me, most changes happen slowly and organically, woven into the rhythm of life. It’s only when I look back across the years that I see how much the trajectory has shifted.

Anyway, I was thinking about this recently because I was asked (for a still-unpublished interview in another publication) to describe how I start my day. And it got me reflecting on how little details are different now than they were two years ago, one year ago, or even six months ago… while other aspects have been with me for more than two decades. Every morning, day after day.

In case you’re looking for inspiration—or, like me, simply like getting a glimpse into other people’s routines—I thought I’d share a peek into my mornings, along with some of the ways they’ve changed and stayed the same over time.

(By the way, this is NOT to say you need a morning routine or that it has to look anything like mine. If you have babies or young kids, especially, I imagine your mornings look entirely different! But if you do have a morning routine—or even just one or two practices that feel nourishing, energizing, or essential—I’d love to hear in the comments.)

Asked to describe how I start my day, here’s what I said:

I usually wake around dawn. Between tropical birds, village roosters, and my cats, there’s no sleeping in.

First thing, I splash water on my face and do oil pulling while making my bed, reading a chapter of the Tao Te Ching, and writing a line or two in my journal: the date, my sobriety year (6), and an invocation or prayer. I then brush my teeth, head downstairs to feed the cats, take a few sips of water, and step outside—where our temple cat Tucker greets me like it’s Christmas morning all over again.

On our wraparound porch, breathing in the fresh air as dark turns to dawn, I do the Five Tibetan Rites (an ancient movement, breath, and longevity practice), along with some sit-ups and pushups. I then sit in meditation for a few minutes before heading back inside to take a quick cold shower, put castor oil and sometimes honey on my face, and make a hot drink.

Since January 1, I’ve been off coffee and caffeinated tea as part of a year-long study blending A Course in Miracles, Jñāna yoga, and ancient Egyptian mysticism. Most mornings I drink mint tea or a simple cocoa drink made with boiling water, local raw goat milk, grassfed butter, a sprinkle of sea salt, and two heaping tablespoons of 100 percent cocoa powder. I’ll often drink that alongside fresh orange juice while reading the ACIM text and lesson of the day. (Chocolate does contain a small amount of caffeine—this is the one exception I’m making. Don’t tell my ACIM teacher!)

When that’s done, I open my laptop, check email, and begin work. I’ll often do gua sha at some point while reading online.

And while some parts of that routine are new, others have been with me for decades. Here are a few examples of how my mornings have evolved over time:

• Waking early has been consistent for decades. These days, instead of alarms, I wake to tropical birds and village roosters.

• Oil pulling is one of the newest additions. I started a few months ago after putting it off for years. Now, I really miss it if I skip it.

• I’ve gone in and out of reading the Tao Te Ching for more than two decades. My copy was xeroxed at a small copy shop in Thailand and given to me by a spiritual teacher turned lover turned unhinged ex when I lived here in my twenties.

• Writing in my journal began in 2017 during the dark Winter of Divorce. Originally, it was an evening gratitude practice. Around the time I got sober, I made it a morning ritual instead—adding my day count, now a year count. Over the past five years, it’s become increasingly magical and mystical. I think of it less as journaling and more as casting spells on my life—setting intentions, asking for protection, and inviting in all manner of compassionate, loving assistance and guidance.

• The movement portion of my mornings has remained steady. I’ve been doing the Five Tibetan Rites every morning without fail since around 2016. Sit-ups and pushups have been with me much longer—probably since the first time I lived in Thailand in my late twenties.

• Cold showers have been part of the routine for years. I mixed it up while living in interior British Columbia, plunging into a glacier-fed lake every morning no matter the season or weather. (I do go through phases of warm showers, too.)

• Washing my face with just water followed by oil of some sort has been part of my mornings for decades—previously coconut oil, currently castor oil, sometimes honey as a face mask or spot treatment.

• The hot drink has stayed. The drink itself has changed. After giving up coffee and caffeinated tea on January 1, I was a good sport about mint and ginger tea for a while—they’re fine—before finally saying fuck it and switching to 100 percent dark cocoa powder. I’ve been playing with the specifics, but I reached peak morning beverage a few weeks ago when I discovered the wonders of local raw goat milk. I honestly prefer my new morning drink to coffee.

The other night, laughing with Randy, I said: “The edgiest thing I do these days is drink hot chocolate.”

• Caring for cats has also remained a constant. They’ve played an unreasonably large role in my life for more than fifteen years. Tucker, however—our adopted temple cat—is a much newer addition to the rhythms of daily life. Lately, he’s been staying over for slumber parties—making for even earlier mornings.

• Morning meditation is new. I’ve meditated every evening for years, but the morning sit began January 1 because it’s required for the ACIM program I’m doing and aligns with the Theravada Buddhism certificate program I started this year. The ACIM reading itself is new as well. I do it every morning—no exceptions—but I’m doubtful I’ll continue once the year-long program ends and I reach the end of the book. Morning meditation, though, is a keeper.

Looking across decades of mornings, I can see that while the details have changed, a few essential ingredients form a through-line:

• water and cleansing

• a simple skincare ritual

• movement

• silence and solitude

• prayer, invocation, devotion

• a hot drink savoured slowly

And alongside those, a few broader patterns:

• part of it takes place outside

• no tech until I open my laptop

• everything is low-cost or free

All told, the first act of my morning—before the hot drink and laptop, if I’m taking my time—takes about an hour. And Randy has his own breath and movement routine before coffee.

Sometimes, passing each other on the stairs or porch, one of us will joke: “I still have so much to do before I can sit down with my chocolate/coffee!”

But that doesn’t stop either of us from doing it, same as we’ve both been doing for decades. It really does make a difference.

Throughout the rest of the day, I’m far more likely to feel calmer and steadier, more grounded and focused. I tend to make better choices and just feel better. And when I feel better, everything goes more smoothly.

With that, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for—and I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

STORM. I have a somewhat unusual, possibly off-brand thing to share this week: a video by GENER8ION starring Yung Lean. Heads up that it includes drug use, bullying, and young male chaos and catharsis.

While I don’t want to live in that world, I found the video mesmerizing—especially the final few minutes and where the arc lands. (If you watch it, definitely watch all the way through.)

I knew nothing about Swedish rapper Yung Lean before this, but afterward I looked him up and learned more about his life, experiences with mental health and addiction, and current sobriety.

The music and video won’t be for everyone, but I found beauty in it. Reflecting on that afterward, I realized I increasingly see beauty in many different expressions of the human condition without immediately moralizing or rushing towards resolution. I’m not sure I could have done that a few years ago—especially in early sobriety.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Nuance. Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is how often, in many circles, “nuance” and difference are only accepted as an abstraction. Meanwhile, people are running a mostly unconscious, always-on program in the background assessing whether “you’re one of us” or “you’re one of them.”

I’m hungry for spaces beyond invisible us/them checklists, where nuance and inclusion are actually real.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• How do you start your day?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

If you’re returning to the basics and wanting something steady to stay with, paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating (you can preview it here).

A paid subscription also includes full access to the TCM Deep Dives series, where we’re currently exploring the seven emotions in Chinese Medicine. We most recently looked at worry and grief. Next, we turn towards fear and anxiety.

Subscribe now

Heart-sourced congrats to for winning this month’s $100 Bookshop giveaway! A reminder that there’s a chance to win each month as part of the Link-Up series.

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Dearest Reader,

Last Thursday evening after yoga practice, I was lying in my infrared sauna blanket, eyes closed, listening to an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show about ways people had simplified their lives. My thoughts drifted and I was only half paying attention until…

Around minute 17, at the start of “conscious leadership disruptor” Diana Chapman’s segment, one line jolted me:

“Simple happens when your inner and outer worlds are in agreement.”

I think the line hit me so hard because I’ve been realizing how much energy I spend negotiating between what feels true internally and what feels safe externally.

And I think that’s also part of why the themes of simplicity and consistency, then quiet and solitude, have been so alive for me lately. Simplicity in terms of possessions, routines, and daily life, yes. But also simplicity in a deeper sense. The simplicity that comes with less hypervigilance and risk assessment. Less code switching and fragmentation. Less back-and-forth between versions of self.

Truthfully, much of what followed in the podcast made me glaze over. It felt like a distraction from that essential point I wanted to linger with longer. After a few more minutes, I turned it off and spent the rest of my sauna time 1) savoring the silence, and 2) contemplating that one line—how right it felt, where I’m already living it, where I’m wanting to hurtle myself into it more fully, madly, completely.

The funny thing is, I rarely listen to The Tim Ferriss Show—so the fact that I happened to tune into this latest episode on a complete whim, and that line jumped out at me that evening, would soon feel especially auspicious. But I didn’t know that yet. I just knew that when I emerged from my sauna blanket, dripping with sweat and trying not to fuck up my laptop keyboard, the line felt important enough to email myself.

Cut to the next morning. I was up earlier than usual, around 5:30 am, to give myself space for an unrushed movement practice and meditation outside, an unrushed cup of hot cocoa with local raw goat’s milk, and a quiet moment to gather myself before my session with .

I’ve spoken about Maria here before. We know each other through sober community connections. She’s a former pharmaceutical industry scientist turned organizational leader turned astrologer, hypnotist, podcaster, psychic medium, herbalist, and writer. It’s hard for me to sum up our sessions because they feel intuitively and spiritually guided rather than following a particular framework. But if you’re looking for a wise, tapped-in guide whose messages feel sourced from pure Love, I wholeheartedly recommend Maria.

In this particular session, I brought some angst that’s been gnawing at me and that, honestly, relates to how I show up in this newsletter.

I’ve always been honest and real with what I share here. But I’ve also tended to shrink parts of myself and my life for fear of rejection—in the form of lower engagement, fewer hearts, unsubscribes, being cancelled, who knows. My life and choices don’t all fit within acceptable narratives. Since 2020 especially, I’ve learned painful lessons about what is and isn’t allowed in some online circles.

And for a long stretch, I worked with an amazing editor who I know helped protect me. But some of that protection—which is on me, my choices—involved extra softening and omission and trying to make myself relatable and unassailable. Because I’m not working with an editor currently, and because on some level I just can’t take shrinking anymore, a lot more of me has been coming through. And even more wants to come through.

I want my inner and outer worlds to be in agreement.

Even if it costs me subscribers, my bestseller badge, approval, belonging—all of it.

And what’s complicated is that I know for a fact that my readership spans exceptionally diverse beliefs and ways of living. This means the world. And I personally read, respect, and love people whose beliefs and ways of living differ dramatically from my own. But I also know that different parts of me run counter to different groups, and I’m not sure there’s a single group that aligns with me fully—which is totally fine. It’s just that, in my lived experience, this has too often looked like rejecting the whole of me because of one part of me.

That’s the space I brought into my session with Maria last Friday morning. What came through felt almost uncanny because I hadn’t mentioned the podcast line—or anything remotely similar. And yet, she immediately began speaking into the exact tension I’d been turning over the night before.

Where is my inner self negotiating with my outer self? Where am I exhausting myself trying to manage reception, perception, and belonging? Where am I endlessly recalibrating what’s safe to reveal?

And then, from there:

What if, rather than making those calculations over and over and over again, I made more global decisions around where and how I show up? Around how much of myself to let through?

Knowing there will always be risk. Knowing some people will absolutely reject me. And knowing that every global decision brings more simplicity and serenity.

She literally said at one point:

“It’s like coming to that alignment of your internal self and your external self in advance in as many categories as possible to prevent that exhaustion.”

Rather than every piece of writing becoming: should I share this or shouldn’t I? How will people react? How should I adjust myself? Oh fuck, what did I do?

All those stories and negotiations that slowly erode alignment with my fullest expression of self—an expression that, by the way, will always be changing for as long as I’m breathing.

Hearing Maria articulate this felt like relief. I responded with something along the lines of: “I love that. Because it’s like I only need to decide once, and then surrender the rest. However it’s received is not up to me.”

And she reminded me that even the global decisions aren’t final. I can revisit them monthly, seasonally, whenever I need. I’m free at any moment to reassess, change my mind, rewrite the decisions. But making them creates a container to get used to the bumps and reactions that come with being more fully seen. (Maria thinks this will become less wearing on my psyche over time, and I’m inclined to agree.)

She also said:

“In that way, you’re bringing your inner and outer self closer together so you will always feel like you fit in. Because there’s no negotiation. Either you find belonging—and that goes both ways—or you don’t, and that is for the best. Because it will be true.”

Because it will be true.

Another realization that came through is that much of my tension around all this is rooted in wanting to be of service. And Maria reflected that when we make ourselves overly broad or generic or even so-called relatable, people may see our work as just part of the endless parade of things moving past them online. But when we really put ourselves out there—trusting that our message won’t be for everyone but will be for someone—there’s a possibility for something much deeper to happen.

As Maria put it: “Our gift is for someone—or many people—to receive. And when they receive it, it will be deeply received, as opposed to just scanned.”

YES.

What we ended with was this: as long as I come from my heart, it’ll all be okay.

And the truth is, despite all my internal angst, I do come from my heart. The heart of my “global decision” is something I’ve already been practicing.

I run my writing—specifically, what I ultimately publish—through a few filters. (By the way, I endeavor to apply these filters to anything I write—newsletters, Substack notes, comments, emails, you name it. Also to anything I say or do, online and off. Which is not to say I always succeed—but I find having a clear compass helps me show up more beautifully more often.)

First, what I call my “Gil filter.” As I’ve mentioned countless times in this space, Gil Fronsdal has been my primary spiritual and ethical teacher for twenty-plus years. And I see tremendous value in asking myself: What would Gil think if he read this? Or even: Would I feel ashamed if Gil read this?

I don’t relate to any other teachers or figures like this. But this is the level of faith and trust I have in Gil’s teachings and in the path of practice I’m on with him—now in a more formal way through the Certificate of Theravada Buddhist Studies.

My second filter aligns with the first. It’s asking: how will I feel about what I’ve published when I sit down to meditate tonight?

That answer alone reveals almost everything I need to know. (I’ve written more about this daily inventory here.)

And my third filter aligns with both of those and my wider path of practice: Is this true? Does it create division? Does it come from my heart?

To be clear: something could pass through all three of those filters and still be rejected or triggering or even enraging to some people reading it. Honestly, that’s pretty much guaranteed! But this is the essence of the global decisions I’ve already made… and am working to embody more fully.

I’m still thinking through and feeling into what this means in practice—and I always will be. It’s an unended process. But even naming it—even realizing I’m reaching for more and more places to rest from the tug-of-war between my inner and outer worlds—brings a feeling of rightness.

Not in the sense of right or wrong.

In the sense of: yes. Yes. This feels very right in my mind, my body, my heart.

For now, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for—and I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Thai grammar. I feel like I mention Thai studies all the time in these letters, but language learning nourishes me in so many ways. There’s the actual practice of sitting outside in the mornings with my notebooks—especially now, with everything so alive and green during rainy season. There’s the mental project of working through grammar rules, then applying them in writing. There’s how it pulls me out of thought loops and helps me climb out of the internet.

It’s also a reminder of the tremendous gifts that come from living in—and truly opening to—a place other than where I grew up. Beyond the obvious aspiration of fluency, learning another language opens into another worldview and new way of thinking. It expands and enriches my perspective. It even makes me smile to myself when I think about how the people in my everyday life here don’t know or care what’s happening on Substack or in English-language discourse online.

Laughter. We have what we call a “fuck-you lizard”—technically a tokay gecko—living in our living room. (I’ve mentioned this roommate briefly before, but I don’t think I mentioned that the sound she makes is an extremely loud “Fuck you! Fuck you!”)

This particular one’s torso, not including the tail, is bigger than my forearm. Every night, when we go upstairs to bed, she emerges and starts yelling “Fuck you!” at the top of her little lizard lungs. The funniest part is that on the rare occasions we actually spot her, she freezes and goes completely silent. Then the minute we head upstairs again: “Fuck you! Fuck you!” As you can imagine, she adds extra laughter to our evenings.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Parts of our old life in Chiang Mai. Randy and I were talking the other day about how, despite preferring life in the countryside, and being truly awed and overjoyed by the lush green surrounding us and the view of the mountains, we miss parts of our old life in Chiang Mai. Things like walking to the market each evening, saying hello to the alley and street cats along our route, chatting with our regular juice and food vendors, getting that daily, in-person interaction as part of a bustling community. Thankfully, Chiang Mai is still only a short drive away. And though our interactions are fewer here in Mae Rim, they’re dependably lovely.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• Do you run what you write or say through some kind of inner compass?

• What one decision could you make to simplify your life, bringing your inner and outer worlds into closer agreement?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

If you’re returning to the basics and wanting something steady to stay with, paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating (you can preview it here).

A paid subscription also includes full access to the TCM Deep Dives series, where we’re currently exploring the seven emotions in Chinese Medicine. Most recently: worry and overthinking. Next, we turn towards sadness and grief.

Subscribe now

Quick reminder: two days remain to enter the $100 Bookshop.org gift card giveaway in the May Link-Up. *If you live somewhere Bookshop.org doesn’t deliver, you can still enter. If you win, I’ll send $100 via PayPal instead.

If you’re looking for something a bit more practical today, the May Link-Up also includes some thoughts on movement, strength training, body composition, and the approach I take in my own body and life.

Subscribe now

Dearest Reader,

The comments on my last letter—the one where I professed my deep faith in simplicity and consistency, my enduring love for paring things back to their essentials and staying the course—were truly so beautiful.

A few of your shares made me tear up.

There’s just something about hearing about the everyday rituals and practices people return to—about imagining those deeply human, exquisitely intimate moments. Being online so much of the time, consuming so much “content,” I think that’s what I’m trying (often failing) to reach for.

It’s like, I want to peer through this screen and into the quiet, lived moments of lives. I want to get a glimpse of what’s most ordinary, and in that ordinary, sense the beating of another heart. A heart, for all our differences, that’s much like my own.

Anyway, one of those comments spoke to something that’s so essential to all of this for me—and so essential to how I understand and practice simplicity and consistency—that I can’t believe I didn’t think to mention it.

Tami wrote, “To me, simple includes calm and quiet and gentle.”

Yes, yes. Quiet, in particular, feels like air to me.

It’s where I find calm and find God. It’s where I have the best chance of hearing and knowing what matters most. It’s where I can best understand the impact of my choices around food, movement, spiritual practice, being in relationship, everything, everything, everything.

Quiet is where I exhale and inhale the universe.

Quiet is a place that I hunger for and that I go out of my way to create the conditions for—both in my external surroundings, and inside my own head.

Practically speaking, this means choosing to live in the countryside rather than the city (I consider nature sounds part of the quiet, not noise). It means living in a way where my partner and I each have our personal spaces. It means weaving solitude throughout my day: when I do my morning movement practice and meditation outdoors as the sun is rising, when I do my writing and Thai language studies outside while sipping hot chocolate, when I savor my meals slowly while reading something calming or uplifting, when I practice yoga in the late afternoon before dinner, when I practice meditation each night before bed.

It’s not always comfortable or easy to claim this. Not everyone in my life has understood or agreed with me claiming it.

But existing in the modern world as we do—bombarded by the cacophony and machines of too muchness, by endless input and stimulation, by the pressure to fill every silence—and refusing most modern means of soothing and numbing…

Silence and solitude are medicine.

Having access to them impacts not only me, but how I show up for absolutely everyone and everything else. I genuinely don’t understand how people manage our current existence without it.

And of course, much of the noise in my life is inside my own head. And despite my years of practice, despite all the discipline born of devotion I throw at this, I’ve still got it.

It’s gotten better, though, with time. And most importantly, perhaps, I know what makes it better. And a big part of that is—to circle back around—simplicity and consistency.

I hold my daily practices as sacrosanct. I don’t multitask. I don’t watch TV. I’m off social media except Substack. I limit my newsletter subscriptions. I limit my herbs and supplements. I limit my choices. I choose not to drown myself in consumption and noise.

Don’t get me wrong—I can absolutely relate to the pull to add more. Just the other day I was poring through a woman’s write-up of her extensive, expensive morning, afternoon, and evening peptide stacks and biohacks with rapt fascination. All of the excitement, the promise, the hope in the form of a tablet or needle or gadget.

It’s seductive. It’s tempting. It’s energetically deafening.

The body-mind-spirit can only hear and process so much. And that “so much” opens to a vaster expanse than we can even imagine. But if we’re always adding, adding, adding. If we’re always grasping and fixing and numbing and covering over, well.

It leaves me exhausted and scattered.

And to be clear: there’s no “right or wrong” in any of this—truly, to each their own. But my default is to spend long stretches in silence and solitude, to listen deeply, to choose what feels lighter, freer, more spacious. To make space for spirit.

And when I get sidetracked (because I absolutely get sidetracked), quiet is what brings things back into focus. It’s what brings me back to what matters most—including what I already have in my life, remembering to savor each drop, and what I want to attract, invoke, create more of.

Because here’s a little secret I’ve discovered: when I get quiet and still, when I truly appreciate the beauty and miracles that surround me and feel into what I actually want—not by adding more, but by making more space—there’s power in that.

It’s an energy. It’s magnetic. It moves me towards Love.

This all relates directly to cultivating a more perfect hunger, by the way. It also relates to the upcoming TCM Deep Dives edition on worry and finding freedom from thought loops.

For now, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for—which is very much part of this process and practice.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Local goat’s milk. I’ve mentioned before how our cats have fallen in love with goat’s milk since we moved to Thailand. Well, I recently started buying a version packaged for people, and it turns out I love it, too. My new morning beverage/breakfast is two heaping Tbs of 100 percent cocoa powder shaken with boiling water, a pat of organic grassfed butter, a sprinkle of sea salt, and a generous splash of this milk. It feels like a long-overdue replacement for the almond milk I’d been using, which, despite being sugar-free, contains the usual gums and preservatives.

Magnificent mangos. We buy local mangos at least once a week—they are everywhere here, especially in season. But one of the fancy grocers near us has brought in some special varieties lately. They come from a farm in our province but have what I believe are Japanese names (megumi, tsuya). They’re two to three times the size of our usual mangos, more orange than yellow, and slightly more expensive. Their sweetness has complex notes to it—almost like a cross between mango, papaya, and coconut. Regular Thai mangos from outdoor markets remain my favorite. Still, it’s been fun to expand my mango horizons.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

A solo retreat. Speaking of quiet and solitude, I’ve been deeply craving a solo retreat. My last one was just over a year ago, when I spent a week in the sleepy beach town of Cha-am in southern Thailand. The truth is, though, I really, really worry about leaving my cats (one is 15, one is 13, one is probably a year but always getting in trouble). And, yes, I also worry about leaving Randy. It’s silly, I suppose—they can manage just fine without me. But this is something I’ve really struggled with, especially in the last five years. I’m afraid of something happening while I’m away and being unable to get home.

As a compromise, I might try something super local—perhaps someplace rustic in the mountainous jungle nearby. That way, I can indulge in deep silence and solitude for a week while still being able to get home quickly if needed.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What’s your relationship to quiet? How do you hear what you most need to hear?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

If you’re returning to the basics and wanting something steady to stay with, paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating (you can preview it here).

A paid subscription also includes full access to the TCM Deep Dives series, where we’re currently inside the seven emotions—most recently, joy. Next, we turn towards worry.

Subscribe now

Lately I’ve been thinking about how much of what I’ve “achieved” in my life comes down not to overflowing resources or extraordinary capacity or exceptional brains or hitting some genetic jackpot, but to discipline and simplicity.

To staying with something. To returning, again and again, to the basics. To my capacity to chop wood, carry water. To my deep faith in the power of presence, patience, and time.

I have this affinity for paring things back to their essentials, for doing the next thing, doing it again, and staying the course. I have this because 1) I learned long ago that it steadies fear, especially when circumstances feel out of control, 2) I’ve seen that it works, 3) it feels good.

I put “achieved” in quotes because the word feels loaded and likely misleading. I’m not talking about conventional markers of success—the money, the shiny things, the status and fame I don’t have.

None of the achievements I’m talking about here pay the bills or pay for retirement or bring me financial security. But they have a tremendous impact on how I experience life. They change how I move through it.

And when I look back across the many areas where this applies in my life—movement, food, learning, health, meditation—what’s essential is so simple, so straightforward, so natural. It’s why I’ve been able to stay the course even when there wasn’t much there, materially. Maybe stretches of not having much were the reason.

Over time, it stops being about whatever I set out to do. The studying, the repetition, the practice—they create the conditions. There’s more focus, more calm, more steadiness, yes. But also more strength and self-trust. It carries into places I never set out to change. It touches every part of my life, and my relationships.

Part of why this has been on my mind lately is that I’ve been listening to a few interviews with trainers who took that same idea and applied it to diet, daily movement, and strength training. I found myself admiring how they made change sound and feel so realistic, so accessible, so within reach. I’ll be sharing a couple of those interviews—plus some personal thoughts about strength training—in next week’s link-up. (Needless to say, it has to do with far more than just strength training.)

Recently, I’ve needed to remind myself of this, too—specifically in the context of Thai language learning. Because while I study Thai every day, and have lessons with my teacher twice a week, I’ve been noticing resistance and not-good-enoughness. You should be fluent by now. If you’d prioritized this you’d be fluent by now. Why haven’t you made these studies a true, hours-a-day priority? Thinking those thoughts, I feel pressure and guilt. I resist my studies. I end up spending less time with them.

Ironically, the trigger for this unhelpful self-talk is that my reading has reached a level where my teacher can give me “real” articles like this one. It’s several rungs above my comprehension, but not so far above that I can’t tackle it (with the help of my teacher).

Two years ago, I never could’ve imagined working my way through these assignments. I’m at the part of language learning where knowing more makes you acutely aware of how much you don’t know. And the gap between where you are and what you’re reaching for feels oceanic.

I’ve been here before. With Arabic, with TCM, with yoga, with my own body, with so many things.

And because I’ve been here before, I know what to do: set a timer, put my head down, study, run through the material over and over. Do it day after day, and something will absolutely get in there. That’s just how learning works.

What facilitates this is to make space to actually enjoy it. To remember that it feels good. To picture myself sitting down at my desk or the table outside, hands wrapped around a mug of mint tea or hot chocolate, listening to birdsongs and breathing in the wet tropical air, weaving this practice into my days, with ease and delight, not struggle.

This, to me, is cultivating a more perfect hunger. A hunger for what nourishes us, and for what brings us what we most want.

It makes it far more appealing to actually do the thing. It softens the resistance and the “I’ll start tomorrow.” It changes the whole feeling of it, reminding me I get to do this.

Obviously, I’m not suggesting you go study Thai. But when I think about patients and clients I’ve worked with—how much suffering they were feeling sitting there in the resistance and paralysis and self-imposed should’s—well.

My heart goes out to anyone in that place. And I know our minds are so hard on us, sometimes. If that’s you—in any area of your life—I hope you’ll lean into the spirit of this letter and move towards something steadier and simpler. Something you can return to.

Because what I’ve seen, again and again, is that taking one small step each day—staying with the basics, not overcomplicating things—lands you somewhere entirely different in a week, a month, a decade. The results will take care of themselves. All you need to do is show up for one thing—not something massive, nothing impossible. Just one thing for today. Then do it again tomorrow. Envision yourself enjoying it.

I find myself wanting to share more of my own basics here, too—what I eat, what I drink, how I move, what I put on my skin, what I return to. For now, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Fantasy. After finishing the last book I was reading (Easy Beauty: A Memoir by Chloé Cooper Jones, highly recommend), I found myself craving fiction generally and sci-fi and fantasy specifically. On Saturday afternoon, I put work aside and made an impromptu field trip to an English-language bookstore in Chiang Mai. I came home with both books in The Shepherd King Duology by Rachel Gillig, along with a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 (which I think I read in high school but want to revisit). I also picked up The Magic by Rhonda Byrne (I loved The Greatest Secret).1

Thunder: Shortly after returning from the bookstore, an afternoon storm rolled in and we lost power for a while (very common where we live, during the rainy season). Since I couldn’t practice yoga to my usual recording, I savored a self-guided practice in my bedroom, looking out at lush tropical trees through big windows, listening to wind in the leaves and thunder, breathing in the thick smell of rain, working up a deep sweat.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Really good water. In an online chat the other day, someone asked about Quinton Isotonic Ampules. I tried them years ago after listening to this podcast and liked them. More significant and sustainable for me, though, was that around the same time I was taking Quinton, I signed up for regular water delivery from local natural springs (I was living on Vancouver Island). This was a game changer. The water tasted amazing—like no water I’d had before. My whole body craved it, and thinking about it, I’m craving it now.

We get water delivery here (the water in our taps is probably not the wisest to drink), and we go through so much Singha bubbly water in glass bottles. But I sure do miss that spring water—having it in a ceramic dispenser on my counter, drinking it from mason jars throughout the day.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What basics are you returning to—or what’s one simple thing you know will support you?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

If you’re returning to the basics and wanting something steady to stay with, paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating (you can preview it here).

A paid subscription also includes full access to the TCM Deep Dives series, where we’re currently inside the seven emotions—most recently, anger. Next, we turn towards joy.

Subscribe now

In early 2025, as part of the “what I’m hungry for” portion of this series, I wrote about how I was hungry for non-frumpy clothes generally and new underwear specifically. Because while I love having a teeny wardrobe—the entirety of which fits in a carry-on—my clothes at that point were literally threadbare.

I’ve also written before about how I can feel blocked around the most ordinary, everyday things. Like, I’ll spend all day creating a five-notebook system for Thai vocab and grammar, no problem, but I can’t seem to overcome my resistance to clothes shopping. (And I’m not talking about building a capsule collection. If I could buy even one shirt or pair of pants without holes, that’d be a win.)

Well, a little over a year later, I’m happy to report: I bought some new clothes. Don’t get too excited—it’s not curated or anything. Just simple basics that I can wear around the house, here in the Thai countryside, day in, day out: men’s boxers and white tank tops in 100 percent cotton, two buttondown shirts in 100 percent linen, and, yes, a few pairs of underwear. I also bought pretty blue and grey bath towels while I was at it.

Some reasons it took me so long: I don’t like shopping and find it overwhelming—too much choice, an extreme aversion to loud noise and bright lights, malls are a kaleidoscope of too muchness, online never quite working out. I genuinely prefer to have few possessions. I like the feeling of lightness, spaciousness, flow, and ease far more than pretty new things. I also have very particular preferences and tastes and refuse to buy anything that isn’t just right. These tastes include how something looks (very simple, usually white, grey, black, or light blue), the material (all natural, such as cotton, linen, wool, or silk), and how something feels on my body (comfortable, loose, like I’m wearing next-to-nothing at all).

But things had gotten so bad with my existing clothing (most of which I bought years ago in Canada) that I was starting to feel not good in it, not like me in it, and, honestly, a little bit of shame around it.

So despite all my resistance, and after over a year of putting it off, I gave myself two full days to shop in Chiang Mai. The first, I wandered through small shops and one of the larger malls and came home with nothing. The second, I moved through another mall, floor by floor, and eventually bought nearly everything at Muji (a Japanese department store) because it ticked all the boxes and was all natural fiber.

I really don’t like the idea, feeling, or energetic effect (yes, I know how this sounds) of synthetic material touching my skin. I don’t even need to know the science or woo of it all—I just know how I personally feel. Still, I’m curious about the why, and am rounding up a few explainers (including ones with natural clothing brands) that I’ll share in next month’s link-up. For now, I’m sitting here in 100 percent cotton boxers, super pleased with my choices.

In other “what I’ve bought lately” news (I’ve purchased more treats in the past month than in the past year, thanks to some birthday money), I discovered an online Thai shop selling herbs and natural remedies and made a few more fun purchases.

I find the basics, tended to with consistency, bring the best, most predictable results: nutrient-dense, simple whole food, good sleep, movement woven throughout my day, time outside each day in sunlight and nature. I take a minimalist approach not just to clothes, but to everything, including skincare and supplements.

Still, I do like experimenting from time to time, so here’s what I got: lion’s mane capsules (I’m a massive mushroom fan and consider them a legit superfood), organic maca powder (a root from the Andes, sometimes called “Peruvian ginseng,” something I’ve moved in and out of over the years and seem to get a subtle but real tonic lift from, plus I love the earthy taste and sprinkle it on my lunch bowl), organic castor oil in a glass bottle (I use this daily on my face, especially around my eyes, and on my eyelashes; I also use it on any places of soreness or injury), and DMSO—which requires a bit more explanation, along with a reminder this isn’t medical advice, just me sharing my personal experience.

I first started learning about DMSO (a natural remedy used for myriad ailments) through ’s newsletter .

I’m hyperflexible by conventional standards, and my daily yoga practice involves some rather extreme backbends. Most of the time this feels fantastic, but once or twice a year something happens (usually in the course of daily life, like lifting something heavy incorrectly) and the facet joints in my lumbar spine become inflamed. When that happens, I back way off my usual movements and shift into what I know helps: switching my daily yoga practice to the 26-2 series here (audio only; I’m linking this for the dialogue with my teacher, but if you’re new, find an in-person class), long walks, sessions in my infrared sauna blanket, acupuncture along the spine and into any knots in the surrounding muscles, and osteopathic adjustments. I also listen extra closely to my body, modifying movements to never go over the edge of what’s therapeutic. My guide is to only do what will leave me feeling better, not worse, the following day, until eventually I’m back to normal.

Discovering the DMSO source here in Thailand overlapped one of those periods, and I thought it might offer an additional layer of support. By the time it got here, though, the flare had mostly resolved, so I can’t say much yet. Still, I’ve been applying it every other day and paying attention.

If you’re curious about DMSO (which is used for all kinds of conditions, not just musculoskeletal), it’s worth doing proper research first—it’s not something to use casually. One thing in particular to know is that it acts as a carrier and can bring substances it comes into contact with—soap, skincare, chemicals on fabrics—into the body, so application needs to follow a very careful, specific procedure. I started with ’s guides, which go into detail around safe sourcing and application.

For now, I’m just noticing what changes and what doesn’t, what my body responds to and what it ignores. And, as is tradition in this series, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Herb-infused oil samples. When I ordered a gua sha tool from a Chinese Medicine doctor in Bangkok a while back, she emailed me personally, sending pictures of various (nearly identical) pink heart-shaped stones so I could pick the one I liked best. She also sent me a list of herb-infused oils focused on different conditions and let me choose samples. I only picked three, but she sent those and a bunch more. They’re so cute. I’m loving using them.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Faith. In my last letter, I mentioned longing for a particular sort of faith—and not being sure whether I’d find it. But in the readings I’m doing this week from the Majjhima Nikāya (Middle Length Discourses), as part of the Sati Center’s Certificate of Theravada Buddhist Studies, there’s a focus on faith in the sense of saddhā, and the different ways we might understand it. My teacher Gil also gave this talk on faith as part of a freely accessible retreat series, and I love it so much.

In it, he discusses five ways of considering faith. Within our tradition, faith doesn’t mean unconditionally believing some creed that you can’t question. It can be as simple as what you love, or as having a desire—a hunger—for what is wholesome and what brings you peace, including a path of practice.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What’s something small you’ve brought into your life recently?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

Paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating (you can preview it here), along with full access to the TCM Deep Dives series.

Right now, we’re inside the seven emotions, and this Friday we turn towards anger.

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Quick reminder: just hours remain to enter the $100 Bookshop.org gift card giveaway in the April Link-Up. *If you live somewhere Bookshop.org doesn’t deliver, you can still enter. If you win, I’ll send $100 via PayPal instead.

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Dearest Reader,

Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year’s festival, is this week. It’s often described as the world’s biggest water fight—and, indeed, people of all ages take to the streets with water guns, hoses, and buckets to drench each other, offering relief during the hottest month of the year.

It’s also a time of religious and ancestral remembrance: sprinkling scented water on Buddha statues, giving alms to monks, honoring elders. Spiritually, the focus is on purification, making merit, and renewal. And socially, it’s a time to put on brightly colored shirts and embrace sanuk สนุก—fun, playfulness, and a collective agreement to not take things too seriously (including yourself).

I love the spirit of Songkran. Being drenched everywhere you go is such a relief on these steamy days before rainy season. I don’t love visiting touristy areas during this time. There’s a palpable difference between Thai people—exceptionally aware of others—tossing water, and groups of drunk tourists who use it as an outlet for something harsher and sometimes mean-spirited.

Thankfully, Randy and I live in a small rural village far removed from the mayhem. And while the music carries late into the night—including from our neighbors next door—the vibe is all sanuk, no frat party.

In many ways, the holiday captures something I love about life here: how the profound and the mundane, organized religion and animist beliefs, reverence and play, life and death, indescribable joy and impossible hardship, are interwoven rather than separate. It feels more real to me, this easy acceptance of wholeness. A lived awareness that more than one thing is true, and life includes all of it.

Plus, the mangos right now are pure bliss.

We have scores of still-green ones hanging from the trees around our house, taunting us. Meanwhile, we’re buying golden yellow ones from the market—just on the edge of too ripe.

I add rough slices to nearly everything. Bowls built the same way, again and again: white rice, smoked or raw salmon, mushrooms sautéed in olive oil, an avocado when we find good ones, spoonfuls of tahini and full-fat Greek yogurt, generous sea salt, an unreasonable amount of blistering hot peppers stirred into fish sauce. Occasionally I’ll swap in roasted chicken from a roadside stand, but for months now my body has wanted fish, so I follow that. I find comfort and joy in eating the same simple foods on repeat.

As I hinted in my last letter, another part of my life is feeling less settled.

This year, I’m in two spiritual programs: a Certificate of Theravada Buddhist Studies, which may eventually lead into a Master of Divinity and possibly chaplaincy, and a group that blends A Course in Miracles with Jñāna yoga and ancient Egyptian mysticism. The Buddhist studies—led by my primary teacher for decades, Gil Fronsdal—feel steady and right, though that program won’t fully begin until fall.

The other group is more complicated.

Some aspects are deeply resonant. Some of the practices are deeply transformative. And some of the text feels mismatched with me personally.

I greatly respect (and genuinely like) the person leading the group, and his explanations and interpretations in our weekly meetings often ease that tension, as does returning to Jñāna yoga and ancient Egyptian mysticism. But the ACIM text itself—its tone, its language, its framing—continues to catch. The deeper we go into the book, the more this feels true.

What’s strange is that, before this year, I’d encountered this work through other teachers and writers I trust and admire—shared in a much softer, even sanitized form. And I find myself wondering how some of those same people read the text in full without questioning parts of it. Or if they did, and just didn’t speak to it. Or if I’m the one who’s off here.

And look, I like to be the good student. I do the reading each morning (we’re on day 105), I show up for the weekly meetings (which go past midnight my time), and I’m following the lifestyle parameters (no alcohol, no caffeine or other stimulants, no recreational or pharmaceutical drugs, no red meat or pork, very little sugar).1 I don’t like to start things without seeing them through to completion. I don’t want to disappoint or frustrate my teachers.

And yet, I realize I’ve become a bit of a turd in the punchbowl of the group dynamic. Because, hey, I’m just asking questions. (And if you’re familiar with ACIM, you know the stock answer to this: you’re projecting, you’re creating, it’s all you. Something I do take seriously.)

So I’ve been sitting with whether to continue through the year—keeping what’s useful and leaving the rest—or to step away. I’ll probably stay. But it feels important, in that staying, to be honest rather than just going along.

Part of what makes this harder is that I feel myself longing for something else. Something that asks for faith, I suppose. Something that has me more comfortable saying the word God instead of the many names I’ve used for the Great Mystery. Something that, truthfully, I may never find.

But this specific text, especially as I go deeper, isn’t quite it. And trying to understand why has led me down some pretty dark Reddit holes.

Through it all, I feel grateful for the exploration and for what is steady. A daily practice that stretches back decades. A clear ethical compass grounded in love and not causing harm. Gil’s teachings. Meditation. Yoga. Deeply insightful conversations with my friend . And the version of Thai spirituality that surrounds me—reminding me that all of this, somehow, belongs.

Sending Thai New Year’s blessings from my heart to yours. And, as is tradition in this series, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Clay and bamboo mask. Randy discovered a small shop full of locally made herbal treasures and brought me a cool, tingly, earthy clay mask. I’ve been loving it the week before my period (yes, at 51, if you can believe it). It smells and feels delightfully stimulating and clears the pimple or two that show up like clockwork.

I alternate between the clay and my dependable, beloved standby: pure local honey, used as a mask or spot treatment. Both work well for breakouts. The clay dries; the honey moistens.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Rainy season. Like most everyone here, I’m eagerly anticipating the big rains washing everything clean after burning season, the skies clearing, that particular kind of relief and vibrant aliveness that arrives with daily tropical downpours.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you’re wanting more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What are you questioning—or beginning to trust?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a small heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

Paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating in the PERFECT HUNGER welcome email, along with the TCM Deep Dives series.

We begin a new exploration of the seven emotions in Chinese Medicine this Friday.

Subscribe now

March giveaway winner! Heart-sourced congrats to , who won this month’s $100 Bookshop.org gift card. *Reminder: If you live somewhere Bookshop.org doesn’t deliver, you can still enter the monthly giveaway. If you win, I’ll send $100 via PayPal instead.

Subscribe now

Dearest Reader,

After the intensity of last week’s letter and the TCM Deep Dive on the Lung that followed, I thought I’d offer both of us a breather before heading into another big one this Friday—on the Kidneys and the place within us that keeps going even when we fear we cannot.

If you’re newer to PERFECT HUNGER, I started this My Soulful Life series nearly two years ago, when my partner Randy and I moved from Canada to Thailand with our two Siamese cats. Once or twice a month, I share these more personal letters, along with a glimpse of what’s nourishing me, what I’m hungry for, and an invitation to share yours in the comments.

Today’s letter is a little off the cuff—written from my porch in the countryside, rambling through some simple life updates in the way I might with friends and family (and some of you are friends and family).

On the whole, things are good.

I have been wrestling with whether to stay in the group I mentioned last week. What I shared was only the tiniest glimpse of what’s unfolding, and it’s been taking up space in my heart.

At the same time, I don’t feel comfortable discussing it in any real detail. I’m still in the midst of processing what’s happening, and sharing more feels like it crosses a line.

Randy has been supporting me beautifully, listening without trying to “fix.” And conversations with my dear friend have been deeply clarifying and anchoring. He knows me so well and brings the perspective of someone who’s been through something similar.

All to say, it’s times like these when I realize just how lucky I am to have my partner and wise, steady friends in my life.

In other news, I turn 51 next week. It’s unbelievable.

Each day I wake up full of gratitude and awe that we live here: the birdsongs, the tropical greenness, the melodic chanting from the Buddhist temple next door, the spaciousness of life in the northern Thai countryside, the sense of aliveness.

At least several times a week, Randy and I look at each other—midday, or while stretching on the porch in the evening, listening to insects, geckos, and frogs—and say something like, “Can you believe this is our life now?”

It really is sweet, and I hope the remembrance and reverence I feel stay close to the surface. I never want to take these blessings for granted, or forget the way the universe responds when we step beyond what’s expected and try something different.

The cats are loving it, too, and our temple cat Tucker—who adopted us last November—remains a source of joy and youthful, chaotic exuberance.

He’s been coming inside more and more (under close supervision), and it’s been fascinating to watch the dynamics between him and our much older, much smaller, impossibly dainty Siamese girls evolve.

LingXu, the older of the two, grunts at him and shows zero fear—even when he rushes her, sliding to a halt at her feet, then plopping down in a submissive sprawl.

Meanwhile, my ridiculously vocal and spoiled princess, LingDao, takes it upon herself to deliver a sharp bap, bap, bap, a series of right hooks, any time he gets in her space.

Mind you, he’s an enormous ginger with massive paws and very real fangs, basically raised in the wild. They, on the other hand, have been impossibly pampered since birth and are maybe a third of his size.

Yet somehow, LingXu and LingDao are in charge—of Tucker, and me and Randy.

Their playful energy has been a natural boost as my caffeine-free year continues. The transition has been surprisingly smooth, with no big upheavals. I still have dark chocolate, so I’m not completely off caffeine, but stepping away from coffee and tea has been life-changing.

I truly feel far less anxiety. While I’d like to say a deep calm settled in, that was most noticeable in the first week or two. Now my energy, creativity, and focus feel similar to before, just without the underlying tension or the panicky, obsessive thought loops that’d been getting worse.

I don’t miss them.

I also feel relieved that coffee wasn’t actually required to keep up with my projects, routines, and usual rhythms. Alongside work, I’ve continued with my daily yoga practice, ACIM and Theravada Buddhist studies, and Thai studies, including twice-weekly lessons.

Lately, my Thai teacher has been bringing short reading selections for me to work through—reading aloud, answering questions, discussing the material, and writing my own sentences, all while learning new vocabulary and grammar. This week’s passage is about caring for both mind and body, cultivating holistic health.

When I think back to where I started when we first moved here and how far I’ve come, I feel so happy.

I’ve also been immersed in creating the TCM Deep Dive editions each week, and have been loving the process, along with the generous feedback.

Once we complete this current series on the organs of Chinese Medicine and how they shape our body-mind-spirit, the next multi-week exploration will move into the seven emotions in greater depth.

It’s been deeply fulfilling to flesh out the paid offerings here at PERFECT HUNGER, and I’m starting to sense where this could lead—perhaps even into a more comprehensive TCM Foundations course down the line.

Look for the deep dive on the Kidneys this Friday, and next Wednesday’s edition of The Practice, exploring seasonal eating for spring.

For now, as is tradition in this series, I’ll leave you with what’s nourishing me and what I’m hungry for.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Big rains, all the purrs. Last week we had our first real rain in months, a sign that rainy season is on its way here in Thailand. It started in the early morning. We woke before dawn to let Tucker inside.

I had an online meeting through the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies at 5 a.m., but Randy took Tucker back to bed with him. And a first: Tucker actually settled down. Instead of tearing around the house chasing our Siamese sweeties, he curled up next to Randy and slept.

As they dozed upstairs, my Siamese girls took turns in my lap. In the meeting, listening to my teacher Gil as the rain pounded outside, I felt deeply nourished and grateful.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Hugs from my parents and sisters. I had plane tickets to visit my family in the States this April—my first time traveling to see them there in a decade. My layovers were in Istanbul and Abu Dhabi. The trip won’t be happening as planned. I want to hold my family so badly.

I stand for peace.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you want more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What’s on your heart?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a small heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

Paid subscribers receive my Guide to Transformative Eating in the PERFECT HUNGER welcome email, along with the Traditional Chinese Medicine series I share each Friday.

We’re currently exploring the organs and the body-mind-spirit patterns they shape.

Subscribe now

Quick reminder: a few days remain to enter the $100 Bookshop.org gift card giveaway in the March Link-Up. *If you live somewhere Bookshop.org doesn’t deliver, you can still enter. If you win, I’ll send $100 via PayPal instead.

Subscribe now

Two weeks ago, I left an online meeting furious and trembling.

The group leader was absent that night. Another student took the lead, and we listened. And listened and listened. She spoke at length, and towards the end she wove in something from an entirely different context.

Specifically, she asserted that Yin is always busy and moving, and Yang is always static and still—reversing one of the most foundational principles in Chinese cosmology.

Despite my timidity in groups—especially this particular group—I spoke up. Soft-spoken but direct, I said, “Actually, it’s the opposite.”

She responded with complete confidence that I was wrong. She restated her position. I restated mine. She replied, “Oh no—that’s just the body. This is different.”

I felt heat rising in my face, my chest and throat tightening, my thoughts scrambling for anything resembling coherence.

I froze. She continued.

The group went along with her, and within minutes the meeting ended. It was around 1 a.m. my time, and when I logged off, I was shaking.

I tried to sleep, but a few hours later I got up and wrote the message I wish I’d been able to speak—still reactive, still charged—and posted it in the group chat. I mentioned that I’m a doctor of TCM who has studied Yin-Yang in Mandarin.

Part of me wanted that authority to carry weight. I laid out Yin-Yang as carefully as I could in that moment, in the language most fluent to me: writing.

For the sake of transparency, and because clarity around Yin-Yang matters, here’s what I wrote (not complete, not perfect, but accurate):

Even after sending it, I was unsettled. Not just unsettled, but angry—more angry than I’ve been in some time.

And as Lesson 5 of A Course in Miracles says: “I am never upset for the reason I think.”

On the surface, I believed I was angry about being dismissed. About truth itself being dismissed. About what felt like spiritual bypass. About a group dynamic that favored consensus over precision. In the days that followed, my anger intensified as my message sat in the chat unacknowledged and the conversation moved on.

I thought I was angry about all of that. But when I looked more closely, I wasn’t deeply angry about any of it.

The deeper anger was towards myself—for freezing, for not being able to articulate what I knew in the moment, for shrinking when I longed to voice what I knew.

In the lineage I was taught, each organ in Chinese Medicine carries an aspect of Tian 天—Heaven made manifest in a person. The Heart’s expression of Tian is living and speaking what’s in your heart, allowing it to be seen. When the Heart is steady, you can speak from this place without needing approval.

I did embody it in some measure—by speaking up at all, however faltering, and later by articulating myself more clearly in writing. But the gap between what I wanted to say in the moment and what I could access while frozen felt like a chasm.

If I look deeper still, beneath my frustration with my faltering voice, I find something heavier and older.

It has to do with a particular flavor of injustice: telling the truth and not being believed, watching confidence override accuracy, sensing how power—explicit or implied—can set the terms of reality.

There is a moment in that dynamic when the ground drops out. I feel frozen and falling. There’s no purchase. I’m watching it happen from somewhere outside of myself.

My body reads this as danger.

Beneath my anger is fear. And beneath fear, for me at least, there is grief. Grief that has been there as long as I can remember. Grief that doesn’t always have a clear cause. Grief that includes not being truly heard or known by those from whom belonging felt most essential.

I am never upset for the reason I think.

All of this becomes practice. A living edge. A place that won’t be resolved by arguing better next time. Perhaps I will grow into that capacity. But during the recent meeting, that capacity wasn’t available.

What was available is this: noticing. Making space. Going straight into the intensity instead of turning away. Staying long enough for the deeper layers to come into focus.

I don’t have a tidy resolution. What I do have is trust that staying with what arises—including shame, anger, and my own participation in the group dynamic—slowly reshapes who I am and how I move through the world.

In the days since writing that message—and then writing this letter—the tightness around needing the moment resolved has softened.

Not because the student later acknowledged, in plain language, that she had reversed Yin and Yang—she didn’t. In the following meeting and chat, the moment was smoothed over without that simple, direct acknowledgment. When the leader returned, he backed the student’s mistake.

But turning towards what was happening in me began to loosen its grip.

In Chinese Medicine, the Kidneys’ expression of Tian is humility rooted in deep inner knowing. It shows up as quiet strength—a willingness to remain with what’s difficult without posturing or proving. When the Kidneys are strong, you trust your depth enough to keep going. You don’t rush, perform, or inflate yourself. You continue—steady, faithful, resilient.

I am never upset for the reason I think.

I am still practicing. I am still learning to use my voice. I am still learning what lives underneath.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

All the sober love. The comments on my sober birthday letter (six years, no booze) and on this note—including from , whose description of her first sober birthday filled my heart and brought tears to my eyes—were deeply nourishing.

I’m not usually one for celebrating birthdays (age or sober), but I’m so thankful I shared mine this year. The response felt like the best kind of gift and reminded me how grateful I am for the sober community: people who show up courageously and honestly, take accountability, and take care of each other. Thank you. I love you.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Spaces where precision and humility coexist. I’m noticing how much I long for conversations where disagreement and difference don’t destabilize belonging.

I’ve caught a real glimpse of this in my Sati Center cohort for the Certificate of Theravada Buddhist Studies. We’ve only met a couple of times so far (the more intensive portion begins this fall), but the difference I feel in that container is striking. My usual shyness in speaking is still there, but much less so. I can show up as I am. The exchange in the room feels thoughtful, grounded, and present. Even a small taste has left me hungry for more.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me about writing these letters is hearing about your lives—what’s supporting you, what you want more of in the days and weeks ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What would it feel like to speak from your heart this week?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, a small heart ❤️ helps these letters find their way.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

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Dearest Reader,

It’s my sober birthday! Or at least it is here in Thailand, where it’s February 11—which is the future for many of you.

I can’t fathom how six years have passed since my last drink. And yet, the days when the highlight of my day was wine with dinner feel like lifetimes ago.

If you missed last month’s letter about finding joy again after quitting something that’s hard to give up, it captures what I most want to tell you from this side of sobriety. Six years in, my life is genuinely richer, more present, more joyful.

I’m still deeply involved in the sober community, and I treasure those connections dearly. At the same time, the longer I’m sober, the less my relationship with alcohol defines me.

These days, I don’t miss or crave alcohol at all. I find myself more focused on the next layers: where I’m still hooked, where I’m still playing the same games just without substances, where I’m still numbing out and stuck in unhelpful cycles. (Always being on watch and feeling responsible, for instance. Or losing myself in reviewing, checking, rechecking.)

I don’t begrudge this ongoing exploration and practice—I find it expansive and human. It also aligns deeply with the containers of spiritual study and practice I’m immersed in this year.

And yet, I think it’s important to pause and remember just how much has changed since giving up alcohol. These changes and gifts were top of mind-body-spirit in early sobriety. But at a certain point, they became my new normal. I turned my attention to those next layers. I lost touch with how much better things are now compared to before.

If you happen to be a week or month or year or decade into sobriety, I encourage you to pause from time to time, too. Remember what’s changed. Recognize everything you did to get from where you were before to where you are now. Recognize how you changed the course of things in your own life, yes—but also in ways that reach far beyond you, ones we can’t fully know.

And whether or not you drink, a reminder and invitation:

The more we notice, name, and celebrate what truly nourishes us, the more we’ll move towards it and act to protect it.

And the more we remember that our body is our ally, our home, and our refuge, the better resourced we’ll be to care not just for ourselves, but for others and the causes we cherish.

All of this is about feeding our hunger for a more nourishing, more beautiful life—body, mind, spirit. It’s about choosing, and eventually craving, what helps us feel better.

This is why, in this monthly series, I invite you to ask: What’s truly nourishing me? What’s the deepest part of me hungry for? You’ll find my responses below, and I’d love for you to share yours in the comments.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Gifts of fresh fruit. From time to time, our husband-and-wife landlords, who live next door, bring over fruit from their trees—usually a bunch of bananas.

But one morning, as I was sitting at the table working outside, Nuk appeared with a large cardboard box. She tipped it just enough for me to peek inside, getting a glimpse of a ginormous, still-green papaya. She handed it over with clear instructions not to open the box for three days, waiting until the skin turned yellow.

This is one of my favorite things about living in Thailand: the steady, everyday ways people show up for each other. Whether it’s fruit from a neighbor, emergency home visits from our phenomenal vet, or being ferried out by boat during flooding, life here feels more connected. From my limited perspective, there’s also a strong emphasis on social harmony and compassion, on the belief that what we put out comes back to us.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

One-on-ones. When I moved to Thailand, I paused my Traditional Chinese Medicine clinical practice. I made peace with that going in, and I see this newsletter as a way of sharing the medicine—one that’s from my heart and accessible.

Still, I have been offering remote health consults occasionally, through personal requests and referrals. These are diet- and lifestyle-focused, blending TCM, ancestral health principles, and a Yin-Yang approach to shifting our patterns—much like this newsletter but personalized, with the heart-to-heart listening and accountability that come with one-on-one work.

Each time I do one of these sessions, I’m reminded how this work buoys my heart, and how meaningful it can be for people’s health and well-being. I’m considering whether to offer remote sessions like these in a more structured way. In the meantime, if you’d like to explore this further, feel free to reach out.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me most about writing these letters is knowing I’ll get to hear about your lives—what’s supporting and helping you, what you want more of in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

With that in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• Have you celebrated a meaningful milestone lately? How did it feel?

Leave a comment

Thank you for being here and helping me pause, reflect, and celebrate. In lieu of birthday gifts ;), could you do me a favor and tap the little ❤️? It means a lot to me, and helps others discover small, reader-supported publications like this one.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

Ready to nourish your body differently? Become a paid subscriber and you’ll receive immediate access to my Guide to Transformative Eating, delivered straight to your inbox in your PERFECT HUNGER welcome email.

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Dadadaa… announcing our first monthly winner! A loving, joyful congrats to , who won this month’s giveaway for a $100 Bookshop.org gift card.

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Dearest Reader,

A few weeks ago, after quitting caffeine, I found myself telling my partner:

“I feel like someone took my joy away.”

Things were fine. I felt inklings of hope and even a sense of relief. But also, life tasted vaguely of cardboard. (And peppermint tea could go fuck right off.)1

“Joy” probably isn’t top of mind when you’re embarking on what can feel like a serious, life-upending, change-making effort. But please take this in. I promise, it’s super important.

When we quit a thing for real—no plays at moderation, no negotiations, no wishy-washy thinking or the justifications our minds are so good at—it can feel, temporarily, like the bottom falls out. And like our joy falls out along with it.

This is because we’ve taken our high away. And no matter how much that high and the habit behind it was hurting us… no matter how miserable some part of us was going round and round in the same painful cycle… we learned to depend on it. We became reliant on it to feel comfortable and normal and joyful.

When we take that thing away—whatever it is—recalibration and restoration of our innate capacity for deeper joy, for excitement and aliveness and wholeness, can be a real bitch.

This is true even if everything seems to be going “just fine.” Even if we’re following the rules we’ve set and honoring our commitment. Even if we’re doing all the nourishing, wholesome practices we think we should be doing—and that are actually helping us.

Inside, we still might feel flat. Inside, a small or loud voice may tug at a stray string of our heart, asking: Is this all there is now? And if this is it… is it actually worth it?

When I first quit drinking nearly six years ago, I remember feeling this exact same way. I made myself give it at least ten days… which turned into thirty… then ninety… and here I am, almost six years since my last drink. I don’t remember when honest-to-god joy came back, but if I had to guess, it was probably around Day 30… and then reached a whole new place after Day 90. By the end of one year, I not only no longer craved alcohol, I genuinely didn’t want it and barely even thought about it (which I still find astonishing).

With caffeine, it happened much faster (to be fair, I’d already reduced my intake substantially over the past year). About a week in, in the middle of afternoon yoga, I suddenly noticed I was excited about something creative. I felt happy just to be there, moving my body, engaged with life. And it hit me: Oh. I feel joy again.

Back then with alcohol, and now again with caffeine, this return of joy came with its own kind of relief—and, at first, a hit of euphoria. Not only because joy feels good, but because what I’d feared was a joyless life sentence just wasn’t true. My body-mind-spirit remembered that we don’t actually need the thing we’ve been hooked on in order to have fun, to access peace, or to feel joy again.

We all have the capacity for naturally arising joy. We were born with it. We still have it. But sometimes we have to clear something out of the way—and let go of something that can feel really hard to let go of—in order to restore our true settings.

There’s tremendous freedom in this place. And that freedom brings its own kind of joy—one we can’t get from an external substance or harmful behavior.

And it deepens.

Because while the initial euphoria doesn’t last forever… while life is still life, and quitting your drug of choice doesn’t magically solve hard times or your humanness… the next phase might even be better.

Because the next phase is when this more expansive, more wholesome, more harmonious, wildly freer place becomes your new normal.

I never think about alcohol now. And now—if you can believe it, after less than a month—I feel almost the same about coffee. After the first week, even my energy levels and focus were back to normal, which truly surprised me. More on that below, and in a future edition of The Practice devoted to reducing or quitting caffeine.

But for today, what I most want you to know is this:

I promise, I promise, I promise: you can find joy again.

You just need to hang tight, keep doing the next healing thing, stay steady in your choice, and remember: your past self let go of “that thing” for a very good reason. The flat phase won’t last forever. You will find joy again.

Don’t give up before you get to the good part.

*

If you want support along the way, you might explore The PERFECT HUNGER™ Guide to Transformative Eating. (Because eating a nourishing diet—truly feeling good in your body—leaves you far better resourced to change anything else.)

For a Chinese Medicine perspective on helpful and unhelpful manifestations of joy (plus a glimpse into my somewhat scandalous past), see:

And, of course, all this ties into everything below—what’s nourishing me, what I’m hungry for, an invitation to share your places of hope and joy in the new year.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Spiritual studies. My two tracts of study and practice this year, the Jñāna yoga/ACIM program mentioned in the footnotes and a separate Theravada Buddhism Certificate Program, complement each other beautifully. They’re incredibly different and yet, at essence, come back to Love.

A few hours after our weekly ACIM meeting—which runs from midnight my time until 1:30 a.m.—I’m getting up to practice yoga from 4:30-6:00 a.m. with the same teacher. I’ve been part of this small, intensive, advanced-level group for a while now, but this is the first time since moving to Thailand that I’m practicing live again, instead of just catching recordings.

What’s surprised me is that this dramatic shift in my sleep schedule feels not only easier, but actually possible, since quitting coffee and tea—likely because I’m resting more deeply and not drawing down my reserves the rest of the week. (I’m still prioritizing plenty of sleep on other days.)

Temple cats! As promised, we’re doing what we can to help support the temple cat colony next door. At the moment, that looks like arranging and paying for monthly cat food delivery, and getting our little guy Tucker neutered. Looking into his eyes before the surgery, I felt so conflicted and torn. Intellectually, I knew it was the best choice for most beings involved. In my heart, I also knew he’d given me his trust, and on some level I’d broken it.

Very, very gratefully, though, he’s not only fully recovered from the surgery but also from a serious cut on his foot. (I’ve lost a lot of sleep and gained new grey hairs fretting over him these past two months!) All is well. Tucker is thriving. He spends most of the day and much of the evening at our house, and even gets to run around inside under close supervision. He’s like a burst of play and ray of sunshine. I just love him so much.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Abundant, creative flow. This is already stirring—and I’m actively cultivating hunger for more, which is how perfect hunger works, btw ;). For the first few days after quitting caffeine, I didn’t just feel like someone took my joy away. I felt like my brain was broken. I had no energy. I couldn’t focus. I was genuinely scared I wouldn’t be able to do my work.

After one week, that part had passed, and something remarkable happened. I started to feel more energized, but in a different way. I was far, far less anxious. Obsessive-compulsive preoccupations pretty much vanished. A sustained, harmonious energy began to arise and move through me—quieter, more attuned, more deeply listening, more peaceful… all while feeling more creative, vital, and deeply alive.

Lately, it’s been more effortless to prioritize what matters most to me. It’s become way less appealing to scroll Substack Notes or consume content that leaves me feeling scattered or worse. It’s easier to hold quiet but firm boundaries around my energy and time. It’s easier to connect with my own heart, and with others’ hearts. It’s easier to know how I feel.

I don’t think this is solely due to quitting caffeine. It feels more like the combination of no caffeine and actively, honestly practicing what I’m learning in ACIM (my Buddhist studies and practice are helping as well). As I said in our ACIM group chat:

One thing (of many) that I’m really appreciating about this study so far is that it feels so expansive and like it opens up a wide field of possibility. After turning 50 last year, I felt like that field started to close in and get smaller in certain ways (due to the illusion of lack). This is opening it back up again. I find such delight and joy in remembering I know nothing and can see so very little from my current perspective.

I suspect this will be my most transformative year since getting sober.

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me most about writing these letters is knowing I’ll get to hear about your lives—what’s supporting and helping you, what you want more of in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

That in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• Have you ever experienced the return of joy after giving something up… or after moving through a period of dullness or flatness? Please share and inspire!

Leave a comment

Before you go, could you do me a favor and tap the little ❤️? It’s a small thing but means a lot to me, and helps others discover small, reader-supported publications like this one.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

Ready to nourish your body differently? Become a paid subscriber and you’ll receive immediate access to my Guide to Transformative Eating, delivered straight to your inbox in your PERFECT HUNGER welcome email.

Subscribe now

Since last week’s letter, not a day has gone by without feral cat drama. A few highlights…

The same day I published that letter, I spent the morning distraught when Tucker, the orange tabby who recently adopted us, didn’t show up. Hours passed. I called and called. By 10 a.m., four hours after he normally comes home, I was in tears. I feared the worst.

Randy and I headed across the street to the temple, where we spoke with a monk who knew exactly who Tucker was. “He’s the one with the black mark on his bottom lip,” he said. “He was skinny, then disappeared for a while, and I thought, did he die? But one day he came back and was fat.” (I grinned, knowing our fish snacks were working.)

The monk told us there were at least thirty feral cats living at the temple, and we were welcome to look around. We did—making our way through dozens of orange, black, and calico cats of all different ages, not to mention quite a few dogs. Just as we were about to give up, we spotted him—there was Tucker, running across the rooftops, hot on the tail of a sweet calico, oblivious to anything other than instinct. We called to him, though, and he made his way home shortly after.

The very next day, Friday evening, he showed up with a walnut-sized bump behind his left ear. I panicked, texted a photo to our very young, exceptional vet, and she agreed to come out the next morning. Tucker wasn’t home when she arrived with her two Gen Z assistants, so we set off in a small procession towards the temple—Randy and me (the only foreign farangs in the village) and the veterinarian and her assistants in pastel pink and green scrubs.

As we entered the gate, an elderly, orange-robed monk was sweeping the entrance. For all the oddity of the moment—the four of us marching into a small village temple in search of a cat—he acted as if it was the most normal thing. He continued sweeping and barely looked up.

Miraculously, Tucker seemed to be expecting us. We found him right away, waiting calmly inside the gate. The assistants held him on a bench while the veterinarian examined his ear and determined it was an infected bite wound from his last fight. She shaved part of his head, cleaned and treated the wound, and administered an antibiotic and painkiller.

Throughout, Tucker yowled in protest. The assistants held him gently but firmly. The vet worked deftly and swiftly, repeating mai bpan haa, mai bpan haa (no problem, no problem) in a soft, soothing voice. Randy, two petite, curious black cats, and I all watched in rapt fascination. The elderly monk kept sweeping a few feet away.

When the treatment was done, Tucker bounded off the bench, rolled on the ground—seeming quite pleased with himself—let Randy and I hold him and give him big kisses and cuddles, then leapt over the wall and ran back to our house. (The swelling has since gone down, his ear is just fine.)

While the veterinarian was there, we asked her how we could help—not just Tucker, but the whole temple cat family, which is heartbreakingly malnourished and full of young cats and kittens. She’s reaching out to a local animal welfare foundation that can assist with projects like this, and we’re going to ask the monk we met that first day if we can start dropping off food.

At every step, we’re being mindful not to barge into an existing culture and ecosystem with assumptions and unasked-for advice. Instead, we’re starting with conversation—to learn what the actual situation is, what’s needed, and how we can help.

It’s a whole thing, and I’m deeply grateful that this conversation now includes both a perceptive monk who’s familiar with the cats in residence, and a godsend of a veterinarian willing to make urgent house calls on weekends. We’ll be taking our cues from them, dear commenter, and doing our best to care for those cats.

Oh, and can I tell you a secret?

Before moving to Mae Rim, when Randy and I still lived in Chiang Mai, we often bought cat food at a shop that sells pets and keeps them in cages. Seeing them there—fed and cared for, but confined—hurt my heart deeply.

One afternoon, after playing with attention-hungry kittens through the bars of their cage, I told Randy that if we could get a house on some land here, if I could spend my life creating a sanctuary for animals like these ones—rescuing them from the pet store—that would be more than enough. That could be my life’s purpose.

Well, as these things go, the Universe answered. In a more realistic, less ambitious way, that intention just might come true. It also ties into everything below—what’s nourishing me, what I’m hungry for, the changes ahead in the new year.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Intrigue and discovery. Alongside Tucker, another member of our household showed themselves after months of mystery. Most mornings since moving here in September, we’d come downstairs to find a single, inch-long piece of poop next to a small white seed—always in the exact same spot on the floor. Was it a rodent? A gecko? A ghost playing games with us? We had no idea—until the other night when I spotted him! He is in fact some sort of lizard, roughly the size of my forearm. We said hello then let him be… he disappeared for a while (laying low, I guess)... but now is slowly getting back to his normal poop schedule.

Early mornings, writing and breathing outdoors. The other evening, while getting ready for bed, I found myself looking forward to the next morning: picturing myself at the table outside, listening to the countryside awaken—to a chorus of roosters and songbirds, the bell of the monks doing alms rounds through the village, the excited chirps of my little guy, Tucker.

Imagining it with anticipatory delight, I realized that moving my morning time outdoors these past months has had a bigger impact than I’d been aware of. I enjoy those hours, of course—typing on my laptop, sipping coffee or tea. But what struck me most was how that time spills into the rest of my life, and into my writing.

Outdoors, enveloped by nature, I connect with a different place within and without. I feel more in touch with my heart and my most whole, honest self.

I like it better here, outside in the countryside. It’s less speedy, not so frenetic or urgent. A peaceful, quiet joy arises—unforced and unhurried. As I move through the rest of my day, I feel genuinely happier, less shaken by the pull of online-ness, and more connected to what’s in my heart. It brings a lightness to my body-mind-spirit. It reminds me of what really matters.

As for my writing? The shifts show there, too. It’s different from what emerges when I’m inside at my desk—and very, very different from what I write in a coffee shop, riding the high of people and music.

Do you notice that your writing changes depending on set and setting? Where do you most like to write?

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

A container for rigorous study and practice. In August, I wrote about yearning for a rigorous, structured container of learning—something similar to grad school days, yet not that exactly. Four months later, the hunger remains. In the new year, I’ll have a container! Two, actually—beautifully synergistic, intertwined, and connected through decades of practice.

First, I’ve enrolled in the Sati Center’s certificate program in Theravada Buddhist Studies, a brand-new offering that may eventually evolve into a Master of Divinity. It’s founded and taught in part by senior Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal, who’s been my primary guide in Buddhist practice, ethics, and life for more than two decades. As part of the application process, I met with Gil and another teacher on Zoom.

After so many years of listening to Gil’s talks and recordings from afar, from my late twenties until now at 50, I was shy, awkward, and terribly nervous. My intention for the meeting, though, was simple: to say thank you. Gil has had a bigger, more beautiful impact on my life than I can express, and telling him that face-to-face felt deeply important. I’m thrilled to be entering a formal program with Gil guiding the way, and needless to say, the timing feels perfect.

Second, another long-time teacher and guide, Esak Garcia, is leading a year-long study and practice of Jñāna yoga and A Course in Miracles. I’ve been practicing yoga with Esak and his outstanding co-teachers for years, and since moving to Thailand I’ve continued daily through recordings as part of an ongoing yoga immersion.

This year-long program will be in addition to that, focusing less on physical practice and more on engagement with the divine in everyday life. It will require some substantial lifestyle shifts, including weekly meetings at 2 a.m. my time and giving up all drugs, which I’m fairly sure includes caffeine, along with living very low-sugar. I’ll know for certain after the intro session this weekend, and I’ll share how it goes in this newsletter.

(Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to join me in quitting caffeine 😭. But it will give me a very felt, very alive reminder of what it’s like to quit something my body is hooked on. I only drink one cup of coffee a day and want it less and less, yet the thought of forgoing all caffeine, including tea, feels daunting.)

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me most about writing these letters is knowing I’ll get to hear about your lives—what’s supporting and helping you, what you want more of in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

That in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• Do you have a “container of practice” waiting for you in the new year (whether self-directed or externally guided)?

Leave a comment

Before you go, could you do me a favor and tap the little ❤️? It’s a small thing but means a lot to me, and helps others discover small, reader-supported publications like this one.

Thank you, with love,
Dana (& Tucker)

I’ve been circling around this letter and some personal news for weeks now—not wanting to write about it because, I suppose, from the outside looking in, it’s not a big deal. But to me, in my heart, it’s a really big deal.

About a month ago, a teenaged orange tabby from the temple next door adopted us.

First, he’d drop by our yard each morning, looking lanky and scrappy and underfed, marching in place with his large front paws, up and down, up and down.

Before long, he was spending entire days on our porch, staring at us with golden, wide, eager eyes. Soon he was speaking in complete village-cat paragraphs (less meow, more “chirps” and what Randy calls “baby jaguar noises” that span an impressive range of expression).

Often, he’d press his face against the screen, seeking even a sideways glance from our two outrageously spoiled, much older Siamese princess cats (who mostly stick their noses in the air but, I suspect, secretly court his attention).

What started as occasional treats quickly progressed to feeding him three meals a day. Okay fine, we also gave him goat milk and butter and salmon snacks. Then we bought him a soft, fuzzy cat bed, placed outside our front door.

Then we had the local veterinarian do a house call, give him a once-over, and apply a topical for worms, fleas, and ticks (I have mixed feelings about that, but parasites here are for real).

Then we rescued him from a long-legged, seriously menacing wildcat—twice, just after dark. The first time, we brought him inside, whereupon he sprayed all over Randy’s office, so he had to go out again. The second time, we thought better of bringing him in, so Randy chased the wildcat off with a broom, hollering the whole way down the path.

Then we started rescuing him multiple times a week from a less menacing, more annoying village cat bully—another tabby who looks a lot like him, only bigger, possibly his father, brother, or cousin.

And now…

He greets us around dawn every day, like it’s Christmas morning over and over. Soon after waking, when Randy and I head outside, he comes bounding from under a bush or from the temple next door, chirping with unbridled joy. Not just for food, but to be picked up and cuddled and kissed and held tight.

And look, you all. I love my other cats—LingXu and LingDao—to a depth and extent that scares me and that I suspect many would consider “too much.” In some pretty big ways, I’ve arranged my life around them. In some very real ways, they’ve saved my life, and making their lives special feels like a gift and like the least I can do.

But I’ve never really cared much for orange cats. Or for cats with sharp fangs and long claws. Or, really, for boy cats—what with their fuzzy balls and fixation on my precious Siamese girls and their insistent, exuberant maleness. Don’t get me wrong: a feral teenage male tabby whose teeth, head, and paws look too big for his body is fine and all… just not my type.

And anyway, I had to be smart about this. The logistics weren’t looking great.

Sure, we had the vet take a look and they said he seems healthy. But we can’t bring him inside—both because we have two beauties he’s desperate to make rough kitty love to, and because of his enthusiastic, prolific emissions.

Besides, he so clearly loves outdoor life. He may be a teen, but he’s also a kid. Running, playing, fucking shit up. When he’s not with us, he’s hanging with his squad: a menagerie of stray cats and dogs at the temple.

In any event, our lease here is only a year (though we could absolutely extend it). In any event, his life is bound to be short, living outdoors with the dog packs and wildcats. In any event, in any event, in any event…

I’ve fallen in love. We are his family.

Which brings us to today, and to how I’m waking each day praying I’ll still find him running to greet me. And how, two nights ago, I awoke to sounds of him sparring with the much larger bully, and so I went outside and stood in the moonlight, calling and calling.

And how, when he finally came, I stayed with him there, under the moon on our front porch. And how a not-so-small part of my heart is now focused on keeping him safe.

Despite knowing I can’t keep him safe.

And yes: with everything happening in the world, with all that’s urgent and important and unjust and pressing… a village cat surely seems like a small thing.

But he’s not a village cat anymore. He’s Tucker.

And yes: our story can only end in heartbreak—I’m inviting in heartbreak. But this is what life is, I guess. So I hold tight. I love as hard as I can for as long as we’ve got.

Honestly? What else is the point? I refuse to choose the alternative.

How on earth do you manage it?

I’d love to hear how you hold love—for people, for animals, even for yourself—knowing that we will, beyond a doubt, lose everything, everything, everything. I really struggle with this.

Leave a comment

And before you go, could you do me a favor and tap the little ❤️? It’s a small thing but means a lot to me, and helps others discover small, reader-supported publications like this one.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

P.S. I decided to save the “What’s Nourishing Me” and “What I’m Hungry For” check-in portion of this letter for a separate post. Stay tuned next week: along with an invitation to tell me what you’re savoring and craving, I’ll share some personal news about the rigorous, structured container of learning I’ve been yearning for. (Spoiler: I found one!)

This past week, rather than write the letter I had planned, I felt a strong pull to review and reflect—so that’s what I did! I read through my archive, meandered through memories, took in how this past year unfolded.

It’s wild, sitting here at the table where I now write each morning—outdoors in the Thai countryside, bundled in blankets, hands wrapped around a hot mug of tea. It’s wild to consider how much has changed—how much I’ve changed—when most months I felt like not much was happening.

Sure, there were obvious things. I reached five years sober in February and turned 50 in March. The next day, this newsletter shed its old name and became PERFECT HUNGER, a shift that still deeply delights me.

In June my partner and I celebrated one year in Thailand, and we moved from Chiang Mai to Mae Rim, the city to the country, in September. I’ve continued twice-weekly language lessons and can now speak, read, and write Thai, though I have a ways to go before fluency.

Not long ago, we were living in the woods in Canada with no clear future plans. Not long ago, my first time living in Thailand felt like a blurred, distant dream. Not long ago, the highlight of my days was wine with dinner, only to wake in the night with deep dread.

The magnitude of change astounds me.

And yet, in reading through the archive, what brought tears to my eyes were actually the small things. The memories of our neighbors and neighborhood cats. Recalling evening walks, hand-in-hand, to the market. Remembering—really feeling into—unexpected moments like this one:

My final night, emerging from the shower after one last beach walk, I caught my own gaze in the mirror. Standing there, looking at the person 50-plus years in the making, joy welled up—pure and spontaneous. God, I love my life, I thought. But actually, it was more specific: I’m grateful for all that this life has given me. And I’m grateful for all of the choices that led me here.

Something I also noticed, as I read through past posts, is how my writing has shifted.

This happened slowly… then all at once… and was very much conscious.

At a certain point during the past year, I decided to not write (or at least not publish) from an angry, charged place anymore. I’d published impassioned essays on the cult of relatability, on the difference between sharing about sobriety and proselytizing, and on being called out for writing about wellness. I still like those pieces, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with anger—I do believe anger, though not hostility, has its place.

It’s just that there’s already so much anger online, you know? Between you and me, I’m not sure it changes things.

I am sure that whenever I personally publish from a place of anger, it feels half-removed and far from complete. It leaves out the part later, after publishing, when I consider “my story” from multiple angles. When I consider that more than one thing not only can be true, but most definitely is. When I touch back into my heart, what connects us, all that we share.

So, somewhere along the line this past year, I decided to treat how I show up in this newsletter as part of my most heart-centered practice. As a reflection of what I want to cultivate more of—within and without. As a reflection of the experience I long to create for you, dear reader. And for me.

An experience of touching into what deeply matters. Of gratitude for our fleeting time in this body, and for the whole of our body-mind-soul. An experience that, hopefully, at least a little more of the time, casts a vote for showing up with love. For choosing to show up more beautifully.

And yes, I know this shift has come at a cost. I know that my angriest, most charged essays often did “better,” if better is measured in views, clicks, and subscribes.

That hurts. And I’m okay with it.

Because I feel so deeply at peace, I feel so good about the shift: merging my writing with my actual practice, taking a stand for our hearts and our humanness. It has slowed my newsletter growth… but fed the growth that actually matters. It feels most whole, most honest, most in integrity.

Where craving what’s good for you happens

I also realize some of you are still new to me and this newsletter! There are over 4,200 of you now receiving these letters—thousands more than when I first started.

Many of you are also paying subscribers, something that means far more to me than dollar signs and far more than I can even express. Thank you. Words aren’t enough.

And whether or not you’re new to PERFECT HUNGER, I want to take a moment to recap what you can expect in your inbox. My review this past week reminded me that, alongside these weekly letters, the archive is a source of care and support—one that, above all, is about feeding your hunger for what’s deeply nourishing.

PERFECT HUNGER is a container where craving what’s good for you happens, supported through the following features (paired with personal favorites from this past year):

• The PERFECT HUNGER™ Guide to Transformative Eating: a holistic, step-by-step plan for transforming your diet, your relationship with food, and your health—this is a self-paced version of the exact type of work I do with patients but at a much lower, more accessible price (included in a paid subscription)

• The Practice: a series of actionable, “guided self-help” delivering nourishing, practical guidance related to food, body, and holistic wellness (personal favorites below, lots more in the archive)

  • What I’m doing to feel less anxious

  • 3 practices that changed my relationship to noise

  • PERFECT HUNGER™ x Nest Wellness

  • The Sugar Edition (might be helpful come January!)

• My Soulful Life: personal letters about soulful living in Thailand, what’s nourishing me, what I’m hungry for (my favorite part of this newsletter!)

  • On wellness content, taking the heat, and turning 50

  • Why “exit sooner” is my new mantra

  • A monster moved in next door (part 2)

  • I feel kind of lonely (a follow-up)

  • How to feel better

• Link-Ups: monthly lists of what’s been capturing my attention and pulling at my heartstrings, featuring resources to help you feel better and live more beautifully (I’ve been playing with the format of these; the most recent edition reflects what you can expect going forward.)

• SoberStack™: a regularly updated newsletter directory featuring alcohol-free writers on Substack (as of today, we’re at 183!)

Reading through the archive, reminding myself of the year’s ebbs and flows, two additional threads were woven throughout:

• the intuitive and skillful, careful and caring eye of my editor, Erin Shetron, for whom I’m so deeply grateful

• your presence, Dear Reader: reading, commenting, subscribing, tapping that little ❤️ (a small gesture that means quite a lot)

Writing for me is an extremely solitary, frequently fraught endeavor. But as I reviewed my year at PERFECT HUNGER, as I read back through these marks on the page that yearn to make meaning… I realized I was far from alone, and that we made this together. Thank you.

Next week, you can expect a return to regular programming. For today, though, I’d love to know:

• As you look back on the year, what’s one thing that nourished your body, mind, spirit?

• As you look ahead to what’s next, what’s one thing you’re hungry for?

Leave a comment

Thank you so much for being here, for giving me a place to share what’s in my heart, for helping me bring my fullest, most loving self forward. My wish is to do the same thing for you.

With love,
Dana

My most heartfelt hope for PERFECT HUNGER is that these words—these imperfect, perfectly earnest words that I type, rearrange, then rearrange again and send off each week—will reach you. Reach not just your inbox, but your body, your mind, your spirit.

I want to write just the right words, in just the right way, to help you remember your hunger for what:

• brings your body more lightness and ease

• helps you sleep more soundly

• expands your sense of what’s available and possible

• lends itself to everyday wonder and quiet delight

• supports you in living more beautifully

Sounds lofty, I know. But I promise, this entire world—this place of presence and aliveness and wholeness—is here for you. No matter who you are, no matter what’s come before, no matter, no matter, no matter.

From our first breath til our last and maybe beyond, wholeness and aliveness and being here always awaits—even amidst hardship and pain, hope and despair, the ebbing and flowing of humanness.

I promise, our capacity for presence persists. We don’t have to force it. We are part of it and it lives inside us. We just need to open our senses and hearts and remember.

Which is to say, as I sit here this morning—watching misty clouds settle over blue-grey mountains, listening to static-y announcements in Thai from the temple next door, wondering at how wet everything is and how awake and how green—I thought I’d share my most treasured, most trusted practice for re-finding and remembering this place of wholeness and goodness and knowing.

My practice for feeling better

If every other practice were lost to me… if every bit of training and learning fell away… I know this one thing would remain. It’s my reference point, my compass, my guide. It tells me—shows me—precisely what’s needed. In my body, my mind, my spirit. In my interface with the world and relationships.

I do it each evening. And while the details could easily change, the essence is this:

Alone on the floor of my bedroom, door closed and lights low, I move through gentle stretches, feeling into my body, unwinding the day.

As I move, I review the day—not a rehashing, not getting lost in fixations or stories. Just a review. Just noticing. Just paying careful attention to how that review feels in my heart and my body.

What I said and wrote. How I said it and wrote it. The path I walked online and off. My choices with words, food, movement, creation, consumption. What I listened to and read. What loops I found myself in or got myself in. Where I refused or failed to untangle the knots. What stories I told. What I made up.

It’s all okay, by the way—these movements of humanness. We don’t need to solve them.

And yet, it can be helpful, I find, to bring honest, exacting awareness to how it all feels—in my mind, my heart, my physical being. I ask myself: What was helpful? What left me feeling better, not worse? What feels good now, here in the after.

I also notice what did the opposite. What pulled my body, mind, and relationships into choppier waters. What doesn’t feel good to body-mind-soul.

Not to cling to it—not to add suffering to suffering by shaming myself or telling more stories. Just to notice. Just to consider how maybe, tomorrow, I might do something differently.

This practice tells me—shows me—what I most need to know. This practice changes everything. Who I am. What I do. How I exist in relationship.

I rarely speak in absolutes. I try to hold what I think I know lightly. And yet, I feel so solid in this. I feel so certain that the deepest essence of us wants to move towards wellness and wholeness. That we support this movement by being present enough to know how our choices feel. To know what is truly and deeply connecting.

So, maybe, if you don’t already have a practice like this—taking five or thirty minutes each day to go inwards and notice how and why you feel how you feel, including in your heart and your body—experiment.

It might be uncomfortable at first—it might always be a little uncomfortable. But I’ve found, over time and with practice, there’s more space for discomfort. And eventually—without needing heroic willpower or external direction—we start to crave what helps us feel better.

We start to do what helps us feel better and show up more beautifully.

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Handstands! Since moving to Thailand, I’ve continued practicing with the same yoga teachers as I was in Canada, now through recordings rather than live. The curriculum is a year long before circling around again, and each month, we focus on a particular posture or skill more intensely. This month is handstand month, which means I’m doing 90 minutes of handstand work interspersed with deep backbends every other day (on alternating days, I do a regular class to ensure my practice and body stay balanced).

The thing about handstands is, they’re less about arm strength than you might think. The core of the posture—and the ability to pike into it with straight legs and balance there—comes from the body’s center (for me, a spot one and a half inches below the navel, deep in the abdomen, corresponding to the lower dan tian in Chinese Medicine).

I already stand on my hands daily, but this month of intense work is helping me develop more strength, conscious awareness, and control at the center of my being. No surprise, this benefits other postures, too. Plus, it’s great for steadying and focusing my mind, rippling into the rest of my life.

A mesmerizing read. I’m only a quarter-way through The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See, but, wow, what a gorgeously rendered can’t-put-down read. This novel traces friendship and heartbreak across decades and lifelines, opening during Japanese colonization in the 1930s and 40s:

“Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends who come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook’s mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility—but also danger.”1

A beautiful container. I’ve mentioned ’s work and classes before in this space—her wisdom and teachings have been a true gift in my life. This past Sunday, I stayed up way past my bedtime to attend The In-Between, a gathering for those in transition and moving through change. In Africa’s words:

“My intention is to create a place for real reflection, clarity, and reconnection with where you are, and where you are going. I want you to slow down, to be honest, and to find your footing again.”

Yes! That intention came to life, and I recommend Africa’s offerings with my whole heart. I’ll leave you with one of her beautiful questions:

“What is my body trying to communicate that my mind keeps overriding?” —

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Warming food. We’ve officially entered the cold season here in Thailand, but most days are still pretty sunny and hot. However… this past week, I was actually able to wear a sweater in the early morning while writing outside. And especially on cloudy, rainy days, I’ve been craving food that’s more intrinsically warming (i.e., has a warming effect on the body after eating, according to Chinese Medicine). The cold-damp on such days feels like our version of fall, and it reminds me of when I lived in a one-room cabin on Salt Spring Island in Canada.

Through the summer, fish and eggs were my main source of protein. But lately, I feel pulled to add red meat in the form of grass-fed ground beef once a week. I feel this extra acutely during my period.

If this topic interests you and you want practical tips, don’t miss my guide on What to eat this Fall, according to Chinese Medicine. And if you, like me, live someplace where it’s warm year round, check out my lengthy response about that in the comments.

More tea, less coffee. Most days lately, one cup of coffee has felt like enough—enough to savor, enough to enjoy without feeding urgency, anxiety, scattered-ness. Meanwhile, I’ve been drinking plenty of green and black tea, sometimes with a half-teaspoon of honey. Do you notice that too much coffee makes you spin out? Has this changed as you get older?

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me most about writing these letters is knowing I’ll get to hear about your lives—what’s supporting and helping you, what you want more of in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

That in mind, I’d love to hear:

• Do you have a practice of noticing how your body and heart feels at the end of each day? A way to get quiet and notice the impact of your day and your choices?

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

Leave a comment

Before you go, could you do me a favor and tap the little ❤️? It’s a small thing but means a lot to me, and helps others discover small, reader-supported publications like this one.

Thank you, with love,
Dana

Last week’s conversation with on practical, ancient wisdom for metabolic health brought a lovely wave of new readers and subscribers to PERFECT HUNGER. If that includes you, thank you—and a very warm, heartfelt welcome ❤️.

I send personal letters like today’s at least once a month (you’ll find all of them here, and an overview of my approach here).

These letters might be my favorite part of PERFECT HUNGER. They offer a glimpse of the human (me) behind this newsletter—including what’s nourishing me, what I’m hungry for, and how I’m learning to show up more beautifully.

They also give me a chance to ask how you’re doing, what’s feeding your body-mind-spirit, and what the deepest part of you is craving. Please share and say hello in the comments!

As for life lately, and to dovetail my last letter on feeling lonely…

Life shifted, and at this moment, I’m no longer feeling lonely! Without question, this will shift again, ebbing and flowing with humanness.

But I think it’s especially helpful to witness when we feel good in our body and mind. That witnessing, that place of remembrance, is a message to our subconscious as much as our conscious self. It’s also a message to others and to the Universe.

What feels truly and deeply good? What do we want to invite more of through our thoughts, words, actions, and inactions? What ripples are we setting in motion, reaching shores we may never see?

As for what turned loneliness around for me this past while? It was so incredibly, almost laughably, simple! Over the last two weeks, I took a couple of rideshare trips into Chiang Mai City.

In contrast to the “project” I’d built up in my head, the logistics for visiting my old city were easy. The rides came within minutes of typing my location and destination into the app. The drive was shorter than expected (only around 25 minutes to the northwest corner). I spent it gazing out the window on the way there and studying my Thai notebooks on the way back. The total was less than 15 U.S. dollars round-trip.

I’m realizing how much I can feel blocked around doing the most ordinary, everyday things.

For example, I’ll spend all day creating a five-notebook system for Thai vocab and grammar—no problem… but I own next to no clothes, and the ones I do have are literally threadbare, because I can’t seem to overcome my block around clothes shopping. (And I’m not talking about curating an entire wardrobe or capsule collection. If I could buy even one shirt or pair of pants without holes in it, that’d be a win.)

My typical pattern around mundane, totally-not-a-big-deal tasks that, for whatever reason, feel overwhelming to me goes something like this:

I keep putting them off… busying myself with other tasks while “the thing” looms larger and larger. I can pretend I don’t notice, but I do. Energetically, it seeps into my mood, my work, my relationships, everything.

When I finally just do the thing, so much space opens up. Emotionally, spiritually, physically. In the ecosystem of self, others, surrounds. I can breathe again. I can stretch and extend. I can be more fully present.

My recent “unblocking” assignments were two, one per week, each requiring that I call a rideshare to/from Chiang Mai without advanced scheduling (partly as a test to see how hard or easy that’d be):

• Go to an English-language bookstore to buy two novels. (I read fiction every night before bed.)

• Get a haircut at a fancy salon. (My thick, wavy-curly hair is tricky in Thailand.)

In the lead-up to these assignments, I imagined waiting for rides for hours, only to have drivers cancel… being late to my hair appointment or getting home too late for yoga… wasting entire days getting to the city and back… not to mention hurtling myself into scenarios that usually have me sprinting in the other direction: getting overheated while stopped for minutes at a time in traffic, having every sense organ mauled by The Mall, missing out on daily practices and rhythms that leave me feeling at peace and at ease. In sum:

I’d envisioned these as day-long projects involving excruciating wait times and mental-emotional exhaustion.

Turns out, they were anything but! Everything was easy. I was in and out. I got to enjoy the city then feel the relief of leaving it behind, returning to our green, rural refuge.

The night after my second assignment, reflecting on how much my mindset shifted just knowing I can get back to the city so easily, I realized that the loneliness I’d been feeling since our move was less about being alone and more about feeling cut off.

Giving myself experiences that proved I wasn’t cut off—that, on a whim, I could get myself to the middle of the hustle and back again, that it’s actually easy to see people and interact and then leave—suddenly, being alone had a whole different feel.

I also honed in on why “loneliness” isn’t something I’ve experienced much in the past handful of years. Quite simply: I’ve always loved being alone. It’s the only time when I fully relax.

Don’t get me wrong: I still miss daily interactions with our neighbors in our last home. This feels closely linked to living in Thailand, and wanting to learn the language and culture.

And yet, time alone feels essential for knowing how my body-mind-spirt is feeling and for taking a precise inventory of my thoughts, emotions, and actions. It’s also how I touch into Source, God, Nature, the Divine, whatever we call it—something that expands far beyond human understanding and perception, yet also contains and connects us.

I realize this isn’t true for everyone, but I find it difficult to access those forms of attention and connection unless I’m alone. Do you have this, too? Or do you feel more attuned and connected when surrounded by others? What helps you feel most at peace?

I’ll tell you what did not help me feel at peace…

I try to keep things real in this newsletter. And to be real with you, our “refuge” in the Thai countryside was in some ways more challenging this week than my trips to the city!

In an unexpected turn of events, the Buddhist temple across the street from our house hosted a wild, rockin’ two-day event that literally shook the neighborhood. Imagine live music (in Thai, a mashup of too many genres to count) blasted through speakers so thunderous that our walls and furniture were vibrating. From 6 p.m. until midnight both Saturday and Sunday, I’d never heard music so loud and genuinely feared for our eardrums.

There weren’t any specific holidays happening that I’m aware of, and when I texted our landlords (whose home is across from ours), the husband replied: “I think some villagers sure had fun but my family was not happy at all 😵. Hope they do not do it again for years!”

I found this particularly funny, because when I inquired, I tried to be super diplomatic and culturally sensitive—and they were like: THIS SUCKS. MAKE IT STOP. 😂

Anyway, around 9 p.m. the first night, as Randy and I were chatting and stretching on my bedroom floor, I looked at him and said, “I can’t even write about this. I have no idea how to describe it.” Because it was so loud, and the walls of our large house were shaking so unbelievably, and the music was such a technicolor kaleidoscope of genres, that truly: I don’t know how to describe it.

I had earplugs in, but they were useless. I worried it was damaging not just my ears but those of my cats (though, as Randy pointed out, the oldest is already half-deaf and seemed completely unbothered). I gained an all-new understanding of how music can be used as torture.

As many of you know, I struggle with any machine noise—including background sounds most people don’t notice. Thankfully, I’ve discovered internal practices that have been helping tremendously with this. But, like the Thumper situation at our last place, this was another occasion where I sensed the Universe saying: Oh yeah? You think you’re doing better dealing with noise sensitivity? Try this.

And believe you me, a meltdown was totally in the cards that first night. What with the noise, the fear, the traces of panic, the not knowing how many hours or days it’d go on… Collapsing into heaving sobs was so on the table.

But! As we continued stretching on my bedroom floor and the live band crescendoed into an even louder, more outrageous surge of emotion and vocals, Randy and I looked at each other and burst into laughter.

The wave of panic rolled through and subsided. I landed in a place of surrender. I embraced the undeniable hilarity of it all—and stumbled, unexpectedly, into wondrous delight: What is this life?! Living in the Thai countryside, the entire house rattling from the temple rager next door. What a crazy ride we’re on! I love it. I treasure it.

And while I won’t always be able to pull off that response, I’ll tell you one thing—it sure felt better than the alternative.

Very gratefully, the festivities wrapped up after two days. The only sounds coming from the temple this evening were the monks’ usual, serious, beautiful chanting. Sitting here in my quiet room, enjoying a soothing symphony of insects and geckos, I’m noticing the absence of loud partying, the absence of discomfort, the absence of nervous system alerts edging towards panic.

Here in that absence, I’m feeling extra appreciative of serenity and stillness. Here in that absence, I can more clearly know…

WHAT’S NOURISHING ME

Dharma and dialogue. I attended an online event at the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies last Saturday (overlapping with the temple blowout, which helped me stay awake). Senior teacher Gil Fronsdal hosted Dr. Muna Shaheen and Dr. Stephen Fulder, leading Palestinian and Israeli dharma teachers, to talk about the role of mindfulness, dharma practice, and core ethical principles such as non-harming within the context of crisis and chaos.

Dr. Shaheen offered one of the most striking insights, that teaching mindfulness and the dharma is an act of social activism the world urgently needs. She also pleaded with people outside of Israel and Palestine to avoid making things worse by inciting further outrage, division, and hatred. She expressed understanding for people’s intentions, but was clear: inflaming the situation through words and actions will only make things more polarized and worse for those (like her) on the ground.

She asserted that the most important, most impactful place of practice during times of major crisis and devastation is both internal—how we’re responding on the inside—and external—actually living our values, not just proclaiming them. When things go really, really wrong, that’s the time to anchor even more deeply into internal practice and ethical action.

“Local” community. I’m putting “local” in quotes because the community I’m referencing is technically online but feels close-in and personal. For all the potential downsides of online-ness, wow have I been grateful for genuine, heart-sourced online connections.

The other evening, as I was reviewing my day, I realized I’d exchanged meaningful, heartfelt emails with at least five people I know from Substack’s sober community. I’d also received beautiful, tender messages from new subscribers—notes that reminded me why PERFECT HUNGER is truly my heart’s work, and how much love and care I hold for you all. And the comments on my letter about loneliness meant more than I can put into words. All to say: thank you. You are part of what lifted me out of the lonely place.

WHAT I’M HUNGRY FOR

Fall! For me, the hardest thing about living in Thailand is not having full-on Fall and Winter. My nostalgia for previous homes in Nova Scotia and British Columbia is especially strong this time of year.

Preparing last week’s guide on How to eat this Fall, according to Chinese Medicine had me daydreaming about crunching leaves underfoot, listening to the melancholic calls of geese overhead, and seeing my breath in the cold, clear air. Is it Fall where you are? Are you bundled up in a warm woolen sweater?

I’d love to hear yours.

Part of what excites me most about writing these letters is knowing I’ll get to hear about your lives—what’s supporting and helping you, what you want more of in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

That in mind, I’d love to hear:

• What’s nourishing your body, mind, spirit?

• What are you hungry for?

• What one simple assignment could you give yourself in the coming week? Something small, but that feels big. Something that’s taking up loads of energetic space and would feel so good to check off your list. (Also feel free to report back once you’ve done it—external accountability can be surprisingly helpful!)

Leave a comment

Before you go, could you do me a favor and tap the little ❤️? It’s a small thing but means a lot to me, and helps others discover small, reader-supported publications like this one.

Thank you, with love,
Dana