Kind Moon is a coaching and facilitation practice, led by Rob Douglas, with a range of offerings from preparation/integration coaching, tea sessions, mindfulness practices, and beyond. Integration coaching supports individuals seeking self-guided processes for presence with significant and transformative experiences (from retreats, sacred medicine ceremonies, or major life transitions). To learn more about how Kind Moon aligns with your intentions, please book a free discovery call or reach out via the Kind Moon website.
Welcome to the Kind Moon Substack. I wanted a new pathway for sharing reflections and collections of ideas for years now.1 Yet, there were two blockers which kept from doing so via a medium like Substack or other similar channels: 1) there is so much media/content out in the world, I worry about adding more to the unceasing and inexorable firehose of production; 2) I lacked a central theme on which to hang any musings.
For the first, I have no solution and often feel paralyzed by that reality; however, I also recognize that my relationship to content overload is a subjective mindset which I have the capacity to navigate within.2 And, the best means for me to address that is changing my perspective toward acknowledging the following: while the volume is beyond control, I can still create singularly from a place which is authentically rooted in me and, in that sense, is completely unique. I am not fully responsible for who reads this as much as I am for what I say and how true the words ring in my own heart. And, perhaps, we each own personal responsibility for our unique content more than we do the collective output. I add a strong emphasis on that prior “perhaps” as I do not mean to imply we should not consider how we impact the collective too. We may not be able to stop the heavy flow of water yet we can influence the color and clarity of it.
For the second, lacking a central theme, I am finding that the best solution is to simply commit and follow the flow of that waterway. My sense of being without a branded thesis was not reflective of any deficiency in quantity of ideas to generate a theme; rather, I felt lost by all the forked branches and streams of thought available. The concepts were and still are overflowing and overwhelming. Add that alongside moments of self doubt or judgment, and I have all that I needed to stop me from doing the simple (yet extremely hard) work of taking a first step (or paddle, if I’m holding to the water metaphors). Does that feel familiar, being paralyzed by options and doubting your capacity to properly intuit the “right” choice? There are some great tools for meeting that feeling, which I intend to explore in writings ahead; however, for me, when it is all said and done, the most critical aid to that paralysis and overwhelm is simply to commit and step on out.
So here I am, stepping out. I am writing through the lens of Kind Moon (my vehicle for facilitation3 and coaching) to talk about pathways and tools for meeting ourselves more fully and openly. I am going to explore my pillars in facilitation: safety, trust, and rest. And, I am going to look at tools that surround these practices in the realms of preparation and integration. This Substack is a space to explore how we best navigate peak and expansive experiences in our lives and how we bring those significant moments into our daily being beyond (prior to, presently within, and moving forward). Whether we are talking about time spent at wellness or spiritual retreats, journeys and ceremonies, or massive milestones in our personal lives, there is always an opportunity to be transformed and to know ourselves more fully, which extends well beyond the container of the experience itself. And, I love growing in my capacity and understanding of how to do that.
Today, this is what feels true to me in my writing: I do hold wisdom; I do not hold many answers. With that, I am inviting each of you who may read this to join me on a journey of growing into the questions and grounding ourselves in what feels most true to our own experiences.4 And maybe, if we can do so with grace, patience and curiosity, we might find what we need for today and a few things that we can carry onward into tomorrow. I would love for you to join me as we explore and walk through some of these uncertain spaces with a little help from the light of a kind moon.
To close, as this is the first post, I will gently remind anyone receiving this in your inbox or encountering via Substack, please subscribe to join the exploration ahead via the button below.
Following the breadcrumbs…
Echoing the Substack Waxing and Weaving, by my amazing partner in life and marriage (Molly Reeder), I am going to include a few links with each of my posts that are catching my attention today. Take a moment to explore and see if they may inspire some next turns for you. Not all topics may resonate; though, there just might be a breadcrumb or two leading to something meaningful in your world.
PODCAST: Lily Gladstone (on Talk Easy). I was surprised to find that a celebrity interview would inspire so much content for my dialogues in the days that followed listening to it. I even carried a couple specifically into a facilitation. There are some real gems in this dialogue.
(LONG) READING: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. I am a mere ~600 pages away from finishing Tad Williams’ many-thousand-paged, epic fantasy trilogy. In a genre that often is defined by repeated tropes and clunky prose, Williams’ poetic writing and patient pace is deeply inspiring and has been a beautiful experience in which to live for a while. Thanks to my local library for keeping these available!
RESOURCE: Kind Moon Resource Network. I am going to be reworking my website very soon (www.kindmoon.space is where you can learn more about my offerings or schedule a free discovery call if you would like to explore how coaching or facilitation may support your own current season of life); however, I did not want to wait till the new site was live to present my community resources page. Last week, I posted up a new page listing individuals and organizations whose offerings I believe strongly in, as supportive pathways for growth and healing. Take a look and see if any of them may be aligned for your own needs or for those of someone within your community.
As a former blogger of yesteryear and chronic longform email-blaster of today, I have the bug to want to play with various forms of writing. Buckle up: I love parenthetical statements, bridging quasi-related independent clauses with semicolons, and a good old fashioned footnote for both referential additions and long winded asides. What I lack in brevity, I make up for in overly-clarifying comments and meandering nuance (and generally assuaging my own self doubt around my intentions being correctly understood).
I have been exploring more and more the deep validity of momentary mindsets to our experience. Our limiting beliefs or closed-circuit thinking may not be “true” but they are the perspective from which we are seeing the world. And as such, they are deeply important to honor and recognize with compassion and curiosity. So, I do not mean to be dismissive when I say that “my relationship to content overload is a subjective mindset.” But, I also hold that the subjectivity is a part of me that I can be in conversation with and approach differently, to navigate toward action where there may be temporary paralysis.
I will be expanding more in the future about what “facilitation” means in my own context and others’ too. I know that word can feel vague to folks who may not swim in similar waters as I do. The language essentially refers to holding space and co-creating guiding principles with individuals or groups for contained experiences of mindfulness, connection, and exploration. More to come on stories and examples ahead, if you are willing to follow along.
There is a phrase “living in the questions” that has resonated with me since I was a teenager. I cannot find who coined it or where that term became popularized. When reading through articles that use the term, I noticed that many also referenced Socrates' words, in translation, “The only true wisdom is in knowing we know nothing.” Which is not hitting the same mark for me when I talk about living in the questions. I do believe we hold knowledge and there are truths to be accessed in this lifetime that may indeed be universal, even if the language about and our perspectives on such truths are limited by our singular and finite vantage point of self. But, even with access to truths and holding to core knowledge which make up wisdom, I still suspect that there is far more uncertainty and mystery that make up life than there is the contrast. And, when we embrace the mystery with joy of curiosity and relief of not having to understand or know all, there is great freedom and opening up. These murky waters may be scary looking but they are warm and inviting if we are willing to dive into them. Letting go of seeking answers, and instead living in the questions.
"follow the flow of that waterway" ... thank you for sharing your wisdom and insights
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
from Letters to a Young Poet
also see this post:
Live the Questions: Rilke on Embracing Uncertainty and Doubt as a Stabilizing Force – The Marginalian
https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/06/01/rilke-on-questions/