Dream. Breath. And the Sisterhood I Didn’t Know I Needed.

Yesterday, I pulled the Dream card.

Of course I did.

I have always been a dreamer. Ask Bergen. Dreaming might actually be my love language.

Give me someone I love and an uninterrupted hour (or 3), and I can happily dream up seventeen different versions of our future. Places we could live. Trips we could take. Things we could create. Ways we could change the world.

At least twelve of these ideas will be wildly impractical.

This has never stopped me.

So when I pulled Dream yesterday, it felt familiar.

But I've been thinking about that card differently today.

Because maybe the biggest dream I've carried throughout my life wasn't about what I would do.

Maybe I dreamed of a world where I would be understood.

Known.

Seen.

A world where my sensitivity wasn't something I needed to hide.

Where my quirkiness wasn't something I needed to edit depending on who was in the room.

Where my intuition didn't require an explanation.

Where my quiet, deep connection with God could simply be mine - and could look different.

Where rigorous and spiritual weren't contradictions.

Where I could be strong and tender. Serious and ridiculously silly. A researcher and a dreamer.

Where I could say, This is how I experience the world, without immediately wondering whether I had said too much.

I think I've dreamed about that kind of belonging my entire life.

I just didn't know that's what I was dreaming about.

The loneliness of being partially known

There's a harder truth underneath all of this.

I don't have very many close friends.

That's painful for me to admit.

I've known a lot of people. I've built communities. I've worked alongside incredible people. I've loved deeply and been deeply loved.

I am not alone.

But I have often felt lonely.

For much of my life, people described me as shy. And maybe sometimes I was.

But I understand it differently now.

I think I was watching.

Feeling.

Reading the room.

Trying to determine whether it was safe to let more of myself out.

Some parts were easy.

I could be the researcher.

The mother.

The advocate.

The problem solver.

The caregiver.

The leader.

The person who could get things done.

Those parts of me made sense to people.

But the softer parts?

The deeply sensitive woman who feels everything.

The intuitive part of me.

The spiritual part.

The quirky part.

The part that believes love and connection can actually change things.

The woman who wants to talk about God and meaning and why we're here—and then five minutes later make a completely inappropriate joke.

That woman has been more protected.

And there is grief in realizing that.

Because at 55, I can look around and see that there are actually very few people in my life who know all of me.

That's sad.

Not shameful.

Just sad.

I'm allowing myself to grieve that now instead of immediately turning it into another problem I need to solve.

Because I don't think what I've wanted was ever hundreds of friends.

I've wanted to be known.

And maybe some of what I have called loneliness throughout my life was something slightly different.

Maybe it was the ache of being loved without feeling fully known.

Then I came here

Which makes it slightly ridiculous that I voluntarily came to a retreat with a group of women I didn't know.

I was scared. Really scared.

Apparently my solution to a lifetime of wondering whether it was safe to be completely myself was to fly to the desert and become extremely vulnerable with strangers.

Solid plan, Lane.

Except something happened here that I wasn't expecting.

They stopped feeling like strangers.

I found a sisterhood I didn't know I needed.

And yesterday we did an exercise that was almost comically difficult for someone like me.

We had to receive.

One at a time, we stood inside a circle and looked into the eyes of each of our sisters. They were asked to feel our energy and offer one word that came to them.

We couldn't explain.

We couldn't qualify.

We couldn't do anything for them in return.

We just had to stand there and receive.

I would like the record to reflect that I am significantly better at giving.

Receiving may be my graduate-level course.

And then the words started coming.

Expansion.

Soulful.

Courageous.

Brave.

Unconditional.

Loving.

Healer.

Teacher.

Forgiveness.

Insightful.

Giver.

Force of nature.

And more than once:

Protected.

I ended up on my knees.

Not because these women were telling me I was wonderful.

It was something much deeper than that.

I couldn't believe that was what they saw.

They weren't describing what I had accomplished.

They didn't care about my résumé.

They weren't talking about what I had done for them.

They were reflecting me back to me.

And somewhere inside, a much younger part of me seemed to whisper:

Oh.

You see me.

And you don't want me to be different.

Breath

This morning, on our final day together, I pulled another card.

Breath.

I looked at the woman on it.

Pink. Yellow. Blue.

Soft.

Ethereal.

Her arms are stretched wide. Her chest is open. Everything around her seems to be moving with air.

She looks light.

Unbraced.

Free.

And I thought:

That's how I feel.

Or maybe more accurately:

That's how I want to live.

Because I'm tired of feeling heavy.

I've carried a lot for a very long time.

Some of it was mine.

Some of it wasn't.

Some of it I picked up because someone needed me to.

And some of it I probably carried because being needed gave me a place in the world that I understood.

I know how to be useful.

I know how to fix things.

I know how to advocate.

I know how to take care of people.

I know how to fight for people I love. To protect.

But I'm beginning to understand that being needed and being known are not the same thing.

And neither are being strong and being free.

Maybe Dream had to come before Breath

I've never needed anyone to teach me how to dream.

But maybe I've misunderstood what my deepest dream actually was.

Maybe it wasn't another accomplishment.

Another organization.

Another book.

Another degree.

Another opportunity.

Maybe underneath all those dreams was a much simpler one:

I wanted a place where I could exhale.

Where I could be quirky.

Sensitive.

Intuitive.

Rigorous.

Spiritual.

Tender.

Strong.

Funny.

Complicated.

Occasionally weird.

All of it.

And still belong.

That's what these women gave me this week.

Not permission to become someone new.

Permission to stop hiding pieces of the person who was already there.

And that realization carries grief with it.

Because when you finally experience what it feels like to be deeply seen, you also become aware of how long you've gone without it.

I'm grieving that.

I'm grieving the friendships I didn't have.

The rooms where I made myself smaller.

The times I mistook self-protection for shyness.

The parts of myself I kept quiet because I wasn't sure they would be understood.

The years I spent surrounded by people and sometimes still felt profoundly alone.

I don't need to make that sadness disappear.

I can let it sit beside the gratitude.

Both can be true.

I can grieve what I didn't have and be overwhelmed with gratitude for what I have found.

The light was already there

Yesterday, after standing in that circle, I had a thought:

Maybe this is the light I'm able to put into the world when I'm loved.

But I've changed my mind.

Those women didn't put that light into me.

They reflected it back.

Maybe the light was always there.

Maybe love and safety simply made it possible for me to stop protecting it.

And maybe that's part of what I'm supposed to carry home from this retreat.

Not the expectation that every room will understand me.

Not the belief that everyone needs to.

But the courage to stop becoming less of myself in order to belong.

And maybe something else, too.

I realized that I have spent much of my life trying to build for other people the world I had always needed myself.

A world where people are seen.

Where differences don't have to be erased for connection to happen.

Where sensitivity isn't weakness.

Where we can be curious about one another instead of afraid of one another.

Where people don't have to earn their place by being useful.

Where we don't have to become less of ourselves in order to belong.

Maybe that's why connection has always mattered so much to me.

Maybe that's why I've spent my life trying to bring people together.

I knew what it felt like to stand just outside the circle.

Dream. Breath.

Yesterday, I pulled Dream.

Today, I pulled Breath.

Now I think I understand why they came together.

The dream was never simply about imagining some bigger life.

I dreamed of a world where I could be fully myself and still be loved.

Where I could be known.

Seen.

Understood.

Where my sensitivity could be loved rather than managed.

Where my quirks could be enjoyed rather than edited.

Where I didn't have to explain every part of myself before it was allowed to exist.

And this week, for a little while, I experienced that world.

It felt like an exhale.

So perhaps this next season isn't about becoming anything.

Not another thing to accomplish.

Not another person to save.

Not another version of myself to create.

Maybe it's about allowing myself to be seen.

Finding the people with whom I can exhale.

Offering that same safety to others.

Dreaming ridiculous dreams with Bergen.

Laughing loudly.

Talking about God.

Trusting what I feel.

Loving deeply.

Being weird.

Being tender.

Being me.

I have spent enough of my life feeling heavy.

I think I'm ready for light.

Yesterday was Dream.

Today is Breath.

And maybe, finally, I'm learning how to do both.

Thank you my sisters, for an amazing weekend away. I am forever grateful.

For anyone reading this that wants a safe place to exhale, reach out. I'm here. With love!