In When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron writes that “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”

I realized the truth of her words this past week. Something important—a lesson I keep thinking I’m finished with—returned to me. And without wishing to enfold the story in neat endnotes, I can say that I think I may finally have learned what I needed to know. A big chunk of it, anyway.

There’s more to this: lessons in healing, boundary setting, and getting free. I’ve learned about staying truthful and becoming a more fully realized version of myself. But what’s stuck with me is the fact that we can continue to encounter familiar struggles or wounds and still be moving forward in our process.

I sometimes greet the resurgence of an old challenge or hurt as a “setback,” but it doesn’t have to be. Not really. Instead, it can be an opportunity to face a familiar trigger in a new way.

When I was in ED recovery, I often found myself confusing recovery, or healing, with the inability to be triggered anymore. I was wrong. It’s not about being immune to triggers so much as feeling them as vividly as ever, yet finding new and more adaptive ways to handle them.

So here’s to facing the things we face, for however long we need to face them, and approaching them with just a little more clarity, honesty, and self-compassion each time. However maddeningly slow the process might feel, no matter how much patience it demands, it’s growth. And it matters.

Happy Sunday. Here are some recipes and reads.

Recipes

Vibrant and refreshing Mediterranean collard wraps with pesto.

An earthy, wintery vegetarian pasta dish for date night (Valentine’s Day?), or any evening. Just substitute plant-based parm for regular parm to make it vegan!

A simple masala curry that’s perfectly doable on weeknights.

I’ve made various iterations of rice that are inspired by my Greek heritage, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a recipe for Prasorizo, or rice with leeks, before. I’m excited to try this!

Speaking of rice, Deryn swaps farro for rice in this tasty fried farro dish with spinach and edamame.

Reads

1. An interesting discussion of how technology can make us more and less empathetic.

2. I’m really excited to read Lydia Denworth’s new book on the biology of friendship, and this review piqued my interest.

3. A thoughtful consideration of how physicians can show their patients that they’re listening. It helped me to think about how I communicate having listened to, and heard, my nutrition clients.

4. Confessions of a hermit crab rescuer.

5. If you didn’t happen to see the video this week, the Washington Post reports on now viral footage of an unlikely allegiance between a badger and a coyote.

Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing the chocolatey, just-in-time-for-Valentine’s-Day treat that I meant to share this past week. Stay tuned!

xo