Inner work frameworks, practices, and questions – all in a five-minute read. Delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning before you even wake up. Written and curated by Andrew Lang.
Do you miss singing in public? (The Wednesday 1-2-3)
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Happy Wednesday Reader! Growing up in a church setting, music was always present in my childhood. Every Sunday, I would hear three or four hymns bellowed out (or timidly half-sung) by a group of choir members and folks in the pews. And while the conservative theology undergirding many of these songs seemed strangely ignored by those selecting the music, the act of communal singing, if not always the quality, was a beautiful thing. And rare. I'm sure you've noticed, but there really aren’t that many spaces or moments in our society where collective singing is “accepted,” let alone centered. I can only think of a few:
For those of us who have left the church (and other religious spaces), there can be a grief to this loss of collective music – not because we’re all “music lovers” or great singers, but because music can be such a powerful force for connection and beauty in our lives. Aldous Huxley once wrote, “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” A few years back, during a season of feeling this particular loss and noticing how specific songs would bring up old memories and under-processed emotions, I started using music to help me explore my interior life. And while it isn’t nearly the same as communal singing – far from it, in fact – here’s one of my favorite practices for including music in inner work: If you want to see an example, I shared some of my songs in an Instagram post last year here. ❓ Questions
🧰 Resources
🧩 Community QuestionIf you have a quick moment, I’d love to hear from folks: What is one song that has a deep connection for you? (I'm asking this both to hear your stories and also to add new music to my playlist. Full disclosure 😊) ⏪ If you missed last week's email:Hope all is well-enough with you, |
The Wednesday 1-2-3
Inner work frameworks, practices, and questions – all in a five-minute read. Delivered to your inbox every Wednesday morning before you even wake up. Written and curated by Andrew Lang.
Hey Reader, Before we get to the prompt for this week, I want to share a bit about something I'm in the process of building. Over the past few years, and during this year's cohorts in particular, I've noticed two things a bit more clearly: how the stories we hold often keep us frozen, unable to feel present for long in our day-to-day lives, and how hard it can be to know what to do in the face of communal harm and societal struggle – and to actually do it. Because of this, I'm creating a...
Hey Reader, This month, I'm taking a pause from writing a new issue of The Wednesday 1-2-3 each week and instead sending out some of my favorites from the past two years. Hope you enjoy! In the middle of reading Rumi's wonderful poem, “A Great Wagon,” there's a stanza that stuck out to me as deeply familiar: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the...
Hey Reader, This month, I'm taking a pause from writing a new issue of The Wednesday 1-2-3 each week and instead sending out some of my favorites from the past two years. Hope you enjoy! In 1955, psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham developed a framework for mapping our awareness and self-awareness called the Johari Window. Here’s how it works: (And a quick note: when I first learned this framework, I found myself labeling qualities in different quadrants as good/bad. If you notice...