Jen Knox's Blog, page 7
February 27, 2025
February 25, 2025
On panic
Available for single unlock or paid subscribers. This was originally published on Insight Timer.
I used to suffer from debilitating panic attacks. This is a short talk and true story from my life that traces a day I went from panic to healing. I hope you find it useful and that you can connect, in some way, to the power of our creative minds when channe…
February 22, 2025
On the STOP technique, writing & week 41 of 52
Yesterday, for a few moments, I stood with my dogs in a winter wonderland and felt held by the silence, by the snow-coated scene. My thighs began to prickle, and I felt total peace.
My pup, Potato, taking a pause.It was a single moment in which I could stop all the chatter, all the worry, all the planning, all the striving, and all the news. Reality was as much about what was within as it was what was external, seemingly propelling toward me.
I didn’t need a meditation cushion.
I didn’t need a complicated ritual.
I just needed to stop.
STOP is a mindfulness acronym, a simple reminder you can take with you throughout the day, employ while reading the news, or it is something you can practice when you meditate.
“Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.” —Thich Nhat HanhThis is especially helpful if you have trouble focusing or indulging times you’d ordinarily slow down. STOP is a simple concept. The acronym stands for Stop, Take a Breath, Observe, and Proceed. If it seems overly simplistic, there’s a short audio that explores it a bit more below.
In the meantime, we can tackle it through expression. I’ve been playing with this, and the exercise is freeing.
Writing prompt: Turn this mindfulness acronym into a prompt. I tried it this week a few times and wanted to share. This works with poetry or micro-fiction/micro CNF. So pick your genre and proceed …
Stop: Write a scene or line in which time stops and there is space, perhaps the space Viktor Frankl speaks of.
Take a breath: Describe a single breath and all comes with it.
Observe: What is noticed in the moment of pause? What sensory details come to life? What thoughts magnify or swell?
Proceed: What happens next, where is one to head from here?
Photo by Калинин Михаил (Mikhail Kalinin) Nod to James Lucas for sharing this image.AYTL experiment: Implement the STOP mindfulness practice each day, just once. If you forget one day, try it twice the next day. You can always return here and practice with me. Let your view of the world slow enough to see it all.
Ways to support Here We AreIf you enjoy this post or the meditation, subscribe! Or, take a few seconds to give it a ❤️ or restack. Share your experiences or responses or confusions below.
You can also pick up a copy of my new novel CHAOS MAGIC. In a tale blending magic, danger, and the weight of choices, a woman's rebuilt life is threatened by her ex-husband's release from prison. She uses magic to do what she must.
In community,
Jen
February 15, 2025
On expression & week 40 of 52
I was twenty-something, poor and tired of being poor.
I’d been a practicing nail tech at an upscale retirement home called Trillium for only a few hours. My second customer looked down, so I looked straight ahead. The woman before her had neglected to tip and complained that her French manicure was “just okay,” so I focused.
I faced the woman's veiny shins, almost translucent like the skin on the kielbasa my grandmother would make on holidays. I lifted one of her legs up and out of the warm water, placing her heel delicately on a towel, and began sloughing off the softened dead skin. I was terrified of hurting or making her angry.
Each tip was a tally mark in my mind, helping me pay for college classes that promised to change how I’d be seen in the world, maybe even how I’d see the world.
Instead of the overdraft fees I incurred then, I imagined a savings account, a promise that one day I wouldn't have to sit at the feet of a rich woman and fear her potential fierceness. In reality, I was quickly accruing debt, and I would work many years beyond any few-dollar tip and a few-month stint as a nail tech to pay that off, let alone save.
Nonetheless, every customer felt like a potential step forward. I was a woman with goals. Passion? Maybe.
I'd always taken pride in my nails, but they were hard to keep nice when your hands were in soapy water all day. When we were young, my sister always had short, grimy nails stained from dirt or paint or whatever else she’d had her hands on. My nails were always long and painted in loud colors like the women on MTV videos.
I would buy dollar-store nails that came with some kind-of rubber cement. They would be bright red, purple, or yellow. Sometimes they'd pop off and fly across the room as I danced in the living room with my friend Nikki or when I tried to pass the potatoes at the dinner table.
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As I dried the woman's feet, I was thankful she seemed to be nodding off. Her nails looked as though they'd been splattered with white paint. These tiny marks are disruptions to the keratin protein that makes up our skin and hair. A little trauma, a slight bang, and it takes weeks if not months before these little discolorations are gone.
Almost everyone has a few small marks here and there, and they have no idea when or how they arrived; how much of life is like this?
The frame of soft skin around a healthy nail shows the tenderness and strength of the human body. I didn’t have long nails anymore because they were too much work. I didn't have red nails because I couldn't keep the polish on. But I loved them. They were the original “power pose,” along with loud prints and big jewelry like my mother wore then.
When the woman woke up, she was startled. She asked my name and said hers was Joan.*
Joan's pants had been ironed to perfection when I arrived. She could withhold a tip since I'd wrinkled them. She could say I messed something up or spoke too loudly, as the other woman had, so I remained quiet.
Joan was in a home that cost a year’s worth of my rent every month. She got her nails, hair, and makeup done weekly. I was sure she'd never worn dollar-store nails or worried about overdraft fees. I imagined she'd pick a beige polish and purse her lips if her steak was overdone.
"I don't like this old music," she said, gesturing to the speakers. She went on, saying the décor was designed to remind her of a time when she was young, beautiful, and invisible. "I just want to live now."
I nodded and handed her the tray of polishes.
"You're a quiet one," she said, and I smiled.
As I buffed the big toe on her left foot, sure I'd get a decent tip, I split her skin and the prick of blood surfaced. I pressed cotton to the small fissure, hoping she wouldn't notice. She looked at me, unfazed, and told me she’d lived through worse.
While I don't remember if she tipped, probably not, I do remember the cherry red color she chose and how perfectly it covered every vulnerability. She nodded her approval when I was done, smiling.
I painted my nails the same color that night, just for the night, as I listened to the music I wanted to hear.
I lived alone then. So, alone I danced. I waved my red nails in the air. And I felt alive.
Photo by Dynamic Wang AYTL prompt: Find something you used to enjoy and no longer find a lot of happiness from. Rekindle your love affair with it. And if you can’t find anything, turn on a song you love and dance.
Writing prompt: For me, this scene in my life was about letting go of the “American Dream” and finding joy within. Write about a time you (or a character) let go of a dream that wasn’t yours to begin with.
*It wasn’t Joan
February 12, 2025
5 minutes this morning, a meditation
Let's take a few moments to remember the times we've shown resilience and strength, times we felt strong and assured. Then let's carry that energy forward. This is a 5-minute practice, in case you need a little pick-me-up.
Photo by Prince David
February 8, 2025
On the simplicity of writing & week 39 of 52
Have you ever seen someone look up toward the sky, as though receiving an answer before speaking? If you watch old interviews with David Lynch, he did this.
Once, in an interview on creativity, Lynch said that if you have a yellow notepad and a pen on your lap for long enough, the words will arrive on the page. Ideas come.
I don’t think it’s more complicated than that. I don’t think you need workshops and strategies and all the rest. You just need to sit and write. Or stand and write, if the ergonomics work better.
“We think we understand the rules when we become adults but what we really experience is a narrowing of the imagination.”
― David Lynch
Meanwhile, like any meditation, it’s easy to forget that the process is the simplicity itself. The less we try to complicate things, the more it pours out. The more we talk, analyze, etc., the less it happens.
Photo by Rikki Chan In other words, the notepad doesn’t need to be yellow or even a notepad.
We need to find something or some way to release—look up, out, or down for a while, then allow what comes. Maybe meditate on dropping expectations for a while.
AYTL/writing prompt: Write every day this week, even if you’re not a writer, and do not set conditions on it. Write for a minute, an hour, or a few hours. No formulas, not overthinking, no editing (gasp!). Just look up or down or off into the distance and write.
Bonus: Write a love letter to your writing and submit it to our team at Unleash.
February 7, 2025
Releasing expectations
9-minute meditation.
February 4, 2025
The Snowstorm
© Jen Knox
We have six gallons of drinking water, half a box of graham crackers, and oatmeal we’ve been eating with minimal water and warming on the space heater. We had perhaps our last small fire yesterday, and Joshua found a few packs of raisins, a food that used to make me cringe, behind the fridge. Consumables dwindle so incredibly fast. The plump raisins on my dry tongue were as tasty as any piece of three-layer chocolate cake would have been to my former self, the woman of only weeks ago—the woman worried about consuming too many calories or not walking 10,000 steps.
I have an ounce of power left on my phone, but the last time I powered it up I threw the thing across the room, so I’m not entirely sure it works now. There’s no internet anywhere. We are left with the emergency laws, instructions, and survival tips. Also, the lists. Long, stomach-twisting lists.
Joshua heard rustling sounds on and off over the last few days, and he was sure it was tunneling, which, at this point, is our only hope—rescue. Freezing to death will take some days. We have a lot of cloth, wool, and a cordless space heater that the news suggested before reports stopped. The water won’t last long, though, and this is all I can think of as I try to summon my strength.
We count to three and pull hard to gain an inch of light. The ice around the door gives, and a clump of snow releases. The fresh air feels nice before it bites at our cheeks. Yesterday’s snow is now an undercoat and the powdery top layer glistens.
“Looks like it’s winking at the sky,” Joshua says.
There is nothing but snow, expectant clouds, and the top halves of our neighbors’ homes. A few still have smoke escaping their chimneys.
“Nature’s secret,” I say. The wonderland covers cars and bikes; it climbs stairs and devours porches. Our doors are barricaded, with only a few feet uncovered at the top. It’s infuriatingly beautiful.
Joshua backs up and sighs as he grabs the broom. I lean all my weight in, hoping the door will close again easily today, but it doesn’t budge. Despite the cold that enters, it was recommended we keep opening the door and clearing the path as much as possible to prevent it from freezing closed. He sweeps at our warped wood floors, and I tell him to be careful around the window, where there is a fissure in the glass.
“We’re lucky to be on the north side of Grant Avenue, kiddo,” I say. He hates it when I call him kiddo, he’s too old, but he lets me off the hook. Joshua examines the slight incline toward the other side of the street. We were spared at least a foot of accumulation, not much but something.
He lingers in the doorway, and a thin arm of sunlight reaches in and warms my face; meanwhile, the icy air and blinding light crowd everything around it. We push the door again, together, but it still resists, and I imagine the raisins on my tongue. The inside of my mouth is like paper, but I need to hold out before I drink or eat anything.
February 1, 2025
On a few hundred ducks & week 38 of 52
After breakfast the other day, my husband and I walked. We came across a few hundred ducks and a tiny mischief-maker.
As soon as the ducks gathered for food, this kid would roar and run toward them. They’d scatter, pause, then wander back as he threw more food.
We hung out here for about 5 minutes, and the ducks kept coming back.
I think the answer to the poll above is “having fun” or “curiosity.” And because I’m a writer, I had to find out about a duck’s capacity to remember and found there’s a good chance the ducks were, on some level, getting something worthwhile out of the equation.
Why do I share this?
The scene itself was captivating. So much so that I forgot my lengthy to-do list and tally of worries about the world without having to sit on a mat and focus or count my breath.
It was a simple and somewhat awkward interspecies interaction. Like when my dog tried to cuddle up with my cat: there’d be hissing, then a resigned awareness that the dog offered body heat and something soft to curl up against.
Human-to-human interaction is often awkward as well. We take great strides to try to make it less so, but it often is.
There’s the “ice breaker” for starting conversations, the miscommunication that seems endemic when we talk about big issues, and there’s the laziness of implied meaning in texts and emails, not to mention the delightfully awkward but beautiful interactions with people when there is a language or culture barrier.
“Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is!” —Mark Twain
We are often just bumbling along. So in the spirit of bumbling along and getting comfortable with getting uncomfortable, let’s approach this week with clear sight of this short, beautiful journey and all the magic that lives in the unexpected and awkward interactions.
Here are a few prompts.
“Izzy with Izzy” by Andy Dice DaviesAYTL prompt: Drop the cool, even if it comes naturally to you. Be willing to get awkward. And if you find yourself embarrassed or confused, embrace it. Journal about it. Love yourself all the more for being courageous enough to be what we so naturally are.
Writing prompt: Write about a fictional character (poor thing) who sacrifices everything intrinsically valuable in exchange for comfort and how that works out for them.
A meditation offering for everyone…
