Hi, I'm Emilie 👋 Writing is how I make sense of the world in and around me. I created this space to explore the beauty, hilarity, madness, and mystery of this human experience and share what I find along the way.
Do Learn Grow is inspired by Mary Oliver's Instructions For Living a Life, Dawna Markova's I Will Not Die an Unlived Life, Elizabeth Gilbert's TED Talk, Mark Nepo's Encouragement to Sing, Megan Price's Pep Talk, and Mae Martin's Snow Globes.
“
"My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find peace with exactly who and what I am. To take pride in my thoughts, my appearance, my talents, my flaws and to stop this incessant worrying that I can’t be loved as I am."Continue Reading > My Mission
In your story, they are the villain.
In their story, they are the hero.
Continue Reading > Villain or Hero
This hits home.
Continue Reading > Spell Your Name For Me Please
“
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.“
How surely gravity’s law,“
What's comin' will come, and we'll meet it when it does.Continue Reading > Held
It took me a long time to stop hating myself.
I didn’t fully understand why until I was on the other side of that self-hatred.
When you’re queer or “other” in any culturally significant way,
you come face to face with such…
Continue Reading > To Be Other
Would I not be blind,
nor deaf,
nor in any way
insensate to
the rushing and
sometimes crushing
roar and glory and ferociousness
of life-
the thunder and lullaby of it,
…
Continue Reading > Awake - Robin Church
When you’ve gone under
There’s a moment after you’ve made your way back to the surface
That you know you are fully at the mercy of the ocean
That if another wave were to…
Continue Reading > Between Waves
“You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control.
But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.”
– Elizabeth Gilbert
Continue Reading > Surrender - Elizabeth Gilbert
Just a costume, this skin
Look at me and tell me you’re in on the joke
But it’s all so serious
Entire lives ruled
by words and labels we created
Entire wars fabricated and fought
…
Continue Reading > Casting Shadows
Them: This is who I am.
Us: No you’re not. This is who you are.
Them: This is who I am.
Us: It would make me more comfortable if you pretended to be something else.
Them: This is who I am.
Us:…
Continue Reading > Strange Things We Do
I want to be here.
I want to remember
how to feel
everything
Everything.
May my mind and body
meet again
like two old friends
coming home.
Continue Reading > Coming Home
Am I coming or going?
Is this staying or leaving?
Why does healing feel like grief?
It would be so much easier to grasp for one thing
or the other
It would be so much easier to drive a stake in the ground
…
Continue Reading > In Between
Little One, you can come down now.
But who will keep us safe?
I will keep us safe. Come down.
I don’t know how.
One step at a time.
I’m scared.
I know. I’m not leaving…
Continue Reading > Watchtower
I ’ve tried meditation a few dozen times over the years.
I was never really able to make it click, until I had to.
Early last year my brain was stuck in overdrive and I couldn’t find quiet.
So, with some…
Continue Reading > Learning to Breathe
“
My Love, you notice so beautifully.
But for fuck's sake, when did you start taking it all so seriously?
Continue Reading > It's Only Life
Continue Reading > The Roar of a Gentle Heart
Many of us know what it is to be swallowed by grief;
may we also know what it is to be swallowed by joy.
Continue Reading > Swallowed Whole
You will be too much for some people and not enough for others.
Neither will matter if you’re enough for yourself.
Continue Reading > You Are Enough
Where in your life are you starving but accepting crumbs for yourself?
Continue Reading > Crumbs
We wake up the moment we realize that we are living someone else’s dream.
And we are free the moment we are brave enough to live our own.
Continue Reading > Wake Up
We can have our need to be right or we can have peace.
I choose peace.
Continue Reading > Choose Peace
Perhaps one of the greatest ironies of what it means to be human is that we are equipped with both a soul that so desperately longs to be known and an ego that causes…
Continue Reading > Hide and Seek
If you want to learn to swim, you can read about it, and you can watch other people do it, but at some point you have to jump in the water.
The same can be said for living.
Continue Reading > Jump In
Some of the most painful moments of my life came from putting my unquestioning belief in things that we made up. Rules. Boxes. Labels. Shoulds. Shouldn’ts.
Freedom came when I realized I didn’t have to blindly go along with these things and that if someone was going to choose the meaning of my life, it was going to be me.
…Continue Reading > My 10 Greatest Life Lessons (So Far)
Who are you with, where are you, what are you doing when you feel the most free?
Who are you with, where are you, what are you doing when you feel the most constricted?
Continue Reading > Free or Constricted
I always find myself craving space and quiet after big life changes.
When I’ve been standing too close to something for too long, it’s easy to forget that I’m only seeing…
Continue Reading > The Space to See
We are the only creatures that fight so hard against the truth of ourselves.
Flowers bloom. Grass grows. Mountains rise.
Humans hide and shrink and pretend.
We live a…
Continue Reading > Dare to Bloom
Maybe it was the unbearable thought of him dying alone
Maybe it was that I never saw his body
Or that I didn’t get to say goodbye
But I could not make myself believe he…
Continue Reading > Gary
The thing is…
This life is short and you, My Love, are pure potential.
Don’t just stand there blowing in the wind, mistaking motion for action.
Dig deeper.
Grow taller.
…
Continue Reading > Wild and Free
Tender wavelets wash my happy feet and
the still soft sun kisses my
morning face in silent benediction;
alone except for crabs scuttling in
and out of their sandy holes,
…
Continue Reading > Unseen - Robin Church
We hold up our history like a crystal ball
letting our past predict our future.
But what could we do?
Where could we go?
If the potential of each moment
was it’s own?
What would we be capable of
if yesterday’s couldn’t
didn’t automatically become
today’s can’t…
Continue Reading > The Potential of Each Moment
I see you there
Your hands filled with rocks
They’re cutting into your skin
Your body is exhausted from bearing their weight
But still your fingers stretch wide to wrap…
Continue Reading > A Familiar Discomfort
I am in love with the idea that here we are, these endlessly pliable creatures, ready to take the shape of whatever we repeatedly ask ourselves to become.
The change we…
Continue Reading > Comfort vs Effort
The best I have to give doesn’t come from my strength. It comes from my cracks.
It comes from where I’m weak, vulnerable, worn, real.
It comes from the places where life…
Continue Reading > Through the Cracks
What if you were to come out from hiding?
What if you were to live fully out of your heart?
Would you wear it on your sleeve like a badge of courage and love?
Could you…
Continue Reading > To the Full
Challenge yourself every day to do more than you think you’re capable of.
When you want to quit, don’t.
When you think you can’t, try.
It’s not about perfection.
It’s…
Continue Reading > Choose to Grow
There’s a place inside of us that I call The Deep. I think most people likely give this label to their hearts because when something true and pure lands inside us, it…
Continue Reading > The Deep
