You’re reading How to Live, a weekly examination of the unconscious logic behind our attachments, defenses, distortions, and recurring dilemmas. Most of what shapes us operates outside awareness. This newsletter attempts to make those structures legible.
Paid subscribers receive immediate access to more than four years of essays: hundreds of closely argued pieces that approach the psyche from different angles and moments in time, along with invitations to seasonal in-person gatherings and the opportunity for direct correspondence.
My Cabinet of Comforts for Daily Mental Repair
The weekly newsletter "How to Live" highlights a single, sometimes complex, idea, modality, person, or insight from the therapeutic and mental health world and breaks it into a relatable narrative for the general public.
The goal is to offer information about different ways to help heal to a wide array of people—practices and approaches that they didn't know existed, didn't know enough about, or wanted to understand.
But what of the more specific and granular things that help get a person through a day and bring joy from the frivolous to the more profound?
Working on your mental health is a daily practice. And it takes different forms for different people. It involves surrounding myself with things that bring me deep pleasure (Marie Kondo would be so proud and, I suspect, horrified because I am a very messy person). Many people get rid of the things they don't need, keeping only the things they do.
I have spent my life collecting curiosities, objects, ideas, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, thoughts, inspirations, articles, books, quotes, concepts, resources, wisdom, learnings, and illuminations that sustain me, add value to my daily life, and create the climate, conditions, ethos, meaning art, and essence of figuring out how to live in a world whose ways are often incompatible with mine.
Some of those things are as simple as the stones I gathered on Brimstone Island in Vinalhaven, Maine.
Today, I’ll introduce you to six things that are meaningful and bring me joy. I hope they bring you something, too.
Original Art for How to Live by Edwina White
SIGHTS
ONE.
TWO.
THREE
SCENTS
ONE.
TWO.
THREE.
And you? What gets you through these hard days? Tell me in the comments,
Until next week, I will remain...
Amanda
Paid subscribers read essays examining the psychological forces that determine behavior; why we repeat patterns we claim to reject, how we mistake performance for authenticity, why we pursue desires we've inherited rather than chosen.
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Quick note: Nope, I’m not a therapist—just someone who spent 25 years with undiagnosed panic disorder and 23 years in therapy. How to Live distills what I’ve learned through lived experience, therapy, and obsessive research—so you can skip the unnecessary suffering and better understand yourself.
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