I'm getting married
And what that might bring up
Welcome! This is the Sunday Soother, a weekly newsletter about compassionate personal growth and authentic living, written by me, Catherine Andrews, a life coach, teacher, and writer. Did somebody forward this to you? You can subscribe to the Sunday Soother here.
Happy Sunday, Soothers. It's true, what the subject line says: I'm engaged!
I shared this message with my private community, and I thought it might resonate here, too (typos and lowercase typing and all!).
hi friends, i also wanted to share the lovely news that last week AJ and I got engaged! (if you listened to my tarot forecast for the week ahead in the membership i share a fuller story, obviously it involves 8 great blue herons)
Thank you for your kind wishes. no reason why now, other than we felt ready. no surprise pregnancy or anything :) no wedding plans yet... will probably be pretty small, but i can already see how it's easy to let outside influences and the wedding industrial complex spin it out of control! no ring, never wanted one. hope to do the deed in the next 6-12 months!
also i wanted to just address something i've experienced when somebody i resonate with or connect with online announces a big life change - sometimes i feel shame or grief! i might have connected with them because they were somebody who was single, childless, whatever, and when they change their life status that i resonated with, even if i'm happy for them, i can feel a little bit of wistfulness too. things are always changing! sometimes i felt left behind or like i wasn't doing enough too. in case you feel that, just wanted to note that i have felt that, too, and give you a big hug. we're all on our own paths, and also all of our feelings are valid.
and also finally to send encouragement, around whatever is going on in your life. romantic relationships were always really hard for me for like the past, i don't know, feels like forever. 15-18 years, really. it felt like a thing that "clicked" for other people that i just couldn't get, no matter how hard i efforted or scrambled. i had a lot of shame around it, for being single, unmarried, unpartnered, childless. it's not that i have now "won" or "succeeded" in something because i'm getting engaged, more just that i feel at a place of peace, self-worth and self-acceptance in romantic relationships and so this feels like a next right step for us now. it just as easily could have not - i think we'd be happy being partnered but not married forever too - but it was a decision we decided to make for our own reasons.
if dating or connecting (maybe it's friendship or other relationships) have felt hard for you too, just know i see you and so do many others in this community. marriage is weird - i have complicated feelings about engaging in a state-approved patriarchal structure, lol - and also there are just so many ways to be a human in this world. some of us are a-romantic or asexual. some of us are polyamorous. some of us are quite happy being single. some of us are happily married, some of us are not happily married, some of us are divorced. some of us date or find friends and connections quite easily, and some of us really don't.
but we're all just humans trying to find our own acceptance and worth in this messy world that doesn't seem to want us to have either, and i hope all of us can just keep walking the path of accepting and honoring our own desires and needs and wants, no matter what they are! and that we can support each other in doing that in this sweet and thoughtful community.
Thank you in advance for what i know will be warm wishes of support!
And many thanks to you readers as well. If you're an OG reader you know I've been through the dating/romantic ringer — soul-crushing breakup in my mid-20s, failed engagement in my early 30s, tons and tons of shame I tried to solve by dating and engaging in questionable relationships with anybody who would glance my way.
I taught a lot of what I learned that finally healed low self worth and let me be in successful relation to another person romantically (and a lot of other people - family members, friends, work folks) in my course, Intentional Dating.
To celebrate, I'm marking it off 44% (my current age) for the rest of June. Check it out and enroll here. You can read more and stuff like testimonials here. That link should take you right to the discount but you can also use SOOTHER44 at checkout to get the discount.
If you are ready to address low self-worth and shame in relationships, it might be for you.
Thanks for being here. It feels lovely to celebrate life milestones - of all sorts - in a warm and welcoming and thoughtful community. Engagement and marriage are just one possible milestone to celebrate, and certainly not the most important though our society may treat it as such. We also have graduations, career achievements, the time your nephew called you "his favorite aunt," the first time we wrote and published something publicly, first homes bought, first times we set boundaries with family, divorces are often to be celebrated and marked, the first time we met with a financial advisor, the first time we traveled alone - so much.
So much to celebrate in a lifetime. I feel lucky to have been able to share a variety of life and my own personal milestones, amongst this one, with you for the past several years.
Whatever you're celebrating lately, or whatever challenge you're experiencing, I hope you never forget your essential worth and humanity.
You are an utter miracle in human form.
Keep going until you remember that.
Recharge Your Light: Now Open!
Are you a highly sensitive person or empath who’s dealt with a host of mysterious and chronic conditions? Maybe it’s Hashimotos, SIBO, fatigue, migraines, chronic UTIs, severe anxiety or depression, PMDD, hormonal issues, or any other host of things. Maybe it’s simply exhaustion or burnout. If you’ve spent months, years, or even decades (and maybe thousands of dollars) trying everything under the sun—pills, diets, supplements, elimination diets, involved detox protocols, or more—but still can’t solve your health issues, what if I said you could learn to use the principles of nature itself to heal? What if I told you that the human body is a battery, made of water, charged by sunlight… and most of us are running at an extremely low voltage that is causing us a host of mysterious health issues, that can’t be resolved with another detox protocol, elimination diet or medication? And what if I told you that we could use principles from nature to aid in you in regaining your health and voltage, and that most of them are totally free and easy to implement? That's what I'll be teaching in my brand-new course: Recharge Your Light. This is a 6-week educational course starting in June to learn how to improve your energy, vitality, well-being and health through a holistic lens, that taps into the healing powers of nature, environment, natural light, and more. Ready to take your health and healing into your own hands, to regain your agency, and to partner with nature in your healing process?
Recharge is now open for earlybird enrollment, at $297 (payment plans available). It goes up $200 on June 17, and we begin June 20th.
Enroll and read more details here!
Reads & Recs
Where I share articles, books, recipes, podcasts, beauty products and more that I'm enjoying! (A few links may be affiliate links off of which I'll make a small commission; I only endorse stuff I've tried and loved).
🌴 We have 3 spaces left for the retreat I am co-hosting in BALI in March 2025! And we've just settled our agenda. We'll be going to the beach, visiting an elephant sanctuary, temple visits, cacao ceremonies, doing a water healing ceremony and so much more (yoga, delicious food, and relaxation). Plus, my co-host Missy and I will be teaching energy healing workshops, too, and you'll do it in a community of like-minded, spiritually open highly sensitive people. It's open to just 10-12 women, so it's a small and intimate group, and I specialize in creating retreats tailored to the introverted HSP (who might have some social anxiety)!. I got u. Interested? Reply to this email with the word Bali and let's talk.
🎧 I was lucky enough to be interviewed on the lovely Mentally Fit Podcast with Liv! Listen here: How to Practice Practical Spirituality and Why Being Sensitive is a Superpower with Catherine Andrews
🤔 Why am I so obsessed with a poorly-dubbed German TV show about enemies-to-lovers high school students at a rich English prep school? (The show is German, but I guess everybody is supposed to be English? It's all very confusing.) I don't know, but Maxton Hall on Amazon Prime has been serving up my delightful YA series needs. The acting is good, the storyline is rich, and the lead dude is a total hunk. Check check and check.
🎶 "That motherfucker's guilty...." This tune is a bop and a celebration of the conviction of one DJT.
🧒 For the parents out there, a rec from my friend Emily: "OK, I mentioned this book a few weeks ago but now that I've put it into practice for almost a month I want to more strongly recommend it. It's about simplifying in a lot of ways (fewer toys, fewer activities, more routines) but the fewer toys thing has been a total game-changer. I got rid of 80% of our toys (seriously, not an exaggeration) and the kids have been doing SO MUCH MORE imaginative play/art/independent play. Like, the difference is truly astounding. And a bonus is that I am so much less stressed because cleaning up takes like five minutes max. I found the discussion of WHY lots of stuff can be overwhelming/dysregulating to kids to be really compelling. It is definitely worth reading."
☀️ A fascinating podcast interview with an ICU doctor who started using sunlight to help his COVID-19 patients with incredible results. It also details some of the past history of light therapy used in healthcare in history.
🙌 Via Tina in the Sunday Soother Slack, Is sensitivity your superpower? What it means to be a Highly Sensitive Person & The Power of Regret
💫 Making Decisions Right "There's no science, just gut."
💯 The Spiritual Practice of Doing Nothing: "On productivity culture, high school track coaches, and knowing our worth beyond doing."
✨ Too real: Woman Checking Email Will Be Disappointed if There Is None, Disappointed if There Is Some
🐋 Whales Have an Alphabet. This is why it is so important in our own growth to not be so human-centric and human-dominant. Entire species - animals, plants, and what we perceive as inanimate objects - have their own magical ways of communicating and perceiving and knowing. When we say that only humans can "know," think of the myriad ways in which we limit ourselves and what we know of this planet and our experience on it.
That's it for this week, all my love for the week ahead,
xo
Catherine
PS: Don't forget to check out the health course for HSPs interested in holistic healing from nature that I'm running now, Recharge Your Light! Earlybird pricing goes until June 17 and we begin June 20th.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!! 💖💖💖💖💖
CONGRATULATIONS 🎈🎉🎊 so happy for you !!!! You deserve every joy and happiness !!! 😊😊😊😊