I’m no longer completely startled when someone replies to one of the emails I send to the Matters Experiment email community…
In the beginning, sending an email out into the ether felt disconnected and odd. Would people really read them? Or just think I was a bit bonkers?
I have grown to know there are real people on the other side of those messages, though. Real people who occasionally dazzle and humble me with their bravery to suddenly reach out to respond, ask, or share something that feels true for them. My offer that I am always on the other side of my emails genuinely connecting across time and distance… oh, it is thrilling!
Late one evening last week, I received a response that momentarily took my breath away.
You speak of writing in your journal, is it any journal – is it thoughts you write down, or dreams or wishes or sadness or what do we write in a journal? Is it my innermost thoughts – the ones that keep me awake at night?
Lisa, I’m not sure where to start. But I want you to know that I carry a sadness that needs an escape.
My (partner’s name) heads (overseas) tomorrow and I’m scared of being alone for three weeks. I’ve lost myself.
This email came from a woman I have known for more than 15 years. Not a close, day-to-day friend, but someone I immediately clicked with when I met her and I have respected and admired from afar. She is visible in the world — passionate, intelligent, and thoughtful. I’ve seen her lead effortlessly with her heart and vision, inspiring others with a burning love, passion and gravity that is obvious after five minutes of being in her company.
And she is the woman that everyone else talks to about their problems, struggles, or worries.
Could this email be coming from the same person?
Of course, yes. I’ve seen it over and over – the women others think “have it all together,” who look so capable and enviable from the outside, while quietly carrying all of their own doubt, confusion, and guilt on the inside.
Those last three words… I’ve lost myself.
They echo what so many people feel, but rarely say.
For all the highlights and achievements in my own life, I know how often those words have sat at the root of my own misalignment — between the life that looked shiny on the outside and the loneliness or confusion I carried within.
This is why The Matters Experiment exists: for women like her, and for women like me.
It’s not about a single grand answer or a “fix.” It’s about noticing. Being honest about where we are. And then finding small ways, in the middle of ordinary life, to take ourselves seriously enough to find the way to ourselves and the lives we really want to be living.
Her email emboldened me. It reminded me that I’m not building The Matters Experiment in theory. I’m building it for her.
Not because she needs me to swoop in and solve her problems. She doesn’t. But because clear, practical tools and frameworks can help speed up and support the process — so we don’t have to feel so lost, overwhelmed, or alone. Ever.
This idea of being lost inside our own lives is exactly why I’m working on something new – a practical way to pause and gently check in with yourself. A tool to notice where you may have been abandoning your own needs, and where you might be able to choose something different… and some support to know how to do that.
I’ll be sharing more about that soon. But for now, if any of her email reply felt familiar to you, maybe this is your moment to try something new, too. Your first step could be as simple as hers: a journal and a few dot points. You don’t have to have any answers yet, or to know how to ‘do it right’. Just open an old notebook and start with something simple like:
“If I could be my own best friend right now, what would I want to hear them say to me?”
Or,
“Where or when in my life did I feel the most like myself?”
Don’t judge what you write or feel that you have to take immediate action. Just notice what comes up — and let yourself be curious about what might want to happen next.
P.S. This email reply reminded me again that we all need places where we can be honest about where we are. As I mentioned briefly, I’m working on something to make that easier… which I’ll be sharing it first with my email community. If you’re curious and would like to know more, you can join me via the email sign-up below. xoxo
