Tessa Hulls is an artist, writer and solo bicyclist who thrives in spaces where she can use her art and unique voice to illuminate the beauty and brutality that intersect in both our personal and collective histories.

Her brand new graphic memoir, Feeding Ghosts (March 5, 2024) is a beautiful, illustrated retelling of her family's troubled history. In her own words, this memoir "explores loss of culture, mixed race identity, mental illness, loss of language, immigration, and generational inheritance of trauma, it is ultimately about the ways in which mothers and daughters both damage and save each other."

In this conversation, Tessa dives into how hard it is to bring creative works into the world sometimes, and how to navigate the launch of a highly-anticipated book when said book nearly broke her spirit. Tessa is brutally honest about the emotional cost of this project, and how little she wants to be in the spotlight as she steps into a massive media launch.

This is an episode about connection, duty, obligation, and authenticity. It's a conversation about birth and death, beginnings and endings, and how to come back from darkness.

You can (rarely) find Tessa on IG @tessahulls

Here's her website: https://tessahulls.com/home.html

You can preorder her book, Feeding Ghosts, anywhere books are sold.

Kendall shares an unedited, on-the-fly episode about how it's ok to do life unedited, on-the-fly and imperfectly, because there is no test. You can take it easy on yourself, and stop trying to live up to some impossible standard you have set for you life.

She also shares a practice she has implemented in her life that has helped her be far less critical and far more loving and grace-filled towards herself: she writes letters to herself from unconditional love.

Join her! (And and whole host of other beautiful people) at Elizabeth Gilbert's Substack community called "Letters from Love".

https://elizabethgilbert.substack.com/

An Ironman Triathlon consists of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bicycle ride, and a full marathon (26.2 mile run). It is widely considered one of the most difficult one-day sporting events in the world.

Liz Flint has completed multiple half Ironman races, one full Ironman, and participated in another full Ironman that she was unable to complete. Amazingly, she had barely even run a full 5k when she began her long-distance triathlon journey in her thirties, following a very difficult period in her personal life.

This conversation really highlights how to tackle huge goals by just taking one step at a time. More importantly, it dives into how important it is to celebrate our achievements, and how perhaps it's even more important to hold sacred space for our failures. Liz and Kendall talk about how integral it is to have community in during both the high and low points in our lives- people to cheer us on, and to sit outside our doors when we are hurting.

May we all sign up for something that scares us a little, and stand beside someone we love who is in the mess or glory of life's ups and downs.