The Inner Practice
Honest reflections on what it means to feel off, get clear, and find our way forward..
Written by Anna Scott.
The Hope Chest
My mother taught me not to feel. It took a lifetime — and my daughter — to unlearn it.
My father died when I was two.
My mother was left with six children. Five boys and one girl. Me. The youngest.
She did what she had to do. She kept the house running. She kept us fed. She kept moving forward.
Her motto was simple.
No one likes a whiner.
She Got on a Plane
This morning I spoke to a friend who is in Amsterdam.
After we hung up the phone, I noticed a strong feeling move through me. I checked in with my heart and stayed with what was there.
First came resentment. That she could travel. That she could get up and go while I feel stuck here. I recognized it immediately — that is a story, not a truth about my friend.
Underneath the resentment was jealousy. And the jealousy was useful — because it showed me what I actually wanted. To travel. That was real information.
But there was still no peace. Something else was underneath. So I stayed. Present with the feeling. Not following the story. Not making my friend wrong. Just staying.
It Wasn’t Complicated After All
My son is spending Christmas away for the first time.
Twenty-nine years of shared rituals, and now a quiet change.
I didn’t have an issue with him going. That part felt clean.
What hurt was something else.
I wasn’t held in mind.
Plans were made — with friends, with travel, with what came next — and somehow I wasn’t part of the orientation. When dates were offered later, they landed flat. January 25 didn’t feel like a celebration. It felt like a placeholder.
The meaning that came immediately was familiar:
I don’t matter. I’m not a priority.
What’s Your Intention?
My son called the other day, his voice tight with frustration.
“They never wrote me back,” he said.
“Send me the email,” I told him.
When it landed in my inbox, I could see it. Polite words, thoughtful details, a closing line that sounded like a soft wave goodbye. But no arrow. No request that gave his boss something to respond to.
When I asked him what his intention was, he paused. “I didn’t want to sound pushy. I just…wanted them to respond.”
The Call to Climb
I interviewed James Robbins today on my podcast, My Love of Life Energy. Author of The Call to Climb.
I hadn’t met James before today. Yet when I glanced through his Instagram, I felt a warmth in my chest, the kind that says: yes, this will be good.
And it was.
From the moment he began, his words pulled me in. He calls himself “not a great writer.” But as I scrolled through the first three chapters of his book, I found myself leaning forward, hungry for more, clicking purchase without hesitation.