Worthy Rivals

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Never the Roses, Jennifer K Lambert

Who pushes you to be better, even if they don’t know or intend it?

Simon Sinek and Adam Grant.
Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova.
Apple and Microsoft.
Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas.
Christian Dior and Yves Saint Laurent.
The University of Chicago and Northwestern.

Competitors and rivals. Each unique and outstanding in style, substance, and mission, but similar enough to be compared, contrasted, and set at odds. But each half of the pair makes the other better; they keep each other driven to stay in the game. Thus they each spur the other to learn, grow, and evolve. Their respective fields all benefit widely from their public rivalry, elevating standards and aspirations for all: win-win-win.

Oneira and Steranos, the most powerful sorceress and sorcerer, respectively, exemplify this integrated dichotomy in Jennifer K Lambert’s Never the Roses. Pitted against one another for decades of war costing fortunes, lives, and their own consciences, they finally connect in real life (as opposed to ‘remotely’, each locked away in their own respective kingdom directing warfare from afar) when Oneira retires and decides to visit Steranos’s personal library surrepticiously one night, the most serious and skillful oneiromancer who committed one of the gravest atrocities of wartime, pranking her erstwhile nemesis on an impulsive whim. Thus begins a magical slow burn, sensual yet low spice, playful yet tragic love story of two individuals for whom true understanding and full acceptance can only be found in each other. Their knowledge, skill, and power, literally unrivaled by anyone else in the world, makes them the perfect diametrical foes and exquisitely matched lovers and allies.

I adore this story becuase it makes me grateful to have in my life so many intellectual and relational equals. “Iron sharpens iron,” my friend says. When I engage you in wit, query, and debate, when we compare and exchange perspective at the highest levels of curiosity and possibility, OH how my mind positively tingles! My best insights and thought integrations occur during these sparkling conversations and I just cannot get enough. We make each other better in all the most meaningful ways, but most of all we each truly see and feel seen by the other. That sensation de-escalates the nervous system, settles it into a place of safety and acceptance. I’m starting to think there may be no substitute for this singular feeling and the benefits thereof.

How fascinating–the only people I share this relationship with whom I’d actually call rivals are my Red voting friends. Is it semantics? I am weirdly averse to the idea of competition–do I hate losing that much? …Do I meet worthy rivals in the gym? Maybe. Hmmm, this may be worth exploring more. I wonder if I have any other books to reference in the query? Maybe one will come to me by this time tomorrow. Good night, dear readers!

Mind Your Body by Nicole Sachs

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“Where does resentment live in your body?”

I thought it was in my gut, maybe somewhere around my liver or gallbladder, but that’s not where I felt it. I rooted around and found it today, somewhere in my chest and limbs, thanks to a beginning embodiment meditation guided by my wonderful new friend and coach Kelly Maher. Not only did I willingly meet my resentment in my body, I had a whole (if brief, thank God) conversation with it, attempting to reconcile its existence despite its apparent detriment to my well-being. Amazing. As the meditation progressed I noticed changes in physical sensations, and thoughts I had met countless times before now occurred in a brand new context of observation and potential understanding.

Kelly says we will likely do some parts and inner child work in the coming weeks. Yikes. And bring it! When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, they say. How funny, it was almost exactly a year ago that I wrote here,
“‘I’ve done all the work I can do with shovels. Now I need drills.’
“Astute and honest friend: ‘Or brushes.'”
In that post I listed books that had advanced my inner work at that time:
“Years ago — The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Debbie Ford
Why We Love, Helen Fisher
Existential Kink, Carolyn Elliott, PhD
The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk, MD
Romancing the Shadow, Zweig and Wolf
The Self-Led Internal Family Systems Workbook, Tanis Jo Allen, LMSW, ACSW”

How fascinating when the same ideas recur, but in a slightly different light, with new perspective, for new and continued growth! This year I listened to Mind Your Body by Nichol Sachs, recommended by one of my dietician colleagues when we discussed yet again the things other than hunger that drive humans to eat. I have considered myself a student, but definitely no expert, of mind body medicine for my entire career. The whole concept is so much more mainstream now than 30 years ago, which I celebrate. Sachs writes from decades of psychotherapy experience and introduces her specific journaling method, Journal Speak, to address chronic pain. You can substitute any physical symptom for pain and the method can still apply. I wondered, can you apply it to chronic emotional or mental states? Chronic stories we tell (about resentment, abandonment, etc), chronic bothersome thought patterns? I bought the book in print intending to try the method myself (I write every day anyway), but never got started. I even invited my colleague to do it together as buddies, and still it went nowhere. The pattern I notice here is that I need another human to hold my hand, guiding me and making me feel safe to do this deep, loving, gentle but probing inner work.

Sachs’s book is an easy read/listen. The language is accessible while the content is both academic and applicable in real life. She shares patients’ stories (with permission) and even her own daughter’s ‘testimony’ of the effectiveness of the process.

The mind and body are not separate; I think most of us understand this intuitively, but fail to recognize how the connection manifests, as the signs are myriad and often intersect with co-existing physical problems. But all physical sensations are not only physical in their deep origins, and our nervous system puts distress in bodily places to protect us from threats to our survival, both real and perceived. Mind Your Body can help anyone understand the mind body connection more clearly, demystifying patterns that conventional medicine too often can neither explain nor resolve. The Journal Speak method costs only time and energy and is totally autonomous. Sachs also hosts a podcast and there is a Journal Speak paid membership community where people can connect and share their journeys. I have no financial or other interests in Sachs’s practice or business. I just appreciate her work and know it can help a lot of people.

What are your mind body stories and who understands and validates them?

Bane Bloom by Sharon Lynn Fisher

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Mug gifted from Sister when I graduated med school, 1999

Thanks to the Google random number generator, tonight you get reflections on Book #95 from the 2026 list: Bane Bloom by Sharon Lynn Fisher.

The blurb:

A botanical illustrator in Victorian England uncovers a country garden’s secrets in a fantastical novel of dark enchantments by the author of Tea & Alchemy.

In 1850, Catherine Gray, a botanical illustrator from London, travels to a remote estate in the Lake District to catalog and paint the specimens thriving in a mysterious glasshouse garden. The most bewildering find is a water lily that somehow alters its appearance. Nearly as puzzling is Thomas Bane, the brooding groundskeeper, who closely guards the estate’s secrets—including the disappearance of Catherine’s predecessor.

The mystery deepens when Catherine discovers the diary of Prudence Bane, Thomas’s late mother, which contains revelations about the odd flora and its hold on a family touched by madness. The more she uncovers, the more the line between fantasy and reality—and superstition and fact—begins to blur.

Unable to trust her own thoughts, Catherine draws closer to Thomas, her only anchor in this strange place. But even he can’t fully protect her from the house and his otherworldly family. Only Catherine can break the Bane family’s cycle of heartbreak…but first she’ll have to confront her own.

My review:

Review of advance copy received from Author
[FIVE STARS]

Typically excellent; highly recommend!
I have only known Sharon Lynn Fisher’s writing since January, when I listened to Tea & Alchemy, because Marisa Calin and Shane East perform it. Since then I have listened to Grimm Curiosities, Salt & Broom, and now Bane Bloom, thanks to an Advance Listener Copy from Sharon herself (thank you, ma’am!). I can now write with authority: Sharon writes the MOST satisfying and engaging slow burn, low spice romances! Catherine, like Sharon’s other heroines, exudes honest, humble smarts and spunk, and follows her intuition to connect with (super)nature. Thomas, not quite tormented but cranky with a heart of gold, could live alone forever, but that soft metal melts eventually, to all our collective delight. This story delivers mystery, intrigue, and real human emotion, with just enough angst to engage for binge without torturing us. Bronwen Price does a loving and beautiful job with the vast majority of the narration, and Will Watt’s deep, warm timbre gives Thomas’s voice something to look forward to. I will soom embark on the rest of Sharon’s backlist–can’t wait!

I have since finished The Absinthe Earl, and will continue with The Raven Lady, Books 1 and 2 of The Faery Rehistory Trilogy.

*Sigh* I might attribute my mild obsession with romantasy in 2026 to the Crowns Trilogy by Nicola Tyche, which I have listened to at least six times in its totality, and the last book alone, War Queen, at least nine, since this time last year. It’s possible that I just wanted to escape reality in this year that began with ICE murdering regular people on the street and sliding into various other atrocities and disgraces with almost no meaningful accountability at the highest levels of US government.

These books highlight the best in humanity (in contrast to the news), wherein characters face mortal threats from outside actors, and must find in both themselves and each other the courageous vulnerability and calm rationality to problem solve and save their communities. The romances bloom from emergent mutual admiration, each hero/ine of the other’s perceptiveness, knowledge, intelligence, and fortitude. They are complementary equals; the heroes respect their heroines above all. That’s true in Crowns also. Maybe that’s what really draws me to these stories, as the current US federal administration dominated by toxic white men all but denigrates women. All the more satisfying that so many women (and women physicians!) were just elected to Congress.

From Facebook, cannot remember source, sorry!
Also according to Google, there are currently 20 physicians serving in the 119th Congress, 4 senators and 16 representatives. They are almost all white, and there is one woman among them.

Last night I wrote about how romance can teach us self-love. Tonight I highlight romances that teach us mutual respect and value intellectual acumen in women and emotional attunement in men. Romance is the best selling book genre year over year, and yet we ignore its significance. Maybe if we paid more attention to these quintessentially human stories, we could treat ourselves and one another better and make the world better for it.