For Our Members

Nourishing Ourselves in an Age of Overwhelm

With Jenna Hollenstein

Thursday, SEPTEMBER 24, 2026
8:00 PM EDT

“You do not have to be good… You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Mary Oliver’s words remind us of something both simple and radical: before we are ideas, identities, or self-improvement projects, we are living bodies. Yet modern life encourages us to see our bodies as problems to solve, appearances to perfect, or obstacles to transcend. Messages about weight, aging, productivity, and health can leave us disconnected from the body’s own intelligence. For many, experiences of illness, trauma, exclusion, or bodily injustice make this relationship even more complex.

Drawing from Buddhist practice, neuroscience, and compassionate inquiry, this talk offers an alternative. Rather than asking how to control the body or escape it, we’ll explore what becomes possible when we learn to inhabit it more fully. We’ll consider how attending to our most fundamental needs — rest, nourishment, safety, connection, movement, grief, pleasure, and belonging — can become a profound expression of practice. In an age that encourages us to look anywhere but within, perhaps the most radical act is to trust that the body still knows the way home.