I follow Aaron Parnas on Substack, a young independent journalist who's constantly reporting breaking news—usually bad. Except on Sundays when he posts "Good News Only."

In my nervous system program, we do something similar. Only we don't limit it to Sundays.

Glimmers and Celebrations is how we begin pretty much every meeting or session—private 1:1 coaching, groups, Wednesday Listening and Co-Regulation Labs, Nervous System Playgrounds, masterclasses…

This isn't about pretending hard things aren't happening. It's about actively widening our nervous system's capacity to look for and register safety, take in cues of delight, connection, and joy, and wave our pom poms (figurative or literal—and yes, I actually have a pom pom I'm not shy about busting out on Zoom) to celebrate something challenging or sticky that has changed.

Glimmers and celebrations aren't a bypass. We practice looking for and naming them to build our regulation muscle, so that we can get back to a sense of safety more easily and quickly the next time we “lose it."

Today, with a nod to Aaron Parnas and a raise of my glass to everyone in my nervous system community, here's my "Good News Only" list from 2025:

The people I get to work with

I love them. I have such deep affection and respect for my clients. As their coach, I get to hold them in a cozy place in my heart, a front-most place in my mind, and priority slots on my calendar. While they're in my program I get to process bumps and challenges with them, track their transformation, celebrate their wins, and sometimes simply "pull a chair up" alongside them in a struggle so they aren't alone.

In 2025, four of my seven clients re-enrolled. One of seven completed her work with me—for now at least!—after two years. And then I got to close the year with a celebrations session (think graduation!) with a client who just completed four years with me.

Speaking of clients…

Crying, in a good way

During that completion session, my client offered me this tender nugget (quoted with client’s permission):

Her words landed deep. Having children of my own has not been in the cards for me this lifetime, and it's an ongoing—even when dormant—grief.

Being present with someone as they learn to turn toward themselves with friendliness and listen with curiosity? What an honor.

Boundaries that build, not burn

Around Thanksgiving, following the final class in my Safe to Say No workshop, I wrote a letter to my mom—short and clear, thanks to anger (letting me know what wasn't feeling good) and love (letting me know I didn't want to go no-contact). No defensiveness. No justification.

Being able to send that letter is a celebration in itself.

But that's not all…

My mom won Christmas

She replied right away telling me she heard me and asking for time to give my letter some thought.

And then, for Christmas, she sent me a present—a super thoughtful gardening book—with a note including this paragraph:

Talk about boundaries as bridges. Wow. 💗

My book

In my thirties, my wish to write a book was as great as my paralysis. Such was my desire and stuckness that I found myself, more than once, daydreaming about a scenario where I would be in prison—yes, prison! 😳—with nothing more than a notebook and pen to write. (I know, I know: Prison? Really? Hey, I know better than take my dreams and daydreams literally. But the message? Loud and clear.)

When I was 47—yes, 10 years ago—I finally started that book. And in 2025, after several drafts and revisions of my manuscript, I finalized a book proposal and began querying agents for representation:

Home(sick): How My Body Saved My Mind
A memoir about losing faith and finding home

I also reached out to three esteemed people for pre-endorsements, and got three enthusiastic YESes in reply.

A long-imagined sauna, now warming our winter

In early 2025, this dialog happened in bed at night more than once or twice:

Today, our dream is reality! We built it—tho when I say we I mean mostly Jeffrey—mostly from repurposed wood that he salvaged from pallets discarded by the factory behind our house.

I remember like yesterday the day we marked up our living room floor with masking tape, and used chairs and the couch to get a feel for dimensions. Then we stood in our yard and pondered exactly where and facing which direction to put our sauna. One day in late summer, we slated corners and leveled stringers. Within days Jeffrey was digging holes for foundation stakes and tubes that he and a friend poured cement into. All the while Jeffrey kept collecting and breaking down pallets to build walls. One day our friends helped us raise the walls. Soon thereafter we spent a weekend donning masks to put up infinitely dusty rock wool for insulation. And then rolling out and stapling construction grade tin foil (I'm sure there's another name but hey, my reference for most things is kitchen and food). And finally, after months of checking FB marketplace for the perfect used Harvia sauna stove, Jeffrey found one in Michigan. Off he drove—a 10 hour roadtrip—to pick it up.

Fast forward to now: We did it!!! It's so cute. And it works like a charm. And my outlook on a cold long winter has 100% flipped.

Sourdough as teacher

A loaf of bread made only from flour, salt, and water. Magic. Amazing. A living thing.

Me and my sourdough are a relationship, really. The metaphors are endless. The process of improving my sourdough game is giving me yet another arena in which to practice friendliness over perfection. But I gotta say, still: I've come a long way from my very first painstaking loaf which, after setting a timer to take the lid off the dutch oven, I forgot to set a timer for the rest of the bake and an hour and a half later my loaf was pretty much a brick. Jeffrey took a picture of it as a doorstop as a joke. (Too soon, Jeffrey!)

Friendships that are actually mine

After three years in Geneva, New York—a move we made from Boston for Jeffrey's work—I have made some in-person friends. Hooray! Making them on my own terms—not by extension of Jeffrey's work network—has felt important to my individuation as a person and in our marriage.

A bikini at 57

(You know about this one if you read issue #10.)

Capacity expansion in hard political times

This one's tricky to frame as "good news," but here's what I'm celebrating:

My deepening friendly awareness in relation to my high-control, fear-based religious upbringing has deepened—not in spite of, but possibly because of—the authoritarian government we’re living under in the U.S.

I'm bringing new levels of awareness and curiosity to how to bridge disconnections—with my mom, with my family, with people of differing political views.

A weekly ritual

Every Friday after work, Jeffrey and I make a cocktail and then share glimmers and celebrations from our week.

We didn't always do this, but after years of watching the cumulative power of noticing glimmers and celebrations in my nervous system community, I asked myself why we weren't doing this in our marriage.

And here we are! Because yes, hard things always exist, but so do glimmers and celebrations.

What about you?

What are your glimmers and celebrations—from 2025 or even from this week of 2026?

I'd love to hear. Hit reply and tell me. 💌

Until next time,

xo Heidi

PS Like The Awarewithall? Forward today’s issue to a friend who could use a glimmer.

Thank you!

(This piece was edited with AI collaboration.)

Heidi Fischbach, EdM [she/her]​
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xo Heidi

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