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Cheerful New Year!
It hasn’t been an easy year for those of us who are driven by the mindful, the ethical, and the desire to be of benefit. Those who believe in human rights and in the power of the people to make a difference. But we survived.
“Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot…”
Here’s our best offerings from all of 2025, for a mindful look back, so as to spring forward with renewed cheer.
Thanks to you, Elephant survived and thrived another year. Because of your reading and sharing, you allow Elephant continue to pursue our mission to #beofbenefit in service of a kinder world now and into the new year.
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An inky shadow has fallen, and stretched its suffocating skin, over the land. Our parks and wild animals and waterways and air, endangered. Climate actions, reversed. Competent bipartisan public servants, fired. Rights, removed. A joker’s cabinet of fools and liars, given power over every branch of our government. Our economy, leveraged for the very, very, very, very, very rich. The taxpayer-funded ICE’s behavior rots our moral core. Conman and assaulter and Epstein bestie President Trump exploits these United States, our wildly imperfect union, but with a historically resilient democracy—the world’s oldest. We are more divided than ever—we can’t even agree on basic truths, vaccines, masks, hate, or reported facts.
And yet, and yet, and yet: we are all hungry, thirty, craving some kind of impossible happy ending. A hero, a heroine—saving the day at the last minute. We don’t imagine that it could even happen—and that, too, is how the heroes feel at the end of every adventure story, every myth, every legend, before The End rolls around. And so we look at climate change metrics, spiking toward doomsday in our children’s lifetime. And we sigh, giving up hope.
And yet, and yet, and yet: heroes like Goodall, Attenborough, the Dalai Lama…remind us not to give up. To do what we can, where we are, with what we have—to contribute our little drop in the ocean, that, together, we might be more powerful than all the richest billionaires, just a few of whom together control more wealth than well over half the people on our fragile planet.
So don’t give up your power. Do the right thing, even if it’s just saving water or taking the compost out or heading to that protest or shopping locally, instead of on Amazon. Watch a good movie or read a good book, slow down and do nothing useful for a good long moment, go vegan, shop secondhand, bike or walk, bring your own mug or enjoy your coffee for-here. Do what you can with what you have, where you are. Don’t invest in hate. Invest in the good wolf, the one that will heal your heart, and inspire your community, and uplift our children’s generations.
This year sucked. And yet, I was honored and humbled to welcome Willa Goodall Lewis, into it, with my beautiful wife Kelsey. This year sucked—I was ripped out of my community, away from my sangha and friends and home sweet home, away from the mountains and skies I miss in my bones—and yet I love Indianapolis, where I am, now. I’m living in a non-vegan household—a daily shop of horrors, the pain and smells filling my lungs and heart. And yet, I continue to do what I can with what I have, where I am. And that’s what so many of us do. So many of you: you do what you can. And I thank you for it.
May we be of benefit. Don’t give up hope. Do the little good things. Think of the next seven generations. Vote like there’s no tomorrow—because, for any democracy, there may not be one if we don’t all show up and fight, peaceably, for our freedoms.
~
Meanwhile your Elephant Journal tromped on, turning 23 (?) years old (beneath the boot of Instagram and Facebook, which have killed nearly all blogs and media). Our smaller team—Lisa, Nicole, Brian, Molly, myself, and Shanon and Lindsey and assists from Cat, Elyane, Katie, and other dears—is skilled, drama-free, stable, and doing work that is fulfilling.
Not only did we edit and video and podcast (which reached 621,000 lifetime downloads) and write and share on, we did so with our mission ever in mind, taking careful yet bold steps forward. Why? Because as the world spins, our mission that is your mission, too—to be of benefit—becomes all the more beautifully urgent.
Now is the time to show up with caring. The fate of our planet, and future, and all other species depends on our bothering to care. No pressure (!). Just show up, and find a way to contribute. Get your friends to care about animal rights, or climate change, or equity. Share truth, and eco-responsibility—share urgently, but share with joy and breath, and for love. Love.
That doesn’t make Elephant less relephant—it makes our mission, and your community…you…more vital. Let us invest in timeless wisdom, in awakening, in caring for our world. Please make sure you get our newsletter, and stay connected this year. We’ll share our best, and most helpful, in our newsletter and our iphone app.
I hope you ran around the block with a suitcase. I hope you kissed a loved one, or hugged your sweet self.
May 2026 bring some overdue action, truth, and accountability. May the joy in our basic human nature flower into compassion. May we be of benefit! ~ Waylon
Your dear editors at Elephant Journal have selected all our very best reads of 2025. Drumroll, please…
January:
> Welcome the Year of the Yin Wood Snake on Lunar (Eastern) New Year. ~ Anjie Cho
> A Mary Oliver Poem for Broken (but Hopeful) Hearts.
> Why Hard Work is a Prerequisite—But Not the Key—to Success.
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> Reclaiming America for the People—in the Age of Trump.
> What Maturity in a Relationship Looks Like.
February:
> A Starter Guide to Symbolism & Storytelling in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show.
> Resisting with Mindfulness: A Buddhist Guide to the Trump Era.
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> The Survival Skills I Learned from Narcissistic Abuse are the Ones we all Need Now.
> How Small Acts of Kindness can Mend Relationships & Rebuild Trust.
> Silence in the Face of Genocide is (not) Spirituality.
March:
> We are All Zelenskyy: How to Use this Moment to Break Down and Break Through the Patriarchy.
> Why it Feels Hard to Let Go of the Person Who Hurt You.
> See you around, Friends. Or not.
> The Often Overlooked Psychological Toll of Lone Parenthood.
> One of the Greatest Scenes in TV is more Relevant Now than when it Aired.
“ I have a special anger and resentment toward MAHA. And that anger and resentment isn’t the neurotic kind of anger and resentment that I, as a Buddhist, want to breathe through and let go of. It is one that I want to share openly and vulnerably.” ~ Waylon H. Lewis
April:
> When the Body Can’t Bear to Know: Betrayal Blindness in the Wake of Infidelity.
> He’s Just Not that into You—& You F*cking Know it.
> The Worst Thing we can do when Someone is Suffering.
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> The Quiet Power of Saying: “This No Longer Works for Me.”
May:
> “JD Vance is wrong about Jesus.” Pope Francis & progress won: introducing Pope Leo.
> Why Emotional Safety in Relationships Matters More than We Think.
> F*ck Situationships—10 Things I Did to Walk Away.
> What Teachers Need to Hear (But Rarely Do), Especially at the End of the School Year.
> Menopause: One Man’s Guide to Not Being a Complete C*** when your Partner is Struggling.
June:
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> In Trump country, here’s what a No Kings Protest looks like. {Photos}
> Self-Help won’t Save you from Fascism.
> Perfection was Exhausting—So I Let it Go.
> The Silent Love Language that No One Talks About.
> Why Struggling Feels Safer than Manifesting Abundance.
July:
> The Power in Reframing our Complaints.
> 6 Signs You’re Trying to Connect with Someone Who Can’t Show Up for You.
> 12 Ways to Unf*ck Your Life.
> A Dream for Peace on a Day of Mourning.
> The Male Loneliness Epidemic—Real Talk.
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August:
> Grieving the Unlived Life: Honoring the Distance between What Was & What Might Have Been.
> The Most Crucial Ingredient in Making a Relationship Work.
> Space Clearing in the Age of Fascism: How to Protect Your Home & Body from Collective Trauma.
> 10 Quotes for the Days Nothing Goes Right—Even Though You Did Everything Right.
September:
> The One Thing about Being Single that No One Talks About.
> Cheating is No Surprise when Monogamy Goes Unquestioned.
> A Quote for Those in the Eye of the Storm.
> Reclaiming my Mornings: 10 Tiny Rituals that Changed Everything.
> The Aftermath of Burning Your Life to the Ground.
October:
> Rise of the Conscious Therapist: What the Future of Healing Looks Like.
> I have some anger around the loss of Dr. Jane Goodall.
> Burn the Letters: How I Left the Man I Loved & Found the Woman I Lost.
> What if you Evolve, but your Partner Stays the Same?
> How to Make a Decision (a little Buddhist Tip). ~ Waylon Lewis {Walk the Talk Show Podcast, Video}
November:
> The Dance Between the Empath & the Narcissist: When Love Becomes a Lesson.
> “In a world of Karoline Leavitts, be a Mary Bruce.”
> 9 (More) Films that Empaths & Sensitive People will Love.
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> When Meditation isn’t Enough: How Another Self-Care Tool Saved my Sanity.
> The Silent & Unspoken Epidemic among Women.
December:
> This Holiday Season, I’m Choosing what Feels Good—Not what Looks Perfect.
> The Wounded Masculine: Why Men Struggle with Emotions (& How it Affects Relationships).
> The Hidden Weight of Modern Womanhood: Why Menopause feels Harder than Ever.
> Australia Weeps: My Country is Forever Changed.
> The Japanese Proverb I’m Taking with Me into 2026.
~
As we turn the page on 2025 and enter a new year of 2026, we leave you with this message:
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