Hey friend,

I'm writing you from the road — we're headed to Santa Barbara this weekend for a wedding, and this one has me in all the feels.

The bride is my husband's goddaughter — a girl who was once my own junior bridesmaid, who I've been so blessed to watch grow up. This girl has been a bright light in my life for many reasons, but one of the sweetest: back when I was still just a woman who loved books and hadn't dared to write one, she — then a teenager — was one of the first (and strongest) voices who told me I should. She believed it before I did. We loved all the same young adult novels, and she saw the writer in me and said so out loud, and kept saying it.

She's fearless. After a tiny Mississippi high school and then Ole Miss, she moved all the way out to California on her own to chase a dream that took a while to catch. But she never stopped believing — she radiated that stubborn, shining kind of hope that just insists things will work out. And they did. Her name started showing up in television credits. And somewhere in the chasing, she found her person, too — a man who cherishes her and loves her New Orleans roots the way our whole family loves them.

This weekend, she says the biggest yes of her life.

And something about a wedding cracks the fairytale-loving author in me wide open. Because a wedding isn't just one yes. When it's right, it's the sum of a hundred quiet noes — every not-this, not-now, not-yet she had to honor to make room for the yes standing across from her at the altar.

Which is exactly what I want to talk about this week.

This week's podcast episode and Substack essay kick off a three-part series on the Holy No. The automatic yeses that override what we already know in our gut. The sacred yes that fit for a season — and quietly became a holy no later. All the reasons we good girls fear that little two-letter word — and how we make peace with it: by listening to our bodies, by saying the hard, true thing out loud and finding out it doesn't blow up the world, by trusting that our voice and our honesty are holy, too.

Because joy is for today. Life is for living. And love — sharing it, experiencing it, being Love's hands and feet and voice — is the whole point.

JOY NUGGET (put this one on your list if you write nothing else):

Every beautiful yes you're living was cleared by a brave no you once had the courage to say. Your noes aren't the opposite of love — they're how you make room for it.

PINKIE-TOE STEP (the tiny, brave one)

Find one automatic yes on your calendar this week that your body already flinched at. You don't have to cancel it yet. Just tell yourself the truth: "That was a fear-yes, not a soul-yes." Naming it is the whole step.

PLAY PROMPT (because it's the weekend...and this one's just for fun!)

Be a love detective this weekend. Wherever you are — a wedding, a dinner table, the grocery line — catch three small acts of devotion in the wild… and let yourself get a little misty over them. The fairytale is real, and it's everywhere. Go collect some.

▶ LISTEN TO PART ONE: THE HOLY NO

The Pattern That's Draining You: Yes Today, Resentment Tomorrow | The Holy No, Part 1

READ THE ESSAY ON SUBSTACK →

The Splash Pad Brunch That Ate My Whole Sunday

This week's letter gave you the reframe. The episode and the essay give you the rest — the full way to tell a fear-yes from a sacred one, and the permission to finally say the holy no that's been sitting in your throat.

Reclaim your JOY,

— Rachel ~ xoxo

P.S. Years ago, a teenager told me I should write books. This weekend I get to watch her marry the love of her life. Tell the people you love what you see in them — out loud, today. It matters more than you'll ever know.

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