Counterweights Release Day!
An Essential Practice for Holding Hope in a Heavy World
Hello! I’m sending the weekly note a few days early because today is a special day. Counterweights released today. It’s fully available! It’s real!
I set out to write Counterweights because I was becoming an emotional basket case and I didn’t see an end in sight. Everything felt ruinous…and I worried I would get stuck in a stall-pattern of despair. In the next moment, something delightful would happen…and I’d feel a tiny pang of guilt. How can I be happy when the world is on fire?
What’s wrong with me?
How on earth do I carry on with any semblance of hope?
Those were the two central questions rolling around in my tired, foggy brain.
That’s when my Dad’s circa 1988 wisdom popped up to the surface and saved me. He taught me that when we are carrying something heavy, it’s easier if we carry something equally heavy in the other hand. When we double up and redistribute the weight, voila! we find the balance and momentum we need to keep going.
My dad, Dwight Garber, meant this in the most practical way possible. He just wanted some help getting stuff to the barn! But this principle works just as beautifully when we apply it to our jumbled, daily lives. There’s so much heaviness we’re forced to carry. But there’s another side of the scale - another bucket - that we can choose to load up with heavy goodness.
As I wrote, I was radically honest about the heavy things I was carrying. Relationships are always complicated. War looms. Politics exists in the realm of chaos, delusion, and fear. I named these things.
But I also wrote about my stupid foot, which I stuff into a compression sock every dang day of my life, and what healing has looked like. I wrote about our church catastrophe (unfun fact: some powerful people threatened to sue us while I was writing!) and the unlikely person who got us through that hellscape.
I wrote about our friends who are incarcerated and unhoused. I wrote about work. I wrote about one of the most terrifying and traumatic experiences of my life - something I’ve never shared before.
And you better believe, I wrote about the counterweights that kept me breathing through it all - lemons and thrift stores and birds and tea and movies and something called the OMG burrito. I drilled down on my changing, flourishing faith. I pondered why I keep dragging home rocks and twigs, like I did when I was eight. I thought aloud about why I believe we shouldn’t have to die to experience the kingdom of God.
It’s also packed with fun lists, photos, and even a couple of poems. (Counterweights within Counterweights!)
It’s waiting for you right now.
Baker Book House (30% off + free shipping)
Fables (Your copy will arrive signed and will include a free letterpress bookmark with a quote from Counterweights while supplies last!)
To sweeten the deal, my publisher has agreed to extend the bonuses - including the free audiobook and the Madness + Miracle printable application guide - through Saturday. Grab it all!
(Order wherever you prefer from the links above, then fill out this form to redeem the bonuses.)
I believe in my heart, soul, and guts that Counterweights is here to help us carry on in hope. It is going to make our lives better.
Thank you for cheering me on and supporting this book. I’m already hearing from some of you who have devoured the book!! One of my favorite things about this launch so far is that everyone has a different favorite chapter. It covers a lot of ground and I know there’s something here for you.
If you’d like to help me move this book into the world, posting a review on Amazon and Goodreads is so helpful! You can also share on social media, text a friend, and request it at your local library. (Naturally, I wrote about libraries, too!)
With you forever in this weird whatever,
Shannan
Launch Week Extras
Emily P. Freeman featured Counterweights on this week’s episode of The Next Right Thing podcast. Listen here.
I was thrilled to be interviewed by Sarah Bessey of Field Notes. Read it.
Zach and Amy Lambert posted an excerpt from Counterweights here.
I’ll be going Live right here on Substack with Shauna Niequist of Reading & Eating this Friday, March 28th, at noon (Eastern.) Don’t worry if you can’t make it - I’ll be sure to share the video so you can watch it back!
Lastly, I can’t wait to see some of you tomorrow at Nooks in Lancaster, PA and this Saturday at my hometown Goshen launch event with Jen Hatmaker! Words of wisdom: carve out extra time for parking and arrive early. There are still tickets available at most of our other stops. Info here. Hurry, because these first two events sold out. Come see me!
If you’ve started Counterweights, I’d love to hear what has grabbed you so far. Let me know in the comments!
Love everything you write! I was so excited to find my copy in my mailbox today.
I pre-ordered and was pleasantly surprised to get it in the mail yesterday! I always enjoy your writing and perspective—can’t wait to dive in. Congratulations!