When the Ache Remains

By: Lisa Olivera

Published by Balance, 2026-04-28

Psychotherapist and author of Already Enough, Lisa Olivera blends her own personal experience of living with depression with therapeutic wisdom in a moving exploration of the emotional pain each of us lives with, offering readers guidance on holding the ache right beside the beauty Emotional pain, of all kinds and magnitudes, is part of being human. We'll never be able to find ourselves free of it; no meditation or amount of therapy will cure us of the harder parts of being alive. The practice of turning toward the ache with care - reverence, even - might be one of the most meaningful gifts we can give ourselves. It might even save us. Lisa Olivera has confronted this reality for years as a therapist, weaving her exploration of it throughout her popular newsletter, Human Stuff. She asks questions like, how do we confront and tend to the painful parts of being human without letting that pain entirely overtake us? How do we find joy even when depression visits, even when we lose someone we love, even when another war breaks out somewhere in this fragile, brutal world? How do we cultivate aliveness in the midst? When the Ache Remains traverses these questions for readers in a tender and wise exploration of how ache shapes life, how we can alchemize our pain into medicine, and how presence is accessible even in the midst of difficulty. Blending deeply personal narrative, humanistic psychology, lessons from nature, meditative reminders, and her naturally poetic undertone, Lisa invites readers on a journey alongside her as she explores the impact of depression and the process of learning to tend to it, and all of our aches, in more open, integrative, and loving ways.