Form vs Essence
What I Intend to Focus on in 2026
Sitting down to write as we come to a close in 2025.
My mind has been full of thoughts and convictions, boiling down to what matters, and the lessons I carry into 2026. As someone that prefers to focus on what’s important and what matters, the concept of Form vs. Essence was formalized while listening to this podcast and I’ve started to apply it to my desires and decisions.
You see we have a tendency to focus on form – the thing, the person, the job, the vacation, the look, the image – to fill our needs. I believe this comes from our “check the box and you will receive instant gratification” mindset that the world sells us. And because feelings are uniquely created and temperamental by nature, it can be hard to understand them.
There’s nothing like a trip to Africa to jostle the mind and create time to reflect on what’s important. In November this year I was invited to Rwanda by my beautiful friend Gayatri Datar and her company EarthEnable that is building earthen homes and improving lives throughout Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. A handful of us got together to talk about how to build cement-free homes in Africa, a continent that is experiencing a massive housing crisis, with a deficit of over 50 million units (estimated to reach 130M by 2030).
This group of people believe that clay-based construction offers solutions to this crisis, and what a wonderful idea that Africa could lead the world of how to build affordable and sustainable buildings.
Once we envisioned a world where our buildings were healthy for both people and our planet, and that all people had access to this nurturing home, Gaya led us through an exercise to identify and dispel our limiting beliefs. If you haven’t done anything like this before, check out the Dickens Process (I did this through a Tony Robbins program years ago which really helped to shake the build of up dust around my soul).
Here’s something I wrote during this process:
Limiting Beliefs
People have difficulty realizing change. We are lazy and want things done for us without being part of the change. We want to be entertained and numbed and find temporary release of our discomfort. We are afraid of improvement because it requires abandoning what we know – ways we’ve protected ourselves and thoughts that enclose us.
And we surround ourselves with people that reinforce a weakness and a façade. We grow layers that restrain vulnerability, trust and release. Rather than strive towards resiliency - built of our inner knowing and community - we build fences, grow bank accounts, and shake our fingers at all the ways others aren’t good enough.
We’re hungry even though there’s plenty to eat.
We’re afraid of scarcity so we hold tight.
In a world where it’s easy to give up hope.
It’s easier to not move, to freeze, to stand at the ledge
More afraid to fall than to fly.
-Lisa Morey
Boarding the plane from Kigali to Istanbul to Denver, I had time to digest how my trip to Africa influenced my life and work in Colorado. Immediately I challenged myself about my own needs and wants, the home I’ve been trying to build for myself, and the meaning that I want to bring forth through the application of earth building. Since my time working and living in New Zealand, where I learned about mud bricks, I intrinsically knew there was a deeper beauty that could be realized when choosing to build with earth. Naïve to the massive challenges of bringing a humble and abundant material forward in a country that had abandoned much of its historical reference of earthen construction, I set out to make bricks and build houses.
Which brings me to the concept of Essence – the why any of us do anything we care about. Essence is about a feeling that touches the deeper part of ourselves. The part of us that crave peace and joy and safety and wellness. Traveling the streets in foreign countries can remind you that humans around the world really just need air, water, food, shelter, joy, safety, air, and opportunity. It really doesn’t take much to be deeply content, yet we live in a world constantly met with threats to our safety and wellbeing. So we learn to fortify ourselves and others, and offer help when others are in need.
Recently I shared a post about the strong winds we endured in Colorado between December 17-19, 2025. Over 100mph winds hit the state leading to power outages for over 90,000 residents. Fortunately, the warmer weather protected people from being too cold, but everyone was afraid of fires, given what happened during the Marshall Fire event.
I reached out to my former clients to see how they were handling the winds. And here’s what they had to say:
“The walls are amazing”
“Solid, safe, well-built, calm in the storm”
“Very grateful for the walls”
“I love my house, so cozy and comfortable”
“It was so nice to sleep soundly without the noise of the crazy wind! We were able to sleep through the chaos, and wake up like it was any other quiet evening”
I’ll wrap up this message with an experience I had in Rwanda on a gorilla trek with some local Rwandan students. While I didn’t come across any gorillas (only gorilla poop!) I did get to experience the pain of being stung by nettles! Oh my goodness! Man the sting from these suckers is SO bad! But you know what lays right beside the stinging nettle bush is another plant that offers this relieving white liquid. The students quickly found some and gave it to me to soften the sting. I was struck by their empathy, how they expressed “I’m sorry” when clearly they had done nothing, and how they shared in my pain with genuine kindness and gentleness.
This experience made me realize that while we can’t avoid challenging circumstances like power outages, wind, fire, or stinging nettles, there are almost always people and solutions that can offer the antidote. We just have to let go of the limiting beliefs that solutions don’t exist and we’re meant to suffer alone. May we continue to seek the light in the darkness, and be the calm in the storm.
May Peace be with you all in 2026.
-Lisa
Wonderfully written, Lisa. "Shake the buildup of dust around my soul".
My thoughts to you:
We are at an inflection point where we are tasked to move from mitigation to adaptation. From carelessness to resiliency. It will be regrowth by design or degrowth by disaster.
It begins with rekindling community. Not digital but face to face. Tiny interactions. Shared values. Recognizing that we are truly social animals.
It begins with testing our decisions against supporting the 3 w's - personal, cultural, and environmental wellbeing.
It is a recognition that we are born into a world where life is not a contest but a gift. Where all of us are given the opportunity to find our own purpose, to contribute in our own way, to deliver with our own strengths.
Cultivating a ReGrowth Culture
Lisa,
Great to hear from you again !!!
I'm also working on various projects in the Sierra Madre, in Huachinera, Sonora, Mexico – God's Country.
Perhaps we can consult, just like we did in Mission Texas.
I look forward to hearing from you. !!!