A Love Letter from Rainn

"Now’s your chance. There is no better time."

Dear Soul Boomlets,

This week on the Soul Boom podcast, Rainn sits down with comedian and viral sensation Bobbi Althoff for a fascinating conversation about navigating her unique rise to fame, her signature “cringe” comedy style, and the ways she’s worked through mental health struggles. It’s an episode that reminds us how humor, vulnerability, and self-reflection can be powerful tools for healing and connection.

The deep conversation with Bobbi about feeling alone and unworthy reminded us of the importance of reconnecting with the infinite power of love—to feel that vast ocean of love surging within us. Surging for all things, for the whole universe, yes—but also for our own tender selves. How appropriate then, that this week, Rainn was also the featured guest on Elizabeth Gilbert’s Letters from Love Substack*.

You might know Liz from Eat, Pray, Love (famously remade into a movie starring Julia Roberts), but among her devoted following, she's perhaps even more beloved for Big Magic—a manifesto on putting aside fear to live creatively. Her workshops, equally cherished, focus on letting go of 'purpose anxiety' and finding mercy for oneself and others. She's also the author of brilliant novels like The Signature of All Things—about a female botanist in Darwin's time—and City of Girls—a vibrant tale of NYC showgirls in the 1940s. But that's a story for another time.

Aside from all her literary accomplishments, a major focus for Liz these days is the aforementioned Letters from Love—a space dedicated to the radical practice of speaking to ourselves with unconditional love, friendliness, and compassion. Every week, Letters from Love features a different special guest and their own Letter from Love. Liz describes it as heart work—a chance to push back against the self-loathing that so often creeps into our lives and to rediscover the wellspring of love that is always within and around us.

To celebrate this crossover collaboration, we are also sharing Rainn’s Letter from Love in this week’s Soul Boom Dispatch. True to his voice, it’s equal parts playful and insightful—woven with musings on quantum mechanics, human contradictions, and the small but significant ways we can bring love into a fractured world.

So, as you listen to Rainn’s soulful conversation with Bobbi Althoff, and reflect on his perceptive Letter from Love, we invite you to reflect on the broader questions they pose: How do we care for ourselves and others in a world that often seems unkind? How can we respond with compassion when it feels like the last thing we want to do?

With love,
The Soul Boom Team

*We are grateful that so many of the subscribers have come to us via Liz and her Letters from Love Substack! And we likewise recommend Letters from Love to ours. It’s unbelievable how much love is poured into each edition.

A Letter from Love

by Rainn Wilson

Dear Love, what would you have me know today?

Hey Rainny-poo,

There is so much of me to go around. Can you feel me in the sunlight? In the room light? In the breeze. In the silence.

In quantum mechanics everything is vibrating and connected in mysterious ways. And when you observe a particle it behaves like a wave and vice versa.

It’s kind of like when you observe a person’s smile and see that sadness is there. But it makes you love them all the more.

Here’s what I would have you know:

What if the only sane response to any person or situation was actually love? (Not “Love Actually” — it’s a terrible film and it does not hold up well, you have to trust me on that.)

The worser angels of the human nature are romping about the civilizational landscape these days.

I’m not talking about politics.

I’m talking about how we treat our service workers. About bumping into people at the airport. About picking up dog poop. Exasperation, eye-rolling and road rage — all the cumulative little things that are indicators of the big, big things.

Bandage them in love.

You are cherished, dear little Rainn. By love itself, true. But also by the birdsong, and the stars, and the blood of the trees.

Take that love and turn it around. Now’s your chance.

There is no better time.

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Rainn Wilson is an Emmy-nominated actor, comedian, and New York Times bestselling author, best known for playing Dwight Schrute on The Office. Beyond acting, Rainn is a passionate advocate for faith, spirituality and creating a better world. He is the author of Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution. What began as book written during the pandemic has grown into a thriving social media presence, podcast, and this, the Soul Boom Dispatch. Rainn also champions climate action through Climate Basecamp and educational equity with Lidé Haiti.