Blog

If you’re anything like me and my clients, you’re great at remembering everything you got wrong or haven’t done yet – and terrible at remembering all the good, important stuff you actually DID do. Most of us believe the toxic myth that we only get better through criticism and punishment – beating ourselves up. We […]

Here’s my new favorite trick for empaths, introverts, and anyone else who gets completely absorbed in other people’s stuff, and realizes they’ve overextended and depleted themselves only after it’s too late. This is a great way to build the muscle of checking in with yourself, start tracking your energy patterns and defining what I call […]

If you’re ready to start journaling but are struggling with a case of writer’s block, here are some quick prompts to get the juices flowing: What I’m worried about Things that are energizing me What I’m looking forward to today What I wish had been different about yesterday The most important thing for today That […]

Words are magic spells. Out of thin air, words cast our identities. They weave stories about where we’ve been and who we’re capable of becoming. They can mend or break a heart. They move millions to create beauty and fight for justice or to self-destruct. Words bubble, swirl, crackle, and float through our minds relentlessly, […]

Chapter 1 I grew up Baptist. I was really into it, under the radar. I never bought into the evangelical fire-and-brimstone stuff, but the social justice, flipping-over-rich-dudes’-tables-in-the-tabernacle stuff called to me deeply. (It still does.)  I loved the introspection, prayer, and deep study that came along with it. (Also, Veggie Tales. IYKYK.) More importantly, the […]

Early exposure to chronic stress sets us on a collision course with all sorts of negative physical and mental health outcomes: It lowers our actual, physical stress tolerance, because the body’s stress response system gets overtaxed too soon and never gets a chance to recharge. It falsely heightens our perceived stress tolerance. If you developed […]

Making life decisions got a lot easier once I got clear on my personal mission statement. It came to me out of the blue one day, and was startlingly different from the principles I’d been orienting my life around. What I had been making decisions based on were the unconscious drives to a) have an […]

I talk about trauma for a living. My partner is a first responder, who spends his days resuscitating people who have overdosed, tending gunshot wounds, and digging hoarders out of burning buildings.  You’d think the mood at our home would be somber.  It is anything but. We dance our as*es off at weddings, even totally […]

There are exactly 4 people in the world for whom I would drop everything in an instant and go do whatever they needed – no matter the cost, no hesitation, no questions asked.  How many are on your list? Mine is small, by design.  I used to try to be all the things to all […]

How many times have you been asked to do something, agreed – because you felt bad or obligated or too tired to fight it – and later regretted it? Maybe you felt resentful or irritated or exhausted or underappreciated afterward. How many times have you asked someone else to do something, only to have them […]