Category: Uncategorized

  • Anxiety Sucks, But It Taught Me These 7 Important Things

    Anxiety Sucks, But It Taught Me These 7 Important Things

    “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” ~Soren Kierkegaard Let’s be clear: This isn’t an article about positive thinking. This isn’t an article about how silver linings make everything okay. This isn’t an article about how your perspective on anxiety is all wrong. The kids call those things “toxic positivity.” No toxic positivity here. This is an article…

  • Why I Let My Kids See My Sadness Now (After Hiding It for Years)

    Why I Let My Kids See My Sadness Now (After Hiding It for Years)

    “I will not teach or love or show you anything perfectly, but I will let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you—truly, deeply, seeing you.” ~Brené Brown The first time my kids saw me truly cry was Christmas of 2021. My oldest was sixteen, and my youngest was twelve.…

  • All the Important Things a Scale Can’t Measure

    All the Important Things a Scale Can’t Measure

    “She remembered who she was, and the game changed.” ~Lalah Delia The scale. Those dreaded words and those dreaded numbers. It can strike fear in the heart of any generally happy human. We look at guidelines and BMI charts and always think, “It should be lower.” Have you ever been having a perfectly good day…

  • From People-Pleasing to Self-Trust: How to Come Back to Yourself

    From People-Pleasing to Self-Trust: How to Come Back to Yourself

    “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ~Carl Jung Where did I want to go out to eat? The question was straightforward, and the answer should have been easy. But as my mind flipped through the options, my thoughts weren’t focused on what I wanted. Instead, I was preoccupied with…

  • Phone Down, Eyes Up: How to Really See the People We Love

    Phone Down, Eyes Up: How to Really See the People We Love

    “The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh Judy was three the first time I missed it. She had spent a solid ten minutes stacking every couch cushion on our living room floor in Vancouver, building what she clearly considered an Olympic-grade landing pad. She climbed up on the…

  • What My Body Taught Me: 13 Surgeries, One Coma, Countless Powerful Lessons

    What My Body Taught Me: 13 Surgeries, One Coma, Countless Powerful Lessons

    “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~Khalil Gibran I was born with spina bifida. When I was ten years old, doctors told me I might not walk again after a surgery that would change my life. I don’t remember every word they said, but I…

  • What’s Really Happening When Your Thoughts Spiral at Night

    What’s Really Happening When Your Thoughts Spiral at Night

    “The anxiety is not the enemy. It is the messenger. The mistake is killing the messenger instead of reading the letter.” ~Unknown It’s 3 a.m. I’m lying in the dark, planning my own funeral. Not because anything is wrong. My family is safe. There is no emergency. But my brain has decided, with complete confidence,…

  • 5 Quotes for Hard Times (and a Free Ebook)

    5 Quotes for Hard Times (and a Free Ebook)

    Sometimes everything feels like too much, and it’s hard to use all the valuable lessons you’ve learned when life requires you to use them all at once. It’s also easy to feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of what you’re facing and alone with all your struggles. I’ve felt this way on and off for the…

  • The Seven Strengths: A Rare Free Training

    The Seven Strengths: A Rare Free Training

    Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how easy it is to feel overwhelmed—by the news, by life, by everything we’re carrying day to day. I know I’ve been feeling this lately. And when things feel like a lot, the question becomes: How do we stay grounded in the middle of it all? If you’ve…

  • The Pressure to Dream Big and the Beauty of Wanting Less

    The Pressure to Dream Big and the Beauty of Wanting Less

    “What if I accept that all I really want is a small, slow, simple life? A beautiful, quiet, gentle life. I think it is enough.” ~Krista O’Reilly-Davi-Digui Why do we feel such pressure to dream big? I think it starts in childhood when parents, teachers, and other adults start asking the question, “What do you…