Then a little space opens up. Time to ourselves, maybe a long drive, grabbing a bite to eat at a new restaurant for the first time. A book or podcast you can’t put down. Whatever it is, it breaks through the busy and opens a window to something fresh.

You can’t always put your finger on it. It pulls you to drift out of the norm. You’re hungry, but you can’t quite decide what for.

There’s just something... missing.

Moments like that deserve a little attention. Not because you have to inspect every feeling under a microscope or turn it into an action plan. Because curiosity feeds the soul. It gets us off the usual track, out of the rut. Even if we don’t choose to dive in headfirst, it’s worth looking for a sec, isn’t it?

Decades ago, in another life, I saw a documentary about Morocco and it just grabbed me. The colors, the fabrics, the spices, the souks, the people. I wanted to live in that vibe for a while and soak up all that texture and richness.

Of course that led to cooking shows, and I discovered the work of Paula Wolfert, first through Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco and then The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Back then I was a working chef, and her books opened up new ways of feeling about food. One recipe led to another, and pretty soon those flavors found their way into my menus in Oregon, where they felt fresh and different. I still taste some of those dishes in my mind.

I wasn’t trying to become an expert on Morocco. I was following a thread. You know, you can travel a long way without getting on a plane. Food can do that, and so can books, music, film, art, gardens, language, stories, conversations. They let us borrow another perspective for a while.

We don’t always know how this works, and that’s the fun of it. We’re drawn to a place because it has something we want more of. More color. More texture. More life. A different rhythm. Something we can’t quite name, but it calls us.

You don’t have to go somewhere to begin exploring what it might wake up in you.

That second kind of curiosity is where horses came back into my life.

When I dove into the tech world, I loved the potential I felt. I believed technology could hold the sense of community and help people connect in ways that hadn’t been possible before.

Over time, what started as connection turned into marketing. Community became audience. Relationships became part of the job. I still felt the connection happening, but the speed of that world slowly distanced me from parts of myself I’d forgotten.

The chef who could wander through a bookstore touching the books and imagining the stories from their titles.

The me who felt most at home, not in the sprawling freeways and buzz, but around animals, in the trees and the dirt and open space. None of those parts disappeared, but they didn’t get a lot of room.

My best friend told me about a horse who needed some love, and 5 minutes on the ranch felt familiar in a way my usual world didn’t. The people around horses did too. Conversation was less about technology and what everyone was building next and more about the trail, the weather, the animals, what needed fixing, where we were going riding.

This wasn’t some romantic return to nature. Ranch life has plenty of mud, hard work, chores and poop to scoop. It was really real, just in a different way.

Then there was my Bess. Bess was a mare with a big personality and a very effective way of reminding me when I wasn’t paying attention. If I showed up tense, she showed it to me. Something she usually walked past without a second glance could suddenly become verrrry suspicious.

Whatever it was, it hadn’t changed. I had. She’d reflect my emotions right back at me. That was usually my cue to breathe, soften, pay attention or else. Maybe I’d just get off and walk for a while.

Miss Bess also knew exactly when she could take advantage. Look away for a second and suddenly she was innocently grazing or going wherever she pleased. If you’re not paying attention with a horse, they’ll show you.

Having Bess wasn’t about work-life balance. She filled a gaping hole in my life. She brought back a version of me that hadn’t gone away, I’d just stopped giving that part of me any space.

For all of us there are parts of ourselves that are granular to who we are. We may not live them every day, or even ever again, but we remember the impression they made.

These versions of us are not something we outgrow. They become the ground we stand on.

It’s funny how the world gets really good at reflecting some of those granular bits back at us. The capable one. The expert. The parent. The nurturer. The creative. The partner. The responsible one. The person who gets things done.

We can get so practiced at being the person our life requires that we start mistaking that version for the whole picture. Then the rest of it can start feeling unimportant. It isn’t.

Like:

· The part of you fascinated by a place you may never visit.

· The person who misses wandering bookstores.

· The one who wants dirt under their fingernails.

· The part that lights up around animals, music, food, old cars, strange little museums, a language you don’t speak yet.

Some of those things may never become anything, and they don’t have to.

Resonance matters, even when it never turns into action. We can still remember, even treasure those bits of who we are.

A little pull can be all you need.

You see someone doing something and think, Oh, I used to love that.

You hear about a place and wonder what it would feel like to be there.

You drive by a coffee shop with a different style and think, I should stop in and see what might be interesting.

You take a different road and realize you’ve forgotten how good it feels to explore what’s around the next corner.

A stirring can become a pull. A pull can become a hunger. Ignore the hunger long enough, and it’s gonna get insistent.

That doesn’t mean you need to blow up your life. Maybe you just need to make a few shifts.

· Have coffee somewhere new.

· Take a drive outside your usual loop.

· Go to a garden, a market, a museum, a bookstore.

· Cook something from a place you’ve never been with spices you’ve never used.

· Sit in the backyard and watch the hummingbirds.

· Walk through the neighborhood with your phone firmly in your pocket and look at the gardens.

· Really look at the person you love and listen without an agenda.

· A small change in the view changes how we see the scenery.

You don’t need something that takes over your life. You need something that reminds you that you have one.

The richness of life is closer than we think.

The pull may be toward something that opens up your world. It may be toward something old because it restores a part of you that has been missing.

Maybe it’s simply asking you to get out of the box that built itself around you.

Not tear it apart. Not move to Morocco. Not buy a horse.

Just step outside for a while and see what happens.

What part of you has gone unfed?

What have you seen lately that made something in you stir?

What are you curious about that you keep walking past?

Who are you when there are no expectations outside of yourself?

Where can you go, even for ten minutes, where work cannot follow?

What moves you, even just a little?

Trust your heart and step out of the box for a minit and see what moves you.

For one delicious second, you think, Screw it. I’m outta here. Quit the job. Sell the house, move to Portugal and start a goat farm. Sounds good? Yeah, I hear you.

Hold on! Methinks you should have a li’l snack first. Most of the time, the urge will pass. Still, if Tuesday keeps feeling like Groundhog Day, it might be worth taking a moment or six to consider.

What’s the issue really? It can take a while to put your finger on it. It’s not an earthquake, it’s more like an itch you’ve been feeling a lot lately. Have you actually stopped to ask where it’s coming from?

Prob’ly not. You’ve been too busy keeping all the balls in the air. Keeping the work moving, the calendar straight, everyone informed, and yourself functioning well enough to do it all again tomorrow. Maybe later.

That itch though... It’s still there, isn’t it? We’re quick to call it burnout, and sometimes that’s exactly what it is.

Other times, burnout is just an easy label. It tells us we’re tired, but it doesn’t tell us why. So we keep plugging away. We say stuff like it’s just work, just stress, just life, just this quarter.

And the itch keeps itching. We can notice we’re feeling miserable again, but can’t name it. We feel edgy, restless, tired, bored, resentful, or suddenly ready to make a very large decision with way too little information.

• Maybe it’s the boss, the job, the company or the promtion you still didn’t get and deserve.

• Maybe it’s the relationship, the commute, or the life you thought you’d have by now.

• Maybe it’s the two-hour drive that turns you into a version of yourself nobody likes, especially you.

• Maybe remote work gave you more space, more choice, and a little more humanity, and now you’re being dragged back into a rhythm that no longer makes sense for your actual life.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Not so long ago, we took jobs knowing the perks would fill some of the gaps in our day-to-day lives. The bike maintenance. The subsidized lunch. The dry cleaning pickup. The onsite yoga. The wellness center. The employee resource group. The luxury commuter bus that made the long ride feel a teensy bit less like punishment and a little more like summer camp with laptops.

We didn’t take the jobs just for the perks, but they softened the edges of a life organized around work. They made the commute easier and the long hours feel more supported. It felt like the company understood people needed more than a 12-hour workday, a 401(k), and insurance.

Then the offices emptied out. Expenses got cut. Perks vanished into vast echoing rooms with sad snack bins. Oh, and the commute came back, right after you moved further away to work remote.

The old rhythm slid back into place without all the stuff that made it easier to put up with. Maybe the job still fits, sure. The system? Not so much anymore.

Maybe the commute is slowly eroding your ability to be kind. Maybe the company doesn’t seem to hold the values you thought you were joining.

Those values are still painted on the wall and printed in the onboarding deck, but they don’t seem to guide decisions anymore.

All this creates a different kind of exhaustion. It’s more than too-much-work exhaustion. You might call it integrity exhaustion. That slow drain of spending your energy inside a system while trying not to notice the gap between what it says and how it actually works.

That doesn’t only happen at work. It can happen in the rest of our lives too. We live a little off kilter for a while. We make tiny adjustments and compromises because they seem manageable. One “just for now.” One “this is fine.” One “I can handle it.” One “that’s just how things work.”

We adapt. Then one day you catch yourself wondering, Well? How did I get here?

You’re still productive, reliable, practical, and useful. You’re still moving in the direction you thought was forward. Here’s the thing though. Somewhere along the way, moving forward stopped feeling like moving toward something that mattered.

That itch can make you feel like failure is on its way, or maybe already here.

Maybe your life isn’t failing at all. That’s what makes the itch harder to understand. It’s working well enough to keep going, but not quite well enough to feel like yours.

You’re doing okay. Maybe even great by somebody else’s ruler. Still, something feels off. The success is there. The fulfillment? Not so much.

When we’ve worked hard to get where we are, and it feels like we’ve done everything we were supposed to do, that itch can be confusing. So we get comfortable with discomfort.

Meditation teachers say it. Therapists say it. I’ve probably said it more times than anyone around me really needed to hear. Being comfortable with discomfort still sucks.

We pick a fight. We quit in our head. We say yes to something that sounds like escape. We say no to something that might actually help. We convince ourselves our entire life is all wrong and always has been when maybe one part of it has been asking for attention for a long time.

This is why discomfort deserves a little room before it starts making decisions. Not forever, mind you. Just long enough to ask, What am I really feeling, and what do I actually need?

You might start by noticing what feeds you without immediately turning it into a life plan. This is where awareness gets practical. Not precious. Practical.

What still feels interesting? What feels alive? Where do you feel useful, connected, or like being there actually feels good?

All the good stuff waits until after the inbox. After the errands. After the deadlines. After we’ve earned it. How sad.

The point is, after is a moving target we may never reach, much less hit. We keep postponing some of the very things that help us feel like ourselves. Alive.

Taking a moment for beauty or peace doesn’t make us less responsible. Letting ourselves feel joy doesn’t mean we’ve abandoned the work. Love doesn’t diminish our capacity. It gives it energy.

These moments aren’t distractions from real life. They ARE real life.

We’re not just here to produce, manage, endure, and keep going, right? (Say yes.)

Maybe the itch is nothing more than a hint to give something a little attention.

Should you bail? Hmm…
Again, have a snack first. Take a walk. Give yourself some room to look at what’s really been bugging you.

A pivot doesn’t have to be your only option. Sometimes the answer is a conversation. Sometimes it’s a boundary. Sometimes it’s asking for a different rhythm, changing one commitment, or realizing the thing you thought was broken has simply been buried under too much noise.

The decision isn’t always as dramatic as staying or leaving. Sometimes the first decision is simply to give yourself enough time to see clearly.

• Where am I, really?

• What do I have here?

• What am I missing?

• What still matters?

• What has become too costly?

• Is there a way to make this work and still feel like me?

That last question matters. I don’t want you to quit without knowing why. I don’t want you to stay without knowing why either. That’s the whole point.

Before you make a big shift in your life, give yourself enough space to notice what’s really asking for your attention.

• What are you moving away from?

• What are you moving toward?

• What do you hope will feel different on the other side?

Don’t blow up your life because Tuesday was annoying. Give yourself the respect of asking what your life has been trying to tell you.

Every week I get some version of the same message. They might mention something I wrote, ask a thoughtful question, and say they’d love to connect. For a moment, I’m delighted. I love conversations. I love hearing what people are working on and wondering about.

Minutes later, the next message with a calendar link to meet, usually phone or Zoom. Then a reminder message to schedule. Rinse repeat.

Pretty soon I’m no longer looking forward to the conversation. I’m wondering whether there will be a conversation, a pitch, or an ask of some kind.

I don’t think most of the people sending those messages are trying to manipulate anyone. I think they bought a playbook. Why? Because I’ve bought into those shiny promises more than once in my own career.

Marketing was a huge part of my life for a long time. I believed in systems. I believed in efficiency. I probably recommended some of the very ideas I’m questioning now: reach out, stay top of mind, follow up, make it easy to schedule, personalize the message, use technology to help.

None of that is bad advice. Sometimes it’s useful and I still appreciate a good system.

What I can see more clearly now is where the playbook fails us. It can help us make contact, but making contact and building trust are not the same thing.

A message can introduce us. A calendar link can get us into the same room. Neither one of those can make us truly interested in each other.

Think of it like this.

Curiosity is a way to open a door, but it’s not the best pitch strategy. We all want more than that don’t we? So we stop responding to the insistent emails and LinkedIn messages. We walk away because we assume we know better. Maybe it’s not… true, but this dance can be exhausting.

WHY THEN?

There’s nothing wrong with opportunity, and there’s nothing wrong with a sales conversation when that’s what the conversation is. The trouble starts when a transaction dresses itself up as a relationship, or when “empathy “ becomes another step in a sequence to an end.

We can feel the difference, right? We know when we’re being recognized, and we know when we’re being studied. We know when a question opens a conversation and when it is gathering information.

Curiosity should be real, not a strategy we keep just long enough to earn a meeting. Empathy isn’t a strategy.

Maybe this is what bothers me about the language of relationship-building in business. We talk about Know, Like, and Trust as if they are outcomes we can engineer with enough personalization. But those are human needs. When we gamify them, even thoughtfully, something important gets drained from the exchange.

That doesn’t mean every introduction has to become a friendship or every business conversation should walk through our life stories. It means we can be honest about what we’re seeking and curious about the person before we decide how they might fit for us. Or not.

I didn’t always feel this way. There was a time when I admired efficient systems and clever marketing, and yep, I helped sell some of it too.

These days, I’d rather get to know someone before I ask something of them or them of me. I’d rather we talk about what matters to each and see if that resonates. It takes longer, and it’s worth it.

My friend the gardener.
I know someone who connects more people in an authentic way than anyone I’ve ever met. You might consider him the greatest networker alive. He isn’t. He’s a gardener of community.

He listens. He remembers. He notices that someone mentioned a project six months ago, or that someone else is wrestling with exactly that problem. Then he makes an introduction, not because there’s anything in it for him or because he’s following a process, but because he genuinely thinks two people might enjoy knowing each other. Then he steps back out of the picture.

He isn’t cultivating leads. He’s tending relationships. He follows up because he remembers what someone said. He cares. He collaborates, supports, and creates the conditions for people to flourish together. Sometimes an opportunity grows from that. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, the relationship was worth having.

That’s important to me. Opportunity can grow from a relationship, but a relationship doesn’t usually grow from treating someone like an opportunity, or a target.

The distinction isn’t whether we see possibilities in other people. Of course we do. It’s whether we can see the person first.

After knowing my gardener through thick and thin and journeying through our respective careers, we’ve got a sense of trust that is rare in this world. I know if I really need something, or he does, we have an organic version of Know, Like, and Trust, and we talk about it. if you know me, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you know him too.

I still believe in technology of course, and I believe AI can be incredibly useful. I’ve spent much of my career helping people use technology more thoughtfully, and I haven’t stepped away from it.

I’ve just stopped expecting it to do the work that only we can do. Technology can help us find each other. Automation can remind us to reach out. AI can help us write more clearly. None of those develop an actual interest in another human being. Ot Knowing, Liking and Trusting. That’s still our job.

Buy me a Chai and let's talk!

Show interest before you ask someone to “pick your brain” unless you’ve expressed that you actually care about the conversation. I would do the same for you. I really would.

About ten minutes later, on the freeway, I laughed and thought WTH?

I don’t even like this chai. I like real chai. Rich, spicy, aromatic and brewed with care. Not the sugary stuff I got because it was quick, familiar, and on the way. The sandwich was just easy to get me through the morning.

Sitting in traffic I wondered how many other things in my life I choose the same way. Not because they’re what I want but because they’re familiar and easy.

Every habit starts somewhere. At one time it was a choice. Maybe it solved a problem or simplified life. Maybe it helped us through a tough spot.

Our brains thrive on efficiency, and they’re good at it too. Maybe too good. The synapses build connections, turning repeated actions into habits. And then? We forget there was ever a choice, and now we have a familiar habit. Familiar begins to feel like truth.

I’m not trying to say we all need to rethink our lives. I’m saying maybe it’s time we poke around with a few good questions. Like…Is this still true today?

I’d like to invite you into a conversation. Not one with me, and not one you’ll have with anyone else. A conversation with yourself.

How does this go?
Give yourself a little time with these questions. Write out your answers if that helps. Record your thoughts if speaking feels more natural. Come back to them over a few days. There are no right answers, nothing to prove, and nothing you have to change.

This isn’t about optimization or fixing yourself. It’s about seeing your life a little more clearly. Maybe in a way you haven’t done for a while.

Open the doors and windows and air things out a bit, and see which of these offers an answer:

• Who gets your attention?

• Who gets more of your attention than they deserve?

• Who gets your attention without your permission?

• Who deserves more of your attention than they’re getting?

• What gets your attention every day?

• What are you still doing simply because it’s familiar?

• What habits have become so normal that you’ve stopped questioning them?

• What beliefs have you carried for so long you’ve forgotten where they came from?

• What are you giving your attention to that’s long past the due date on the label?

• Which of those things are still true today?

• If you reclaimed just a little of your attention, where would it naturally go?

• A habit.

• A belief.

• A worry.

• An expectation.

• A story we’ve told for years without asking if it is true.

When we take the time to notice where our attention goes, we begin to see our choices again. Some still fit. Some don’t. Some were never really ours in the first place.

You don’t have to rush in and change anything. Just notice.

If you can take some time, maybe spread over a few days, a week, or even once a month, you might be surprised by the picture that starts to reveal itself.

With clearer vision, you might decide everything is a perfect fit.

You might uncover the sources and remember the choices that got you where you are.

They were there all along. You’d simply stopped noticing them.

Hey, did you like this post? Mebbe you’d like to support me buying a cuppa chai?
(A REAL one.)

Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it just pissed ‘em off.

That’s the thing about kindness. It isn’t how we create change in other people. It’s how we keep from being changed by anger ourselves.

There’s no shortage of reasons to be riled up right now. Every day we’re met with headlines, arguments, injustice, cruelty, and an endless stream of outrage. We see trolls and people carrying so much unhappiness that they can’t help but throw it at someone else’s success or even their small moments of joy.

Some of the kindest people I know are exhausted by it all. I get it!

I’ve caught myself reacting instead of responding. Trying to fix someone else’s anger with advice. Calling people out because they were simply being mean.

Meeting frustration with frustration leaves me feeling a little guilty, and not like myself.

The cycle feeds itself. Every time we step into it, we give away a little of ourselves. We become just a little less like the person we know ourselves to be.

That doesn’t mean we’re supposed to be perfect. We all lose our footing sometimes.

The intention isn’t to control every emotion. It’s to notice when we’ve been pulled away from ourselves and to choose to return.

I’m not talking about performative kindness. I’m talking about kindness that comes from alignment. When what we believe, what we say, and what we do all come from the same place.

Real kindness isn’t pretending everything is okay. It isn’t smiling while resentment simmers underneath or saying what we think a kind person should say.

We create boundaries to protect what matters most to us. But they only work when we respect them ourselves.

Sometimes that means putting the phone down, or walking away from a conversation that has stopped being a conversation.

Other times it means saying nothing at all because adding one more angry voice won’t make anything better.

When I’m off balance or unsure of myself, I try to come back to kindness. Not because it always tells me exactly what to do, but because it reminds me who I want to be before I decide what to do.

Then I can ask myself: Is this kind? or… What’s the kindest thing I can do or say here?

Sometimes the answer is to speak, to shut up and really listen, or to walk away.

Lotsa times the answer is to wait until I can respond from the person I am instead of the emotion I’m feeling.

The world is very good at telling us what to react to isn’t it? Kindness reminds us what to return to.

It wasn’t dramatic. No damage done except to my pride. I backed up, re-parked, and ruefully laughed at myself. Apparently, I wasn’t paying quite as much attention as I thought.

As I walked toward the clinic, the irony was obvious. I’d spent the last ten minutes listening to a story about attention while paying too little attention myself.

Attention is how we assign importance.

We hear about work-life balance alll the time don’t we? It’s one of those phrases that can make us feel as though we’re constantly falling short. Just not quite enough.

It kinda makes me wonder if balance has less to do with fitting everything into our day and more to do with deciding what deserves our attention.

Think of an old-fashioned balance scale. The goal isn’t to put the same weight on both sides. The goal is to give each thing the weight it deserves. Some days work needs more of us. Other days a friend, our health, or simple rest deserves to move to the front of the line.

The problem isn’t that some things carry more weight than others. It’s that we often hand too much weight to the LOUD stuff.

Notifications. Outrage. Old conversations that ended days ago but are still taking up space in our minds. Off handed comments that linger near judgement.

Meanwhile, parts of life wait patiently. Or not.

• The person sitting across from us.

• The walk we keep postponing.

• The thank you forgotten and now too late.

• The book we meant to read.

• Our own body saying, ‘Enough.’
  

Have you ever pulled into your driveway and realized you don’t remember the last traffic light?

Our brains are brilliant at running familiar routines on autopilot. That’s useful. The trouble starts when too much of our life is running that way.

We know we’re out of balance because life starts poking at us.
We get irritable.
We can’t concentrate.
We ruminate over old conversations.
We spend money hoping it will change how we feel.
We push through, even though our body has been telling us to stop.

I’ve done that. More than once. Looking back, I wish I’d just listened sooner.

When these moments happen, they aren’t failures. They’re feedback. They’re invitations to ask a better question: Does this deserve this much of my attention right now?

Every yes is also a no to something else.
Every boundary encountered is an opportunity for a choice.
Every hour spent feeding worry is an hour not spent noticing something worth appreciating.
Every minute spent reliving yesterday is a minute we can’t give to today.

Every choice to put the device down is an opportunity to listen to the person across from you.

Mindfulness isn’t about paying perfect attention. It’s about noticing where our attention has wandered and choosing, again, what deserves our focus.

Did you recognize anything familiar here? Tell me about it. I’m all ears! OK, partly because it reminds me that I’m not the only one…

I’ve been to the Marin Headlands and Point Bonita quite a few times, yet every time it seems a little different. Ships roll in from the Pacific and slip under the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco Bay. Others steam out into the wide blue sea, bound for destinations we’ve heard of but never seen.

Every ship carries something that will eventually become part of someone’s ordinary day. Food. Medicine. Building materials. Things that sustain lives we’ll never know.

We like to pack a little picnic and head up there to sit on the hill, listening to the crash of the waves below the point and looking across at the cliffs beyond, perfectly content to be exactly where we are.

This is one of the things I love about living in the Bay Area. There are so many places that remind us it’s good to stop.

Perched up there, we sat watching the ships instead of the lighthouse. Container ships edged their way into the bay. Board sailors grabbed the wind between vessels a hundred times their size. Tourists stop on the Golden Gate Bridge to admire the view, probably unaware that someone sitting on a hillside was looking back at them.

At Point Bonita, it’s impossible not to notice how many lives depend on people they’ll never meet.

We spent an hour mesmerized by the view, and then attention drifted back to the lighthouse.
I used to think the lighthouse was an emblem of strength, but it’s a symbol of something more important.

I read once that the keepers at Point Bonita were known not only for tending the light and foghorn, but for risking their own lives in rowboats in the treacherous surf and dense fog to rescue people from wrecked ships below. They risked everything without stopping to ask where those sailors came from. They didn’t ask what they believed. They didn’t ask whether they deserved saving. They saw people in trouble, so they rowed toward them.

That story speaks to me because lately, life in this world feels stormier than it used to. Some storms arrive as fire, flood, or wind. Others arrive as grief, uncertainty, financial strain, division, illness, or loneliness. It can be tempting to believe we’re all standing alone against our own weather.

From a distance, the lighthouse appears to stand alone too, but it doesn’t.
Someone built it. Someone maintained it. Someone kept the light burning and the horn calling through fog, wind, and darkness. Every ship that found safe passage was connected to that act of care.

It looks like it’s standing out there alone. But it’s not. Neither are we.

Thich Nhat Hanh called this interbeing, the understanding that our lives are woven together in ways we rarely notice. Standing on that hillside, I don’t have to work very hard to see it. It’s there in the ships, the bridge, the people, and the lighthouse itself.

When the world starts to feel like too much, I refocus my attention by asking: What is actually here, in this moment? Sometimes the answer is fear or uncertainty.

If I stay with the question a little longer, I usually notice something else too. A friend. A kind word. A bird singing. The fact that I’m standing on my own two feet. The storm hasn’t disappeared. I’ve simply remembered it isn’t the whole story.

The storm may be real. But it doesn’t deserve the whole sky.

Most of us will never tend a lighthouse, and we’re lucky that we will probably never need to row into crashing waves to rescue strangers. Still, every day we have opportunities to row toward one another in smaller ways. We can offer patience instead of judgment, curiosity instead of certainty, kindness instead of indifference. We may never know where those small acts end up, just as the lighthouse keepers never knew the names of most of the people they helped.

If kindness is reserved only for people who deserve it, it isn’t kindness. It’s a transaction.

We can’t calm every storm, and we can’t solve every problem. We can, however, hold a little light for someone else. We may never know whose course is changed by a moment of compassion, a listening ear, or a simple act of generosity.

Maybe that’s what visiting places like Point Bonita has to teach us. The lighthouse stands where it does because someone believed strangers were worth protecting.

Perhaps our mission in this life isn’t so different. We simply keep the light burning.

How many times I’ve called something fear when it was also excitement. Called something failure when it was really learning. Called something uncertain when it was actually the beginning of something new.

Life has taught me that our first interpretation is rarely the whole story.

That reminded me of something my son taught me years ago while we were standing in line for a roller coaster.

We live near Santa Cruz, so trips to the Beach Boardwalk have always been part of life. Like most kids, my son was fascinated by the Giant Dipper, the beautiful old wooden roller coaster that’s been rumbling along since 1924.

He’d hear the screams and laughter as it flew past, then watch the riders climb off grinning, talking about how much fun they’d had. It looked terrifying, but also wonderful.

When he finally decided he was ready to ride it, he was a pre-teen. We stood in line, him pacing back and forth, trying to work up the nerve. I could see him talking himself into it, then right back out of it.

Seeing people stepping off the ride with huge smiles on their faces was so inviting. Little by little, his confidence grew. If all these people were laughing at the end, maybe it wasn’t quite as scary as it looked.

We climbed aboard and strapped in. The ride was exactly what you’d expect from a hundred-year-old wooden roller coaster. Loud. Fast. A little rough around the edges.

When he got off, he’d spent most of the ride gripping the safety bar so tightly his knuckles had turned white. He also couldn’t stop smiling.

From then on, riding the Giant Dipper became one of the highlights of every summer.

A few years later, we visited another amusement park. The roller coasters there made the Giant Dipper look almost quaint. These were towering steel giants with impossible drops and giant loop-de-loops.

As we stood in line, I watched him begin pacing again.

“I don’t know about this,” he said. Then, after a pause, “I’m scared.”

I smiled. “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe you’re excited. Sometimes those feelings feel an awful lot alike.”

He thought about that while the line slowly moved forward. After the ride, he came back wearing exactly the expression I was hoping to see.

“No,” he said. “I really was scared.” Then he laughed. “But I was excited too.”

I’ve thought about that conversation many times over the years because I’ve realized something. I wasn’t trying to convince him he wasn’t afraid. Fear wasn’t the problem. The problem would have been believing that fear was the only thing he was feeling.

That’s what reframing is. Not replacing one truth with another. It’s about expanding the frame we see through so we realize that more than one truth can exist at the same time.

Our minds are wonderful storytellers. Give them a little uncertainty, and they’ll happily write an entire screenplay about what might happen next.

We assume we know what someone meant by a comment. We convince ourselves a change at work is bound to go badly. We imagine the presentation will be a disaster before we’ve written the first slide.

The stories feel real because our minds are so very good at telling them.

When we practice even a moment of mindfulness, we have a chance to notice those stories before we automatically believe them. We can pause long enough to ask, Is this the only way to see what’s happening?

That’s where the little phrase, “Yes… and,” has become so helpful for me.

Yes, this promotion feels intimidating… and someone believed I was ready to handle it.

Yes, changing careers is unsettling… and it opens doors I couldn’t see before.

Yes, I’m anxious about having a difficult conversation… and it might strengthen an important relationship.

Yes, I feel afraid… and I’ve done hard things before.

That tiny word and creates room for possibility.

Looking back, I think the Giant Dipper gave my son more than a fun memory.

It gave him evidence.

Evidence that he’d been nervous before. Evidence that he’d climbed aboard anyway. Evidence that he could do something that looked terrifyingly impossible from the ground.

That’s the gift our challenges leave with us too. Every time we move through something difficult, we collect a little more evidence that we’re capable.

The next challenge doesn’t necessarily become less scary. We simply remember that we’ve done hard things before.

That’s the real power of reframing. It’s not about pretending life is easier than it is. It’s about seeing a little more of reality.

Mindfulness isn’t about changing our thoughts. It’s about giving ourselves enough mind-space to question whether they’re telling the whole story.

Sometimes all we need is enough space to add 2 small words.

Yes… and.

Say someone is struggling with a relationship, a job, a family member, a loss, or a disappointment. What do they do? They tell the story to themselves and every detail makes sense. Their feelings are real. Their pain is real. Their frustration is real.

But that’s not the whole picture now, is it? They’re standing so close they can only see from one tight perspective.

When we’re hurting, that’s what happens. Attention narrows, and the difficult conversation becomes the whole relationship. The setback becomes the only “real” perspective. The disappointment is now everything and we’re blind to the rest of the picture.

I know I’ve done it myself. I’ve had moments when a worry or frustration grew so large in my mind that it blocked out everything around it. In those moments, it’s easy to believe that this thing, whatever it is, is all there is.

That’s the trap. Not the suffering itself, but the belief that suffering is the only thing happening.

A practice I sometimes share with my clients is to imagine stepping behind yourself. Seeing the situation from behind the chair, or high above, as though you’re a bird perched quietly in the rafters.

Not to detach from the experience or to judge. Simply to see more. When we can step back and see from a different vantage point, new information appears.

You notice the fear underneath someone’s anger. You notice the love underneath someone’s awkward attempt to help. You notice that another person’s reaction may have very little to do with you at all. You notice possibilities that weren’t visible from inside the storm.

The situation hasn’t changed, but your perspective has. Sometimes that changes everything and we open to different ways of seeing what we once thought was cast in stone.

I’ve learned that when my heart feels heavy, one of the best things I can do is look around. The sky doesn’t solve my problems. Seeing a flower doesn’t erase grief.
The trees don’t magically answer difficult questions.

All that simply remind me that there is more than this worry, this moment. More than the story I’m telling myself.

LOOK.
The world is still here.

Beauty is still here.

Love is still here.

Possibility is still here.

Not instead of suffering, but alongside it.

Perspective gives us just enough distance to remember that we’re standing in front of a very large painting.

And there is always more to see, isn’t there?

Perhaps that’s the invitation: to step back from the painting now and give ourselves enough distance to see the larger picture.

To remember that there is more here than the thing that hurts. We can use that fresh perspective to hold compassion for ourselves when we get stuck, and for others when they do.

At least that’s what it looks like.

The reality? Most of us are paddling away beneath the surface like swans on a lake, wondering if we’re doing this right while quietly assuming everyone else has somehow figured it out.

This week’s guided meditation explores the difference between performing mindfulness and practicing mindfulness. Not with judgment, but with curiosity. Together we’ll look at self-doubt, comparison, the subtle ways we try to appear calm or mindful, and how easily we can move away from what is actually here.

The good news is that the moment we notice we’ve wandered, started comparing ourselves, or slipped into performance, we’re already practicing.

We can simply return.

Coming back. Coming back.

I recognized myself in this one. You might too.

I’ve been thinking about that uncertainty lately.

That feeling of not knowing what’s next shows up in every generation and every stage of life. Whether you’re twenty-two and looking for your first job or sixty-two and wondering what comes next, the questions are remarkably similar: What’s next? What matters now, and how do we build a meaningful life while we’re still figuring it out?

I went to college planning to become a veterinarian. That didn’t happen, but I followed my heart to train horses in Arizona. Over the years, I’ve worked in retail, hospitality, startups, public speaking, and now wellness and coaching. Looking back, I’ve changed careers more often than I’ve changed addresses.

At no point did I actually have a master plan.

Each role taught me something, maybe especially the wild ones I fell into because I needed work. Each introduced me to people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. Each helped shape the person I would eventually become. Looking back, none of those jobs were wasted time. They were stepping stones, even when I couldn’t see where they were leading.

Life pretty much never follows the roadmap we create in our twenties. And that’s OK. Some of the best opportunities are disguised as detours.

“The future may not look the way you planned. That doesn’t mean it isn’t leading somewhere worthwhile.”

The old plan of finding one job, staying there for thirty years, and retiring with a gold watch is disappearing. Careers today are more like winding trails through the woods. Sometimes the next step is obvious. Sometimes our goals need a little reframing. Sometimes the path you never intended to take becomes the one that changes everything.

That’s true for new graduates, AND it’s also true for people much further along in their careers.

As a coach, I work with people navigating career changes in midlife. Many have built successful careers. Yet they’re asking the same questions graduates are asking.

What’s next? What matters now? What kind of life am I trying to create? How can I flourish when I’m feeling so unsure of the future?

The answer is often bigger than a job title.

Maybe they’re tired of spending three hours a day commuting.

Maybe they want work that feels meaningful.

Maybe they want to be part of something larger than themselves.

Maybe they want more flexibility.

Maybe they want less stress.

Maybe they want to contribute to something they genuinely care about.

Maybe they simply want to wake up Monday morning without dread.

For many new graduates, the pressure is especially intense right now. Student loans looming. Housing costs seem impossible. The structure and community of campus life are ending just as the responsibility of adulthood is arriving. Friends are scattering across the country. The future feels exciting and terrifying all at once.

It’s easy to believe life can’t really begin until you land the right job.

Our culture encourages that belief.

Work hard now. - Be happy later.

Get the job.

Get the promotion.

Get the salary.

THEN you can relax.

The thing is, life is already happening. Right here. Right now.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned, both personally and through coaching others, is that a meaningful life isn’t something we build after we get everything figured out.

It’s something we build while things are still messy.

While we’re searching.

While we’re learning.

While we’re waiting.

Flourishing begins now, not with perfect conditions, but with intentional choices.

· A walk outside.

· A morning coffee enjoyed without rushing.

· A conversation with someone who knows you well.

· Volunteering for a cause that matters.

· Therapy.

· Meditation.

· Mindfulness practice.

· Time in nature.

· Learning how to ask for help when you need it.

These things may seem small compared to student loans or a difficult job search. Yet they are often the very things that keep us grounded while we build the rest of our lives.

Research on well-being consistently points to something many of us overlook when we’re focused on achievement: strong relationships matter. Feeling connected matters. Having a sense of meaning and purpose matters.

Not someday. Today.

When we’re searching for work, we often focus only on what’s available or what we think we should have.

The better question may be: What am I truly looking for?

That’s a different conversation.

Job boards have their place, and those click-to-apply applications (kinda). Yet sending the same résumé hundreds of times and hoping an algorithm discovers your hidden brilliance is enough to make anyone question their life choices.

People still hire people.

Relationships matter.

Conversations matter.

Curiosity matters.

Community matters.

Sometimes the opportunity that changes your life comes from a conversation, not a posting.

The clearer you are about what matters to you, the easier it becomes to recognize opportunities that don’t fit neatly into the picture you originally imagined.

I’ve seen people leave prestigious careers because they wanted more balance.

I’ve seen people accept lower-paying jobs because the work aligned with their values.

I’ve seen people discover entirely new careers because they said yes to something they hadn’t previously considered.

I’ve seen people realize that what they truly wanted wasn’t a bigger title at all. It was more time, more meaning, more connection, or a chance to make a difference.

The future you’re hoping for may not be here yet.

Yet.

The career you want may not be here yet.

The opportunity may not be here yet.

The confidence you’re looking for may not be here yet.

Yet is not the same as never.

You can build a meaningful life while you’re building a career. In fact, that’s often when the strongest foundations are laid.

If you’re graduating this year, know this:

• Your first job does not have to be your dream job.

• Your first apartment does not have to be your forever home.

• Your first plan does not have to become your final destination.

• You are allowed to learn.

• You are allowed to change.

• You are allowed to discover possibilities you cannot see yet.

• Keep learning.

• Keep connecting.

• Keep paying attention to what gives your life meaning.

• Keep building relationships.

• Keep taking care of yourself while you build whatever comes next.

The future has always been uncertain. The people who navigate uncertainty best aren’t necessarily the ones with the perfect plan.

They’re the ones who remain curious, connected, and open to possibilities they hadn’t considered.

You might not end up where you planned, and that right there may turn out to be one of the best things that ever happens to you.

What’s your story? Do you have insight to add to the conversation?

Leave a comment

Over time those choices become habits, and then part of our identity. We forget they were choices at all.

What if some of the things holding us back today aren’t flaws or weaknesses, but parts of ourselves we’ve kept hidden for so long we’ve forgotten they exist?

When people talk about shadow work, they often focus on the difficult parts of ourselves. The anger, jealousy, fear, or insecurity we’d rather not admit are there.

I’ve come to think shadow work is about something else. Sometimes the shadow isn’t what we dislike about ourselves. Maybe it’s just the parts of ourselves we learned to hide.

I grew up at my parents’ fishing lodge in northern Wisconsin. We were taught that the guests came first. Always.

My siblings and I had chores. We cleaned rooms, did the landscaping, taught guests to fly fish, cleaned and cooked fish, helped guests find what they needed, and did whatever was necessary to keep things running smoothly. We were taught to be quiet, respectful and helpful. Many of the guests returned year after year and felt like extended family.

There was an unspoken expectation that shaped our childhood. Don’t be a problem. Don’t interrupt. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Work in the background. Be useful.

At the time, it felt perfectly normal. Looking back, I can see how deeply those lessons became part of who I was.

I became good at listening. Good at anticipating what other people needed. Good at helping.

What I didn’t learn was how to ask for what I needed. I didn’t learn how to take up space or speak up when something mattered to me.

For years I assumed that was simply my personality. Then, much later, through coaching, therapy, mindfulness, and a great deal of self-reflection, I started to see something different. What I thought was my personality was also a collection of habits and beliefs that had formed long ago.

The shadow wasn’t anger or selfishness. The shadow was the part of me that had quietly learned to disappear.

I noticed how often I deferred to others even when I disagreed. I stayed in the background when leadership needed more me. I hesitated to ask for what I needed because somewhere inside I still believed other people’s needs mattered more than my own.

Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.

The shadow work wasn’t about blaming my parents. They were doing the best they could, running a business and raising a family. The work was understanding how those early experiences had shaped me and asking whether those old habits were still serving me.

Many of us carry these hidden patterns.
Maybe you were told not to get your hopes up, so you stopped trying for things you really wanted.
Maybe you were told not to show off, so you learned to shrink your accomplishments. Maybe someone convinced you that you weren’t smart enough, talented enough, athletic enough, or capable enough, and part of you quietly accepted that story as fact.

Years pass, and what began as a childhood adaptation starts to feel like the truth about who we are. That’s why shadow work matters. Not because we’re hunting for flaws or digging up painful memories just because.

Shadow work asks us to get curious about the parts of ourselves we’ve tucked away. It invites us to notice the beliefs we’ve inherited, the stories we’ve repeated, and the ways we’ve limited ourselves without realizing it.

Little by little, I learned to speak up. I learned to ask for what I needed. I learned that being direct didn’t make me selfish and that taking up space didn’t make me arrogant. In fact, becoming more visible made me a better manager, parent, partner, and friend.

What surprised me most was realizing that I didn’t need to get rid of that younger version of myself. She still had something to teach me.

That girl at the lodge learned how to listen. She learned empathy. She learned how to make people feel welcome and cared for. Those qualities became some of my greatest strengths.

The Shadow work wasn’t eliminating that part of me at all. Instead, it helped me understand that she mattered, too.

I still catch glimpses of those old patterns. I still find myself jumping up to bus a table in a restaurant before anyone asks. Some habits run deep. I still have an ingrained need to fix, even when not asked.

We might think growth means eliminating old patterns. It rarely works that way. The little girl who learned to stay in the background is still there. The difference is that she no longer gets the final vote.

Those old patterns never completely disappear. They’re simply not as big as they once were. I can see them now, smile at them, thank them for trying to help, and then choose something different.

Now I don’t see those habits as flaws anymore. They were adaptations. They helped me navigate the world I lived in. The challenge came when those same strategies followed me into busy kitchens, boardrooms, leadership roles, relationships, and parenthood, places where different skills were needed.

Nothing was broken. Something that was once useful had simply outlived its job description.

When we can see the parts of ourselves we’ve hidden in the shadows, we gain something precious: choice. We can decide which old stories still belong in our lives and which ones have outlived their usefulness.

Perhaps shadow work isn’t about fixing ourselves at all. Perhaps it’s about remembering ourselves.

I’m curious: What part of you has been waiting patiently in the shadows, hoping you’ll finally invite it back into the light?

Leave a comment

We repeat words like overwhelmed, exhausted, stressed, and burned out until the nervous system starts accepting them as permanent conditions instead of temporary states. To be fair, life has been a lot.

Years of uncertainty, adaptation, bad news, pressure, division, financial stress, and trying to hold ourselves together while still answering emails like everything’s perfectly normal. No wonder so many people feel like they can never quite land, fully exhale, or feel done.

Do you use the word burnout a lot? Maybe that’s ‘cuz you’re tired in ways that sleep doesn’t fix.

There’s this ongoing churn to modern life. We adapt to one “new normal” only to have it change again before we’ve fully caught our breath. The nervous system never really gets the memo it’s okay to stop bracing.

No wonder people fantasize about moving to a desert island with endless time, bounty, and no notifications.

Burnout isn’t always coming from one identifiable source. Sometimes it’s not the job, the relationship, the caregiving, or the responsibilities alone. Sometimes it’s the ongoing feeling that we can never quite land. Never fully exhale. Never feel done.

The way we talk to ourselves and others matters. The more we repeat words like burnout, overwhelmed, exhausted, and doomed, the more our nervous system starts treating them as identity instead of experience.

We stop saying “I feel overwhelmed right now” and start believing “I am a burned-out person.” That’s a very different thing to say.

In “Too Busy to Be Human,” I wrote about how many of us have become disconnected from our own humanity while trying to be productive enough, efficient enough, informed enough, responsive enough, optimized enough. Honestly, it’s a terrible job description for a human nervous system.

The interesting thing is this:

There have been many times in our lives when we worked incredibly hard and didn’t burn out at all.

We’ve spent entire weekends building a garden, helping a friend move, painting a room, learning something new, raising children, creating art, or building something meaningful with our own hands. The work was exhausting sometimes, yes, but also deeply fulfilling.

We spent countless hours creating a peaceful refuge for the family in our backyard. We agonized over landscaping, lighting, plants, structure, and tiny details nobody else would probably notice. We call it the sanctuary because that’s what it became. A place to breathe, reconnect, sip a cuppa tea, meditate, laugh with friends, and remember ourselves again.

The work mattered to us. Were there stressful moments? Hell yeah. But we pushed through it because we saw the vision we had growing before our eyes, and it was so rewarding.

Stress itself isn’t always bad. There are at least 2 kinds of stress to consider: eustress and distress.

Eustress is a signal that something meaningful is asking for our attention. This variety of stress activates us but instead of dread, there’s purpose, challenge, motivation, and even excitement. We prepare for things because the challenge feels possible and meaningful.

Distress occurs when the nervous system begins to believe there are too many demands and not enough resources. Not enough time. Not enough support. Not enough rest. Not enough safety. Not enough hope.

Sometimes the stress that finally knocks us on or asses isn’t even the “big thing.”

It’s one more email.
One more criticism.
One more bill.
One more newsflash.
One more night of no sleep with a newborn.

The straw that broke the camel’s back had very little to do with straw. We might be carrying grief, caregiving responsibilities, financial pressure, loneliness, fear about the future, or the exhaustion of trying to hold ourselves together while appearing fine.

Sometimes we simply don’t feel seen, and that can be brutal. We humans, like many other beings, are not built to thrive without a sense of belonging.

That sense of othering we see everywhere right now, whether it’s political, social, generational, cultural, or personal, wears on us more than we realize.

The nervous system relaxes in connection. It struggles in isolation. Mindfulness helps in very practical ways.
Not by pretending everything is fine.
Not by forcing positivity.
Not by bypassing very real pain or stress.

A moment of presence helps us pause long enough to notice what is actually here right now instead of what the mind keeps forecasting, replaying, catastrophizing, or labeling.

Right now:
Are you safe?
Have you eaten?
Have you rested at all?
Have you laughed recently?
What support do you have?
What pressure are you carrying that may not even belong to you anymore?

Mindfulness helps us downregulate reactivity by giving us a break from constant storytelling. It helps us come back to this moment instead of living inside twenty imagined futures.

We don’t need to solve our whole life. We need to stop doom-scrolling, unclench our jaw, drink water, text a friend, sit outside for ten minutes and breathe the fresh air, watch the hummingbirds, and remember that the nervous system responds to small moments of safety too.

Every one of these moments matter more than we think.

We don’t have to become perfectly resilient super-humans. Let’s make being human enough.

A marriage shifts but doesn’t fully break. A career no longer fits but still pays the bills. Friendships thin out in the discomfort of change. We stand in the middle of it all trying to predict the future so we can feel safe again, while grief quietly settles into the spaces uncertainty leaves behind.

Some griefs that arrive with a clear ending. A death. A goodbye. A door closing with a sound we can hear.

Then there’s anticipatory grief. The kind that lives in the waiting room of uncertainty.
Lurking in the background before anything is fully over.

Before the divorce papers are signed.

Before the move happens.

Before the business is closed.

Before the identity we built around a marriage, a career, a dream, or a version of ourselves has completely fallen away.

It’s grief suspended in midair, a state of suspension that can feel unbearable.

A dear friend of mine is living in that suspension right now. His marriage is unraveling, though not fully ended. Friends quietly stepped away to avoid “taking sides,” leaving him feeling abandoned in the very moment he most needed connection.

His business, successful by every outside measure, no longer feels like home to him. The life he spent years building for all the “right reasons” suddenly feels like clothing that no longer fits.

When we sat together in meditation recently, we began working with compassion, and grief stuck its head in almost immediately.

Not dramatic or theatrical grief. The kind that floods out slowly when someone has been holding themselves together for far too long.

The exhaustion of grasping was palpable. Trying to save the wreckage of a life that once made sense. Trying to force certainty from a future that refuses to explain itself.

That’s one of the cruelest parts of anticipatory grief. Nothing is finished, so the nervous system doesn’t know where to land.

When we’re in it, the mind keeps circling:
What if I make the wrong decision?
What if things get worse?
What if I lose everything?
What if I regret leaving?
What if I regret staying?

There’s no clean shoreline visible. Only fog.

Because there’s no clear ending, people often don’t recognize this as grief at all. Instead, they internalize it.

They think they’re failing.
They think they’re weak.
They think they should have a plan.

Anticipatory grief isn’t weakness. It’s the emotional weight of standing at the edge of change while still being asked to function as if everything is normal.

When we’re in this kind of grief, we grip tightly because we think grasping will save us. Instead, it often exhausts us, and limits what we can still see.

The tighter we cling to what was, or what we hoped would be, the narrower our vision becomes. We stop seeing possibilities, beauty, connection, or even love that may still exist around us. Not because they’ve disappeared, but because fear has pulled all of our attention toward the wreckage.

When we begin stepping away from an old life, an old identity, or an old certainty, it can feel blinded for a while.

Familiar landmarks are gone. The future hasn’t taken shape yet. We reach for what we know, even when what we know is hurting us, because uncertainty feels darker than disappointment.

Blindness isn’t the same as emptiness. Our eyes adjust. Slowly, often painfully, new shapes begin to emerge. A different path. A softer way of living. A conversation we couldn’t hear before over the noise of survival. Small moments of beauty waiting patiently outside the grip of fear.

One of the difficult truths about anticipatory grief is that it narrows our world.

The nervous system becomes so focused on scanning for danger, loss, and uncertainty that the rest of life starts fading into the background.

The bright green leaves on the trees go unnoticed.

The hummingbird with the brilliant red throat visits the feeder and we barely see it.

A friend reaches out. A new idea flickers.

An unexpected moment of laughter appears for half a second.

When we’re bracing for impact, the brain prioritizes protection over possibility. This is where mindfulness and self-awareness can help us reopen the windows a little.

Not by forcing positivity.
Not by pretending things aren’t painful.
And certainly not by demanding we move on.

By helping the nervous system remember that life is still happening now, not only in the feared future.

Neuroplasticity studies demonstrate that the brain changes through repeated experience and attention.

What we practice noticing matters. If we spend every waking moment rehearsing catastrophe, the mind becomes more efficient at finding catastrophe.

But tiny moments of awareness begin creating new pathways too.

Pausing long enough to feel the warmth of the sun on your skin.
Hearing birds outside the window.
Allowing yourself one honest conversation instead of isolating.
Taking a walk without demanding answers from yourself.
Recognizing a moment of beauty without immediately feeling guilty for it.

These are reminders to the body and mind that survival is not the only story still available to us.

Sometimes healing begins when we stop demanding certainty and start allowing ourselves to notice life again.

When we’re caught in anticipatory grief, we often think we need answers first, but what we usually need first is space.

Space in the nervous system.
Space in the mind.
Space between ourselves and the constant pressure to predict the future.

That space rarely arrives through force. It comes through small moments of reconnection with being alive right now.

A few things can help:

Go outside without turning it into a productivity exercise. No step goals. No self-improvement podcast. Just walk slowly enough to notice something real. The movement of leaves. The smell of the air after rain. The way light changes late in the day.

Spend time with someone who allows honesty. Not someone who rushes you toward solutions or silver linings. Someone who can sit with uncertainty without trying to erase it.

Reduce the need to solve your entire future in one sitting. The mind in grief often wants a complete roadmap before taking a single step. Instead ask: What is one thing I can do today that supports my well-being?

Pay attention to beauty without demanding that it fix you. A song. A cup of coffee. The burst of color from flowers in the yard. These moments help awaken parts of us that fear has pushed into the background.

Write without editing yourself. Fear grows stronger when it stays unspoken. Sometimes seeing the thoughts on paper helps us realize they are feelings passing through us, not prophecies.

Let your body participate in healing too. Stretch. Rest. Sit in sunlight. Go to the beach. Grief isn’t only emotional. It lives in the muscles, the stomach, the jaw, and the aching fatigue.

Maybe most importantly, stop treating uncertainty as proof that you are failing.

You are in transition. That’s different. There are seasons in life when clarity comes after movement, not before.

My friend kept saying he couldn’t move forward until he was sure. We’re rarely sure. Most of us are building our lives while walking through fog with a flashlight that only shows a few feet ahead.

Maybe that’s enough. Maybe we don’t need to see the whole future. Just enough light to take the next step.

What are you anticipating "might” be coming your way, and how are you managing the response to this kind of grief? Tell me in the comments or send me a message.

This meditation explores nonduality in a simple, human way through the metaphor of the wave and the ocean. Together we’ll soften the feeling of separation and remember that we are not apart from life,

Most of the time, we don’t even notice we’re doing it, do we?

That’s part of what small moments of awareness (mindfulness) reveal. Not just our thoughts or emotions, but the way we turn our own understanding into truth.

The way we assume our experience is the center point everyone else should naturally orbit around.

Then someone enters the room who sees life differently.

Maybe they eat differently. Pray differently. Love differently. Vote differently. Process emotions differently. Maybe they grew up in a completely different culture or carry a life story we couldn’t begin to imagine from the outside.

All of a sudden our sense of certainty gets uncomfortable, but discomfort isn’t always danger. Sometimes it’s growth asking us to relax our grip a little.

Somewhere along the line, we began to believe that compromise is associated with weakness. As if making room for another perspective means we’ve lost something important about ourselves. Bullshit.

Compromise isn’t surrender or even erasing who we are. It’s a realization that no single perspective contains the whole of our experience.

Compromise is more than that, it’s an act of coming together. A willingness to meet somewhere in the middle so connection can exist. Not perfect agreement. Not sameness. Just enough openness to say: “You matter too.”

We do this when we feel safe, when we’re at our best. Families do it. Friendships do it. Communities do it.

We adjust, make room, listen, reconsider, and adapt because relationships were never meant to be one person endlessly winning while everyone else disappears.

This feels extra important right now because so much of modern life encourages othering.

We gather in groups that mirror our opinions. We scroll through algorithms that feed us more of what we already believe. We label people quickly and move on before curiosity has a chance to breathe.

We stop seeing human beings and start seeing categories, yet the world has always been made of differences.

Sit around almost any dinner table and you’ll see it immediately. One person’s vegan. One won’t touch gluten. Someone orders a steak the size of a bicycle seat. Another quietly picks mushrooms out of everything while pretending they like them.

We can still laugh together and celebrate our togetherness. We adjust, not just to fit in, but because it feels good to give space and to be given space. Nobody needs to eat the exact same meal to belong at the same table.

Belonging never was about sameness at all. Maybe it’s about learning how to stay connected even inside our differences.

That’s where these small moments of mindful awareness matter so much, in a tiny pause where we catch ourselves shutting down or shutting out.

The brief moment we notice the mind tightening around certainty and creating distance between ourselves and someone else. Shutting something down without consideration.

A microdose of mindfulness might simply be noticing: “Oh. I closed the door too quickly there”, then cracking that door a bit wider to see what’s on the other side.

Not because we suddenly agree with everything or we stop having values, boundaries, or discernment.

Instead, as the light peeks through the crack, we glimpse the vastness of human experience.

We see that other people are living inside realities shaped by histories, losses, fears, privileges, hopes, bodies, and beliefs different from our own.

Of course we don’t all think the same. Why would we want that?

Compromise isn’t loss, it’s acceptance of reality. It’s an acknowledgment that collaboration matters more than control. It’s recognition that connection often asks us to soften our certainty enough to let someone else fully exist beside us.

Sometimes wisdom looks less like certainty and more like curiosity, ya know?

A baby doesn’t stop to wonder if it should reach for something. It reaches. It explores. It experiences. There’s no inner voice holding it back. Then the conditioning begins.

“NO, don’t touch that.”
“Be careful.”
“That’s not the right way.”
“Children are to be seen, not heard.”

We’re conditioned to be hesitant. To learn what’s allowed, what gets approval, or corrected. So we might start hearing an ever-present voice in our head:
Don’t speak up.
Don’t try that.
Don’t stand out.
Don’t brag, be humble.

We begin to see everything through the blurry lens of implied judgment. Once that lens is in place, it expands to judge what we do and who we are. Then, with little effort, we begin to apply that lens to everyone else.

We stop playing or creating for no reason other than because we feel like it, and filter ideas before they ever see the light of day.

We tell ourselves we’re being practical, fitting in, or maybe even humble.

It could be we’re just staying inside what feels safe, and then, somewhere along the way, something shifts.

This realization may come to us in these “mid-life years” when a thought shows up we can’t quite ignore. 40, 50, 70, it doesn’t matter when, just if.

Something feels missing. We can’t quite put a finger on it, but notice this feeling in small ways.

A moment of joy when we make something without even overthinking it.
A sense of ease when we stop editing ourselves for a minute.
A flicker of energy when we follow a curiosity instead of shutting it down.
A real, generous appreciation for that inner being who is beginning to reveal themselves.

These moments get our attention because they show what we’ve been missing.

This is where mindful self-awareness begins to matter in a real, lived way.
We start noticing how we’re experiencing our lives, not just moving through them.

We allow ourselves to ask important questions.
Am I judging this or allowing it?
Am I shutting this down, or letting it unfold?
What is missing here?
Can I just be present with what is here without trying to fix it?

These small moments of self-awareness are easy to overlook, but they’re the turning point. They’re what help us see the doors we’ve kept closed.
When we allow ourselves to crack open those doors, even a little, something changes.

We start to shake the dust off old dreams. Old ways of being happy.
Happiness that came from playing. Experimenting, creating something just because we wanted to.

See, we don’t lose ourselves over time. We layer everything we’ve absorbed over ourselves.

This fresh awareness is what begins to peel back those layers and reveal the parts of us that have been tucked away.

Those parts of us aren’t gone. They’ve just been waiting.
Opening those doors takes courage.
Not the exciting fireworks kind.
The steady kind that questions what we’ve been conditioned to believe.
The kind that notices when something no longer fits.
The kind that is willing to try again, even while that inner voice still has opinions.
Because it will.

The judgment doesn’t disappear, we begin to see it for what it is.
It’s a pattern, a conditioned habit, something learned.
Once we see this, however we name it, we’re not so bound by it.
We have options. Agency.

This is where the shift happens.
We begin to live with more awareness.
Not perfectly or all the time, but enough to notice when we’re closing down.
Enough to choose differently, even in almost imperceptible ways.
Noticing matters.

Every time we choose curiosity over judgment, something opens.
Every time we let ourselves create without overthinking it, something strengthens.
Every time we allow a moment to be what it is, without fixing it or labeling it, something settles.

It takes guts to question what we’ve been taught to believe.
Even more so to live in a way that feels true to you.

Slowly, we find ourselves asking different questions.
Is this how I want to live?
Does this feel true for me?
What would it look like to explore a little more?

We don’t need to overhaul everything from the ground up, just enough awareness to notice what’s here and to be open to what might be. The guts to respond to it.

As we expand our awareness, we begin to notice a growing discernment.
We become more open to what feels real and meaningful, less willing to stay in what doesn’t.
We stop struggling and find clarity.

Every stage of our lives has shaped us.
The openness and curiosity of childhood.
The structure and learning that followed.
The awakening to what we have been needing all along.

Not one step of our journey is ever wasted.

Our awareness of the life we have experienced opens our hearts to what’s already within us, one door at a time. Every time we open one, we remember a little more of who we’ve always been.

What doors have you been dreaming of opening?

Leave a comment

There’s a version of manifestation that sounds a bit like this:
Say the thing.
Repeat the thing.
Clench your jaw a little harder.
Wait for the universe to deliver.
What if it doesn’t?
”Maybe you didn’t believe hard enough.”
Sound familiar? Let’s be honest. That’s exhausting, and it’s not actually how success works.

You can’t manifest a life you’re not participating in.
We’ve all done it. Hoped something would just work out or fall in our lap from the clear blue sky, or show up fully formed without us having to risk much.

Hoping isn’t the same as creating.
It’s like saying you want to be great at underwater basket weaving… without figuring out how you’ll breathe underwater.

Whatever the dream is, you still need a real intention of what it will do for you, or for the world.
You likely also need some skills, materials, vision, and the guts to take a step toward it again and again, even before you feel ready.

Where manifestation does have something real to offer is intention.
Not the grasping or demanding cry of “this has to happen now” kind. Nope, the clear, steady kind.
A statement like: “I want to move in this direction because…” That clarity of intent changes how you show up.

You begin to notice things and speak up more.
You start seeing opportunities to take another step, even a step you might have talked yourself out of before.
And then something shows up.

If you look closer, you might notice that it doesn’t have to come directly from you or be an exact fit. You told someone what you were looking for. They mentioned it to someone else, and that person remembered you at the right moment.
It didn’t come out of the blue at all. You planted the seed and then followed through with that new step.

This can be the part that trips most of us up. We lose focus and get distracted.

We start studying to reach the pinnacle of our goal, only to get lost in theories and dogma and can no longer see the goal.
One day it’s this.
The next day it’s that.
Then something shiny drifts by, and suddenly that’s what feels like the thing.

It’s easy to weather-vane, turning this way and that.
Spinning with whatever breeze blows by and spinning like mad when life gets hectic.
Always moving, but never really going anywhere.
Still scanning the horizon for the next shiny thing that might finally be it.

At some point, you have to ask yourself what it is that you actually want.
Not what sounds good.
Not what someone else says you should want.
Not what looks impressive from the outside.
What matters to you.
What has some pull to it.
What makes you sweat, and a little bit hungry.
What you keep coming back to, even when you try to talk yourself out of it.

If we can’t begin to identify even a direction, everything feels like a possibility.
When everything feels like a possibility, we end up drifting.

Don’t get me wrong here, knowing what you want doesn’t mean you’ll know exactly how to get there.
Life rarely works like that.

Say you try on an idea, and that leads to a conversation.
That conversation opens a door you didn’t expect.
Now you’re somewhere new. Still on track, just not how you pictured it.
Give it some room to grow, maybe?

You don’t need to control the wind. You need to know which way you’re willing to walk.
There’s a difference between being open… and being pulled around.
Openness has direction.
It has a center.
You can notice what’s coming your way and decide if it fits.
You can take a risk when the right things line up.
You can pass on things that don’t, even if they look good at first glance.
When you identify what matters to you, you stop spinning.
Sure, you’ll likely adjust, or even change course, but with intent.

Manifestation, at its best, isn’t about making something happen.
It’s about aligning your attention and your actions with what matters to you.
When that comes together, try letting life meet you there, and be willing to show up for a while to see it through.