I recently experienced something that sent me into quite a chaotic and painful tail spin. I’ve spent the last few days trying to unpack it gently myself and also with the help of a listening heart of which I am so immensely grateful. What came into my realization is that we can never truly anticipate nor understand fully the impact of what we say to another. Because of their life experiences, filters and perceptions how it is absorbed may be something that was not anticipated

Photo by Mark Kassinos Last summer I read The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak, and was captivated by the story of a fig tree that was transported from its warm island home to the cold, inhospitable (for fig trees) climate of England. In order to survive the long, cold winters, the fig tree is pushed into the ground and buried every winter. (Yes, I googled this - burying fig trees in cold climates is a real thing.) Each fall, the fig tree’s roots are severed on one side

I have been a long time member of Tosha's Living Outrageous Openness Forum and consider her weekly forum calls to be another profoundly healing tool in my tool box. She's all about offering over, asking for the highest outcome and following the bread crumb trail and nudges as they arrive. It is not a passive practice, yet one that asks us to remain open and to be shown which action to take when there is one to be taken. Sometimes when nothing comes in right away, it may be

I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.” ~William Stafford Maggie Smith, the author, describes being a student of her own pain, all wax and feathers, magical thinking; time does these things. She repeats often in her book, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, “I am out with lanterns looking for myself.” After feeling so tightly contained for decades of my own construction, I am unfolding, I’m not half of anything and I’m in hot pursuit of taking up as much space a

My favorite moment in Cheryl Strayed's Dear Sugar book, Tiny Beautiful Things is when she responds to someone who doesn’t understand how, after her miscarriage, her boyfriend and everyone else seem to just be living life like nothing really happened. She could not understand why she felt so stuck in her grief while the world resumed its turning. “I know why” Strayed responds, “because everyone else is living on planet: Earth and you are living on planet: My Baby Died”. ~ Na

HALT, the acronym that is often associated with 12-step programs is one I heard in a podcast recently that I did not recall from my Al-Anon meetings. I am so delighted to have it within my sphere now and forever evolving tool box. If one can take a moment in their day and check in with themselves when they are feeling off what a world it could and might be, yes?! Rather than projecting it outward onto others or stuffing down what is coming in. This is revolutionary as our Gl