A collection of observations, questions, and conversations about success, self-trust, leadership, relationships, and what it means to build a life that feels like your own.
Stopping in the Midst of Chaos
When things become chaotic, most of us have a fairly predictable way of responding. We move faster. We try to fix what’s happening. We get angry, leave, shut down, take control, make a decision, or look for something that will make the discomfort stop.
What I see much less often is someone simply stop.
I don't mean freezing. Freezing has a quality of disappearance to it. You can be physically still while everything inside you is braced, overwhelmed or trying to get away.
The kind of stopping I'm talking about is almost the opposite. You're very much there. You're aware of what is happening around you and what is happening inside you, but you don't immediately respond to either one.
The Effort of Hiding
A while ago, I said to someone, “I just show up as myself.”
I didn’t think much about it at the time, but the sentence stayed with me. Because I started thinking about what actually allows us to do that.
Imagine being with someone who sees you clearly. Not just the parts you’re comfortable with. The addiction. The shame. The guilt. The choices you wish you hadn’t made. The things you’re still doing that you know aren’t good for you. The parts of your life you haven’t quite figured out.
And none of it is being made wrong.
When The Conversation Changes
Every so often, someone says something that makes me think, they've arrived at a different part of the conversation.
Not because their life is falling apart.
Usually it's because it isn't.
When There’s Nothing Left to Solve
One of the things I've been noticing over the years is how rarely people experience spaciousness.
It's interesting because almost everyone tells me they want more of it. More time. Less pressure. Less rushing from one thing to the next. They imagine that once work settled down, or the children became more independent, or life simply demanded a little less from them, they'd finally have room to breathe.
The thing is, spaciousness does arrive.
The Hidden Cost of Holding Everything Together
A few weeks ago, I was talking with someone who, by most standards, had a very full life. A successful business, a marriage, children, a community that loved and respected her.
At one point in the conversation she said something that caught me off guard.
"I'm tired of being the strong one."
Not because it was dramatic. Because it wasn't.
What Happens When You've Outgrown Your Life?
Three people brought this into conversations with me recently.
Their lives looked very different. One had built a successful business. Another had reached a goal she'd been working towards for years. The third couldn't point to anything that had changed at all. If you looked at any of their lives from the outside, you would probably have said things were going well.
And they were.
What each of them found difficult to describe was something much quieter.
Learning to Trust Yourself Again
Someone asked me recently how they could learn to trust themselves again.
For the first part of our conversation, we talked about a decision. Whether to leave a relationship. Whether to move. Whether it was time to step away from work that no longer felt quite right.