Dear Everyone: I know it's been a minute, and I know what y'all were thinking: Now why don't she write? (don't know the reference? You're probably not old enough to read this blog...) The simple answer is the server locked me out and I spent a month proving I'm me. Turns out it isn't nearly as straightforward as one might think. For a solid 30 days I locked horns with automation whilst attempting to provide sufficient proof of life. That I'm back is a testament only to my t

Dear Everyone: This edition of Cereal With Hand-Poured Milk (HPM) will be short and pointed. And although there exists the temptation to berate myself for not producing sparkly new content, I choose to believe I am, in fact, modeling the entire point of this little newsletter. Isn't that a lovely reframe? For all you new subscribers, HPM is your weekly invitation to explore which of the eleventy billion tasks that are consuming your bandwidth you might safely offload (or

Dear Everyone: I recently participated in a lively podcast where the host and I wandered through a range of ideas around wellness, connection, trauma-responsive communication, aspiration, and all things hopeful and uplifting. The final few minutes got heavy though. We rumbled with the reverberations of the Tridemic, and the fear, suffering, racism, violence, and discord that permeate our current existence. Suddenly we both sounded so very, very tired. The list of harm feels e

"Honor the space between no longer and not yet." Nancy Levin As we enter True Spring and the hope, planning, and aspiration that accompanies these longer, warmer days, let us pay homage to the power of Small Attainable Goals. - We are surfing the tail-end(ish) of prolonged uncertainty, loss, pain, and harm in which the only reliable constant has been unreliability and chaos. The Tridemic of COVID19, Violence and Isolation has disrupted even our most stable and reliable system

Dear Everyone: When we summon the strength to fight for those things that most break our heart, we are living into our life’s purpose. Those spaces that hurt to occupy - but where we dare not turn away - are exactly where we’re called… Passion rarely leads; it is birthed from our pain. -- Recently I watched about 5 minutes of a news show rant about the sorry state of this generation of college kids. “They’re coddled, incompetent snowflakes.” “Their path was snowploughed/helic

Dear Everyone: Recently, I've fielded a lot of requests for presentations and tools on resiliency. Specifically in healthcare and education, there is appropriate, growing concern from administrators about the emotional health and well-being of their staff, and a desire for experts to provide them with resiliency tips and tools that may help. All this begs an important question: are we facing an epidemic of resilience-deficiency? Or are we simply asking too much? 2020 has been

Sculpture by Alexander Milov Dear Everyone: I got a phone call very late last night. Normally, I turn my phone off early - it's part of tending to my personal resilience - but it has been a week, I was still awake, and the phone was still on. Experientially, late night phone calls are rarely a good thing - I’ve lived long enough that even the thought makes my heart sink. So, when I heard the buzz last night and glanced down to see the name of an old friend I’d not spoken wit