The Quiet Power of Platonic Love
The Quiet Power of Platonic Love
When we think about love, our culture tends to place romantic partnership at the top of the hierarchy. We celebrate engagements, weddings, anniversaries, and grand romantic gestures. Yet some of the most meaningful, sustaining, and transformative relationships in our lives are often our friendships.
Platonic love deserves more recognition than it gets.
Friendships hold a unique kind of intimacy. They are often built over years, sometimes decades, of shared experiences, inside jokes, life transitions, heartbreaks, reinventions, and celebrations. They witness who we have been and who we are becoming. Good friends remember our stories, reflect our strengths back to us when we've forgotten them, and sit beside us during seasons that feel too heavy to carry alone.
There is something deeply healing about being known by peers.
Unlike family relationships, which we inherit, or romantic relationships, which often carry expectations around partnership, finances, parenting, and daily logistics, friendships are chosen. We continue showing up because we want to, not because we have to. That choice creates a particular kind of freedom.
In many friendships, our lives are not completely intertwined. We don't share mortgages, parenting responsibilities, household management, or major financial decisions. While these shared responsibilities can create deep bonds within romantic partnerships, they can also introduce stress, conflict, and competing needs.
Friendships often operate differently.
Because our lives are less entangled, there is frequently more room for acceptance. A friend can disagree with our choices without those choices directly impacting their daily life. They can support our growth without needing us to grow in a specific direction that benefits them. They can celebrate our dreams without those dreams requiring sacrifice from them.
This distance isn't a weakness of friendship. It is often one of its greatest strengths.
Friends can sometimes offer a wider lens, more curiosity, and less agenda. They can hold space for complexity. They can remind us who we are when we have become lost in the demands of work, parenting, caregiving, or partnership.
Friendships also create opportunities for something we all need but rarely talk about: shared dreaming.
Some of my favorite conversations with friends have very little to do with solving problems. They are conversations about possibilities. What do we want next? What are we creating? What lights us up? What kind of life are we trying to build?
Friends often become witnesses to our becoming.
They encourage the business idea. They read the first draft. They listen to the wild dream. They remind us of our courage when fear starts getting loud.
And then there is the simple gift of fun.
As adults, many of us become so focused on responsibilities that play quietly disappears. Friendships invite us back into laughter, spontaneity, creativity, and joy. They remind us that life is not only about productivity and caretaking. It is also about connection.
For many people, especially those who have experienced trauma, friendship can be an important place to practice healthy intimacy. Healthy friendships teach us that closeness does not require self-abandonment. They allow us to experience mutual care, reciprocity, honesty, and support while remaining fully ourselves.
Perhaps this is why friendships can feel so nourishing. They offer love without ownership. Connection without obligation. Support without control.
Platonic love may not receive the same cultural attention as romantic love, but it is no less significant.
The friends who answer the phone, send the text, celebrate the win, sit with the grief, remember the dream, and stay present across the years are participating in one of the most beautiful forms of love available to us.
If you're fortunate enough to have those people in your life, tell them.
Friendship is not a consolation prize for romantic love.
It is a profound and valuable form of love all its own.
Peace Isn't What You Think It Is
Peace isn’t what you think it is.
We’ve been taught, culturally, that peace arrives at some future destination: financial security, conflict-free relationships, and work that feels deeply meaningful one hundred percent of the time. When we finally achieve the right external conditions, then—then—our internal world will settle. We’ll feel content. Safe. At ease.
That idea is everywhere.
Across the internet, we’re told to “protect our peace” by cutting off anything—or anyone—that causes discomfort. I’m protecting my peace, bye. Taken to an extreme, this isn’t the path to peace at all. It’s a path toward increased anxiety, isolation, and disconnection.
So what is peace? And how do we actually cultivate it?
Over the past few months, a group of Buddhist monks quietly showed us the answer.
I was deeply grateful to witness the monks walking for peace as they passed through Fredericksburg. As they approached, something shifted. The air felt different. The energy softened. I could immediately access a still center within myself—everything else faded into the background. I felt grounded, solid, contained.
That moment transported me back to a transformative period in my early twenties, when I first learned what peace truly is—and how to find it.
For two years, every Friday evening, I sat in meditation with the Missionaries of Charity, the contemplative order founded by Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Their vocation was prayer and presence, and they welcomed me into their weekly meditation practice.
I didn’t earn that invitation through achievement or spiritual merit. I was invited because I was suffering deeply, and a beloved mentor brought me there. Those two years changed my life.
Each evening followed the same simple ritual: an opening prayer, an hour or more of silent meditation, and a closing prayer. Before that, I had never meditated. I didn’t know what to expect—and it was intense.
I squirmed. My thoughts raced. My body was uncomfortable. My emotions were raw. Some nights I wanted to bolt for the door. And yet, the women—like the monks—already had a relationship with peace. They sensed my struggle. Sometimes they offered a gentle smile, a whispered word, or simply shifted their breathing in a way that reminded me I could stay. That I could move through whatever discomfort or pain was pulling me away from myself.
For a long time, the only relief I felt was when the closing prayer began—because it meant it was almost over.
Still, I kept returning.
Even though meditation initially amplified my suffering, I also experienced something else: the same grounded, steady presence I felt witnessing the monks. That presence felt like respite. I felt seen—every flaw, every mistake—and held anyway, in full presence and loving kindness.
Over time, the practice softened. Meditation became less abrasive, less effortful. I felt more spacious, less attached to the thoughts and sensations passing through me. And then, quietly, I began to experience moments of true presence.
I met peace.
That peace didn’t stay confined to the convent walls. It followed me into my daily life. Situations that once triggered reactivity no longer did. Instead, I found pauses. Space. Glimpses of understanding—of my own suffering and the suffering of others.
What I learned was this: peace arises when we stay present with all of our experience. Not because we like what’s happening, or approve of it, but because we stop resisting it. We stop trying to offload discomfort through avoidance or reaction. Presence creates freedom.
I still experienced distraction. I still felt discomfort. But I could stay with it—and move through it.
The women did for me what the monks are offering us now: a living demonstration that peace is found in how we meet each moment.
The monks have walked through intense heat, pouring rain, snow, ice, and bitter wind. They’ve moved through welcoming communities and hostile ones, through support and ridicule. And still, they walk—grounded in each step, each breath, each moment, with compassion.
That is peace.
Not perfect weather.
Not perfect relationships.
Not constant comfort—physical or emotional.
Peace is presence with what is. And from that presence, you always have a choice: to move around your experience, or to move through it—with awareness, dignity, and loving kindness.
The Case for Stillness
Go, go, go. Do, do, do. Get, get, get.
That’s the energy most of us are conditioned in from birth.
Worth becomes productivity, and productivity becomes the measure of your value. If you do more, you are more. And if you aren’t striving… well, what are you even doing? Rest is something you earn, and only after you’ve done “all the work,” whatever that means.
This mindset was especially prevalent in my generation (Gen X) and remains a cornerstone of Western culture. At the same time, I’m beginning to notice small signs of a cultural shift, an increasing awareness of the cost of chronic hustle. The quiet but important questions: For what? For who? Who is actually benefiting from all this grinding and striving?
One of the many problems with this framework is that it’s deeply reductive, profoundly disembodied, and fundamentally misaligned with our wholeness. Over time, it leads to burnout, depression, and habits that numb us to the very disconnection we’re trying to outrun.
And perhaps most strikingly, this approach rarely delivers on what it promises.
Our mind–body systems are designed to move in rhythms and cycles. Sometimes that rhythm calls for effort, productivity, and forward motion. And sometimes it calls for slowing down, resting, reflecting—simply being. When we habitually override rest and slowness, we dysregulate our entire system. We lose access to meaning-making, emotional depth, and our capacity for connection, joy, wonder, and love.
This is where the magic of stillness lives.
Stillness asks nothing of you. There’s no striving, no destination, no achievement. There is only being here, now, noticing what is. That can feel deeply uncomfortable, threatening; especially if staying busy has been how you’ve survived.
The initial discomfort of stillness understandably sends many people rushing back into action.
But when stillness is practiced consistently, something shifts. Over time, your system recognizes it as a natural state. Relief emerges. You begin to feel into the fuller dimensions of who you are; separate from what you produce or accomplish. This is how we start to reclaim wholeness.
Winter, as a natural cycle, is an incredible teacher in developing a relationship with stillness. Winter embodies being rather than performing. It models quiet deepening, and restoration—not expansion, acceleration, or bloom. And perhaps most powerfully, winter reminds us how essential this rhythm is for growth itself.
Rest and reflection, when held in harmony with action and productivity, is the cycle that fuels inspiration, motivation, and meaningful engagement with the world.
So how do you begin a relationship with stillness?
Start by making peace with the fact that it will likely feel uncomfortable and maybe even pointless, at first. If you can stay with that discomfort and allow it to move through you (and it will), you’ll begin to sense the steady calm beneath all the noise.
Practically speaking, carve out 10–15 minutes a day to do nothing. (You already spend more time than that scrolling, so this isn’t about time.)
You might:
Sit and look out a window, just being.
Lie on the floor and follow the rhythm of your breath.
Stand outside and simply notice what it feels like to be in your body and with your surroundings.
Daily connection with stillness helps you recognize the cues your body is always offering. You begin to notice when you need rest, when you need a pause, and—just as importantly—when you feel genuinely ready to take action.
And yes, I hear you. The demands of life are real. Being overwhelmed and under-resourced is real.
And also, there are ways to honor your inner rhythm within the chaos of your current situation, even if it’s only 5 minutes.
It may not be perfect. It may not be ideal.
But it can be enough to reconnect you with more of who you truly are.
Year End Reflections - Emotional Agility Is The Move
So often we decide, “If I get it right, if I make the right choices, then I can lock in and ride out a good life”. If you sit back to reflect on that notion, there are so many issues with it…
First off, what does get it right mean?
Who determines what right choices are, and how are those right choices measured?
Is it determined by how comfortable we are?
Then there’s the issue with locking in and riding out; those states of being that don't really even exist. Life changes, we change, unexpected events happen, so there's no viable pathway to lock anything in.
And then finally, a good life, what the heck is that?
What your parents told you was a good life?
What the culture, your friends, the media told you was a good life?
And how is that even determined?
It’s understandable that we do this, our brains want certainty, thinking that translates to security. Who doesn’t want security? Security in your life is absolutely possible, but not by creating some external picture that you then try to control. Security develops on the inside, it’s a deep rootedness in knowing that however life twists and turns, whatever unexpected experiences or hoped for outcomes occur or don’t come to pass, you can trust in your ability to take care of yourself, your heart and to live into your values. That type of grounded relationship to your life and yourself is the cornerstone of security.
How do you begin to build that internal sense of security?
Two words, emotional agility.
This concept was developed by Dr. Susan David, a leading expert on emotional intelligence. She defines emotional agility as “The ability to navigate one’s emotions with flexibility, without ignoring them or letting them control you”. It is a practice of using your emotions as information to help guide you. When you develop skill in emotional agility you become able to adapt, to be curious, to be open to change; all skills that over time support you in living a life RICH and MEANINGFUL to YOU. You become less reactive, less rigid, less braced for the inevitable shoe to drop.
At year's end, I usually reflect on what I noticed, what I learned, what I unlearned, and how that matters to me and to the people around me both at work and at home. This year, I’ve witnessed myself make several decisions based on emotional agility both in my business and personal life. I moved offices and entered into a new type of business collaboration, I hired more clinicians, I began remodeling my outbuilding to move the practice to, I’ve expanded the services I offer to include retreats and held several of these groups at my home.
Each of these choices were connected to emotional agility. Most of them were never in “the plan”. I changed course because circumstances changed, and although several of these decisions were a bit scary, I am finding security inside myself, rather than trying to control the outcomes of these decisions. I’ve witnessed countless clients connect with deep meaning, deep joy and deep forgiveness through the practice of emotional agility. I’ve felt the freedom of the practice and I’ve watched others connect to freedom by letting go of what they were supposed to do and instead learned how to choose themselves through their values in whatever situation they found themselves in.
Emotional agility releases you from the nagging fear and anxiety centered in things needing to be a certain way, instead inviting you to explore what is happening, using curiosity to guide you through the situation. I don’t think we ever arrive at PERFECT emotional agility, nor do I think that’s the point. Developing this practice will, however, bring much more internal peace and security without resorting to avoidance, numbing, blame or control to gain what I like to call faux peace. It will bring excitement into your experience and it will reconnect you with mystery and possibility, all of which enriches your experience of this one beautiful life you are living and we are living alongside each other.
If you want to learn more about emotional agility, check out Dr. David’s book, titled unsurprisingly… Emotional Agility.
And if you are looking for a practical way to build a relationship with yourself and your life consider our month long Introduction to Journaling, an online experience that will support you in exploring several different approaches to journaling and guide you through exploring those approaches. We’ll also meet on zoom each week to process your experiences with the material. We start January 1, I sure hope to see you there.
Thank you for spending your valuable time reading these blogs I write and engaging with our social media, workshops and courses. I love my work and I hope it brings a little more clarity, support and hope to anyone who connects with it. I wish each of you a year that surprises you, delights you and opens you to the awareness that you are held in love exactly as you are.
This Is What I Discovered About Love This Year
We often talk about aspects of love when we say things like, “Love is kind, they did that for me because they love me, or even, if they loved me they wouldn’t… or shoudn’t… do something.” We talk about love in terms of patience, generosity, support, commitment, quality time, and understanding as much as we label behaviors and traits that we believe aren’t loving. Things like selfishness, dismissiveness, abrasiveness are commonly labeled as such.
This is what I discovered about love this year:
Love is so much more than any one aspect of it and so much more than the sum of all its parts.
It’s the life force that makes everything possible. And while those traits I mentioned are aspects of love, they aren’t synonyms for love. Love is ALL of these qualities and MORE, also existing in choices and decisions often perceived as unloving.
Every year on my birthday I pick a word to center on throughout the year, last year it was love. I spent the year noticing love, reflecting on love, getting curious about my own relationship with love and examining the impact of love in my life as well as the impact of love on others.
When I noticed loving behavior like courtesy, kindness, attentiveness, comfort, even acts involving uncomfortable honesty and fierce boundary setting, either demonstrated by me or others, I watched the impact. I noticed what happened inside me when I practiced those qualities or was on the receiving end of actions that seemed to be motivated by those traits.
The gentler expressions of love as you might imagine, left me with a felt sense of feeling seen, and valued. Acting in those ways toward others seemed to produce an inner calm, a quiet resonance. When those expressions were more fierce, more uncomfortable, I still witnessed and felt that quiet resonance underneath the discomfort.
As I continued to reflect on what I was noticing it seemed to me that those instances of loving action connected people to a knowing about love, almost like breadcrumbs along a path. Reminders of the power of love whether gentle or fierce.
But when I reflected on love as an energy that contained all of those qualities and more and looked at the impact on my life, I became acutely aware that when people showed up embodying love, not just expressing it, at various times in my life, it transformed me. It either changed the direction of my life, expanded my life exponentially or helped me discover myself on levels I know I wouldn’t have gone to, were it not for love inspiring me.
I discovered the practice of love is alchemical.
It made me think about a philosophical principle I read decades ago and wrestled with over many years before getting it, “what is TRULY loving for one in a situation is TRULY loving for all in that situation”.
When I first encountered that principle, it seemed ridiculously privileged. I kept turning it over and over in my mind, continuing to come back to the word TRULY… I began to believe that word is the most important in this principle.
We can say all kinds of things are loving, they may even be a part of love, or we may have rationalized that they are, but that doesn’t mean those actions are TRULY loving. I think the alchemical aspect of TRULY loving is an energy that comes from a deep knowing that no matter how uncomfortable I am in this situation I will live into my values as deeply as I can for myself and for the others involved.
When we do that we are often asked to stretch in uncomfortable ways. Sometimes we’re asked to inconvenience ourselves repeatedly, sometimes it asks us to say hard truths and make hard choices. Sometimes it means not saying what we really want to say or even saying something that we are uncomfortable saying, letting all the pieces of the puzzle go where they may. That’s when the alchemy happens, that's when you truly see love as a force that can’t help but transform, regardless of our opinions about the transformation.
Discovering that this year and understanding more deeply the impact of love as the most powerful force there is, has opened me to release more, to trust more, and to notice more, especially when I want to turn away. What a gift.
This year, I'll uphold this new tradition, eager to see how these insights into love shape my outlook and deepen my grasp of my chosen word for the year: connection.
Scrolling, The Near Enemy of Connection
In Buddhism there is the concept of near and far enemies related to what are considered the immeasurable qualities of a wise, open heart. These four immeasurable qualities are:
loving kindness
compassion
appreciative joy
and equanimity
As you might assume far enemies are the opposites of these qualities, cruelty is the far enemy of compassion and ill will is the far enemy of loving kindness. Near enemies however, are more nuanced, more challenging to recognize. They share some similarities with the quality but also key differences. So you can easily think you are possessing the quality, when in fact you are actually working against yourself in developing that specific quality.
For example, the near enemy of compassion is pity. Pity and compassion definitely include an acknowledgement of suffering and is often expressed in verbally similar ways with statements like "I'm really sorry that is happening to you.” The key difference is that in compassion there is no separateness, there is a recognition that we all suffer and we can find ourselves within the other’s suffering.
Pity is underpinned with separateness, and a sort of hierarchy that contains the idea that it may be happening to them but it couldn’t happen to me because _________.
Oftentimes people can confuse pity as compassion, when it is in fact an obstacle to true compassion which acknowledges suffering with empathy, a connection to the suffering and a desire to relieve it from a place of shared humanity. Pity, inferring separateness actually prevents the expression of compassion.
Although a profoundly useful lens in and of itself to apply to any self reflection practice, I started thinking about it in terms of our relationship with devices, the internet and social media…
Clearly, we can make a case that our relationship with it works against equanimity, a calmness of being, because it involves the near enemy of craving and aversion. We are often either craving it as a distraction or trying to avoid it because it is a distraction. I started thinking about it in terms of acting as a near enemy to well rounded living, to being, to connection.
How does it do that?
If I think about trends in my own algorithm, some frequent themes are funny dog videos, art, flower growing, yoga/meditation and psychology/philosophy centered content.
Umm, that seems pretty aligned with many of my professional and personal interests... So how is an aligned algorithm a potential near enemy to my actual relationship with these interests in my life?
If I’m watching tons of flower growing and arranging videos, my brain gets tricked into thinking I’m engaging in those activities, and although I may be learning, I’m not fully experiencing a relationship with the interest and that is the key difference. I can’t think of a single time when I’ve finished scrolling and felt satisfaction, contentment or fulfillment; I have often felt like I’ve eaten too much junk food.
When I am outside digging, planting, fertilizing or at the store buying varieties of seeds, I’m engaging with the whole experience AND the felt sense of the experience, the overwhelm, when I’m trying something new, the uncertainty when I’m making decisions, the excitement connected to both the process and the outcome and these are the dimensions of experience that our entire mind body system needs to feel alive and embodied.
Those full experiences are what allows us to derive meaning from the relationship to the interest, widening our world, deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world around us in a way that scrolling through videos can’t; because there's no application, no true connection.
Does that mean I can’t ever scroll? No, that would be aversion, another near enemy.
It means that the more I support myself in applying what I watch in connection to the experience or the hobby the more I’m in balance with both with my devices and in the practice of equanimity. I’m not craving or avoiding digital content, I’m mindfully engaging with it but investing most of my energy into the application and practice of those interests in my life.
I believe that using this lens to reflect on your relationship with digital content will also decrease the often accompanying self criticism about the overuse of your devices. Instead it can help you understand more about your interests, about what you may need more of in your life and a place to start engaging with those needs and experiences in your day to day life. Will that feel more uncomfortable and less pleasurable at first? Absolutely. Over time however, you will begin to notice that maybe you’re thinking about the interest more, maybe even looking forward to more engagement with it. That’s when you’ll feel it, the satisfaction and fulfillment of whole connection.
Non Attachment Saved Me
For most of my life, I’ve intellectually understood and accepted non attachment as a useful mindset. But to be real… I’ve kept that practice at arm’s length pretty consistently, until almost three years ago.
In 2013, my life started smoothing out. I was in a rhythm with parenting, with my business, and with caring for my health. The challenges and hurdles seemed to be mostly in my rearview mirror, which I was so grateful for.
It also seemed like the universe was finally saying to my dearest friend, and me, that it was our time. We met in 1995 and quickly became deep, close friends. It felt almost instant; we talked every day, we supported each other's dreams, comforted each other's fears, adventured together, and laughed constantly. There was deep love, but the timing was never right for anything more… until it was.
When that spark ignited in 2013 I felt like our lives and the universe had conspired to give us this gift, this happily ever after. We built that new dimension of love slowly, steadily, with intention and gratitude. We created what both of us always wanted, a relationship that was a sanctuary. We were in the flow, absolutely delighted and very attached to our story, to our marriage and to the family we blended. It felt like I had turned the corner from learning through pain to learning through love and peace. Everything finally fit, and together we were creating our dreams in the present and our plans and dreams for the future.
We knew each other through and through. We’d witnessed so many of each other's life chapters that the security, the certainty felt unshakable. I knew him as a whole human, I witnessed his shadow and he witnessed mine. I wasn’t naive about the challenges we would face, I was fairly certain there might be several, and that’s what added to my security, it seemed realistically real.
And it was real, until it wasn’t. Until the one thing I would have bet my life wouldn’t happen, happened. It fractured our marriage instantly and completely. I was in total shock. My mind couldn’t make sense of what was happening. We’d done everything right. We built our relationship with honesty and intention. I couldn’t reconcile that lived experience with what I had discovered. We were supposed to be each other’s happily ever after. Overnight, almost everything I knew about my life outside of my work, was gone.
That’s when I began to live into the power of non attachment. If I clung to the story of the life I had, and the identity wrapped up in that life, I knew I wouldn’t emotionally survive it, it truly felt like non attachment was the only lifeline I had to hold on to to rebuild myself.
I had to live into flow, not just talk about it, I had to release the certainty and security of the structure of my life and allow so much of it to fall away.
I had to let go of the story that our love and our marriage was the calm after so many storms.
I kept thinking about how I felt like the winter trees I often talk about in my work, their essence is laid bare, and I tried to center myself in the beauty of that essence, the rawness and vulnerability of it.
I let non attachment begin to work its magic. I didn’t have to know who I was becoming or where I was going, just like the trees, I could just be in the day I was in. I could let what showed up in the present be enough. I could notice what remained. And in that raw vulnerability I started growing new roots, a few new branches and some tiny leaves. I started finding a rhythm in my life on my own. I was gaining confidence in my ability to accept my life on life's terms in this new chapter.
And then about 18 months into that process, he died.
I felt like I was right back at square one. The grief leveled me emotionally. It felt like I had just gotten my sea legs, and suddenly I was back underwater, clinging to denial, I felt like I couldn’t bear accepting that he was gone.
He was still woven into every part of me. I hadn’t even finished making sense of what fractured us and I had to somehow make sense of the fact that he was gone.
I would not ever hear his booming voice again or his infectious laugh. I wouldn’t ever feel the sturdiness of his energy, or the warmth of his hand.
Because even though our life together had fractured, I still felt connected to his physical presence. Life invited me to release more.
Non attachment offered me a path to release the certainty and comfort his physical existence still offered me. Again, more deeply this time; I had to release the attachments to him, to our story and to the whys, if I wanted to get through the grief.
Non attachment allowed the waves of grief to knock me down.
Non attachment allowed me to release the fear of the grief, and instead let it transform me, into someone new, someone I’m just starting to get to know.
Non attachment opened me so I could really lean into the gift of the love that my grief honored.
Non attachment soothed my fears about what the future would look like by connecting me to the beauty of what was present in my life now so I could experience the freedom of trusting myself.
Non attachment taught me how to let go of the whys and lean into what is.
And non attachment gave me permission to throw away the rule book I was still secretly attached to and instead create a living breathing work of art through living my life with my eyes and heart open. Open to hold, to discover and to release, not attach to.
I’m starting to realize and believe that just as deeply as our love, marriage and life together healed me and held me; the loss of our life together and of him, is also healing me and holding me. It just looks and feels different now.
Coming Soon…
Connection through Creativity 🌿
A 6-week journey to reconnect with your creative flow, ease anxiety, and find clarity in what truly matters to you. Through guided art, writing, and mixed-media practices, you’ll explore self-expression, build confidence, and set intentions for the life you want to create.
No artistic experience needed, just bring your curiosity and an open heart.
Stay tuned for dates + details!
Maiden, Mother, Crone ✨
A workshop for women centered on integrating these archetypal influences into your life to deepen your understanding of yourself and your power
Everyone Is Creative: Reclaiming the Joy of Playful Expression
At some point, many of us begin to believe a quiet but persistent myth: I’m just not a creative person.
Maybe it came from a childhood comment, a comparison to someone else, or the belief that creativity must look a certain way—paintings in a gallery, a novel on a shelf, a flawless performance. But the truth is, creativity is not a talent reserved for the few. It’s a relationship we each hold—with curiosity, with play, with the deeper parts of ourselves.
Creativity Is Playful Connection
At its heart, creativity is a form of play. It asks us to wonder, to explore, to follow a thread without knowing where it leads. It’s not about being “good” at something. It’s about staying open.
Psychiatrist and author Dan Siegel speaks about the “plane of possibility”—a spacious state of mind where we can imagine, discover, and expand beyond our habitual patterns. Creativity is one of the most direct portals to this place. When we draw, write, move, or make music without judgment or agenda, we step into that plane of openness. And from there, healing becomes possible.
No Outcome Required
One of the most powerful shifts we can make is redefining success.
Creativity doesn’t need to produce a result to be worthwhile. The act of creating is the value. Whether it’s doodling in a journal, dancing in your living room, or writing a messy poem no one else will read, creativity reconnects us with the process of doing rather than proving.
This is where many women rediscover a part of themselves that’s been waiting quietly in the wings—permission to play, to feel, to express without needing it to “go somewhere.”
The Benefits of Cultivating Creativity
Rebuilding a relationship with your creative self can be transformative. It's not just about fun (though fun is wonderful!). It also offers:
Stress relief – creative activities soothe the nervous system and offer a sense of rhythm and presence.
Emotional processing – art and movement can express what words cannot, giving form to feelings that feel too big or too complex.
Energy and vitality – engaging with your imagination can re-energize your body and mind.
Integration of self – creativity helps bridge inner parts that may feel disconnected or unseen.
Exploration – it becomes a sacred practice of curiosity, inviting you to meet new aspects of yourself.
How to Begin Reconnecting with Your Creativity
There’s no one right way. Start where there’s a spark—or even a flicker. Some simple ways to begin:
Movement – gentle stretching, free dance, or walking while letting your thoughts wander
Writing – try stream-of-consciousness journaling, a short story, or even writing a letter to your younger self
Music or performance – hum, sing, act out a scene, or revisit an instrument you once loved
Visual art – doodle in your journal, paint on canvas, play with color and shape with no plan in mind
Give yourself permission to be imperfect. To begin. To play.
Creativity isn’t something you have to earn. It’s something you already hold within.
It’s your birthright. A gentle power that helps you feel, imagine, and come home to yourself.
And it’s never too late to begin again.
The Yin & Yang of Connection & Alonenss
I’m thrilled to notice the attention that connection is garnering, related to our mental health. It is true. We are relational beings and we need healthy consistent connections to not only survive but to also thrive. These connections feed our souls, hold our hearts and challenge our minds. A poverty of safe connections, especially over time, has an immense negative impact on a person’s sense of self and their ability to form and maintain safe relationships.
Yet, it is also true that we are living our lives alone, even if we are among others. Even when we feel seen and heard, valued and supported, we are the only ones inside our skin, having the experiences that we call our life. Existential philosophers like Kierkagaard and Sartre wrote extensively about these ideas in their works, generally saying that grappling with aloneness is an existential crisis all humans encounter.
Developing a strong conscious relationship with connection and aloneness cultivates a deeper awareness and trust in both ourselves and others; it becomes a guardrail to prevent veering off a cliff into hyper independence or faulty dependencies on other people or other things.
A few years ago, I experienced a family crisis and within 24 hours, a dear friend flew halfway across the country to be with me. She stood alongside me as I began to process the event and help my children absorb and process the event. She was with me at the start and end of each day for over a week. Her presence steadied me, comforted me and reminded me how we truly heal in relationship.
The day after she left, one of my sons had a sudden medical issue that necessitated immediate surgery. And I was alone. Not in every sense alone, there was hospital staff, and friends I was connecting with through text, but in the surgical waiting area at 1am, it was me and a sea of empty chairs. It was a sobering moment that felt like an opportunity to explore the hidden potential of aloneness in part, because of the stark contrast from the week before, when I felt seen, supported and held. So I sat with it, just like I invite my clients to do. I found it within my body; where that aloneness lived and how it communicated with me. I got curious about it and asked what it wanted me to know.
The answers weren’t deeply profound, or surprising. Instead, they were more intimate and grounding. Intimate because in my aloneness, I reconnected with the felt sense awareness that being alone, experiencing my unique life from my perspective, in that moment, felt sacred, like something to privately honor. Even though I was there physically with my son, he was experiencing the surgery alone and even though I had friends checking in; I was physically alone experiencing this event as his parent.
It felt grounding because even in the physical absence of people that love me and can support me, I felt their emotional presence, I felt all the love and support that they have poured into me. Also connecting to those truths, opened me to the sacred space available to me in that moment. The aloneness became centering; I could hear myself and I could listen. I could stay focused on his needs and I could trust the staff to do their jobs while I advocated for him.
I wonder how that experience may have been different if I had “gone into my head” and spun a narrative of isolation as opposed to being curious about the aloneness? I wonder what other choices I may have made if I needed to “get away” from the discomfort, if I had in various ways either abandoned myself or him or both of us in the experience?
What I do know is that the choices I did make, connected me more deeply to myself, more deeply to him (he recovered well) and more deeply to other relationships in my life. That feels like a conscious harmonizing of connection and aloneness, like the perfect salty and sweet snack.
Honoring the importance of safe connection while also honoring the sacred reality of aloneness feels like the harmonizing balance of yin and yang. Both are important - distinct in their value, yet together creating a grounding, steadying foundation. May each of you reclaim and reconnect to the beauty of safe connection and the hallowed ground of conscious aloneness in your own life.