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.
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.
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.
2023 In Review Using GLAD
Arriving at the end of another year invites us to focus on introspection and self reflection.
Rhythms and cycles are woven into every aspect of our lives, from the automatic rhythm of our breath as we inhale and exhale, to the continuous cycles of the sun, the moon and the seasons. We spend our lives entwined in these patterns, many times not exploring the power of consciously partnering with them. (And yes, this might be a teaser of a project I’m working on).
Using the end of a calendar year to reflect on your experiences of yourself and your life, the patterns, structure, choices and results, is a powerful tool for partnering with the ending and beginning of a new yearly cycle. It can also be an overwhelming exercise to consider, with thoughts similar to, “How do I review a whole year? I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning.” Finding a manageable and meaningful way to begin a self reflection process can be challenging.
2023 was a transformational year for me, and even though I have developed introspective and self reflective practices for decades, I was finding that reflecting on my year in a meaningful way felt TOUGH. I kept listing events and experiences, which was helpful in acknowledging the content of the year but it wasn’t supporting my goal to find meaning.
So I pulled out an OLD mindfulness tool; one I included in the first workshop I created years ago, Mindfulness 101. The exercise is called GLAD and is significantly beneficial for general mood management and specifically depressive tendencies. The exercise as originally intended suggests that you acknowledge;
One small experience you are GRATEFUL for that day
One small thing that you LEARNED that day
One small ACCOMPLISHMENT for that day
And one small DELIGHT you experienced that day.
It’s effective when practiced consistently because it broadens your perception of your experience and opens you to notice daily experiences that bring meaning and purpose to your life. I decided to adapt it as a way to reflect on my year. I stayed with the basic approach and allowed myself to be flexible about how I described each category. If I wanted to add it more for each or wanted to summarize a category by describing a theme, then I did that. Here’s a bit of what I came up with.
This year, what I am grateful for is the grounded awareness that I can trust myself to live within my values, even when it is painful to do so. That doesn't mean I make “right” decisions, rather it means that I can trust myself to both be responsible for the decisions I make and change course when my values indicate that I need to. The grounded awareness of that trust has liberated me to take more risks and to be more vulnerable, trusting myself to care for myself no matter what the outcome.
This year, I learned that the love we offer ourselves and others as well as the love that is offered to us, is what can make the difference between surviving unexpected challenges and losses and learning, growing and thriving through those same difficulties. Love as a force, filled in the gaps when I reached my capacity, it lightened my load when I could hold no more, it witnessed with kind compassion, my grief and it preserved my connection to hope.
This year I accomplished a business restructuring to align with my current needs and I was able to make real progress on a decades long whisper in my heart, what I’ve come to refer to as a heart seed, this seed was planted during 2023 and is currently growing. It has stretched me and unsettled me and excited me. As all heart centered pursuits tend to do.
This year I delighted in gathering my first crop of dahlia seeds from my own harvest. I delighted in a few spontaneous and fun trips that made my belly ache from laughing and my feet hurt from dancing. And I delighted in a few new relationships I cultivated this year that reawakened some dormant, neglected aspects of myself that I deeply love.
If you are looking to start a relationship or perhaps deepen your relationship with New Year’s reflection, using GLAD can support you in both broadening your perspective on your year while also helping you to find meaning in your experiences this year.
Looking ahead to what is beginning; in 2024 I’m looking forward to offering a 4 part talk series aligned with each season, the first, Harnessing the Power of Winter Stillness will be offered sometime in late January. Details about the event and how to sign up are on the way!
I’m also looking forward to so many additional creative projects both within the practice and in my personal life, and as always, I’m looking forward to walking alongside many of you as you rediscover your voice and reclaim the power of using it in support of all your selves, past, present and future.
I wish each of you a new year filled with deep authentic connection to yourself and others and real moments of joy as you continue discovering and rediscovering how beautiful you are in mind body and spirit.
Harvest Season
Let’s be real, it’s what we look forward to in our gardens and in our lives, especially if we have planted seeds with intention, care, support and weathered the storms and uncertainty of the germination and growing process.
When I think about harvest season metaphorically, I think about heart centered seeds. Heart seeds of dreams, values and hopes. Harvest season rewards us with evidence of those heart centered energy investments. It confirms our hopes and fuels our dreams.
We celebrate fruition.
Unless you are experiencing a disappointing harvest in your garden or life. One with depleted blooms, injured or diseased crops, crops that either never germinated or died earlier in their growth cycle. Those harvest seasons tempt us to avoid reflection or even connection in any sense with what contributed to a harvest we didn’t want or expect. Of course there are factors that are outside of our control, even if we shelter our gardens filled with the seeds of our heart from storms. Even if we provide extra supports to help them weather the storms, sometimes that’s not enough and the storms will wipe out a crop despite our best efforts to protect it, to help it survive, and give it a chance to thrive.
Those are heartbreaking cycles that also provide us with opportunities to let go; to practice nonattachment to outcomes and stay engaged with a heart centered process.
Disappointing harvests are also opportunities to reflect on how you may have contributed to an outcome you didn’t anticipate.
Reflecting on your decisions and behaviors with questions like; Did I plant with intention? Or was it more with distraction? Did I consistently attune to the needs of those heart seeds in the garden, learning, fertilizing, watering, and supporting? Or did I engage in a more haphazard way, when I felt like it, because, I was busy? Was I disengaged because I was growing something someone else wanted that I don’t even care that much about?
Reflecting on your personal contribution to the harvest you are reaping builds capacity for growth, it desensitizes you to paralyzing shame by reinforcing your humanness, your flawed nature and it builds self trust. Self reflection when paired with personal accountability can become rocket fuel to build consistency in heart centered endeavors. When you become more intentional not only about what you plant but why you are planting it you then are more motivated to support those seeds into a bountiful blooming season.
This month I’ve entered a second harvest season within a year. The first, was a heartbreaking harvest season, that required acceptance of storm damage the heart seeds in this garden couldn’t withstand and reflection on how my own decisions in the planting stages influenced the probability of the disappointing harvest. It was a reckoning in which I came to understand that the new knowledge I was implementing in crop support, fertilization, and expansion, wasn’t ever going to produce the results I hoped for with this heart centered garden, the soil it was planted in was not going to adapt and evolve.
So, I changed course and utilized that new knowledge in planting new seeds, while at the same time staying consistent in caring for the emerging blooming season of one of my oldest and most heart centered seed crop.
And this November I’m celebrating the incredible blooming cycle of this aspect of my garden. I’ve witnessed the results of authentic tenacity and the true belonging that accompanies that steadfast commitment to heart seeds planted decades ago, consistently cared for, even when the care was uninformed, even ignorant to important care factors that would support the seed growth cycle more comprehensively.
These seeds still thrived.
In the blooms, I saw the strength of the roots, the impact of the learning, the fertilizing and most awe inspiring, the unique expression of these flowers in the world. It frankly took my breath away…
To witness the expression of who these blooms are separate from me and yet inextricably linked to my intention and care is an experience that confirms my beliefs in the power of love. It strengthened my own roots as a person and my vision as an intentional gardener of dreams. I’m also beginning to witness some of the newer seeds germinating into exciting seedlings of potential.
Harvest season is of course both/and.
It’s a season to celebrate the bountiful harvest and to grieve the disappointing losses. Always learning and celebrating both for the wisdom and growth potential they invite us into relationship with. What is your current harvest season about? And how are you planting your heart seeds for the next harvest cycle? Take a look at your contributions to both, it matters and so do you.
Choose to Bloom
In the middle of a recent Reiki attunement, regular attunements are a vital aspect of my self care as a therapist, I heard the sentence “Choose to bloom.” so clearly in my mind. Although it’s typical for me to get clarity about various aspects of my life during these attunements, singular sentences that ground the entire session are a fairly new trend, in another recent attunement I heard, “Hold the line, and stand your ground”, but more on that in another blog.
I sunk down into the concept of the sentence, choose to bloom, and overlaid it onto experiences I've had as a flower grower, experiences I’ve witnessed as a therapist and experiences I’ve had and witnessed because I’m a human, living a life. The powerful truth in that simple sentence was deeply apparent across all of them.
As a flower grower, (and social worker) I understand the importance of soil. Soil is the foundation that nourishes the potential of the flower seed. If the soil is depleted or imbalanced, the seed will not absorb enough nutrients to germinate and grow into its potential, much like people. So I care for the soil I plant my flowers in. Once the seeds germinate and become seedlings, they need water, sunlight, extra nutrients and support during various stages of growth and development, again similar to people.
I take pride in the care and attention I provide my flowers across all of their growth cycles. But there comes a time in a flower’s development where fertilizing it, or attending to it in other ways, creates confusion in the flower’s energy and can lead to the flower not blooming, it may bud, but the bloom won’t mature and open. Many times, in fact most of the time, when growing flowers, this is where the magic is so loud and spectacular that it highlights the truth of that sentence, you have to choose to bloom. Overnight, in the secrecy of darkness, many flowers will open their blooms to greet you in the morning sunlight, others begin in the morning with a bud and by the end of a sunny day, have opened into a full beautiful bloom. On their own, they harnessed all the growth that gave them the energy and understanding, the support and timing to bloom. It truly feels like they do choose to bloom.
I think we are the same. At some point, we understand the soil of our lives, its issues, its beneficial aspects and at that point we can amend the soil, enrich it and rebalance it so we can grow, heal, nurture and support ourselves. That’s when we begin a blooming cycle. If we become too attached to healing, repairing, nurturing, we will confuse our energies and delay our ability to bloom into the full potential of what we have been growing in ourselves and in our lives. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be another season of growing and healing, rather it means, we also have to allow ourselves to bloom into the expression of the growth that has already occurred.
How do you recognize when it’s time?
Essentially, your gut knows, that deep inner wisdom and your connection to it, knows. You’ve done the repairs, you can see and document the work you’ve done because there is evidence EVERYWHERE, and you probably feel a little afraid or maybe doubtful to step into the fullness of that work, which is the bloom. It’s potential energy that is able to be expressed in a beautiful way in the physical world. Every part of you knows, the ingredients, the structures, the space is there, you just have to choose it.
That’s when you’re in your blooming cycle.
That’s when it's time.
If this resonates with you, I encourage you to choose to bloom. Trust that you’re ready. It’s time, you deserve to feel the full expression of all the work you’ve done and the world needs to see your beautiful bloom.
2021 Reflections: Learning How To Lean In & Unlearning The Resistance In Letting Go
This year I’ve struggled with how to authentically and accurately write a year end reflection; mainly because it wasn’t coming out in “the form I’m used to”, so I let go of what it “needed” to be and allowed it to be what it is. This year, I’m sharing some things I’ve learned and relearned, what I’m letting go of more readily and what I’m leaning into more often. Because noticing life in this way, doesn’t feel rigid and restrictive; instead, it feels open and more honest.
What have I learned and relearned?
That adapting to change with openness fuels creativity and lessens anxiety.
That I value the willingness to continually grow even more than I realized.
That for me, right now, acceptance is more useful than forgiveness. It is a process that liberates me from pain; and includes acknowledgement and accountability for the harm done.
That fear and shame create so much pain and disconnection.
That I love listening to podcasts.
That interdependence is the truth. Independence is an illusion. Conscious interdependence fosters deep belonging.
That chronic suppression of self is the loss I grieve over most in my life.
That kindness is active and courageous. And kindness is not niceness.
What am I letting go of more?
Perfectionism.
Overfunctioning.
Certainty.
Expectation.
Obligation.
Shame.
What am I leaning into?
Uncertainty.
Hope.
Creativity.
The magic of flowers.
Acceptance.
Yoga.
Reading.
Imagination.
Possibility.
Music.
To our client community, thank you from the very center of my heart for inviting me to walk alongside you, it is a sacred invitation that I honor.
To our social media community, thanks for taking your valuable time to look at our stories, watch our videos and engage with our posts. We work hard to bring valuable content because we value you and the importance of your energy investment on behalf of your mental health.
To the Fredericksburg community, we get to work in, thanks for taking such good care of us for another year. We sure do love being here.
Happy New Year everyone.
Building Security With Both / And
Parts of Covid, at least the lockdown isolating phases of Covid, are beginning to shift AND we are also still in the midst of the ongoing pandemic; navigating reentry, recovery, and the new variant. We have resolved some of the initial uncertainty associated with this devastating illness AND we are still uncertain about how we are going to gather again safely. In my personal life, I’m dealing with the complexity of Covid in the varying roles I have in my life with confidence AND trepidation, with curiosity AND with fear, with hope AND with grief. The ways my family and practice colleagues are approaching similar issues related to Covid BOTH resembles what I am choosing AND differs from my decisions.
All of it is real.
It’s complicated and so often in an effort to gain more control and more certainty we rush to find ways to feel more in control and more certain. That’s where Both/And comes in handy and that is why I chose to write this blog now. Because we are all in varying ways navigating how our lives are still somewhat isolated AND how to re engage with work, school and others, safely.
If you are working with me or have worked with me in the past then you’ve heard me say BOTH/AND, probably to the threshold of irritation. I use this concept EVERY SINGLE DAY.
It’s that important.
…In fact, if I were on a desert island and could only take one perceptual tool with me, it would be this one.
I’ll explain why. ..
Either/or thinking also known as dichotomous thinking creates a false dichotomy, often in the service of finding certainty. It artificially narrows our experiences and our feelings into this or that categories in an effort to increase a sense of security, by thinking we understand and can decide with certainty about complex aspects of our humanity, aspects that often defy certainty.
The problem with dichotomous thinking though is that it doesn't accurately reflect feelings and experiences. But both/and does.
Both/and thinking, also known as non-dualistic thinking tolerates uncertainty by allowing you to make room for all of “it”, whatever “it” is. Both/And opens us up to the possibility that you both love your partner and feel stifled in the relationship, which can be scary to acknowledge AND also liberating. You can enjoy the security of your job AND crave a more creative pursuit. You can appreciate the companionship of treasured friends AND be annoyed by their personality quirks. You can feel grief and joy in the same space or experience disappointment and gratitude; which is a more accurate lens to explore ourselves and our relationships with.
So how can you apply this thinking tool to your life as it relates to Covid?
Notice where you feel uncertainty in your life right now. Maybe it's related to varying vaccine statuses in your workplace and the policies around that. Maybe it's connected to school settings. Maybe it’s connected to immediate and extended family situations. Maybe even all of the above!
Acknowledge ALL of your feelings related to the uncertainty. Especially if they seem in conflict with each other. Acknowledge, don’t judge or criticize.
Consciously and intentionally hold space for all of the feelings WITHOUT judgement. Here are a few examples of what that might look like. I’m happy I’m vaccinated because I feel more safe AND I am worried about my kids not being vaccinated. I’m scared to return to the workplace because I don’t feel secure about the policies in place AND I’m looking forward to seeing more people outside of my home. I am angry that I’m still isolated from parts of my previous life that I enjoyed AND I’m really disappointed in how my family is responding to the situation.
For me, currently, a both/and statement is; I’m grateful that my family is vaccinated AND I’m concerned about how the Delta variant is impacting everyone regardless of vaccination status. Another is, I’m excited to gather with folks again AND concerned about how to do that safely. Another related to work is, I’m grateful we have a practice management system that can allow us to work remotely if need be AND I’m concerned about how the ever changing landscape is affecting our clients.
Opening up to the complexity of uncertain situations using this approach, counter intuitively CAN increase our security, maybe not in the moment, but certainly longer term because it’s honest and it's real. So this approach helps us build distress tolerance, helps us build self trust and helps us build self confidence; all of which foster resiliency. And resiliency is what fuels hope. And hope fuels belonging. Which is what we all are actually looking for when we are struggling to find certainty. I think it’s actually more about a safe, secure place to belong in the uncertainty.
Mindset Obstacles to Rest & Play
When I was in graduate school pursuing my masters degree in clinical social work, I was also working, doing a field placement for my degree and raising two small kids on my own. Needless to say, my plate was OVER FULL. Many times I would find myself overwhelmed with papers due and exhausted.
At those intersections, I'd often share with my then partner about how tired I was and how I “needed to just pull another all nighter and get through it,” that I “couldn’t afford the time to sleep.” He’d very kindly and gently remind me in those moments that when I supported myself in getting a full, restful night’s sleep I’d often wake up with an intuitive approach to a paper or project and more energy and focus to get it done.
Even though there was a part of me that knew this was true, that understood why it was true, I still often resisted his suggestion. My resistant thoughts usually took the form of “I’m behind where I should be in my life, so I can’t” or “As long as I have papers and projects due, I shouldn’t rest or play.” I could only consider those as options when all “my stuff” was done.
Of course, none of that is rational or reasonable, but it sure did feel challenging to choose to care for myself, to choose a good night’s sleep, to choose an afternoon of fun when my kids were gone and I was off work, because well, that was prime no distraction time. Inevitably, I regretted the times I pushed myself too hard and appreciated when I allowed moments and pockets of rest and enjoyment because they replenished my spirit and restored my focus.
As I dug deeper into that mindset I realized it was based in worth, and specifically a hierarchy of worth. If I could demonstrate that I was worthy, ie, I had all my ducks in a straight row, then I deserved rest and fun, if I didn’t have those ducks lined up, no rest or fun for me. It was a sophisticated system of denying my humanity and fusing my worth with productivity, which is a recipe for loneliness and burnout. At the core, it was a conditional relationship with worthiness, or what Brene Brown means when she says, “We are hustling for our worthiness.”
Rest and play are essential aspects of our lives. When we rest, our minds and bodies detox and refuel, our body literally takes out the cellular “trash” and works to optimize our system for the next day. Similarly, our brains consolidate memories and learning, offload stress and repair important structures and functions.
When we allow ourselves to have fun, we diminish our allostatic load, a fancy way of saying we reduce our stress quite a bit. When we are laughing and doing activities we enjoy, alone and with others, we connect to our creativity, we broaden our lens of possibility and we reinforce hope.
So how can you begin to open up to a deeper relationship with rest and play?
Start by noticing and identifying the resistant thoughts about rest and enjoyment in your life. As you begin to notice them, a theme will likely emerge. Common themes are worthiness and belonging. We aren’t worthy so we don’t deserve a break or we are inherently damaged so we don’t belong to the group who can rest and enjoy life. Sometimes both themes appear, or other themes similar in nature arise.
Once you have insight into the theme of resistance you can mindfully reframe your thoughts and develop baby step action plans. For example, if the theme is centered in your unworthiness a resistant thought may be something like; I still have important work on my to-do list so I can’t take a break. In that moment, breathe and kindly shift that thought to something like; resting is important and allows me to replenish my energy, there will always be important things on my to-do list. This type of reframe works because it doesn’t ignore that you have competing priorities to manage. It acknowledges the importance of prioritizing rest to SUPPORT you in navigating your other priorities.
Additionally, taking a baby step approach toward rest and play helps you to manage the inherent discomfort involved in changing patterns. We feel comfort in the familiar so small incremental changes can often feel more manageable.
Allowing yourself 30 minutes to chat with a treasured friend, choosing a 15 minute break for some herbal tea, watching the movie you’ve been wanting to see for “awhile now”, are steps that allow you to practice choosing rest and play without experiencing overwhelming stress and anxiety. Over time you can build your rest and play muscles up to increase the time and opportunities to benefit from these restorative practices until they become a part of each day and a consistent practice that affirms you are enough exactly as you are, you are worthy of fun and rest and you belong.