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.

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.

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.

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.