It’s been about a year since I launched the Defy the Trend community. I had a strong sense of purpose, but not yet a clarity of vision. The purpose was to gather as many people as possible into a vibrant, growing community committed to turning their lives and the...
Perfection is not a thing. I’ve said this so many times to people I coach, train and support. But I’ve had to say it even more times to myself. My impulse to show up with my sh*t all together, not a hint of vulnerability, is strong. (For those of you who know the...
“The Great Awkward.” I stopped and clicked quickly on this title while scanning through researcher and storyteller Brené Brown’s “Dare to Lead” podcast list the other day. She and her sister Barrett Guillen, who work together, shared raw and honest reflections on...
Presence. That’s the word that emerged when Sharon Salzberg, the well-known Buddhist meditation teacher and author, invited us to reflect on dharma. The Buddhist concept, which can be understood in a wide variety of ways, can mean that which sustains us or what we can...
My instinct always is to rush to judgment. I love pondering what someone else’s ulterior motives might be, making up an entire backstory as if I’m going to play that person in the TV adaptation of their life. I shut down and believe that they can never change or won’t...
The other day, I put my car key fob in a sweatshirt pocket and washed it with the laundry. Fortunately, the fob still worked after I dried it out and put in a new battery. The next day, I went to the grocery store only to discover that I left my wallet at home. The...
Last week I attended a community conversation at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio, on the topic of loneliness. The gathering was sponsored in part by the Ohio State University Interfaith Council (of which I am a member). Though I was very eager to...
This question came to me in a flash of revelation when I was reading about grind and hustle culture for a podcast conversation last week. I joined Noni Banks, one of my favorite entrepreneurs, on The Diva Movement’s Hustle and Grow Podcast to talk about grind culture....
Packing and preparing to get out of the apartment was a slow, arduous process. I used to be a lean, mean, packing machine. But for this work trip, my first in two years, I put my suitcase out three days before I had to leave because I wasn’t sure how long it would...
I went to my delightful massage therapist earlier this week. She asked what she should focus on, and I complained about my lower back – not typically a problem for me. I explained that a few weeks earlier I felt like the usual tightness in my outer hips had reached up...
There is no one right way to do anything, including yoga poses. For the past few weeks in my yoga class, I’ve been encouraging participants to really make their practice their own. I’ve taken some of the more intimidating yoga asanas (poses) and vary them for what...
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have heard me gush about an interview on the podcast “It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders” with Sarah Schulman, a journalist and member of ACT UP, a movement that fought the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. She has recently...
I’m a workaholic. It started in high school when I began taking on too many activities: theater and choir rehearsals, speech team competitions, college visits, high school newspaper deadlines. I learned to manage my own calendar because my mom could no longer...
When I've gained weight (as I have in the pandemic), I have a tendency to engage in some really negative self-talk about my body. Not out loud. To myself. I would never say these things to another human, but somehow it’s acceptable to say them to myself. Why?...
When I was young, I must have thought time was infinite. I mean – time is infinite in the grand scheme of the universe – but my ability to use the time I have available is very finite. When I was young, I would say yes to every activity and commitment that I wanted to...