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Welcome to Golden Acorns

I believe growth happens between words and actions. That there is a golden space that connects meaning between the lines of our individual story – both our external story and the one that plays in our head – and how we show up in the world. As a preacher’s kid I associate this golden space with faith. A spiritual link that makes us whole. Not just whole individually but whole as a community. 

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Shells from the letter G on the sand by ocean waves

A Walk with Dad

Yesterday I enjoyed a long walk on the beach with dad.

Nearly a 90 minute discussion.

Questions. Ponderings. Silence.

The usual when we’re together.

We strolled slowly observing all that nature offers … a moon that manages our water from a far… an ocean that houses many and provides delicious food to others… clouds that delight and warn… soft soothing sand that can turn into hot coals under the sun… sea oats that wave like plumes on a Derby Day hat.. the cry of a seagull and a squeal of a child both in delight from a beach snack.

As we neared the island’s end, we moved toward the water; a new section exposed at low tide. There our conversation quieted as the hunting began.

Sea shells.

Some exposed. Some hidden.

Various colors and sizes.

Unique sea offerings, each beautiful.

“Oh, look at this one!”

“Check this one out.”

“Ooooooh, look what I found”

“Isn’t this one beautiful?”

And so it went till I had two handfuls and whispered, “this is enough.”

I looked around the shoreline and saw a raised mound of sand. Perfect. Smooth. Just above the rising tide.

I positioned each shell. Moved a few around. Looked again as I squatted at the water’s edge.

It was good.
It was right.
It was fitting.

I stood and watched as the water encroached more and more.

Our walk was nice; they always are.

There is both a sense of being buoyed up and anchored down when I’m with him.

Sure of self. At ease. Loved.

My tears poured, salting the waves that washed apart my shrine as I stood alone.

“I miss you”

Feet on sidewalk next to start drawing

July 2025 Quote: Being Where My Feet Are

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For July 2025, my quote was: “Being Where My Feet Are.”  

I’m once again in physical therapy. Adjusting and rebuilding my body through dry needling, physical manipulation, stretches, exercises, stretchy bands, weights, and the damn foam roller. Such precise focus on my body – and getting the chain of events to work better together with intention and muscle memory – shows me just how disconnected I am from it. I wear my body every day, but with such little thought.

Here are the quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught the attention of my head and heart as I lived in the “backcountry of my soul”:

  • It may take a lifetime to unwind you
  • Grief reveals and reweaves
  • Beneath the ache, something radical is at work
  • Chaos wrapped in melody
  • In spaces where difference and tenderness can coexist
  • On the day each of you were born, you were covered in the dust of the first-day creation; you were forged out of the most brilliant of celestial fires; never take for granted all of that radiates in you; you were born to blaze – don’t forget
  • A vigilant witness to the magic of everything
  • Teach us how to live tender but not undone; Help us carry the weight of this world to you—not on us
  • Become a living witness to the million beautiful curiosities of your life
  • There are some people who have sun inside
  • Someone left fingerprints on your heart so brightly, the light still catches on them
  • That you lived a moment so fully its echo still finds its way back into our lungs
  • God, please put my feet on the path of your will
  • Change is grief
  • We write to taste life twice—in the moment and in retrospect
  • Plant seeds in the garden of your own mind

If physical therapy, yoga, and mindfulness have taught me anything it’s just how disconnected I am from myself. How much of my body and mind are on autopilot … or checked out completely. These practices also show me – time and time again – just how much wisdom is in my body.

All that it stores. All that it communicates. All that it makes possible.

It’s an immense source of knowledge, as well as an articulate warning system.

My most priceless commodity that I often lug around rather than listen to.

These mind-body centered practices also show me how uncomfortable it can be, to be with myself – my body. Each intentional visit shows me a new internal landscape. The aches I find from loss. The emotional landmines waiting patiently. The pockets of pixie dust left by love. The darkness of doubt. The electrical crackle of new ideas. The constant, soft murmur of faith. The deep in my DNA exhaustion. The tension-formed boulders I carry. The fragments of others I store for rainy days. The golden thread that ties me from the earth to the stars, connected to something more than the arteries, veins, organs, muscles, and bones that are my being.

My body is both a map of and guide to my life’s journey.

A map in constant formation.

Storing the past. Absorbing the now. Adjusting for next.

The map of a body – a being – that is still evolving.

Here’s to being a better map reader.

Tree branches in pond

Practice

I started yoga about 5 months after my father died. I recently got an email from the studio congratulating me for completing 100 yoga classes.

Getting to this point has been, well, a bit mystical–and very educational.

Following dad’s death after a decade with Alzheimer’s and four months with my mom, I sought to re-enter my life, but nothing felt comfortable. My old routine felt like it belonged to someone else. Someone I wasn’t familiar with anymore.

For a while I thought, “give it time, you’ve been through a lot” or “be patient, it’ll come back to you.” What the “it” was, I wasn’t sure.

Then it began.

The whispering to and from my body.

“Settle in and get reacquainted with yourself.”

The pull to and from my spirit

“Be still. Slow down and just be with yourself.”

Then finally, the acceptance to listen to where my inner golden acorn wanted me to be.

“OK, I’ll give it a try.”

While I’d not had a practice before this, every cell in my being called out for yoga. It was a pretty odd sensation… a gravitation pull…  a force at work at my cellular level.

I questioned it.

Avoided it. Mocked it. Dismissed it.

But in the end, I trusted it.

I found a local studio I could walk to. Signed up for a class. And began my practice.

Throughout my 100 hours, I’ve learned a lot. More than just poses…

  • My tongue is a stress barometer. The more force it exerts on the roof of my mouth the more I’m trying to control the situation (needlessly).
  • Breathing is magic, and a full body activity. It’s also the only thing that moves my shoulders away from my ears when I’m tense (and when I don’t realize I am).
  • The concept of a “practice” gives me permission to wander through my body and see what it’s up for each day with anticipation and enjoy whatever occurs—rather than judge it against myself or others.
  • Being upside down can be just the perspective that is needed to recalibrate in world of chaos.
  • Balance is not about being still but rather about making micro movements to stay steady.

As I’ve shared with some, starting yoga in my 50’s has been a humorous and humbling experience. But I cannot deny that what guided me there was right. I needed to get to know the new me. As I explored her through a steady yoga practice, I found more patience, acceptance, questions, bravery, tenderness, and peace. She was different… is different… and she’s OK.

More grounded in some ways while untethered in others.

Standing, breathing, stretching, falling, and practicing yoga has helped me realize that while I lost an external drishti of my dad (a focal point to help center you in a position), there are many more inside of me to draw upon in the greatest balancing practice of all – life.

The whisper. The pull. They just called me back to my center. To practice myself more.

“Well, hey there!”

Emily sits on a brass statue of a duck in Boston

June 2025 Quote: Let’s Get Lost in the Backcountry of Our Souls

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For June 2025, my quote was: “Let’s get lost in the backcountry of our souls.”  

I love a good plan… well, more specifically, I love a good “to do” list. They help me get the things done that matter to me. They give me a wonderful sense of control (which I know is false and fleeting). They give structure to my world that continually seems like it’s falling apart—or at best like an old car you hope will start when you get it first thing in the morning. It gives me direction when all too often I feel as thou I’m treading water in a vast ocean. They also give me normalcy, mundaneness which I especially welcomed after dad died. An anchoring, tangible item I can hold in my hand that brings me into the present moment when the swirl inside my head and heart blurs so much as the world spins.  

Here are the quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught the attention of my head and heart as I lived in the “backcountry of my soul”:

  • The Universe only pretends to be made of matter, secretly it is made of love
  • What is sometimes called “loss of focus” or “loss of motivation” is often accumulated fatigue
  • Your calm matters more than your answers
  • When you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have
  • May your vibes shift the whole damn frequency of the room when you walk in
  • Be brave enough to start at something new
  • This single grain of cosmic sand contains infinite wonder
  • These holes in our hearts are holy sites and we should treat them as such
  • I wish you could see what I see; it’s all such joyful chaos
  • Chasing the fringe of infinity
  • I want to become a river; I want to flow into wonder
  • Intermission is over
  • Daydream with me a forest made of our prayers we thought were being unanswered—but were just growing roots

A few years ago, a sister-friend surprised me with a trip to one of her favorite cities, Boston. She planned it all out so I’d get to see all the tourist favorites like the “Make Way for Ducklings” statue, “one if by land and two if by sea” church, the Beacon Hill Bookstore with Paige the squirrel mascot, and one of our shared favorites, the Foo Fighters. This trip was both adventure and salve as it occurred a few months after I left mom’s and merged back into life following dad’s death.

We romped all over and I was grateful to be in a new place with no attached memories.

We followed my friend’s activity plan building memories as we walked, ate, laughed, photographed, and drank together with ease… until we missed the ferry and our plan disintegrated. What emerged from a missed checkmark on our itinerary was a phrase that opened up the rest of our weekend to the unknown and one I rely on to this day to help me navigate through, beyond, and in spite of my plan.

“It’s not the adventure we planned, but it’s the adventure we didn’t know we needed.”

I pass this phrase on in hopes that it gives you acceptance of the moment in you’re in and the freedom to forge ahead into the unknown with curiosity, passion, hope, and ease.     

This is, after all, your adventure. Make the most of it.  

Emily next to sign that reads "this is the place"

May 2025 Quote: The Rare & Unique Combination of…

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For May 2025, my quote was: “You are the rare and unique combination of what was and the bright possibility of what can be.”  

More and more, I feel like I’m in a weird middle place. The past ways don’t fit as well – sometimes feeling like a tight shrunk sweater that restricts me and other times like meeting a friend from high school that you didn’t stay in touch with, you recognize them and remember the great old feelings, but the connection is gone. Candidly, it seems like it would be easier if the old “what was” came back into vogue. That I could slide back into that favorite pair of jeans again if you will. But then again, the “possibility of what can be” pulls me forward with trepidation and curiosity.

Here are the quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught the attention of my head and heart as I lived with the inspirational phrase “You are the rare and unique combination of what was and the bright possibility of what can be”:

  • Life is not a fist but an open hand waiting for another hand to enter it into friendship
  • Think higher, feel deeper
  • Be responsible for the energy you bring into the room
  • Write the ache; Write the awe; Write the in-between
  • Give yourself the chance to go beyond what they’ve named you to be
  • You’re not behind, you’re becoming
  • This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted, and shaky – that’s called “liberation”
  • Remember who you are – a child born with a piece of the sky in your pockets and thunder in your voice
  • I wonder who I might become without all these heavy things I carry? I wonder who I am becoming because of them?
  • Love me the way the wind does the chime
  • The eye won’t see what the mind doesn’t know
  • Turns out not knowing might be the holiest feeling I’ve ever had
  • You’re clearly living your life’s purpose
  • Our skin isn’t a border between us – it’s a shared holy garment
  • You cannot stop sorrow birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from building a nest in your hair
  • There’s a lot of people out there waiting to experience your heart
  • Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way
  • Who knew it could be so incredibly healing to just stay still and listen
  • Dancing through waves of stardust
  • Be interested rather than interesting
  • Weeping is a state of temporary enlightenment
  • A calming rain on the raw flames of my grief
  • What a gift it was that the Universe brought me back to the only place I needed to be
  • Wrapped in reckless joy

A year ago, I began yoga. Returning to 5 days a week of my beloved Orange Theory not only felt daunting after a nearly 2-year absence as I’d focused on my father’s Alzheimer’s, but also not fitting any more. As I tried to cajole myself back into “what was” (my favorite 6:15am Orange Theory) I kept hearing the call to yoga. Yoga seemed daunting too but necessary in a way I couldn’t explain. So, I stepped into the 7am “possibility of what can be” with yoga at Refresh, a neighborhood studio.

As I walked past Orange Theory on my way to yoga, a sense of guilt came over me. Like I was cheating on it with yoga. I felt less than as I thought about all I couldn’t do under the orange lights. I felt lost as something I loved and brought me joy no longer struck a chord. But I walked on into possibility listening to what called me forward.

Practice

As I’ve shared with friends, yoga has been humbling, humorous, and helpful. More of an internal sweat and workout in many ways. I realized my spirit needed to work some things out… while my body played along. Such as how to breathe again. Not the shallow quick hyper vigilant breaths of chaos, fear, and loss, but the deep stabilizing breaths that shift the brain from an alert-centered doing lens to an accepting being perspective. Or, how the tongue is my body’s built in stress detector, shoved up against the roof of my mouth, willing me upright in complex moments or yoga poses. And a big one, that practice is not just for little league, but for life. Looking at everyday activities as “practice” helped take the edge off of being in the unknown middle. Each moment was an opportunity where I could try to be more present, more curious, and with a more playful attitude – after all it was just practice.

This past week, yoga revealed a milestone lesson: that the practice in the middle brings about “the bright possibility of what can be.”

Bend

For a year, I’ve done various poses 3-4 days a week. I looked at each asana (pose) separately. This week at the start of class the yogi said the class would prepare us all to do “wheel pose” (aka, back bend or Chakrasana). I didn’t pay it much mind as that is an advanced pose to me. I just practiced each pose in that class as I always did. At the end, we laid on our mat and she talked us through positioning for wheel pose. I followed her words, pushed with my arms. Nothing. She proclaimed, “I know you’re all strong enough” — seeing possibility I did not.

She then offered a modification. We took our mats and blocks to the wall, and she gave us an optional way to move into wheel. We went one at a time, everyone applauding when a person achieved the back bend – and also when they didn’t but practiced getting there. I wanted to try. I let others go first thinking running out of time would help me avoid having to try and fail. I then went for it with the yogi next to me. With a big breath and relaxed tongue, I did it. All the way up. Both the pose and accomplishment felt delightful. I was there in wheel!

It was then that I realized it was the in between time – consistent practice, exploration, and modification – that prepared me for the next… and what a “rare and unique combination of what was and the bright possibility of what can be” being in the middle could be.

Emily stands at "7 Magic Mountains" art in Las Vegas

April 2025 Quote: Likeable Badass

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For April 2025, my quote was: “Likeable badass.”  

As someone who focuses on words for a living, I tend to pay attention when the phrase “likeable badass” arrives via text at 8am on a Friday of a long week full of hard questions and emotional fraught. I was worn out from another month of major career disruption and heartbreak as a consultant to the federal government. The message from a loved one who I admire, but don’t hear from or see often, both grounded and exhilarated me: “…I have to say you are 100% one of the people that comes to mind when I hear that phrase… have an awesome day and a wonderful weekend!!” As I read, and re-read the text, I took a mindful pause to simply sit with it and how I felt. Surprise. Wonder. Disbelief. Giddiness. Appreciation. Motivation. This random text. These two simple words. The corresponding electrical surge. This is why I constantly say, “words matter.” Little did I know that morning how much my perspective on “likeable badass” would change over the next 30 days.

Here are the quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught the attention of my head and heart as I lived with the inspirational phrase “likeable badass”:

  • How can I best show up for you?
  • Just do your job and then let go
  • A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song
  • This moment is sacred
  • Sometimes the trophy is atrophy
  • If you let yourself be blown to and fro, you lose touch with your root
  • Your gifts are meant to be in motion
  • Our emotional guidance system feels the magic of the world we operate in
  • A secret to happiness is to be as weird as you like and the wrong people will leave the party but the right ones will join the dance
  • So long as you have food in your mouth you have solved all questions for the time being
  • Looking for angels who are living among us counts as bird watching
  • Soul is the fingerprint of God that becomes the physical body
  • Peace, broken into pieces
  • It will be OK, because we will make it OK
  • When and where did I feel most whole today?
  • A little shimmer that says, “yes!”
  • When it comes to directing our energy, we have four options: to push, to pull, to pause, to allow

While I initially thought having the phrase “likeable badass” would give me extra gusto throughout the month, I quickly realized the phase shined a spotlight on others who embodied this moniker. It was as if having this phrase large at the top of my April calendar helped me see this trait in others in a new way as I supported my clients who are leaders in the federal government.  

I felt for a “likeable badass” who joined a video call without coming on camera and authentically said, “I cannot do this call today. It all hurts.” Then shared how vacant the building was the first day after significant staff cuts.

I noticed the “likeable badass” when the person expressed survivors’ guilt and asked, “Why am I still here when so many others got cut? Why do I have a job, and they don’t?”

I mourned for a “likeable badass” when a federal executive shared, “I put 25 years into my work to help others and it’s been wiped out.”

I consoled a “likeable badass” who calmly shared, “I’m sitting here for the third Friday, waiting to hear if my name is on the list for cuts while I implement the latest guidance. Everyone has their office packed up just in case.”

I admired a “likeable badass” when one stood up in a room of 40 other federal leaders at an educational event and asked, “How can I, as a leader, use my voice to effectively help my team when I don’t understand what is going on with the changes and why?”

I ached for the “likeable badass” when they commented, “I’m tired of seeing 50-year-old grown men cry at work.”

I cried for a “likeable badass” who said, “Between the new schedule and our lack of available day care, I’ll probably have to quit my job of 15 years — if I still have one.”

I appreciated a “likeable badass” who said to the entire division, “We’ve been training for this for years with our operational principles. We know how to work together and what’s important as a team. We’ll stick to this as we move forward together.”

I was inspired by a “likeable badass” who, at a table of five former federal employees, shared, “it’s so lonely looking for a job after you’ve been laid off” – opening the door to an honest discussion and shared resources.

Finally, at the end of the month I relished a “likeable badass” who told my executive leadership team, “It’s important that we pause, take a break, and then come back and regroup. Be sure to take time with your loved ones.”

These conversations, and many others throughout April, were hard to be a part of… nothing to solve, just presence to give.

These authentic federal leaders gave me a new standard by which I measure “likeable badass.” They showed genuine heart backed by deep expertise and a goal to improve the lives of all Americans. These leaders demonstrated a combination of pain, endurance, and compassion … continually showing up for their team and their mission, all while slogging through their own concerns and exhaustion. These leaders were human; acknowledging their – and others – emotions, rather than acting as if they don’t exist and have no impact in the office. These leaders did not have answers and moved forward into the abyss anyway … committed to do right by the oath of office they took, the people they oversee, and the mission they serve.

Badassery through and through.

dark clouds at beach with sunlight coming through

March 2025 Quote: And Here We Are. Breathing. Loving. Rising.

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For March 2025, my quote was: “And here we are. Breathing. Loving. Rising.”  

After having this quote-centered practice for five years, it still surprises me when a quote connects so well with my month in ways I couldn’t anticipate. This month the connection was eerie. Here are the quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught my attention last month as I breathed, loved, and rose:

  • Living in wonder is the rent I owe God
  • The cure was courage
  • You have to open your mouth and own your story
  • May you live long enough to know why you were born
  • Lost in the between space
  • Jump, and you’ll learn how to unfold your wings as you fall
  • We are not our thoughts, but the observers of them
  • Be a guide
  • We are the silent consciousness beyond
  • Find the right places to practice your gifts
  • Change requires choice; Choice comes from insight; Insight needs space
  • There is possibility in pain
  • Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field; I’ll meet you there
  • Our life is elastic
  • Everything softened with more possibility
  • Wishing wholeness and wonder
  • May you dance with the unknown, twirl with joy, and sip deeply from the cup of your own magic
  • The real thing to know about light and dark is that it’s always both, and sometimes one is more clear than the other

I grew up going to the beach each summer and we all loved going out into the ocean and “riding the waves.” Early on holding dad’s hand (at 6ft he was a safer bet than mom at 5’2” to get over the wave), then tossed over the wave by dad, later on a raft with my brother, and eventually alone having found my own balance and rhythm of the ocean.

Typically, there was always one “good” day in which the ocean flexed for us and demonstrated its power with hard crashing waves. The thrill and struggle of facing them, choosing over or under, and getting wiped out generated great doses of adrenaline. Squeal! Whomp! Swirl! Laughter! Repeat. I loved it… for one day. The rest of the time I savored the gentle rolling waves that we, as a family, all floated over together.

Every day in March, however, felt like another day of crashing waves. Adrenaline, crash, find my footing, catch my breath, and rise for the next one. As a consultant to the federal government, March felt like crashing waves on my client side and an undertow at work. Just like in all systems in nature, there are symbiotic forces at play at work too.

Breathe

I held my breath as I logged into a call, wondering if the client would be there or lost their job. I held my breath as a watched the news trying to make sense of the disruption and find my footing to best engage. I held my breath as I sat in leadership calls and learned of more and more cut contracts. I held my breath through a round of layoffs.

Then, as if my body knew it couldn’t operate this way much longer, I heard a phrase in my head that is shared in every yoga class or mindfulness practiced I’ve done: “Come back to your breath.” So, I exhaled. Breathed. And eventually found more of a normal rhythm.

Love

Breath (rich oxygen) fueled my fritzed system, and a bit of logic appeared. I realized while I wanted to “do something” and find my footing (control things back to “normal) – the only thing I could truly “control” was how I showed up for others. So, I loved.

I did more one-on-one “buddy check” calls. I texted a few memes to drop a giggle or hug into someone’s day. I used social media to open my network to share job opportunities, job hunting tips, and connections. I sent a few care packages. I mailed some silly postcards. I emailed a Starbucks gift card. I listened without attempting to solve. And then love became a wave of its own as a friend texted me on a day where a tear sat poised on my eyelid ready to fall and asked, “How can I best show up for you?”

Rise

Just like in nature – there are balancing forces in every system. Breathing helped me stabilize. Love helped me recalibrate so I could rise. Specifically, rise with intention – with clarity on what I want to bake into the DNA of the new system:  hope, encouragement, and compassion.

yellow daffodil blooms next to a sidewalk

February 2025 Quote: This Moment Matters.

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For February 2025, my quote was: “You will get there—until then, be here. This moment matters.”  

When asked what I do for a living, I sometimes respond, “I work at the intersection of ideas, information, and emotions.” Facilitator. Strategic Communicator. Coach. Change Manager. Planner. News producer. I love the possibility of what can be and the use of words to bring them into being. In all these roles I bring with me curiosity (lots of questions), optimism with side of practicality (small goodness can always be found), and a collaborative spirit (everyone can contribute). Even with 30 years of work inand around change, these last few weeks had my internal system on overload. The moments felt heavy. Being “here” in them was something I wanted to escape. Here are the quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught my attention throughout the last month:

  • In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses, the meaning discovered there
  • How can kindness be so radical?
  • Anam cara: Soul friend
  • God went to quite a lot of trouble to make us all different
  • You’re going to live in me forever
  • You can dance in the hurricane but only if you’re standing in the eye
  • You might make it longer if you stay
  • Hold on to the center
  • To love someone is to learn to song in their heart and sign it to them when they have forgotten it
  • My favorite words are the ones that you’ve said to me – ordinary words that people use every day, unaware how sacred they are
  • You are breaking like the dawn – it’s a new day. Become! Become!
  • Your soul is an indomitable force
  • Action absorbs anxiety
  • We refuse to be enemies
  • You are becoming
  • You are a visitor to this world, from the next
  • You are not what you are holding, you are the hands that are holding it
  • Whatever is happening right now is everything you have

Whether change is desired or forced upon, it’s disruptive. Disruption wears out our nervous system with a rotation between fight, flight, or freeze. Simple tasks and routine decisions seem monumental. Uncertainty breads doubt and doubt breads fear and fear breads withdrawal (often predicated with outbursts). Basically, a full body fritz.

Even knowing this (with several certifications to boot), it’s hard to manage. And what I’ve found is that “manage” causes me to hold tighter when transformation in fact requires more of an open hand in order to let go of now and welcome – or at least explore – next.

For me, the more things feel out of control, the more I want to control them—or find some kind of “normalcy,” usually a sense of false comfort. On 9/11 for example, after I finally made it out of Washington, DC, and spoke with my immediate family, I couldn’t continue to watch the devasting news. I could feel my internal system begin to short circuit. So, I did the most mundane thing I could think of. I went to the grocery store and walked up and down each aisle buying a handful of comfort foods. This dull routine calmed down my nervous system so I could process and think more objectively.

February was a full-on assault to my nervous system – my brain and heart struggling to process everything around me. So much in my professional life going on, that I couldn’t even figure out what to try to “manage.” As I explained to someone in my industry, I felt like I was standing in the middle of a frozen lake – listening to the cracks and pops around me – safe at the moment, but vulnerable. Frozen, wondering if I (or someone I cared about) would lose footing and sink with the next fissure.  

I wanted to manage (cover up and control) my emotions. I wanted to manage the pain I saw in my social media feed. I wanted to manage the unknowns that’s swirled in my head at 3am.

I couldn’t.

My false sense of control slipped away, replaced with a sense of having swallowed a Tickle Me Elmo doll… an emotional ball of confusion, doubt, anger, possibility, incredulity, worry, and panic vibrated inside my body. I couldn’t suppress it. I couldn’t process it. I couldn’t release it.

So, I had to be with it.

To be of service to my community (clients, co-workers, friends, and family), I first had to be of service to myself. This involved sitting with and exploring my emotional ball of goo. It was the only control I had.

I’ve come to learn (re-learn as it’s an ongoing practice) that when I avoid my own goo, then I’m not engaged in a meaningful solution – one that aligns with my values, my purpose, my vision. My emotional vibrations move me haphazardly, erratically, if unchecked and unacknowledged.

So, I became curious about what super charged my emotional ball of goo and what sedated it—and make adjustments accordingly. I began to apply my pragmatic optimism looking for goodness (it always exists if I seek it out) and then discern how I could lend a hand to my community (I can’t control but I can always help). I scheduled time to be with those who bring me comfort and laughs, even in hard circumstances (authenticity is a balm for me).

Yes, the emotions are still here inside me. No, I don’t have clear answers. Yes, the frozen lake continues to crack. No, I’m not sure where to step.

This moment does matter … every moment does. Skimming by it – the hard, ugly, scary, uncertain – reduces our chance to take it all in, wrestle with it, learn from it, and determine how we will take intentional action on it.

What will you do, feel, be, or explore in this moment?

a small rainbow connects dark and white clouds

January 2025 Quote: I Believe in Wonderment.

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For January 2025 my quote was: “I believe in wonderment.”  

One year ago, I wrote in my January quote post that “I saw the beauty of the end of something done amazingly well” in regard to the end of my father’s life after a decade with Alzheimer’s. In the 12 month’s sense, wonderment just might be the best word to encapsulate it all, especially grief. As Meriam-Webster’s defines wonderment as “a cause or occasion for wonder (marvel, miracle, rapt attention, a feeling of doubt or uncertainty), astonishment, surprise, curiosity about something.” Throughout this past month here are the quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught my attention:

  • There is no greater adventure than the present moment
  • The fierce urgency of now
  • With hope comes resilience and with resilience came new beginnings
  • Mavin, misfit, and muse
  • Turn it over and turn it over, and see everything in it
  • Who are you to deny God’s perfection and possibility?
  • Doubt is the space between good and evil
  • Courage to love with a rigorous inside-out consistency
  • Mystery and manifest come from the same source, darkness
  • To be faithful to take the next step; to rely on more than the map; to heed the signposts of intuition and dream; to follow the star that only you recognize
  • How much love? All the love
  • Because a broken heart is easier to share
  • What are you going to do with all that dark? Find a way to glow in it
  • Seek that which is best for another person
  • It’s like studying for the test instead of learning the lesson
  • I am steady

I learned a lot throughout my “year of firsts” (a grief phrase to capture going through one of everything without your loved one). And, there is much I’m still processing, and will be for a while, as the pain of love and our unknown next are big things to try to come to grips with. It’s like looking in a room of mirrors and seeing your reflection continue on and on and on and on and on with no end.

My Core Truths for Grief

For me, the mixture of loss, love, and wonderment led me to these core truths about grief:

(1) God will show up, always, but not as you anticipated or wanted – but as you needed … and the same is true for your dead loved one.

(2) The emotions of grief are like a squirrel that’s been day drinking – all over the place – but let them come and go as they need as they can be vicious when bottled up.

(3) While grief is personal, it should be done in community, whether that is a formal group or with friends and loved ones.

(4) There is much laughter to be had in grief and it’s not only OK, it’s good.

(5) Grief resides in your bones forever – it changes your spiritual DNA – but the love remains in your heart, always accessible.

As I completed my end of “the firsts,” I chose to begin my next year focused on wonderment. I’d experienced a great deal of wonderment (astonishment, surprise, curiosity) throughout each milestone in 2024, and I wanted more of this electrical charge in 2025. This connection to the energy of life and the golden thread beyond. Just hopefully without so many moments of snot nosed tears.

holding dad's hand

Hey Dad,

It’s January 17…

and I miss you.

It’s been a loving, hard, glorious, heartbreaking, happy, tear-filled, bizarre, adventurous, faithful year of firsts…

and I miss you.

I can’t believe it’s been 365 days and a round of holidays. I can’t believe how time moved differently this year – part molasses, part fast forward, part reverse in memory lane. I can’t believe I lived a year without you here, but yet you were – just a bit more elusive

and I miss you.

I’m glad you’re at ease now…

and I miss you.

I know you shook your head at times and rolled with laughter at others as you watched us move forward. Living with death was kinda your specialty at work and I really missed your expertise along this wonky road. I do appreciate thought how you always showed up when I really needed help…

and I miss you.

I wear your blue wool v-neck sweater as I smell your old Speed Stick deodorant looking for a substitute to your hug…

and I miss you.

I’ve ached for one of our hugs – just one more to tied me over. One more moment of immersive love – a felt sense of wonder, certainty, encouragement, solace, comfort, joy, gratitude, and peace – transferred through your embrace. There is no substitute and that truly sucks.

and I miss you.

I enjoy our conversations as I lay in bed before I start my day but what I wouldn’t do for a boisterous “hey there!” from you…

and I miss you.

I tried to keep things steady, and time and time again smirked when I realized how many of your quirky habits are also mine…

and I miss you.

I kept many of our traditions in place, but truthfully, some I put down. As a creature of habit, I know this might have been hard to see. I also know you’d be OK with changes as long as we did it as a family…

and I miss you.

I also know our deviation from tradition revved up your mischievous middle child mentality. Yes, our feisty – and somewhat unconventional – approach to mourning has been right up your alley…

and I miss you.

I do appreciate your visits from your gold lame Elvis moment to singing together in the chapel. Damn though if I can’t hear “How Great Though Art” without a laughing now…

and I miss you.

I have to say, it can be hard when you sneak up on me and spin up my emotions… but then again you always loved a good surprise. In these moments I realized that tears and laughter can coexist. Even now you continue to teach me how to live in the “and” spaces of life…

and I miss you.

I hold you tight with an ever-present tube of Chapstick and hankie—or sometimes a bowl of ice cream…

and I miss you.

I really appreciate your continued guidance. As usual, you steered me toward family and faith – and on more than one occasion, to splurge on spontaneous fun…

and I miss you.

I know you’re happy about the role church played this past year. Hymns, scripture, sermons, committees, Sunday School, staff, pastors, and members all connected around me – a bubble of Presbyterian goodness…

and I miss you.

I have to say my friends were also incredible…. cards, check-in texts, calls, surprises, and space held for my emotions with a side or two of bourbon…

and I miss you.

I wasn’t sure about vacation at the beach or Christmas this year. They were different, hard, OK all at the same time…

and I miss you.

I will admit I didn’t realize the lasting impact of having “Joy To the World” sung at your funeral—and the added emotions that will forever arise when I sing it on Christmas Eve. A bittersweet tune of joy and longing…

and I miss you.

I met you in music. I saw you in the stars. I sought you at the shore. I heard you in the chimes. I felt you in the sunshine. I ached for you in the quiet…

and I miss you.

I’m grateful that time and time again your smile found me, felt rather than seen, but beaming all the same…

and I miss you.

I am and will always be OK because of the love you pour into me and the faith you demonstrated for me…

and I miss you.

Just know that throughout this past year I always chose from the heart…  

A heart that is sore. A heart that is lonely. A heart that is held. A heart that is full. A heart that is different. A heart that is scarred. A heart that is larger…

and a heart that misses you…

“Until we meet again…”

I miss you.