I use them to snip the strings. The strings that tether me to something I am desperately trying to control.

I’ll share what I’m currently obsessed with trying to control.

My adult daughter is staying with us while she looks for her next job. And almost every morning I wake up with the urge to take charge of the whole thing. To create a spreadsheet, project timeline, and a budget. To check in multiple times a day for updates.

That’s the pull I feel. Every. Single. Day.

A fluttery anxiousness in my upper abdomen. A hum that runs like background music underneath everything I’m doing. Insisting that I need to be in change!

For years I never understood that hum. All I knew was that I definitely didn’t want to feel it, because it was so distracting. I learned that seizing control actually silenced the hum. And taking control gave me a healthy dose of dopamine. Double Win!

Now I know what that fuzzy, anxious feeling is actually telling me.

It’s telling me I’m gripping hard to the urge to control and take over. Because I’ve decided exactly how something needs to go, and I will steer it there with my heavy hand. And that tight grip, that certainty about how it all should unfold, feels good for the briefest of moments and then feels so, so bad.

I close my eyes. I imagine the feel of the cool metal of the shears in my hand. And I start to cut those strings of control, one at a time.

There’s such a satisfying sound of the scissors closing. A moment of weightlessness as the strings drop to the floor. My shoulders drop. I can access a deeper breath.

I can see myself come back into the room, into presence, into being a supportive mom instead of a deadline-driven project manager.

Because those strings were a little cage, holding and protecting only my opinion, my way, my perfect outcome.

As the strings drop to the ground, the bars of the cage fall; and there’s suddenly room.

Room for my daughter’s opinion to enter the conversation. Space for the universe to conspire and create something better than I would have thought to ask for.

Cutting the strings has never meant I stop caring. The care, the investment, the love, it’s all still there. It just means I’ve recognized that my way isn’t necessarily the only or “right” way.

And the truth I’ve had to face… I don’t love the version of me who shows up controlling. She’s not a great listener. She jumps to solutions too fast. She's detached and just wants to plow through to resolution. Her decisions aren’t as thoughtful or as generous.

And if I’m trying to control another person, that means I’ve decided they should behave. Ouch. Which means my controlling quietly steals the very thing I claim to care so much about. Their agency. Their autonomy to make their decisions about their own life.

That disconnect is powerful, and my teacher.

My daughter’s job search was never mine to run. Her next chapter is solely hers.

What my client decides to do with a big insight from a session. How my parents choose to navigate their eighties. How my friend makes decisions about her relationship. Not mine, not mine, not mine.

I don’t do this perfectly. Not even close. Some days I control or carry the desire to control around for hours, and despite knowing everything I’ve just told you, I completely forget to stop and reach for the shears to cut the control.

Nothing I write about here is a prescription to do it perfectly. That’s just not possible. Instead, it’s a gentle reminder that we can find our own ways to be compassionately supportive of ourselves by controlling less.

For me, it’s the image of scissors in hand, snipping strings. Not because I care less, but because sometimes my presence, my attention, and listening are all a situation actually needs from me. Not my manipulation or my control. Just my willingness to let it become whatever it is meant to become.

I spent my twenties and thirties, and honestly a good chunk of my forties, in high vigilance and high control. It made sense at the time. My dysregulated self used control like I was clinging to a safety raft. In my mid-forties, with exposure to coaching, I started loosening my hands from the controlling grip. And I have learned to deeply appreciate and value what’s on the other side of that grip, so I keep practicing it.

That’s the legacy I want to live. To not be the woman who controlled everything into place. To instead be the woman who learned to let go of what was never hers to control, and watched life get bigger because of it.

In my mailbox this week: A gift for me from me (and ). It’s Virgo season. And I’m ready for my big Virgo energy and Virgo magic. Bring on September and my 58th year.

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One Degree Deeper

What are you afraid would happen if you stopped controlling? Follow it all the way down. Ask yourself “and then what?” until you reach something with a real feeling attached. That feeling is what you’ve been managing all along.

Where did you learn that controlling outcomes was your job? Most of us didn’t choose this. We inherited it, usually early, usually for a good reason at the time.

If you got time and energy back from releasing control, where would it go? Be specific. Not “self-care.” The actual thing you’d do with two free hours and a quiet mind.

With immense appreciation,

I didn’t know that yet. I found out the way you always find out these things, all at once, when a reply landed in my inbox from the very person whose performance I had just spent two paragraphs gently, carefully, factually questioning.

Let me back up.

I sit on a board and had concerns about a member of the organization. Someone I felt wasn’t doing their job the way it needed to be done. So I wrote to my fellow board members. I was careful. I named everything this person had done well, and I was specific about the things I thought could be better. My intent wasn’t to push an agenda. It was to gauge whether anyone else shared my concerns, and if they didn’t, I was ready to let it go. But I felt I had to at least bring it into the room.

I spent a long time crafting that email. I sent it. And within fifteen minutes, one board member wrote back, “I’m not comfortable talking about this here.”

Huh, I thought. Interesting. Okay, I guess we’ll get on the phone.

And I didn’t give it another thought. Until the message came from the person I’d been writing about. The one I had accidentally copied. The one who had now read every single word of the email.

They were gracious. A little surprised. Maybe a touch defensive, which, honestly, was fair.

And in that moment, I felt the floor drop out beneath me.

You know the feeling. For me, it starts in my toes and travels all the way up my body, flushing me with heat and prickliness and finally settling in the pit of my stomach. The heaviness of shame sits there like a boulder.

I had a couple of options, and I could feel them coming to me at once. I could let the humiliation take me down and hijack the rest of my day. I could berate myself for the careless mistake. Or I could overcompensate, backpedal, wiggle my way out, apologize my way into a smaller and smaller corner because I was so embarrassed.

But I chose another option.

I went back and reread what I’d written, noting how I was careful and kind. I never intended for them to read it. But I still stood by it anyway.

I wrote back to the board, including this member, this time intentionally, and said, honestly, I’m glad you’re on this email. Because one of my deepest values is transparency, and I want to contribute to this board and our work in a way that’s direct and honest. I am also willing to be the only one feeling this way and will support whatever the larger group wants to do.

That’s it. I didn’t apologize for the words. I didn’t downplay them because the person had now seen them. I stood in the truth of them.

The shame didn’t fully leave. It lingered on the edges of my energy for the rest of that day, sapping me a little, preoccupying me. But a couple of weeks later, I’ve looked back and thought that actually couldn’t have gone more perfectly… for me, and how I am trying to create more courageous conversations.

I’ve been noticing this more and more lately. These little sentences that keep slipping out of me. These courageous ones. They’re so small you might not even notice them as brave, but I feel the difference in my body when I say them.

A relative was in town and wanted to get together, and the day that worked for her was the worst possible day for me. And instead of squeezing one more thing into a jam-packed day, I just said, “Tuesday isn’t going to work for me. I hate that it might mean not seeing you for another year. But that’s how this visit is going to go this time.”

Or asking my brothers to step up as we hold the collective care of our aging parents. Being clear that just because I live closest, am the oldest, and a woman, does not mean I will do everything. In fact, “I’m refusing to do everything.”

I said that. Out loud. To my brothers.

I wasn’t surprised by their response, as both are deeply compassionate and generous men who welcome the opportunity to share in the responsibility.

The thing is, before I understood the relationship between my thinking and my feelings and how I show up, it would have been so easy to label myself here. To say, I’m just not that courageous. I’m the careful one. Or the polite one. The one who smooths things over. And to file that away as my personality. As my identity. Just who I am.

But that was never who I was. It was what I was thinking.

When I think“I want to tell the truth” or “I want to ask for what I need” - those thoughts create a feeling of courage in me. And courage drives me to speak up. To be willing to disappoint someone I care about. Or to send the email that spells out what isn’t working.

Courage was never a personality trait I either had or didn’t have. It was always on the other side of a new thought.

Which is why I think about my twenty-something self with so much tenderness now.

She spent so much of her precious time hiding inside shame.

I remember how the prickly heat of shame sat in my stomach for days, sometimes weeks, distorting how I saw everything around me and in me.

I felt humiliated, embarrassed, and closed off pieces of myself because the feelings were just so sickening to sit in. I thought my mistakes, poor judgment, reckless spending, credit card debt, impulsive decisions, dodging hard conversations, and the long list of unfinished projects created shame.

Of course I didn’t know then what I know now. That I could get curious about where the shame actually came from. Not from the thing I did. The shame came from the thought I was having about the thing I did.

The interconnectedness between thinking and feeling, feeling and thinking, fascinates me.

The way we wind up our emotions with our thinking, or quiet them down with new thoughts. The way we can notice how we want to feel, and then ask, what would we need to think to feel that way.

I wanted to feel courageous on that board email reply. So I found the thought that got me there - “this is true for me”. And I can still feel the moment I hit send on that reply; the heaviness in the pit of my stomach was still there, my typing hands not quite steady, and something underneath it that was steadier than the fear. Not the absence of shame, the presence of courage. It was there when I said no to a relative and asked my wonderful brothers for help.

This, I’ve decided, IS my legacy work. The continuous learning that I’m never at the mercy of my feeling. That there’s a thought creating it, and it’s available for me to explore and potentially change. That if want to be known for having courageous conversations, then I can choose a thought-feeling combination to create them.

In my ears this week: A podcast conversation with my friend, Nikisha King, where get into the real difference between a skill gap and a belief gap, why women quietly sabotage their own next level, and how to stop tying your worth to your business. I met Nikisha at a live event in several years ago and remember like it was yesterday being so drawn to her energy - it’s radiance + humility + sparkles + confidence all bundled together.

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One Degree Deeper

Where in your life are you calling something a personality trait, “I’m just not that kind of person,” when it might actually be a thought you could change?

Think of a courageous sentence you’ve been needing to say. What are you afraid you’d feel if you said it? And what would you need to think to feel brave enough to say it anyway?

The next time shame shows up, instead of asking what’s wrong with you, ask what you were thinking about the situation. What do you find?

With immense appreciation,

I shared about the ten months I’ve spent sticking with a workout program, after years of being certain I was someone who could never do that. And the thing that changed wasn’t more discipline. It was my thinking.

There’s a part of that story I didn’t tell you.

If I had listened to the old certainty, if I had talked myself out of trying one more time, I would have missed the lesson.

And the lesson turned out to be everything.

When our brain is convinced it already knows how something will turn out, there’s no reason to pay attention along the way. No reason to stay curious, or to go back and look at what actually happened, because we’ve already decided we knew.

So we skip it. We skip the noticing and the learning and the one insight that might have changed everything the next time around.

That’s the cost of certainty. It doesn’t just shrink your future. It quietly robs you of the lesson sitting right in front of you.

The lesson I almost missed with the workout wasn’t about fitness at all.

It was learning what it feels like to do one third of something beautifully, sit in the discomfort of not doing all of it, and let that be enough. To release every last lingering thread of guilt about the two thirds I left behind.

I had spent my whole life believing that doing something fully meant doing all of it, perfectly. And that lesson, the one where I finally let “my enough” be enough, only existed because I tried one more time.

If I’d stayed certain I couldn’t, I’d still be believing the same old thing about myself. And not just about workouts…about everything.

That’s what a real lesson does. It sneaks past the thing you thought you were learning and teaches you something about who you are.

My friend with the organizing, the one I wrote about last week, misses her lesson every single week. Oh, it breaks my heart a little.

Every time she talks herself out of decluttering, certain she’ll get distracted and never finish, she doesn’t just skip organizing her house. She skips finding out what she’s actually capable of.

I don’t know what her lesson is. Neither does she, because she hasn’t let herself get close enough to learn it. But if I had to guess, it might be something like: I can find a home for twenty percent of my things, and that’s a great start. Or maybe that making decisions is actually easier than she made them out to be. Or that she knows exactly how to protect her afternoon time from interruptions when something really matters to her.

There’s an abundance of lessons out there waiting for her. For all of us, really. Ways we could grow and change…think and be differently.

But when the certainty insists we forego the thing we want, because we should have known better, because it won’t work out, because we have all this evidence from before, we miss every single one of them.

I think about the woman who knows she’s meant to be a coach and keeps not stepping into that inner truth she’s held for longer than she cares to admit.

Every time she waits, certain she’ll lose focus like she always has, she doesn’t just postpone the certification. She misses the lesson that only comes from figuring out how to do it, her way!

Maybe her lesson would be that she doesn’t lose focus when the work is deeply aligned. Maybe it’s that she’s been calling herself “distracted” this whole time when really she was just trying to build something that was never quite the right fit for her.

Perhaps it’s that she can do hard things and pivot and come back around, and that’s not failure at all…that’s just how she does it.

She’ll never know from watching and waiting. The lesson isn’t available from where she’s sitting in indecision. It’s ready for her when she chooses to decide and try.

It is so challenging to override your brain when it’s convinced this time will be just like all the times before.

That lazy, loyal brain of ours LOVES to predict outcomes. It craves the certainty of a foregone conclusion. And it is so well-intended, so busy trying to protect us from disappointment.

But it doesn’t know your potential. It doesn’t know you can keep coming up with a new way of thinking that supports you. There is nothing written down anywhere that says what you want can’t be possible for you.

That idea is just locked inside your brain. And you get to decide whether to keep believing it.

Or you get to do the thing I wrote about last week. Be uncertain on purpose.

Because timing matters, I’ll share again that my Golden Coaching Certification™ closes August 17th.

If you’ve been circling this decision, certain that some part of you would flake out, or lose focus, or just not want it badly enough when it came down to it, I invite you to notice something.

That certainty is the exact thing we’ve been talking about here. It’s a story your brain got comfortable telling you. And it’s worth challenging whether it’s even true.

The lesson you’ve been waiting for, the one about who you actually are when you finally step in, isn’t available from where you are right now. It’s only available on the other side of saying yes.

Learn more about the Golden Coaching Certification here: www.katiepulsifercoaching.com/certification

In my future this week: One-on-one time with my daughter. A long conversation that drifts from topic to topic, while circling back to her future visioning. I’m excited to listen and learn, to be delighted and a teeny bit jealous of her extraversion and appetite for adventure.

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One Degree Deeper

Think of something you talked yourself out of. What might you have learned if you’d let yourself try? Write down your best guess. Then notice: you’ll never actually know unless you try again.

What lesson about who you are might be waiting on the other side of the thing you keep postponing?

If you trusted that every attempt taught you something, whether it “worked” or not, what would you be willing to begin this week?

With immense appreciation,

I had all the evidence to prove it. A graveyard of unused credits at yoga and pilates studios. Fitness apps on my phone I signed up for and never opened. Every one of them tied to some attempt at a consistent routine that never stuck.

So I decided that was just who I was. A person who does not work out consistently, aside from my daily walks.

And then I found a program. And I watched myself stick with it.

Ten months later, I’m still doing it. Three days a week. Consistently. Getting stronger, adding muscle, reducing osteopenia, thinking completely differently about my health.

So what changed?

The belief that I wouldn’t stick with it didn’t get me this time. And it wasn’t more discipline.

It was a change in my thinking.

In the past, I believed that to do something successfully, I had to do all of it. Go to all the classes. Ask all the questions. Show up in the community, taking full advantage.

And I hate that kind of pressure.

But somewhere along the way, I’d decided that was the only way to fulfill a commitment.

What’s different about this workout program is that I decided I didn’t have to do all of it.

I’m doing one-third of the program, beautifully. The other two-thirds are just not for me right now. And I don’t feel guilty about it for a second. I’m here for my third. It’s what I have the capacity for as I build the skill of being someone who works out consistently.

I had to go from believing “I never finish what I start” to “I’m only going to do one third and leave the rest.”

That one shift changed everything. But it took me years to get there, because something else was happening.

Here’s what was really going on underneath all those unused credits.

It’s called hindsight bias.

Our brain takes the way something turned out and uses it to decide we always knew it would turn out that way.

We hear it all the time. “Yeah, I knew that wasn’t going to work out for her.” “I had a feeling he wouldn’t come through.” “The writing was on the wall.”

It’s comforting, especially when the outcome is one we didn’t want. We can go back and minimize the disappointment and hurt by saying that we knew it would go the way it did.

But here’s the effect that has. It creates an overconfidence in our ability to predict outcomes. Especially our ability to predict things not working out.

And that false certainty is exactly what makes us shrink from a new idea. Or postpone the thing we really want to do, because we think we know how it already ends.

The problem is that knowing is based on nothing, except that the brain formed an opinion about a past setback and decided a future setback was a foregone conclusion.

Once you know to look for it, you’ll start hearing it everywhere.

I hear this all the time. From friends, 1-1 clients. Or the women considering my coaching certification.

“I’ve sat down to write this book before, and I could never get past chapter three. So I guess I’m just not meant to be a writer.”

So she looks at an unstarted chapter four, and thinks... Of course. I knew this would happen again.

I had a conversation recently with a woman considering my Golden Coaching Certification who said, “I know I’m meant to be a coach. I just know it. And I keep not stepping into it, because I have so much evidence that I lose my focus and get distracted when life throws things at me. Now I wonder if maybe I just don’t want it as badly as I thought.”

A confident conclusion gets drawn. A dream of becoming a life coach stalled.

For some of us, there’s a punitive quality to our hindsight bias. “I should have known better.” “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up or even tried, only to feel disappointed again.”

But trying again when you’re already certain it won’t work is very different than trying again with a new belief.

A good friend of mine talks constantly about getting her house organized. Finding places for her family’s things instead of letting them pile up on the kitchen island, by the front door, on every spare surface.

We’ve had this conversation so many times. I laugh a little thinking about all the walks we’ve been on together, listening to her tell me how this will be the week she gets organized.

And every time, she finds a way to talk herself out of getting organized. Because underneath is a deep belief that she won’t be able to do it. She won’t be able to find a home for everything, or decide what stays and what goes. She’ll start, get interrupted, and never get back to it.

She’s being tortured by two certainties. The certainty that wants to make this change in her home. And the certainty that she won’t be able to make it happen.

I know that torture. It’s the exact place I lived in with those fitness credits.

So here’s what I keep coming back to.

Be uncertain on purpose.

Could you really have known that you wouldn’t get the house you made an offer on? Should you have been able to predict that the person you developed strong feelings for would change their mind about you? Could you have anticipated and prepared for the layoff from work?

If we can think about our own thinking, upgrade our belief systems, and learn to feel the hard and challenging emotions instead of avoiding them, then who’s to say the future not working out is a foregone conclusion?

A new thought today creates an entirely new outcome tomorrow.

That’s very different than letting our thoughts stay locked in time, focused only on all the ways it didn’t work out before.

The unused fitness credits didn’t mean I couldn’t get strong. They just meant I hadn’t yet found the belief system that would let me.

What are you certain won’t work out for you? And what if that certainty is based on nothing but an old story your brain got comfortable telling?

Because the future you’re building isn’t a foregone conclusion. It’s still yours to shape. And that is worth everything.

In my possession this week: a model of the 1952 VW van that my grandfather bought for his family for $1997. The model was made by an uncle, and my dad made the wooden stand it sits on. I never knew my grandparents on my father’s side because they both passed away before 1960. I’m so happy to give this little treasure a place in my home and look forward to asking my Dad more stories about being a small passenger in this van.

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One Degree Deeper

What’s one thing you’re certain you’re “just not good at”? Now list three pieces of evidence that contradict it. What do you notice?

If you let yourself do one third of the thing you’ve been avoiding, and released the guilt about the other two thirds, what would you finally begin?

Whose old story about you have you been carrying as if it were a fact?

With immense appreciation,

What she didn’t know is that I had already canceled on her twice.

Our reasons were very different. And you could argue hers were completely legitimate. An interview with a news outlet. An emergency tooth situation. Another opportunity to be on stage for a summit.

My reasons, side by side with hers, sucked.

If I’m being really honest, the only reason I canceled on her twice was because of my nervousness. I was totally scared and didn’t feel ready.

Now, after all this time, I can see the legitimacy in my canceling too. I was deeply tuned in to exactly how much fear my nervous system could hold.

Here’s what happened.

I first heard Dana Grant interviewed on a podcast I occasionally tune in to. I was out walking early one morning, listening to this interview by chance, and everything Dana said resonated with me. I felt this connection to her that was hard to explain. It was like, “Oh, I think I’m supposed to know this woman.”

I did some research about her, learning about her successful career before coaching. Her struggles, the book she wrote, her audience and follower count. I looked at the guest list of everyone she’d had on the podcast, and it was inspiring.

I had this inner knowing that I was supposed to have her in my life in some way. It didn’t really make much sense, but I’ve been trying to get better at trusting the internal messages I receive.

I spent days crafting a message to her, pitching myself to be a guest on her podcast. I binge-listened to all of her work. I wrote to her with sincerity and a genuine desire to connect.

It was months before I heard back from her team. Probably the same message they send all the strangers like me hoping for a chance to be on the show. I was invited to a ten-minute meet-and-greet to see if there was a connection. No promises of anything more. The soonest I could get on her calendar was three months out.

And as the weeks flew by and that ten-minute conversation got closer, I chickened out.

My confidence had severely dipped. I’d just had a launch that tanked. I was questioning everything I was doing and feeling very sorry for myself. I didn’t want to bring that energy to the ten-minute conversation.

I was scared.

So I canceled the meeting. She likely never knew, with a schedule as busy as hers. I got it rescheduled for two months out.

And then I did the exact same thing…again.

Even though I told myself I’d go through with it no matter what, I canceled a 2nd time. I still didn’t feel ready or like I belonged on her show.

I felt like such a fraud.

I was actively working on my “belonging issue” with my coach. I was trying to let go of the excuses I had been using to disqualify myself from spaces I wanted to be in and conversations I wanted to have. She was helping me question why I was letting my business or bank account size be reasons that I couldn’t provide real impact and value.

Our third scheduled meet-and-greet was added to the calendar.

And this time, instead of just hoping I’d feel better and more confident, which is exactly what I’d done between cancellation one and cancellation two, I went to work on believing in myself.

I looked for the evidence. If you know me well, you know this is the thing I love teaching my clients and students.

I looked for all the evidence that I belonged on Dana’s calendar for ten minutes. And then, I worked to prove it true to myself.

I guessed at how many conversations I’d had with strangers just in the last month (over 696 was my estimation). I wrote down all the times I’d pulled out a great answer when I didn’t know the question in advance. I journaled about how I’m able to hold space for my emotions, be uncomfortable, and still do hard things.

I made a list of what would qualify me for ten minutes of her time. Turns out, it was not that hard to do, actually.

And then the funniest thing happened.

We met for our ten minutes, hit it off so well that it turned into forty-five minutes, and she was late for her next meeting. Forty-five whole minutes of effortless back and forth between two women getting to know each other. It ended with: “Yes, I definitely want to have you on my podcast.”

The night before our first recording date, she had to cancel. An opportunity she couldn’t refuse. We rescheduled, and she had to cancel again. A dental emergency.

A year later, almost to the exact date I’d sent my first email pitch to her, we finally sat down to record.

During the interview, I kept noticing how comfortable and effortless it felt. My nerves were still there, but hardly distracting. I had done so much inner work since I first reached out.

It was natural, unfolding exactly as it was supposed to. We had the conversation we were only ever meant to have, months later than planned.

So yes, this is a newsletter about a conversation on a podcast.

And it’s also more than that.

It’s an invitation to explore how you handle canceling.

Where are you canceling something and calling yourself flaky, or lazy, or unprepared, when the truth is you just know that now is not your time to do it?

How do you, or would you, comfort yourself to support your decision to wait?

If you weren’t worried about being judged for it, even by your harshest critic, which is usually yourself, what would you let take as long as it needed to take, to get the most incredible outcome?

Because when we’re in a rush, not tuning in to what we really need, not being willing to cancel, what do we ultimately miss?

I can’t imagine the conversation we’d have had six months earlier, before I’d done the work.

The willingness to trust my own timing, to wait until I actually believed I belonged, that wasn’t me being flaky. Instead, it was me building the kind of self-belief that prepares me to pitch myself to podcast hosts, put my work in the world, and live my dreams.

That’s my legacy making.

In my hands this week: The wedding vows I shared with my husband 8 years ago today. That younger me knew which vows would be effortless and easy to honor and which one would challenge me to be courageously vulnerable as we grow old together.

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One Degree Deeper

If you made the list right now of why you belong in the room you’ve been avoiding, what’s the first piece of evidence you’d write down?

What’s the conversation, room, or opportunity you’ve been rescheduling in your own life? And what would “doing the work first” actually look like for you?

Whose timeline have you been running on that was never yours to begin with?

With immense appreciation,

I spent a few hours outside this weekend at a medicinal herb workshop, learning the names, snipping little bits of leaves and flowers and pressing them into the pages of my notebook. Tasting the edible bits. Learning how to make healing tinctures and teas for cuts and bruises, burns and scrapes, insect bites, on and on.

The older I get, the more I crave this. Time outside in the sunshine. Time around living things. I’ve started appreciating not just the beauty of what’s around us, but also its function and purpose. So much of that goes unnoticed when I spend my days inside in Zoom rooms. All of which I love and value. But sitting outside in my garden to watch the butterflies, the bees, and things growing brings me so much joy.

Here’s what struck me this weekend.

Four years ago, I didn’t have a garden. And I would have told you I had no interest in one. That I probably wouldn’t be any good at it. That it would just be one more thing to be responsible for in an already very full life.

But I built the garden anyway. And when I think back to the timing, it coincided exactly with when I was the most dysregulated. The most stressed out. The most anxious and nervous and worried.

At the time, I thought I was just picking things that were easy to grow and pretty.

Now that I’m learning the healing properties of the very plants I gravitated toward, so many of them for calming and regulating the nervous system, I’m struck by something.

My body knew what I needed before my mind did.

I was drawn to exactly the thing that would help me through that time. I just couldn’t articulate it yet. My body sensed it before my brain caught up.

I see this in my clients all the time.

There’s so much inherent wisdom stored away in us. It just doesn’t always get to come to the surface. We’re out of the habit of asking ourselves good questions. Or we’re so busy taking care of everyone else. Or we jump to the conclusion that we don’t know what we need.

And yet the more I coach, the more I listen to women share parts of themselves with me, the more I eavesdrop on myself, the more I’m struck by the brilliance of our inner knowing.

It is truly a beautiful thing.

As I sit here in my garden, watching a butterfly land on the bee balm, observing dragonflies darting through, grabbing a handful of oregano just to crush it in my hands and smell it, I’ve been thinking about what it means when I get up from my desk and come out here.

For years, I had a story about that.

I thought I was someone who couldn’t finish anything she started, got bored easily, and chased the excitement of a new task. Someone who jumped to the next thing before completing the last.

So when I’d get up from my desk in the middle of something, I’d take it as more evidence. See? There I go again. Distracted. Unfocused.

But that’s not what’s happening.

When I get up and walk out to the garden, it isn’t that I can’t focus. It’s that my body needs the garden. My heart needs to watch butterflies. There’s lemon mint I need to taste. Lavender to smell.

And I’ve noticed when it happens most. It’s right after I’ve done something vulnerable. If I finish a podcast interview where I was particularly open about something hard. If I post something that leaves me feeling exposed.

That’s when I find myself out here.

It’s not distraction. My body intuitively senses that this is exactly what will help me regulate. That this grounding connection is what will prepare me for the next big thing I’m going to ask myself to do.

The old story said I was inconsistent. The truth is I’m listening.

That shift, from “something is wrong with me” to “my body is telling me something,” that’s the inner knowing I want to keep trusting.

Because four years ago it built me a garden I didn’t know I needed. I can only imagine what else it knows.

In my planner this week: Three new clients who have all come to me through referrals and conversations, proving yet again that doing my business my heart-centered, human-connection-creating way always works out for me. It’s probably a much slower growth path than the latest marketing trends promise, and I don’t care. It’s perfect for me and those I work with.

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One Degree Deeper

Where has your body known something before your mind could explain it?

What have you been calling a flaw that might actually be your inner knowing, trying to get your attention?

What would change if you trusted that you already know what you need, even before you can articulate why?

With immense appreciation,

And I was listening to my best friend explain to me how she felt like she was declining.

This woman, my oldest friend and bestest friend in the entire world, is only 58, but here she is telling me she was declining.

Noticing little lapses in memory. Sometimes a disconnection from her very powerful inner meter and intuition. That constant, revving energy engine within her felt harder to access when she was so used to relying on it to get a lot done.

There was a sadness in the way she told me about this. And of course, I was sad for her.

And I was also lying there listening to her, going bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. This is all bullshit.

But she needed to explain a little bit more. Exactly how it was a foregone conclusion and how she had all the evidence to prove it true.

We do this. All of us. My clients do it all the time. I do it too.

I was immediately taken back to Southern California in 2013. On a long walk with this exact same best friend through the beautiful neighborhoods of Venice, California. Explaining to her that I think I’m just one of those people who has a passion for life with a lowercase p.

And that made so much sense to me. I listed all of the reasons. Because I felt kind of flat inside, and nothing really spoke to me or made me excited. I was in the throes of a corporate career, mothering, a crumbling marriage, doing most of the heavy lifting at home while my husband traveled almost 200 days a year.

I could sum all of that up by being like, oh, I think I’m just one of those people. I’ve just got life passion with a lowercase p. Small. Soft. I think that’s the way it’s always going to be for me.

Oh, was I wrong.

A couple of days later, my best friend messaged me and declared, “I’m not declining, not even close.” Talking it out had helped her poke holes in her own theory of herself.

Then we had a huge laugh about how I tried to convince her of my label all those years ago, and how she never for one moment believed me either.

That was such a cathartic moment for both of us. Being brave enough to share the labels we had grasped for and then released. Our attempts to make sense of ourselves, about ourselves.

It was so comforting to be able to explain the unexplainable. To declare that we knew what must be going on. "I am this kind of person. Or I’m in this phase of life. Or this is what’s happening to me.

I understand our desire to make assumptions. To label and give explanations.

Because it’s very uncomfortable to be confused, to feel unfulfilled. It’s unsettling to be in the throes of change and unable to make sense of it.

So the sense-making, the meaning-making, comes from the label. “I’m declining.” “Passion with a lowercase p.”

There’s nothing wrong with walking around labeled for a few days. A few weeks. If you’ve done that, don’t worry. It’s okay. You’ve done no damage.

But if it becomes the way you describe yourself on a regular basis. The way you think of yourself. If what you can and can’t do goes through that filter. If what’s available to you, what’s an option for you, gets sorted and rearranged around that label. You may want to get curious about why.

Because here’s what I found fascinating when I looked at it through the lens of legacy.

Is that the legacy I want to create? The declining legacy? The passion with a lowercase p legacy?

Absolutely not. I do not want to be remembered that way.

And neither did she.

This is the part where I get curious about you.

What’s the label you’ve been wearing?

Maybe it’s “I’m just not a creative person.” Or “I’m not good with money.” Or “I’m too much.” Or “I’m too old to start over.” Or “that’s just my personality.”

Say it out loud in the comments. Sometimes just naming it, seeing it sitting there in black and white, is enough to loosen its grip.

In my car this week: The five of us all together, which happens only about 1-2 times per year for this blended family of mine. 45 minutes of drive time after a beautiful day on the water. Sunkissed and salty. Stuffed full from our delicious picnic and visits with extended family. Windows down, sunroof open. Stream-singing Justin Bieber’s My World 2.0 album all the way home.

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Where are you grasping for a label to make sense of something you don’t understand?

When you catch yourself rushing to label something, to make meaning of it, is there room for some curiosity about why?

What if you let yourself stay in the unsettledness of not understanding yourself right now and allowed that to be okay, before rushing to label it?

With immense appreciation,

This person is sooooooo opinionated. Likes to be right. Interrupts constantly. Wants to control the direction of the conversation and ultimately the outcome.

I observed myself engaging with them, both detached and fascinated.

I’ve known this person a long time. This kind of behavior, I’ve come to expect and count on. I don’t hold out hope for the conversations to change, as I don’t expect the person to change.

I’m not expecting this person to surprise me, to be genuinely interested in my opinion, or to ask what I think. To even listen to me long enough to actually come up with a fresh response, instead of the predetermined answer that supports their point of view only.

I was fascinated by my own utter detachment because this whole experience had really nothing to do with them and everything to do with me.

Not me, not caring.

But me not being all worked up that someone wasn’t behaving the way I wanted them to.

My feelings weren’t hurt. Nothing rude was said to me. No lines were crossed. Of course, I would have spoken up, pushed back, said something if that had been the case.

But what made this detachment so fascinating to me was that I felt like I was just watching this person be this person. Behaving in their predictable way.

And I didn’t have to do anything about it.

I didn’t have to like it or get mad about it.

I didn’t have to think about it later, aside from writing about it here.

I didn’t have to let it consume me, arguing with the reality of who this person is.

They’ve proven time and time again that this is who they are.

And it’s so freeing to just accept that.

Because I can think back on long stretches of time where I was incredibly frustrated by this person. Always upset. Gossiping about it. The injustice of the one-sided conversation. Stomping around about it. Thinking I knew the better way for this person to act.

So what changed in me? How am I different, and why is my response what it is now?

I’ve finally learned the argument is futile.

I’m never going to win the argument of “you should be different from what you are.” My upset about what I cannot change leads absolutely nowhere. My frustration has no helpful outcome.

I finally trust that now.

I trust that all my years of doing it the other way, of feeling disappointed, having my feelings hurt, feeling unseen, nothing ever came of that. Nothing.

And it does feel good to just let some things go. Really good.

I feel like I’m preserving and protecting my energy in a brand new way.

I’m going to save getting upset, getting mad, pushing back, and saying something for the situations that really matter. Where the stakes are higher.

Instead of chasing every opportunity to throw around my opinion about how things should be or how people should behave, I’m realizing that it isn’t the best use of my time.

I’m being more strategic about which relationships, which moments, which causes I’ll pour myself into. Not every situation gets my energy. Not every situation gets to rile me up and piss me off.

And which ones I’ll just watch with detachment and fascination.

And how freeing that is.

Here’s what I’m understanding now.

This detachment isn’t coldness. It’s self-trust.

It’s trusting myself to know the difference between what deserves my fiery pushback and what deserves my peace. Trusting that I don’t have to prove anything, fix anyone, or win every exchange.

The version of me who stomped around and gossiped and felt unseen didn’t trust herself yet. She thought that if she just argued hard enough, the other person would finally change. She handed her energy away to people who were never going to hand anything back.

The version of me now knows better.

And the way I move through these moments, what I let go of, what I protect, who I choose to pour into - that’s the legacy I’m building. Quietly. In hundreds of small moments of detachment, fascination, and freedom to accept what is.

In my inner circle this week: My daughter is visiting for two weeks. And we are spending a lot of time with my parents. I am perfectly sandwiched between them, observing growth, possibility, and adventure, and retreating, cautiousness, and slowing down. We revisit old memories and create new ones. The tenderness of it all catches in my throat.

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Where are you arguing with the reality of who someone is?

Where would you spend your energy instead?

With immense appreciation,

I’m not logging onto my computer on Fridays unless I absolutely have to. I’m spending as much time outside as I can. And I’m only doing the things in my business that genuinely feel like things I want to do.

Coaching my clients fuels my life force. It’s what I’m meant to do. Holding space for them, being present as they work through their dilemmas and discover how resilient and capable they are. That’s my legacy work. So I’m doing as much of that as I possibly can.

And I’m noticing what else fuels me. Teaching, writing, and creating. The long coaching conversations where someone discovers something about themselves they couldn’t see before. Boat time. Time outside just to think and stare off into space. The slower pace I kept promising myself I’d eventually get to.

These are the things that expand me. That makes me feel most like myself.

And when I started paying attention to what fuels me, I also started noticing what drains me.

I’ve peeled away many tasks this summer. Things I’d formed habits around but really disliked.

This isn’t about avoiding things that are unpleasant but necessary. Going to the dentist. Paying my taxes. Those aren’t my favorite, but I’m still going to do them, because I want to take good care of myself and be a responsible person.

I’m talking about the tasks I talked myself into without any real evidence that they were worth it.

The biggest one: posting on social media.

I’ve spent so much time trying to convince myself to be on platforms I don’t even want to be on. Telling myself it’s good for my business. Without any actual proof that it is.

Why would I devote hours and hours learning how to show up on platforms in the “right” way, when I don’t even like being on them, and I have no evidence that it actually works?

And what is the cost to me? The impact on my life force energy?

I couldn’t answer that. So I stopped trying to.

Underneath all of this, I noticed something.

So much of what I’d been doing lately came from deferring to experts. From believing someone else knew better than I did about how to run my life and my business.

Part of this summer experiment is something subtler. I’m practicing asking myself first before turning to anyone else for an answer.

What do I think?

Not because experts don’t have incredible value. But I’d gotten a bit too comfortable outsourcing answers to others. Assuming I didn’t know, before I even gave myself the chance to find out.

I’m trusting that even when I’ve never done something before, even when I have no evidence that I know how, I know enough to figure it out.

Here’s what I’m realizing.

Reengaging my trust in myself and knowing when not to turn to experts IS also legacy work.

It’s the choosing. The willingness to do what lights me up and release what doesn’t, even when someone tells me I’m doing it wrong.

The way I move through my days—what I say yes to, what I let go of—that’s what others are watching. That’s what I’m building. That is my legacy being created.

This summer is about my schedule. The Fridays off. The time outside.

It’s about doing more of what I love. More coaching and teaching. More boat time and play.

But underneath all of it, it’s about this:

I’m done doing things I can’t prove serve me, just because someone told me I should.

And I’m remembering how to trust my own thinking again.

In my schedule this week: Mumford & Sons in concert tonight. I heard them in 2013, when I was rediscovering myself at 45. First marriage ending, feeling upside down, and disconnected from what brought me joy in midlife. They quickly became one of my all-time favorite bands, and I always included seeing them in concert on my vision boards and journal wish lists. The universe has delivered.

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What lights you up that you’ve been treating like an afterthought?

What are you doing right now that you can’t actually prove serves you?

What would you trust yourself to release?

With immense appreciation,

Something massive he’d normally compress into half a Saturday. Racing the clock and getting it done before dark. True to his G.S.D. approach to all things.

And then he stopped.

Because he realized he was racing toward a deadline that no longer existed.

There’s no real difference for him right now between a Saturday afternoon and a Wednesday morning. He recently retired after 24 years in his last role—leading a team, handling negotiations, steering big property development projects, conducting performance appraisals, building financial reports, presenting at board meetings, and managing endless emails.

Always on and available. Constantly anticipating the next deadline or problem to be solved.

And now the days stretch out ahead of him with all the freedom to do whatever he wants.

This is exactly the quality of living he was desperate for. The slower pace. Being in charge of his own schedule. What he does, when, and how.

And yet there he was, sprinting toward a finish line that wasn’t there anymore.

Even though he got exactly what he wanted, his nervous system hasn’t caught up yet.

His brain is still running the old program. Still feeling “on alert”, checking his phone, holding the feelings of responsibility, and anticipating. That part of him hasn’t shut off, even though the circumstances that required it are not there anymore.

So he feels untethered.

The wide-open space, the freedom, the full ownership of his own schedule, it’s more disorienting than he expected.

I was hearing a similar theme with a client recently.

Her family just transitioned into summer mode. School’s been out for a few weeks, and summer break couldn’t come fast enough.

And yet.

That transition is filled with challenges. How does she keep working from home now that they are always there? How does she make sure her kids aren’t on screens too much? How does she find interrupted space in a house she’s used to having to herself during the day, privacy to do her work while also spending time with the kids she adores?

She’s frustrated that she hasn’t found a rhythm yet. One that feels natural and easy.

There’s joy at having the kids home. And frustration that every conversation seems to be about policing screen time and reminding them to do their own laundry.

Both are true at once.

Somewhere along the way, I think we picked up the belief that transitions should be quick and less painful.

That if you wanted the change, you should be able to slide right into it. Right?

If it’s taking longer than expected, or if unexpected emotions are coming up like grief, loss, or disorientation, you’re doing something wrong.

You’re not.

The freedom can clash with the loss of structure. The joy can sit right next to the frustration. You can have wanted this with your whole heart and still feel untethered now that it’s here.

Your circumstances changed in an instant. Your nervous system needs a longer adjustment period.

So how do you be gentle and patient through this?

You stop expecting yourself to have found the rhythm already. You let the disorientation be normal. You speak about what you’re actually experiencing instead of performing the version where you’ve got it all figured out.

You give yourself the same patience you’d give a good friend whose whole life just changed shape, even if it changed in exactly the way she hoped.

It’s like gathering your sea legs as you navigate rough waters. Finding a sturdiness within you that comes with time, not force.

My husband will find his rhythm. My client will find hers.

And so will you, whatever transition you’re standing in right now.

The retirement. The empty nest. The summer shift. The relationship ending. The project you’re launching.

You don’t have to have it figured out yet.

You just have to be gentle with yourself while you find your footing.

In my face this week: I met Bindi on my morning walk to the end of the point. She stretched her neck through the gate so she could greet me properly (lick my face). She and the other calves will be released into the surrounding oceanfront pastures soon.

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How are you expecting a transition to be easier, smoother, or faster than it is?

How would being gentle and patient support you better?

With immense appreciation,

And I was flooded with two images.

Me, fifteen years ago. In a different house, marriage, and job, carrying laundry up from the basement. Paused at the top of the stairs, my hand on the doorknob, mustering the energy to re-emerge into the family scene with a smile on my face and a hollowness inside.

A client on my Zoom screen in April. I asked her: “What makes you happy?”

The silence.

The realization that she had no answer to that question.

Here’s what that hollowness feels like.

You’re building. Achieving. Following the blueprint that was handed to you. The one that said: be good, stay safe, take care of others, make “smart” decisions, listen to what society tells you that you should want.

And you build something extraordinary. A beautiful life.

The home, the relationship, the job, the degree, the achievements. On the outside, it’s all there.

But somewhere underneath all of it, you stop knowing who you actually are.

You’re going through the motions. Playing the roles. Performing life instead of living it.

And you can’t quite name why the beautiful life doesn’t feel full.

If that’s where you are, I want to tell you something:

This is not your fault.

You didn’t do anything wrong.

You were doing exactly what you were supposed to do, what you’d been taught. Exactly what the women before you had modeled.

The sacrifices were normal. The emotional labor was expected. Your dreams deferred were just part of the deal. “I’ll focus on me later.” After everyone is taken care of.

Working with women day after day, I know this now: that hollowness is the cost of building a life on someone else’s definition of success.

It’s what happens when you create a great-looking life at the expense of knowing yourself.

The scaffolding that’s holding it all up—it’s made of other people’s expectations. Their dreams for you. Their needs. Their approval.

And sometimes, when you stop long enough to catch your breath, you realize that scaffolding isn’t actually holding you at all.

I recognized that hollowness in my client.

No fault of her own, she’d built something beautiful. For everyone else.

So I asked her a different question: “What if you just noticed what caught your eye today? No judgment. Just notice. And then show me.”

She got curious.

She started noticing and paying attention to what made her smile, what gave her a dose of joy. Then she started taking photos and sending them to me.

A shaft of light peeking through the curtains.

A flower opening.

The way the sky looks at dusk.

These small moments are filling the hollow spaces.

She’s learning to hold herself up.

And I want to tell you something: if you’re noticing that hollow space right now, if you’re the woman with the beautiful life that doesn’t feel full, if you asked yourself what makes you happy and the answer was silence—

You don’t have to wait fifteen years to change it.

You can start now.

Start noticing. Start paying attention. Start asking yourself: what actually makes me happy? Not what should make me happy. What actually does.

Then do one small thing to honor that.

Pour back into those hollow spaces.

The way my client is doing with her photos.

In my hands this week: Garden dirt ready to receive calendula, butter lettuce, dill, cabbage, lavender, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more.

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What would you pour back into the hollow spaces if you knew exactly what made you happy?

What do you want to fill them with?

What’s one small thing that actually makes you smile?

With immense appreciation,

Women absolutely get to shape their legacies in the biggest ways possible. We get to think big, desire recognition, put our names on things. All of that is available and matters.

And.

I want to talk about what else counts.

Because here’s what I’ve been noticing in so many conversations I’m having right now.

How comfortable men are with talking about their legacy. How easily they claim what they want to be known for. Legacy has historically belonged to people with incredible wealth and influence. Usually men.

Women? We often don’t see ourselves creating a legacy because we don’t know we can. Our definition has been too narrow.

We’re unintentionally dismissive of the smallest moments we’ve worked hard to create. We don’t take enough pride in recognizing the hard-won, daily actions that stack and build what our life is actually about.

So this is me making legacy-making accessible to us all.

This other work—the inner work, the personal development, the change—is just as valuable as fame, notoriety, recognition, going viral. Maybe even more significant.

Legacy-making is also as simple as learning how to regulate your emotions so you don’t constantly have outbursts and yell every time you get upset.

Or not stuffing down your feelings with food, alcohol, social media, and overworking.

It’s learning the skill of not always believing your brain. Questioning your brain’s wiring and protective mechanisms that keep your life smaller than it could be. and keeping your perspective of what you’re capable of really low.

Breaking free of imposter syndrome. People-pleasing. Perfectionism. And the hours of hiding, self-editing, procrastinating, and overthinking that come with them.

Prioritizing a regulated nervous system—that changes how people experience you in every room you enter.

Learning how to have courageous conversations—that shifts every relationship you have.

Creating a sense of belonging within yourself rather than chasing external approval—that’s what people remember will remember as your confidence and conviction.

Resting when your body needs rest. Saying no when you know that’s best for you. Creating a boundary even when it’s so hard. Forgiving someone you love.

Laughing at yourself when you mess up instead of spiraling for three days—that’s the emotional honesty people carry with them when they think of you.

Letting your kids see you cry because it hurts when you feel disappointment or rejection.

Taking responsibility when you didn’t handle something as well as you wanted to—that’s what changes how you’re talked about, how you’re perceived.

Dropping revisiting every single decision and second-guessing yourself that kept you stuck in a loop for years.

All of it. Your inner work. Your personal development. Your change.

You get to be known for that. It’s hard-earned, life-changing work.

That’s the legacy-making work I’m talking about.

Not wealth or fame—though, pursue those too, if that’s what you truly want.

The work of becoming yourself. Of unlearning the patterns that kept you side-lined and suffering. Of building a life where you belong to yourself.

That’s what lives on.

Not just what you accomplished. But who you became. The proof that a woman can look at the programming she inherited and decide: not anymore.

And it’s available to every single one of us.

In my heart this week: gratitude for every woman who did the inner work before me and left me the evidence that change is possible. That's the legacy I'm building inside my life now and for my loved ones in the future—the proof that you can aspire to live a life that lights you up and feels as good as it looks.

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What inner work are you doing right now that you’ve never called legacy work?

What would shift if you started seeing it that way—as valuable as any building with your name on it, any amount of money, any recognition?

What becomes possible when you claim it?

With immense appreciation,

That’s deliberate.

For years, as a life coach and in my personal life, I’ve been filling pages in my journal and my Moleskine planner with desired outcomes. Goals for the year, the quarter, the month, and the week. Pages and pages of the results that I want to create.

And right now, I deperately want to take a break from that.

I’ve gotten too attached to outcomes.

I can feel it—the gripping in my upper body. The fixation. The constant checking to see if the thing I wrote down has happened yet.

This month, instead of declaring what outcomes I want to achieve, I’m focusing on something else entirely.

My energy.

I am starting with three emotions I want to get better at feeling on purpose: disciplined, protected, and legitimate.

Next, I am focusing on the actions that I will take when I feel them.

When I’m disciplined, there are non-negotiable things I will do with my nutrition, strength training, writing, coaching, money, and courageous conversations. I want to watch myself do those things—not because they’re driving toward an outcome, but because it will give me the evidence that I am using the energy of discipline to be the person I most want to be.

When I focus on feeling protected, it’s the reminder that I create my own inner safety. I’m constantly recreating the safe space I inhabit in my mind and my heart. That space isn’t dependent on what’s going on in the world, in my family, in my bank account, or in my business. I am not reliant on specific outcomes to create protection.

And legitimate. This one is brand new for me. And honestly, I was a bit surprised when I revealed it in my self-coaching.

I want to feel more legitimate. And I had it backward for a bit.

I thought that I would feel it once I had achieved all of my goals. And I was wrong.

My business is already legitimate. I am a legitimate CEO / Founder / Owner / Entrepreneur / Writer / Coach / Teacher. I am always in charge of creating my legitimate energy. It’s not the number of clients or the revenue. It’s definitely not about external validation, likes, or subscribers. My decision-making and heart-led coaching methodology is legitimate, just because I say so.

So that’s what I’m practicing this month.

Detached from outcomes. Releasing the tight and desperate grip.

It’s about energy and behavior And the feelings I want to live in, intentionally.

I can’t wait to see what happens and I’ll share how it goes.

In my home this week ~ connection time with a beloved friend. Kari and her daughter stopped by en route to Acadia National Park. We sipped tea, talked about coaching, our mothers and mothering, coaching, and seeking out the perfect piece of Maine blueberry pie.

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What would change if you stopped driving toward outcomes and started cultivating specific energy or feelings?

With immense appreciation,

Take the Get Unstuck Quiz | Book a free clarity call | Golden Coaching Certification™

Her brain delivered this familiar opinion hundreds of times.

I heard it at least 5 times per session when we first started coaching together.

Thankfully, now, if she says it out of habit, she catches herself quickly to consider if it is even true or how she wants to better explain how she’s feeling.

Many of us inherited this misbelief that guilt is the price of admission for wanting anything for yourself.

That if you're going to want more: more time, more purpose, more of a life that actually feels like yours, you'd better lead with guilt first. Otherwise, you'll come across as ungrateful. Or worse, selfish.

We say it so automatically. Without ever questioning the source or the validity of the opinion we hold.

Welcome to the guilt club. Mandatory membership for women who want things.

The guilt isn't proof that you want too much.

It's proof that you've been told for a very long time that you should want less.

And that's not the same thing at all.

This Wednesday at noon ET, I'm teaching a free live workshop on the three lies your brain uses to keep your life exactly the same and the future you want, just out of reach.

The guilt trip lie is the first lie that I will break down in more detail and share exactly why it’s on autopilot, like it was for my client.

Register for the free workshop here.

In my bedroom window this week a male turkey strutting, gobbling, and putting on a show, waking me up an hour before my alarm. Mating season means at least 15-20 turkeys will be crossing (and recrossing) our property daily, marking their territory like they own the place.

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How often do you say “I feel so guilty” without even hearing yourself say it?

What would change if you stopped leading with guilt before you asked for what you want?

With immense appreciation,

Now I know the experts will say: Keep a list of all your ideas somewhere, so you can refer to it in the future when you think you don’t have any. Or write when you have the ideas and get everything scheduled and prepared in advance.

Yep, the tactics are amazing. I appreciate the suggestions, but they do not work for me.

What I have found is that instead of opening a spreadsheet labeled “content plan,” I like to take myself outside for a walk, instead.

I actually like to listen to where my ideas may come from next.

Is it the sound of trucks delivering goods from one side of the island to the other? The sound of the Bananaquit signaling to her chicks in the nest that she is right there, not far? The song that is accompanying me on my morning walk, or the crunch of the dusty dryness beneath my feet?

Each has the potential to inspire or loosen an old memory.

I often don’t find my writing ideas inside a folder in a document on my computer. I find them outside. In what’s growing and what’s alive. In sound. In smells.

In the thing I just noticed that I’ve never noticed before, even though I’ve walked this same route a hundred times.

There’s no wrong way to source your ideas. The spreadsheet works for some people. The walk works for me. What matters is that you know where your ideas actually come from—not where someone told you they should come from.

In my hands this week is my friend, Béa’s book. One chapter to go, after I detoured into The Seven Sisters series for the past two months. Béa is a gorgeous writer who blends compassion, science-backed teaching, feminism, and coaching. It’s her tenderness that pulls me in and keeps me coming back for more of her wise lessons.

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One Degree Deeper

What would happen if you stopped looking for ideas where you think you should, and started looking where they actually show up for you?

With immense appreciation,

My friend was looking at the same assignment change and thinking: “Huh. I wonder how we’ll figure that out.”

Two people. Same situation.

One thought: “This is impossible.”

The other thought: “I can definitely figure this out.”

Both of them were confused about how the other could have such a different perspective.

I can’t help but notice that I toggle between both of the responses. Sometimes I’m the one who sees a problem and immediately knows I can solve it. And sometimes I’m the one who catastrophizes the problem before I even start.

I know it’s not a personality issue. And it’s not about my level of optimism or pessimism.

More importantly, it’s not even about the actual ‘problem’.

It’s what I believe is true underneath.

When I think “this is impossible,” underneath that, I’m running with the belief that says: this problem is evidence that something is wrong. I can’t handle this. It shouldn’t be happening like this. I’m not capable.

When I think “I can figure this out,” I’m running a different belief system altogether: problems are solvable. I have capacity. I can find solutions.

Same problem. Completely different underlying belief about myself.

And the quality of my belief is what determines everything that happens next.

Whether I move into solution mode or stay stuck in the problem.

I can't always control which belief shows up first. But I'm getting better at noticing it before I decide the problem is impossible.

In my garden this week, the mango tree is all of a sudden bursting with fruit. I often think I should finally learn proper mango-cutting and eating techniques, and then I remember that peeling away the skin with sticky fingers and eating it like an apple, with the juice running down my chin and t-shirt, is the best way.

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One Degree Deeper

When was the last time you looked at a problem and thought, “I can figure this out” instead of “This is impossible”?

What made the difference?

With immense appreciation,

A group of young women came in behind me, phones up, already rehearsing their angles. Tiny dresses. Freshly blown hair, impeccable make-up, and having a very good time.

The bathroom attendant came over and asked if I would like her to take my photo in the entrance.

I smiled. No, thank you.

As I stood there at the sink for an extra minute watching the scene unfold, I noticed something in my reflection.

I was being myself, exactly as I was designed to be.

In this older, softer body, wearing a dress that covered most of me.

Not feeling an ounce of internal pressure to suck anything in, inspect my face, or get my photo taken as so many others had.

I was observing and appreciating that all of us who shared this space could have such different experiences inside of it.

I looked at the luminescent, blush-colored walls. They looked at themselves in front of those same walls.

I felt comfortable and at home in my skin. I’m not sure how they felt, but I hoped there was some peace and appreciation.

Alone, I belonged to myself.

In the group, they had each other.

And all of it was just perfect.

In my hands this week were a 150-lb mushroom anchor, chain, and mooring buoy as my Dad and I checked and marked all the gear before the boat moorings are set in a few weeks. Dad taught me how to “mouse” the shackles, and I teased him relentlessly as I love to do when he uses as few words as possible to tell me what to do. Moments like this with my 85-year-old Dad feel sacred as he passes along generational knowledge about tides, wind, wooden boats, and the trees they are made from.

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One Degree Deeper

When was the last time you watched yourself not go with the flow and didn’t panic, feel threatened, or change yourself to match the room?

What would shift if you got better at that?

With immense appreciation,

It’s hard. I’m a natural back-of-the-line person, politely letting everyone go ahead of me. I love hanging back, reading the room, taking it all in, and then maybe, towards the end, quietly raising my hand.

But lately I know that’s not going to get me where I want to go. Not in this particular season. Not when I’m doing things I’ve never done before, asking myself to grow and stretch and build in ways I never have.

So I’ve made a decision. I unmute right away. I raise my hand. I bring the so-called dumb questions. I show up in the energy of going first, and if I don’t get picked first, that’s okay. I’ve already decided.

Here’s what I’m noticing: my voice is steadier because I’m less nervous. My thoughts are more coherent. I’m less distracted, less in my head about when it’s “appropriately-politely” my turn, because I’ve already answered that question. The answer is always now.

And this morning, someone sent me a message. She’d watched me raise my hand the day before. She let me know how much we had in common and then said this.

“I wanted you to know that you are NOT alone, and I felt so moved by your share!”

I didn’t go first for her. I went first for me. But that’s the thing about a simple one-degree shift, you rarely see the tiny ripple in motion, but it is always creating impact somewhere.

In my ears this week is Ricky Martin, which is making my strength training workouts way more fun and taking me straight back to 2001. That year, Nora lived with us after she and her family had fled the 1999 Kosovo war. She was obsessed with Ricky Martin, which meant I became a raving fan too.

It’s been decades since I’ve deliberately listened to his music. And as I grimace my way through Bulgarian split-squats, singing & dancing between reps, I’m creating a heart connection with an old friend.

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One Degree Deeper

Where in your life are you sitting in the back of the room because you’re waiting for the right moment, question, or permission?

What would change if you just decided to go first?

With immense appreciation,

They’ve been Cloud White for several years now. Maybe longer. You’re growing tired of it. It feels flat. Boring. You’re ready to change it up.

You know you want to do something different. You just don’t know what yet.

So you start asking around.

A friend mentions that her kitchen is Straw Yellow, and she absolutely loves it. Maybe you’d love it too.

You see a kitchen on Pinterest painted in soft blue. Interesting. You bookmark a few images online.

And then you start thinking: maybe Straw Yellow could work.

Until your brain begins to negotiate against it.

“Well, of course, that looks good in her kitchen. But I don’t know if it’ll look good in my kitchen.”

“What if it doesn’t match the decor we have?”

“What if my family doesn’t like it?”

“What if I go to all that trouble—take everything off the walls, tape off the windows, block out the weekend to paint—and I don’t like it more than Cloud White?”

“What if I like it less than Cloud White? Then what do I do?”

So you quietly decide to keep the Cloud White.

Because here’s the logic your brain offers you, and it sounds so well thought out.

“I’d rather it be what I know and not like it, than something I don’t know and not like it at all.”

At least this way, you don’t risk the money. The time or the effort. And you definitely don’t risk the disappointment.

But here’s another way.

Go to the paint store.

Not to buy Straw Yellow, or commit to anything. Just to see what the options could be.

Walk down the aisle, and admire all the paint chips. Pick up Dark Indigo. Mango. Olive. Sage. Terracotta. Dusty Rose. Charcoal.

Hold 10 paint chips in your hand. Then 20. And keep adding more.

Imagine your kitchen being Dark Indigo. Or Mango. Or Olive.

Just because you don’t know anyone with a Dark Indigo kitchen doesn’t mean you can’t have one.

What happens when you touch all the colors

And here’s what happens when you do this. When you stop limiting yourself to one or two safe alternatives, and you actually see all the colors.

Your brain starts to expand.

It stops negotiating against Straw Yellow and fighting to keep Coud White, and starts exploring what you actually like or feel drawn to, or what you strongly dislike.

The constraint begins to lift.

You’re no longer stuck between Cloud White and one risky alternative anymore. You’re standing in front of infinite possibilities, and your brain is no longer arguing to keep the kitchen the same. It’s exploring.

You become a person who considers 10 options. Or 100.

Not because you’re going to paint your kitchen 100 times. But because letting yourself SEE 100 possibilities changes something fundamental.

It validates that Cloud White has to go. You’ve outgrown it, and wanting something different is a real reason to make a change.

It shows you that the recommendation from one friend one time—however well-intended—doesn’t have to be the only option.

It reminds you that your desire to make a change matters. That getting in your car and driving to the paint store is not a small thing. It’s you showing yourself that what you want is important.

This is for the woman who feels stifled by staying the same

If you’re the woman who keeps things the same because exploring alternatives feels too risky, too uncertain, too much—this is for you.

Here’s what I see constantly with the women I work with.

They come to me stuck in their version of a Cloud White kitchen. Not literally, of course. But metaphorically.

The job that stopped feeling right years ago. The version of herself that no longer fits. The next chapter she wants but hasn’t let herself imagine.

And when I ask, What could you do or what do you most want to do?

She offers me one alternative. Maybe two.

Usually, something someone else suggested. Perhaps something adjacent to what she already knows. And then, before she’s even finished describing it, her brain starts negotiating against it.

“That could work for someone else, but not for me.”

“What if I try it and it’s worse than what I have now?”

“What if I go to all that trouble and I don’t even like it?”

So she stays in the Cloud White kitchen for another year. Because at least it’s known and safe. And she’s not risking disappointment.

You don’t have to commit to anything

But what if?

You don’t have to commit to Straw Yellow today. You don’t have to paint anything. You just get to go to the paint store.

To see Dark Indigo. Hold Mango. Look at Olive.

Let yourself see that there are more possibilities than the one or two your brain is currently negotiating against. Allow yourself to become a person who considers 100 options, not just the safest one.

Because here’s what happens when you do. You stop asking, What’s the least risky alternative to what I know?

And you start asking, What do I actually want?

That shift—from risk management to desire—is where everything changes.

What are you not letting yourself consider? Not because you’re going to do it. Or because you’re committing to anything today.

What colors haven’t you let yourself visualize?

What would it feel like to walk into the paint store and hold 10 options? 20? 100?

Not to overwhelm yourself. But instead, to remind yourself that you’re allowed to explore. That limited options aren’t your only reality. That you can be a person who considers many possibilities before deciding.

And that staying in Cloud White—staying in what you know but don’t love—isn’t protecting you from disappointment.

It’s guaranteeing it.

Let’s talk

If you’re stuck in Cloud White—if you know it’s not working, but you keep talking yourself out of alternatives—let’s connect.

Because in just 30 days of working together, we’ll have identified all the colors you haven’t let yourself consider. You’ll know the difference between “this is the safest option” and “this is what I actually want.” And you’ll be a person who explores possibilities, not just settles for the one that feels least risky.

This works because we don’t just pick one new color. We explore all of them—so you’re choosing what you want, not just what feels safest.

The link is below. Start by booking your free Clarity Call today.

With immense appreciation & gratitude. Always.

Book Your Clarity Call Today

A college graduate in 2025, already employed in early 2026, in the exact industry she wanted to be in. Needless to say, I’m incredibly proud of her. And watching her step into this feels like watching her become herself.

Mind you, there have been lots of moments when she wanted to give up and move back home. Felt too hard, too overwhelming. But she pursued temporary opportunity after temporary opportunity, made connections, networked, until she landed in a really great situation that she’s very excited about.

Last night on FaceTime, she walked me through it all. The salary, the travel, and the crewmates she’ll be working with. She’s working in the yachting world—not something I could relate to personally—so I had questions.

And as she was talking, I was doing something else.

I was listening for what she wasn’t saying.

I was paying particular attention to the unspoken words. Watching her body language. Because as a life coach, that’s what I’m trained to do. What’s not spoken can often reveal the most.

I was listening to whether the words she was sharing and her body language were in sync. Looking at how she framed this situation, through what she shared. Not what she thought she was supposed to say about it, but how she genuinely felt. What her truth about this situation actually was.

And as far as I could tell—the sound of her voice, the smile on her face, the words she said, her body language—everything was lining up.

I exhaled.

Because I know her better than anyone. And in 22 years, I know what her version of misalignment looks like. This wasn’t that.

This is the skill that guides everything I do as a coach. Listening for what’s not being said. Tuning into the pauses, the unfinished sentences. Being curious about the gaps.

Because here’s what I know from 13 years of coaching women and myself: most of the time, there is misalignment.

Words and the truth can be running on separate tracks. And the unspoken part? That’s where many are actually living.

There’s the expected answer. “Oh, everything’s fine.”

And then there’s the unspoken part, just below the surface. The part that’s careful not to reveal too much, too soon. The part that’s waiting for a safe, guided conversation before it comes out.

“I just hoped I would feel happier than this.”

“I should be so grateful. But I’m kind of compromising on what I really want around this, and this, and this.”

“It feels like I’m settling.”

That dissonance. Between “everything’s fine” and what’s actually true. That’s where the pain roots.

Sometimes there’s nothing you can do about that dissonance immediately, depending on where you are in life.

I know this personally.

A few years ago, I was on the hook for my daughter’s college tuition and chose to stay in a job despite feeling out of integrity with the leader’s new vision, because it paid for her education.

It was extremely painful to stay, and I would make that same choice again.

That pain was important to acknowledge. Worth surfacing. Holding space for. Getting coaching on.

Because that was my truth.

The part that felt grateful for the opportunity to pay for my daughter’s education.

And the part that felt like I was settling.

Both were true.

This is what I mean when I say both can be true for you too. The gratitude is real. So is the disappointment. You’re not lying when you say you’re grateful. You’re just not telling the whole truth.

And when you only speak one of them out loud, the other one doesn’t disappear. It just lives underneath. Quiet. Unspoken. Taking up space you don’t acknowledge.

I think about this constantly with the women I work with.

The polished version they offer in the first call. The “everything’s good, I just want to improve a few things” version.

And then, a few questions in, the unspoken part surfaces.

“I’m exhausted.”

“I don’t know what I actually want anymore.”

“I feel guilty for wanting more.”

“I’m overcommitted everywhere in my life, and I don’t know how to stop.”

The unspoken part is almost always where the real work begins. Because that’s where you’re living. Not in the polished answer. In the gap between what you say and what you’re not saying.

What are you not saying?

Not to me. To yourself.

What’s the polished version you’ve been offering—to your partner, your team, your friends, maybe even your journal?

And what’s the unspoken part just below the surface? The part you’re careful not to reveal too much of, too soon?

“I should be grateful, but...”

“Everything’s fine, except...”

“It’s almost what I want, but not quite.”

That BUT. That’s where you’re living.

When you only speak half the truth, you end up living in the gap. The space between what you say out loud and what you’re actually feeling.

And over time, that gap gets wider. The unspoken part gets quieter. You start to believe the polished version is the whole truth.

But your body knows. You feel it in the restlessness you can’t name. The sense that something is off, even when nothing is technically wrong.

That’s the unspoken part, trying to get your attention.

If you can feel that gap—if you know exactly what I’m talking about—book a Clarity Call this week.

In a 45-minute call, we can surface what you’re not saying. You’ll have language for the part of you that’s been living just below the surface. And you’ll know what to do with the dissonance instead of pretending it’s not there. You’ll see how to stop living in the gap between what you say and what’s true.

This works because we don’t skip over the unspoken part. We start there. That’s where the truth lives.

The link is below. I’d love to talk.

With immense appreciation & gratitude. Always.

Book Your Clarity Call Today