Last week, my husband stepped on a chipmunk while trying to avoid another one scurrying across his path. It died instantly. To say this affected him is an understatement. He called me from work. I stepped on a chipmunk. I killed it. Oh my God, was all I could say. Whoa. Other than that, which I said without a thought, I didn't know what to say. I noticed how I wanted to reassure him that it wasn’t his fault. Then I remembered the other way, the one I learned through Focusing: patient and...
14 days ago • 4 min read
I am in bed in the daytime. So probably sick. I am 4, maybe 5, and bored. And then I see them. They are floating above me, from right in front of my eyes all the way to the window. They’re tiny, these little things. I reach up to touch one and they scatter, like shy creatures, leaving just my hand in the light. I let out a little sigh, and let my hand drop. But just as I forget about them, they come back! Here they are again, these dancing, floating little somethings. If I hadn't already been...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Sometimes I see an older person in a café and imagine them as a little kid. And sometimes I see babies and am struck by how much they resemble someone really old. Does this happen to you? The other day my friend Ginger was describing a recent evening with her 14-year-old niece — how one moment her niece would be all grown up, and the next she'd be giggling like a little kid, making the same face she's been making since she was 3. There was such tenderness in how Ginger spoke. Such love and...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Something a bit different in your inbox today. I was recently a guest on Phoenix Lessons, a podcast hosted by Amanda Stubbert and Cami Ostman about what it takes to rebuild a life after everything burns down. My episode is called Beyond Belief: Getting Religion Out of My Body, and it’s 51 minutes of conversation I didn’t expect to go quite as deep as it did. (But hey, I’m always here for that!) Near the end, Amanda and Cami asked me a question I still can’t get out of my head. I won’t spoil...
3 months ago • 1 min read
In 2025, I could feel my anxiety increasing. And like that proverbial frog in a pot of water getting hotter, as the year went on it became harder to quit patterns that were actively making things worse. On one hand, I could say my anxiety was about everything happening here in the US, and that would be true. But on the other, it was about how much I was consuming—information, news, stuff—all of which had in common one thing: scrolling on my phone. Basically, I was at the mercy of an algorithm...
5 months ago • 3 min read
I follow Aaron Parnas on Substack, a young independent journalist who's constantly reporting breaking news—usually bad. Except on Sundays when he posts "Good News Only." In my nervous system program, we do something similar. Only we don't limit it to Sundays. Glimmers and Celebrations is how we begin pretty much every meeting or session—private 1:1 coaching, groups, Wednesday Listening and Co-Regulation Labs, Nervous System Playgrounds, masterclasses… This isn't about pretending hard things...
5 months ago • 6 min read
Early in our relationship, my now-husband and I were sitting on his loveseat (I still thought of it that way — haha) in our second-floor apartment in Arlington, Massachusetts, both of us trying hard to be polite, wrapping our defensiveness in civility. (Oof! Can you feel it?) Jeffrey was going through a divorce. I was 47, a new stepmom who was somewhere between still wanting, and grieving not having, a child of my own. Talk about love. And talk about landmines. I don't even remember what the...
7 months ago • 5 min read
In a world that feels increasingly divided, boundaries might sound like more separation. (And if even the word boundary makes you a little “anxy,” as I sometimes call it, I understand.) But what if boundaries are actually what make true and meaningful connection possible?! 😳 Your nervous system is wired for connection, Reader. As mammals, we literally require connection to survive. True fact. And real connection — where you say what you mean, feel at ease being yourself, funny snort-laugh and...
8 months ago • 1 min read
Last Wednesday I was supposed to be on a massage table at 2 o’clock. Instead, I was on my kitchen floor, sobbing. At 1:40, I’d gone to grab my keys from their usual spot — at least, usual when I haven’t left them somewhere else. They weren’t there. What followed was a search that started mildly — checking the jeans I’d worn the day before. Then my jacket. Then under furniture and seat cushions. Then back to the jacket. Then, absurdly, the fridge and freezer, because I’d exhausted all the...
8 months ago • 4 min read