Finding room for love, loss, and life during a season that isn’t always merry and bright. There is something about the holidays that makes absence feel a little louder. Maybe it’s the empty chair at the Thanksgiving table, pulling out Christmas decorations and finding an ornament that belonged to someone who isn’t here anymore, or…

Why I Hope I Never Stop Learning, Questioning, and Trying New Things When was the last time you did something you had absolutely no idea how to do? I don’t mean something you were already pretty good at or something you knew you could figure out with a little effort. I’m talking about something completely…

The strange things we find funny when absolutely nothing is going right. In February 1982, Steven Callahan was alone in the Atlantic Ocean when something slammed into the side of his sailboat in the middle of the night. Water began pouring into the cabin, and within moments, he realized his boat was sinking. He scrambled…

Think about this for a moment… When was the last time you did something for the very first time? Not something you had to do. Not a new responsibility at work or an unexpected problem you had to figure out. I’m talking about something you chose to experience simply because you were curious. Something that…

For the people who show up on the worst days of someone else’s life. Most of us have driven past an ambulance with its lights flashing, pulled over for a fire truck racing down the road, or watched police officers responding to something happening in our neighborhood. We might wonder what’s going on. We might…

Darla has absolutely no idea what her job is. She doesn’t know that I spend my days sitting across from people who are sometimes telling me things they have never said out loud before. She doesn’t know what trauma is, or grief, or anxiety, or depression. She has no concept of clinical supervision, treatment plans,…

There is a strange thing that can happen when you finally get somewhere you worked really hard to get. You expect to feel different when you arrive. More confident, maybe. More certain. Like there will be some internal shift where you suddenly think, Okay. I’m ready now. I know what I’m doing. I belong here….

I’ve been thinking about unfinished things lately. The plans we make that don’t happen, the careers we leave, the relationships that end, the dreams that quietly change somewhere along the way. We don’t usually tell those stories when we talk about success. We like stories with clean endings. Someone decides to do something incredibly difficult,…

I’ve been thinking about how many things we want but never actually ask for. Not big, extravagant things. I’m talking about the little things that seem almost ridiculous when you say them out loud. I want someone to notice when I’ve had a long day without having to announce it. I want to be invited…

Have you ever made it through something incredibly difficult, only to find yourself falling apart once it was over? I mean, really think about that for a minute. You’ve spent weeks, months, or maybe even years dealing with something that required every ounce of strength you had. You were making decisions, managing responsibilities, taking care…