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Welcome to my blog, where you'll find substantive, well-researched articles that blend neuroscience, philosophy, poetry, personal reflection, and the latest life coaching tools in service of helping people engage their full potential.
Feeling lost, scared, uncertain, grief-stricken, heartbroken, guilty, unsure—these emotions are core to the experience of conscious growth: of becoming more authentic, of saying yes to our truest longings, of saying no to what we've outgrown or what didn't fit to begin with, of risking heartache in honor of love, of risking failure in pursuit of our passions, of taking the leap, of having faith.
But when we profane the holy pain of growth by treating it as dangerous, inappropriate, weak, needy, excessive, indulgent, or just plain distracting, we don’t just muzzle self-actualization and cap our impact and potential for success, we become complicit with conformity at its worst: we abandon imagination, the fuel of courageous inquiry and inspired creation, without which innovation sputters, fear becomes status quo, and self-protection trumps co-creation.
… to play our true role in the whole, to feel fulfilled and purposeful, we must be willing, paradoxically, to risk feeling wildly alone: we must be willing to step into vulnerability, to know and then act upon our deepest joys, which also requires accepting and working to heal our deepest wounds.
Here’s the thing: in my own life, and in working with clients and students, I cannot point to a single instance in which the punitive, impatient, striving quest of the inner critic—no matter how well-intended—has catalyzed lasting healing, happiness, creativity, motivation, joy, or liberation of any kind.
Whether you are celebrating today, or grieving, or aching... Whether you have children, have lost children, chose not to have children, wanted children and could not birth or otherwise raise children of your own... Whether you are with your children, or estranged from them ... You are, yourself, born of a mother, and you are, yourself, called every day into the profound life's work of learning to parent yourself.
Like the mechanism of the beating heart, or the process of birth shared by all mammals, creativity is born not by way of unwavering action, but through the pulse of contraction: surges of energy born on the back of quiet periods that appear, to the observer, so still as to be lifeless: the winter tree shorn of leaves, the tangle of brittle stalks upon which last year’s peonies balanced and billowed, the birthing woman sunk in sudden sleep between the volcanic heaves of her womb’s sharp cinch and release.
Over time, the curiosity that once propelled us effortlessly outward (into conversation with strangers, contact with insects and animals, imaginary worlds, woods and streams, tidal pools and marshes, empty lots, dumps, alleys, abandoned buildings, and forts erected from the refuse of neighborhood curbs) often becomes inverted and internalized: primary questions that once led us into exploration and wonder are often replaced by questions about our own belonging, our worthiness, and our competence. What will I discover here? becomes Who am I to want more? How can I figure this out? gives way to What’s wrong with me?
By mid-life we might feel pulled apart by these seemingly antagonist energies: the quest to learn and grow, on the one hand, and the fear of doing so, on the other.
Either way, I can tell you that, if recognized and harnessed, this tension (often felt in our bodies as acute discomfort) can be a very good thing: it's the symptom of untapped potential. Of your aliveness. It's your gateway to growth, to healing, to intimacy, to innovation, and purposeful service to others.
The problem isn't the tension itself between curiosity and self-criticism, but the way we perpetuate competition between them by inhabiting one at the cost of the other.
