Perspectives

The wind delivered my neighbor’s campaign sign to my front lawn, and I sprinted across the yard in high heels to return it before anyone saw. Then a poll worker announced my primary ballot to an entire high school gym. Two tiny election scandals, and what they taught me about how much we worry about being seen.

I hide window cleaner from my husband and keep a private stash of useful things. But sometimes I lose my belongings without any assistance. One bitterly cold morning, my keys were safely inside the house—and I found myself taking shelter at a stranger’s funeral.

Learning to Pause is often the hardest part of self-care. We can be surprisingly willing to override our own discomfort because we think we should stretch farther, hold longer, or keep forcing our way through tension. Pushing ourselves into pain can become a form of violence toward our own bodies. By practicing learning to pause, we step off the accelerator, align with the yogic principle of ahimsa (non-harming), and finally begin responding to our physical cues with genuine

I went to Kohl’s to return an Amazon purchase and left with a sweater, two chocolates, and a small role in someone else’s bonus prospects. When did buying something become an invitation to complete a performance review?

What do an overcrowded refrigerator, leaking teriyaki marinade, and two uncooperative crisper drawers have to do with emotional regulation? More than you might think. A funny, painfully relatable look at what happens when life's little frustrations send our nervous systems into overdrive, and how paying attention to our bodies might help us recognize when we're about to lose it.

The coffee spill was cleaned up, and I’d made it to work. My body was apparently still on the staircase. A story about the stress we carry—and a small practice for noticing it.

For years, I thought of myself as a brain dragging around an inconvenient meat suit. Yoga helped me notice what my body had been trying to tell me all along. This is the first article in a series about embodiment, stress, and finding tools that actually help.

Not everyone who is cruel, manipulative, or lacking in empathy is a criminal psychopath. Dark traits exist on a continuum, and recognizing repeated patterns may help us protect ourselves from the harm they cause.

The natural world opens me to the Divine in a way I have never experienced sitting in a church pew. From Teilhard de Chardin to Robin Wall Kimmerer and Thích Nhất Hạnh, very different traditions keep bringing me back to the same idea: we are not separate from the living world.

What does trauma treatment actually look like? Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we begin with the body. Sometimes the first work is simply learning how to stay present without becoming overwhelmed.

Dolly Parton once told her sister, “We’ve got more important things to do than worry about their silly asses.” It may be one of the wisest statements ever made about time, attention, and the difference between caring deeply and being endlessly consumed by foolishness.

As I prepare for Florida and Iceland, anxiety insists on coming along. So I pack it first, zip it into its own neatly compressed cube, and make room for excitement, homesickness, family, wonder, and everything else the journey may hold.

Dolly Parton was sweet and sexy, plainspoken and bedazzled, deeply feminine and strong as a steel trap. Perhaps we loved her because she never asked us to choose which version was real. All of them were.

As September arrives and the days begin to shorten, the world gradually turns inward. For some of us, crisp air, early darkness, glowing windows, and the return of sweater weather bring not sadness, but an invigorating sense of warmth, refuge, and home.

Introversion, Sensitivity, Trauma, and the Need to Recharge Some people need more time alone than others. Not because they dislike people. Not because they are antisocial. And not because they are, as I occasionally remind myself, lazy ass slackers. For some of us, being around people simply requires a great deal of energy. I know what it feels like to need time to recharge my battery after talking all day or socializing with people who are not in my innermost circle. I need

Your brain is constantly predicting what will happen next, drawing on old experiences to make sense of the present. But anxiety, trauma, and depression can color those predictions, making thoughts feel like facts when they may be little more than an old file pulled forward.

Paint, Yarn, Words, and a Little Perspective I have come to realize that I am happiest when I am making something. Sometimes it is a painting. Sometimes it is crochet. Sometimes it is writing. Apparently, one creative outlet was not enough. It is nice to be able to pick up another when I have exhausted my interest in one for the day but have not yet satisfied the urge to make something. Painting, especially, makes me a little giddy. I love playing with color—hues, values, lig

From girlhood onward, women learn that their bodies will be noticed, judged, compared, desired, criticized, and sometimes controlled. This essay explores the cultural expectations women absorb about beauty, sexuality, aging, safety, and bodily autonomy—and asks a larger question: who should hold authority over a woman’s body?

Begin With the Body When the Mind Won’t Sit Still For many people, meditation sounds perfectly reasonable until they are asked to sit still and do it. Within thirty seconds, the mind has reorganized your closet, considered next week’s meal plan, and begun investigating whether the refrigerator is making a new noise. Some of us do not find stillness by beginning with stillness. Sounds a bit like a Japanese koan, doesn’t it? Yoga offers another doorway. When movement follows th

The Roles We Inherit and the Freedom to Rewrite Them Families are very good at assigning roles. Sometimes nobody remembers holding the auditions. In my family, I accumulated a collection of descriptions over the years. I was the absent-minded professor. I was the professional student. I was the quirky dilettante. I was shy, maybe a little different, and generally more comfortable watching from the edges than marching into the middle of things. None of those descriptions was e