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The holidays this year could be the trigger that finally causes Mom to spontaneously combust, Dad to move out to the garage, or little Joey to throw the cat into the fireplace. If ever there were a year with fewer Norman Rockwell-style holiday tableaus in play, this is the year.
If you’re curious as to whether your motives and actions are driven by you and your inner wisdom, or by others or some external sense of authority, real or perceived, just stop to count how many times in a day or week you catch yourself saying or thinking “I should” [fill in the blank].
It’s tension. Not a bipolar inability to pick something and stick with it. Not a groundhog’s day flip flop from “should” to “must” and back. It’s just tension.
One needs a pretty thick skin to not find these headlines alarming. And while the world situation itself is both alarming and severe, I wonder if a perpetual barrage of frightening headlines doesn’t worsen an already dire situation and potentially weaken the stores of energy we need to weather whatever is coming at us.
If there ever was a time that we find ourselves in the midst of stress, uncertainty, and distraction, it’s now. We don’t know when schools and workplaces will open again. We don’t know how bad the coronavirus pandemic will get in our cities, states, countries or planet. We don’t know when we’ll feel safe to hug our friends again. And this uncertainty affects our ability to focus on what’s in front of us, the work we can or must do today.
When was the last time you had a truly epic meltdown? The kind that takes your breath away with its intensity and lack of forewarning?
Becoming the woman you want to be in the world has taken time and work and self-reflection and sweat. And the process is daily, if not hourly, to keep that woman in view - to cherish her, encourage her, and pull her up when she slips into doubt and fear. Sometimes it feels precarious. Other times, that light is burning so brightly, even your cat needs shades.
As we approach the emptying of our nest in a couple of months, I have strongly considered getting rid of the kitchen table. Not because it’s beat up (it is). But because its’ empty chairs boldly broadcast the fact that the kids are gone. Sitting down to dinner with just one or two of us seems too sad. During the rest of the busy day I can convince myself that things haven’t changed that much; that our house isn’t “empty”. But that dinner table is a stark reminder in the 6-8pm timeframe that things have definitely changed, likely forever. So replacing that old table with a new, smaller one seemed a fitting and transitional way to move into our next chapter.