Blog
Thoughts, reflections, and letters for people at a crossroads in work and life.
Where is your attention?
We were two minutes into our session in the Oakland Redwoods when he said it.
A city inspector had come to his restaurant. He was telling me about the visit, the stress, what she had checked, and what she had flagged.
And then, almost in passing: "They sent the most difficult person."
He kept talking, but my attention shifted.
I had heard everything I needed to hear.
Why Do I Feel Guilty Saying No to Someone I Love
About two years ago, I was doing laundry when my daughter came in, upset.
A piece of clothing had gone into the dryer that wasn't supposed to. She wanted me to look at each piece before putting it in to check the requirements for every item.
I noticed my automatic reaction immediately. Are you kidding me? What a stupid idea. The reaction was real. And I noticed it. I did not act on it.
Instead, I told her that if that was her request, I would no longer do her laundry.
That did not go over well.
Why I Keep Avoiding the One Thing I Know I Need to Do
He came into our session this morning carrying something heavy.
For two months, there was a call he needed to make. A fundraising call. The kind that required him to ask — directly, without apology — for something that mattered to him. Every week, the intention was there. Every week, the phone stayed in his pocket. He'd told himself he would do it. He hadn't. And somewhere in that gap, a story had taken root — one that said something about who he was.
He used the word loser.
When Your Life Looks Right But Feels Wrong.
I was stuck on the Bay Bridge and sobbing.
My body had been trying to tell me something for years. That night, it stopped asking.
Traffic wasn't moving. My phone was dead. My son was at daycare waiting for me. Again.
And somewhere back in a conference room in the city I had just spent three days smiling in, there was a version of me still playing along.
The conference had gone well.
I said the right things. I laughed at the right moments. I was good at this. The salary said so. The stock options said so.
I was living the dream.
Except I wasn't.
The Hope Chest
My mother taught me not to feel. It took a lifetime — and my daughter — to unlearn it.
My father died when I was two.
My mother was left with six children. Five boys and one girl. Me. The youngest.
She did what she had to do. She kept the house running. She kept us fed. She kept moving forward.
Her motto was simple.
No one likes a whiner.
The Difference Between What Happened and the Story I Made It Mean
After we hung up the phone, I noticed a strong feeling move through me. I checked in with my heart and stayed with what was there.
First came resentment — resentment that she could travel, that she could get up and go while I felt stuck here.
Underneath the resentment was jealousy. And underneath the jealousy — something I wanted. To travel. My emotions pointed to something real.
But there was still no peace. Something deeper stirred. So I stayed.
Then the word arrived.
Abandoned.
And with it — a memory. Seven years old. My mother has left the country for three weeks. I am staying with my grandmother. I do not feel safe there.
I felt it.
It Wasn’t Complicated After All
My son is spending Christmas away for the first time.
Twenty-nine years of shared rituals, and now a quiet change.
I didn’t have an issue with him going. That part felt clean.
What hurt was something else.
I wasn’t held in mind.
Plans were made — with friends, with travel, with what came next — and somehow I wasn’t part of the orientation. When dates were offered later, they landed flat. January 25 didn’t feel like a celebration. It felt like a placeholder.
The meaning that came immediately was familiar:
I don’t matter. I’m not a priority.
What’s Your Intention?
My son called the other day, his voice tight with frustration.
“They never wrote me back,” he said.
“Send me the email,” I told him.
When it landed in my inbox, I could see it. Polite words, thoughtful details, a closing line that sounded like a soft wave goodbye. But no arrow. No request that gave his boss something to respond to.
When I asked him what his intention was, he paused. “I didn’t want to sound pushy. I just…wanted them to respond.”
The Call to Climb
I interviewed James Robbins today on my podcast, My Love of Life Energy. Author of The Call to Climb.
I hadn’t met James before today. Yet when I glanced through his Instagram, I felt a warmth in my chest, the kind that says: yes, this will be good.
And it was.
From the moment he began, his words pulled me in. He calls himself “not a great writer.” But as I scrolled through the first three chapters of his book, I found myself leaning forward, hungry for more, clicking purchase without hesitation.