A Quiet Revolution

Towers of white water rolled toward me. Rows of frothing Goliaths moving sideways and forwards, bumping into each other as the wind whipped their white crests of spray high into the air and further toward the western horizon, doubling their size, magnifying the fierceness.

I felt small.

Blindfolded and Sleepwalking

It’s like I closed my eyes for two minutes. Maybe it was just a blink. I swear, it couldn’t have been that long. Fall came and went. My daughter now too old to be taken door to door by her mother, made plans to trick-or-treat with friends. Did we even buy a pumpkin this year? I don’t think so.

Lost One

I needed to speak to you: lost one. You know who you are, the one who wrote to me for help. You're the one who reached out in those last hours of your life. You are the one who told me your story. You're the one who doesn't go a day without crying. You're the one at rock bottom. The one whose been too far lost now for far too long. 

Jump In

Yesterday was my birthday. I spent it in Hollywood with some of my favorite people doing yoga all day. It was a good day, a great day actually. It was filled with laughter, learning, mythology, down-dogs and sweat. After a long and hot day, I came back to my home-for-the-week and looked out at the pool. I forgot to pack a swimsuit. Actually, I didn't really forget - the truth is: I don't like cold water. I almost never go swimming. And when I do, it's when it's a million degrees out and I carefully let myself down into the water and then bounce out immediately.

Coming Home

I think this is what happens when a heart gets broken too many times. When a person gets criticized too many times. Or when a body is lonely for too long. To save our own lives, we cut pieces of ourselves off in an attempt to drag ourselves to whatever we are desperately seeking.

Looking Into the Eyes of Freedom

These were little compromises, tiny seemingly-harmless shape-shifty-things. I'd backed myself into a corner of a very small cage. And I wasn't okay in there. Something needed to change.

What Are You Worth? A Deceptively Difficult Question

Valuing yourself is a brutally courageous act. It's raw and vulnerable and sometimes it takes the strength of eighteen hundred elephants to speak it out loud.

Know-It-Alls Are Not Sexy

Know-It-Alls Are Not Sexy

You know those kind of people that always know the answer? The kind of people who insist on making sure you have the facts straight? The kind of people who want to make sure that you know if you've gotten something wrong? The kind of people who need to be right?

Yah. I hate those kind of people.

And I hated it even more when I found out that I AM one of those people.

I'm sure to anyone who knows me very well, this information isn't quite the shocker that it was for me. It's probably relatively obvious that I'm a...

Finding Refuge in Uncertainty

Finding Refuge in Uncertainty

In an effort to find quiet space in my house, somewhere that I could find solace -- a place to be able to write in peace, I decided to move outside. Our back deck looks over a canopy of oaks stretching from our home down the canyon toward the beach. I created a luxurious outdoor room with a super comfy sectional sofa and overstuffed pillows. I stocked it with cozy blankets (heated ones for cold and foggy mornings) and music (Sonos: I love you). My outdoor living room gets nuclear amounts of sunshine at certain parts of the day, so we hung some extra long outdoor drapes that can pull across part of the deck to shade the patio area.

The Dark Side of People-Pleasing

The Dark Side of People-Pleasing

The problem is that many of us confuse people-pleasing with actual kindness. And these two are easy to confuse because on the outside the behavior can look very similar. Yet, internally, they are vastly different and the key to their differences comes down to one thing: motive.