Resilience doesn’t mean pretending everything’s okay. It doesn’t mean masking your pain with positivity or pretending to bounce back like nothing ever happened.

True resilience is quieter, slower, deeper. It’s about rising—but rising differently. Softer. Stronger. Wiser.

Life throws us curveballs: loss, betrayal, heartbreak, illness, change. Each one can feel like an earthquake, shaking the very foundation of who we thought we were. And yet, within those cracks, something new begins to grow. A new strength. A deeper compassion. A resilience born from truth, not toughness.

We’ve all faced seasons that stretched us beyond what we thought we could bear. The grief that left us breathless. The betrayal that made us question everything. The uncertainty that stripped us down to our bones. But look—you’re still here. Still breathing. Still becoming.

Let the scars tell their stories. Let them be badges of courage. Your pain is not a sign of weakness—it’s a testament to your humanity. The scars mean you felt, you risked, you lived. And that matters more than the neat, polished image society tells you to strive for.

When you rise from the ashes, you don’t rise the same. You carry wisdom. You carry empathy. You carry the understanding that life is both beautiful and brutal—and that you can hold both without breaking.

Resilience means allowing yourself to fall apart when needed and giving yourself the grace to rebuild at your own pace. It’s not linear. Some days you’ll feel victorious. Others, you’ll feel defeated. Both are valid. Both are part of your story.

What if the obstacle wasn’t in the way, but was the way? What if your hardship carved a path to purpose you never could’ve seen before? That’s the miracle of resilience—it transforms our pain into possibility.

So when life knocks you down, take your time getting up. Cry. Scream. Rest. But know this: the strength you need is already inside you.

​The proof is in every breath you’ve taken since the storm began.

You are not your résumé, your relationship status, your income bracket, or your Instagram bio.

Those are roles you perform, not the truth of who you are. Self-discovery starts by daring to peel away the layers of expectation and performance that the world has wrapped around you. It asks: Who were you before the world told you who to be?

True self-discovery begins with stillness. In a society that glorifies busy and drowns in noise, choosing silence is radical. It is in quiet moments—those long walks without distraction, the stillness of early morning light, the sacred scratch of pen against journal paper—that your inner voice begins to rise. That whisper in your heart? That’s the you that’s always been there.

Asking, “Who am I when no one is watching?” unlocks the door to truth. When the performance stops, when you’re not being the good mother, the strong partner, the diligent worker—what remains? Often, we discover a tender part of ourselves that craves expression and authenticity, the version of ourselves we left behind to please others.

Self-discovery is about curiosity, not condemnation. It's about approaching yourself with wonder, not judgment. You are not a project to fix, but a mystery to unfold. Be gentle as you explore. What lights you up? What drains you? What dreams did you bury because someone told you they were unrealistic?

Peeling back the layers is a vulnerable act. You might find grief there—grief for the years you lived muted, the dreams you deferred, the pieces of yourself you abandoned to survive. Let that grief be honored, not rushed. It is proof that you are waking up.

Reclaim the parts of you that were silenced. The artist. The rebel. The dreamer. The child who spoke freely. The woman who once danced barefoot in the rain. They are not gone. They are waiting for your permission to return.

You are not becoming someone new. You are remembering who you’ve always been beneath the roles, the pain, and the noise. You are rediscovering your voice, your rhythm, your essence.

Self-discovery is a lifelong journey. There is no final destination, only deeper and deeper layers of knowing and becoming. Keep listening. Keep trusting. Keep choosing you.

Change rarely arrives with a gentle knock. More often, it crashes through the door uninvited—messy, loud, and inconvenient. It doesn’t ask if you’re ready. It doesn’t wait for your permission. It simply arrives, rearranging the furniture of your life, scattering the familiar, and daring you to find beauty in the mess.
​
But what if change isn’t the enemy? What if it’s the sacred invitation we’ve been unknowingly waiting for? The kind that doesn’t just shift our circumstances—but reshapes our soul.

We are taught to fear change. To cling to the known, even when it no longer fits. We stay in relationships that no longer nourish us, jobs that drain us, identities that suffocate us—because the unknown feels too vast, too uncertain. But the truth is, the unknown is where we meet ourselves most honestly. It’s where we shed the layers that no longer serve us and step into the wild, uncharted territory of who we’re becoming.

Navigating life transitions begins with surrender. Not the kind that gives up, but the kind that gives in—to trust, to timing, to transformation. Surrender says, “I don’t know what’s next, but I trust that I’m being led.” It’s a softening, a loosening of the grip we have on control. And in that softening, we find strength.

There is grief in change. Even when the change is good. Even when it’s chosen. We grieve the version of ourselves we’re leaving behind. The routines, the roles, the rhythms that once felt like home. Honor that grief. Let it move through you like a tide. Let it cleanse. Let it teach. Let it go.

And then, begin again. Slowly. Gently. With curiosity instead of fear. Ask yourself: What is this transition trying to teach me? What parts of me are being called forward? What am I being invited to release?

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t need a five-year plan or a perfect roadmap. You just need presence.

One breath.
One brave step at a time.
Trust that the ground will rise to meet you.

Remember, you’ve done this before. You’ve survived heartbreak, loss, reinvention.

You’ve risen from ashes you thought would consume you. This transition is not your undoing—it’s your becoming.
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So take the leap. Let the old fall away. Let the new unfold. You are not lost. You are being remade.

I was once told that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or for life. That quote has brought me a tremendous amount of peace and acceptance with the fluidity of encounters because upon first meeting, we never know which category a person will fall into. We never know who will be a lesson in love and life and loss, or who will choose to ride the experiences out by our side. Yet even through the greatest heartbreak, I have found profound healing in parts of my heart I didn't know existed.

There was a time I thought survival was enough. That simply moving from moment to moment was a testament to strength. I checked the boxes, did the dishes, answered the emails, smiled at the neighbors. But deep inside, I wasn’t really living—I was coping.

The truth is, many of us are taught to equate endurance with success. We’re handed this invisible checklist of what it means to be “okay.” But being okay is not the same as being alive.

Grief cracked me open in ways I never expected. When a love I thought would last a lifetime unraveled, I sat alone in my quiet kitchen and felt the hollow ache of a future I had planned dissolve into mist. But that pain—it was sacred. It demanded I feel. It beckoned me back to myself.

Through those shattered pieces, I began to find fragments of joy I had overlooked:
The way sunlight slants through a curtain in the late afternoon.
The comfort of my daughter's hand slipping into mine without a word.
The wild, reckless freedom of laughing until my stomach hurt.

I started to ask myself—what would it mean to live, not just exist? What if I let the ache be a doorway, not a wall? What if I said yes to the spontaneous road trip, the unfiltered truth, the unguarded love?

The truth is: life is heartbreakingly brief and exquisitely beautiful. We are not here to simply get by. We are here to experience, to evolve, to connect, to heal, and to become.

So this is my invitation to you, dear reader:

Don’t just exist.
Live.
Live with your whole heart. Love with your whole heart.
Live knowing that some people will leave, and others will stay.
Live because your story is still unfolding and you get to hold the pen.

And maybe—just maybe—that’s where the magic lives.

"Do you want to get married again?"
His question was so innocent. The early stages of "getting to know another" when stepping out into the dating world again post-divorce, and with children.

I completely fumbled over my words.

I haven't mastered a good response for that question, despite it rolling in my head for nearly a decade now.

My thoughts flow more easily via pen and paper than they do when formulating a thought to speak.

I think my answer is, marriage is no longer a destination for me.
But if it is part of the path, of my journey, and it feels in alignment rather than the "next step" of a relationship, then yes.

There is a quote that you can only love someone as deeply as you have met yourself.

Conversely, someone can only love you to the depth that they have met themselves.

I have to tell you; I have gone deep.
Dug deep.
I have excavated every hurt I have both received and inflicted on others and rolled it around in my heart and soul. 

I have spent countless hours introspecting and looking at each experience through multiple lens to not only learn what was triggering me in life's moments up until now, but also how I may have been triggering in someone else.

I have sat looking in the mirror at my own reflection naked, afraid, vulnerable, begging the universe "how many more lessons in love do I have to learn?"

Sat until the tears that stained my cheek ran empty and my heart felt wide open.

Until I found the stillness inside of me.

Until the parts of me that once ached had been loved back to health.

Not by someone else, but by me.

In When the White Picket Fence is No Longer Enough, I write: "​When you are of a certain age and you find yourself looking for a partner and a love that is not derived around having children, having a family, building a house together, consolidating resources, it creates a strange dynamic. It is not a love built for the outcome but rather the journey. You realize you are looking for someone just for you—not to establish a legacy or generation to leave behind you. You’re not trying to create something that will compete with past loves or exes or even families who came before. You’re not looking to intertwine finances or debate the number of children and how they will be raised and what a family looks like. When you are looking for someone at this point in your life, it becomes incredibly personal in a very different way than when you were looking in your twenties."

I have found peace both within my own heart and my home.
That carries with it a price tag that no one can afford. I won't exchange my peace.

Too picky? I want too much. My expectations are too high.

Maybe.

Or maybe I just want something, believe in something, that others have long since given up on.
Or maybe even talked themselves out of by saying things like: "it's never going to happen."

Maybe the idea of juggling life, finances, schedules and the unexpected alone is too much.

Or it will cost too much to choose your own peace.

And that is okay, we all get to go about life our own way.

My heart hasn't turned black.
I don't have a zero-tolerance with relationships.
I don't want to grow old alone, forever.

I just have just come to the place where the peace I have found is greater than my need for partnership, even greater than my need for desire or passion.

I have tasted love that is so expansive, so unconditional, that defies all logic.

I am okay waiting to cross paths with the man who has sat with all of the versions of his younger self and healed them, loved them, honored them.

I don't need to get married, but I do need a love that runs deep. 

A man that doesn't just love my glow but honors the fires I have walked through to get here - because he has walked through his too.

Marriage? Okay, maybe.

But first - give me the man whose presence honors my peace and solitude.

The man whose own battles within give me the strength, courage and curiosity to grow even more.

Give me the man who finds me through the center of his heart.

I'll be waiting for him in the center of mine.

I adopted this as my motto for 2025.

Truthfully, I found it after walking away from the first sign of danger in what could have been a new relationship. A few weeks later, my gut instinct was confirmed when I received a half dozen drunken texts that were pure hatred.

I got off that wrong train quickly, and I gave myself a high-five for trusting myself.

But as I sit here now, four months into 2025, I realized that motto wasn't just going to be a one-time "good job" but rather a continuous test of my own resolve, and resilience. 

It was as if I put this thought out into the universe, and the universe responded with "are you sure you're ready for this?"

It always happens that way, doesn't it?

In just these four, fleeting months, I have let go of my daily coffee and opted for tea instead.

Let go of most gluten and even most Friday-night-glass-of-red-wine while cooking dinner. It has been like my physical body has begun rejecting the things that no longer satisfy it in the way they once did. No matter how much I still enjoyed the moment of consumption.

I've let go of a dear friend I wanted desperately to hold onto and made my heart ache every time I said no. Leaving me reeling at times and asking "why?"

I have said no to interview requests, and even no right as an interview was about to start. Even as I am still starting to grow into this new role as an author and speaker.

That proverbial train was not just a onetime "dodged-a-bullet" type experience, but rather a pervasive, relentless and constant check with my intuition.

Is this right?

No matter how much I like it, or how much I want it or what I think "it" is giving me - is this right? The question that pops up every time I face a crossroad no matter how big or how small.

For me, my intuition speaks to me in my gut. It clenches, feels nauseous, my appetite disappears and then often I am overwhelmed with fatigue. Tiredness to my bones.

That is when I know I have to let go, walk away, climb off that train no matter how fast it is going or if I thought its destination was where I belonged.

In a year that has brought so many new and exciting opportunities, they still have been sandwiched in between moments and experiences, and lifestyle changes I have been forced to make when I realized they were no longer fueling me.

Such is life, right? A constant ebb and flow of experiences that usher you down the path of life.

As I sit here, excited and grateful for the trains that brought me to the current station of residence, and watching trains pass me by, I can't help but whisper:

"I am ready for my train to come in."

Ready to take a break from the eternal vigilance of knowing when it's time to de-board, and ready to find the train destined for me to sit down, put my baggage down, and ride peacefully along for at least a little stretch of peaceful and certain countryside.

Personal growth and understanding are rewarding. But it is exhausting too.

So, if 2025 has left you feeling both excited and overwhelmed, I invite you to sit down next to meet at the train station.

Bring your baggage, bring your weathered heart and your wildest dreams.

We can sit together and watch the trains go by, waiting for ours to arrive.

​And should you board a different one, well then maybe I will see you down the tracks of life 

It is that time of year again here in New England - spring has finally arrived!

The warmer days have begun to appear more often, bringing with them our emergence into the fresh air - and our annual garden preparations.

Some of our seeds have been started in the office under grow lights, and we took advantage of the fresh air Saturday to replace the fence and netting in an attempt to keep out the deer/rabbits/groundhogs/whatever other animal decides to feast in our yard this year.

Perhaps we are learning that slowly preparing for the time when the temperatures stay consistent enough to move all of the plants outside, is better than having a single back-breaking weekend to get started!

Some years are a success. Some years the animals channel their inner-Houdini and eat everything no matter what I try. Some years the tomato plants take over everything. Some years we are barely home to give the gardens the TLC that they need. 

But the honest truth of it all - I am not really a great gardener. 
I try - I definitely give it a valiant effort each year.  But a natural green-thumb, I am not!

For me, for us, our gardens aren't necessarily about total yield or success.

I like to imagine someday it will be, but so far, my gardens have been more about a proof of faith rather than producing all of our veggies.

I painted that sign in 2023 (admittedly no expert painter either...) when I didn't just want to grow veggies, I needed to WITNESS something growing.

I needed to watch something start as a seed and evolve into something bigger, stronger, beautiful and life-giving.

I needed to garden because I needed a reminder that what exists today is growing into a beautiful tomorrow.

I needed to believe that like that little seed, I could change and grow my own reality into something new and beautiful and fulfilling.

I needed to garden because I needed a physical reminder that faith exists.

That even through the dark soil, even when we can't see what is taking place, even if we forget to water it a day here-and-there, even if they are eaten by animals instead of us, life is still in bloom.

MY life is still in bloom.

Maybe in a phase where I can't see the "end product" but magic and growth is still happening beneath the surface.

If the heaviness of your winter - whether that is actually, truly winter - or a broader meaning of winter such as loss, grief, an aching heart, an unknown future, is weighing you down right now...

Go to the store, buy some dirt, a little pot, a few seeds, and let your mini garden become more than just a garden.

Don't worry about being a master gardener. You aren't looking to be featured in a Home & Gardens magazine.

Let your little seed be your own proof of faith.

Faith in the cycle of life, the ability to start fresh and above all - that you are still growing.

Happy Blooming!


​
  

As the warmer weather slowly forces its way in through the seemingly never-ending coldness of winter, if I am not in a lunch meeting and Joey is not out in the community with his helpers, we always make sure we take a walk together at lunch time.

Joey's thoughts often have him spinning into different lands, directions, anything other than the path that we walk on a regular basis.

Like many of us, his thoughts lead him astray to anywhere and everything other than the present moment.

To help bring him back from his own thoughts, I ask him questions about what he sees, and he responds with:

"I see that nice mailbox number 57."
"I see the yellow flowers."
"I see the withered white fence that protects the forest."

We are looking for the good in the here and now, focusing on not getting lost in our own thoughts.

Away from the what-ifs and what could have beens and the will-it-evers.

As an official over-thinker in recovery, I know how challenging this is.

​Yesterday on our walk we stepped out into the breezy crisp air, but the sun was shining.

"Ahhhh, Mom, feel that sunshine."
Suddenly, we weren't just looking for the good in the present moment, we were feeling it.

These past few months have been exhilarating in ways I never imagined.

Book events, speaking events, anthology and contest submissions and even a new course I'm developing (wink, wink stay tuned...) not to mention the countless new friends and contacts I have met has been just incredible.

BUT

I have also felt bombarded with people saying:

"have you done this or that?"
"are you going to start coaching?"
"are you maximizing your website contact information?"
"are you, are you, are you..."

And honestly it started to feel overwhelming. And the old repetitive thoughts of "you aren't doing enough, being enough, trying enough, fighting enough" started to fill the pit of my stomach.

I didn't write my story to make millions. I am not focused on boosting my SEO.

I wrote it to heal, and I wrote it to give hope to others who had found themselves asking questions like:

"Is this it?"
"Is there another way, I feel like I have more inside of me."

I wrote it so that I would be reminded of the silver lining of love in every lesson and blessing of chaos that life inevitably throws at us.

I wrote it to remind others to look at life through a lens of gratitude and hope.
​
And as we walked along our usual path yesterday, something happened....

Joey stopped to smell the hyacinth. (A little too early for roses).

I mean he stopped, sat down on the sidewalk and breathed in their delicious scent.

My children humble me more often than I can count, and this was one of those moments.

When we got back home, I paused to reflect in my journal before returning to my day job.

I reflected on all of the blessings that are surrounding us every day.

I reflected on how liberated I felt in sharing my story and my authentic voice with at least a small corner of the world.

I reflected on how I know I am on the precipice of stepping out into a phase of life where the choices I make, the words I write, the people, companies, and organizations I engage with may not always be the best to "maximize my growth and potential" but they resonate with the core of my value and my beliefs.

I reflected on how I trust myself and trust the gift that this life is more than I have ever before.

In the past twelve months life has been anything BUT ordinary, nor has it been the path we had expected to be on.

Yet, there we were, on a cool Thursday in spring, sitting down to smell the flowers that have courageously fought through the soil and swinging temperatures and dared to shine their beautiful colors.

And all I could think was "Life is SO Good."

I hope that as nature comes back to life around us as we continue to creep into spring, that you don't just witness it, but that you become part of it.

That you feel it.

That you learn to ride the waves (or the spring breeze) and allow it to move you to where you can truly flourish from the center of your heart.

That you fall in love with all of the good that surrounds us.

That you stay present in a state of gratitude.

​Because it is there - everywhere - we just have to Look for the Good.