All the things we need to drop (and one that remains)
Do you remember the 1998 movie You’ve Got Mail, when Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly were both so darn PSYCHED to read their email? For all their differences, the characters had this in common: They loved logging onto AOL, hearing those dulcet dial-up tones and the voice saying, “You’ve Got Mail!” And after they deleted the spam, typically they only had ONE real email waiting for them. I woke up with that image in my mind the other day: An near-empty inbox. Just one message that really meant something. …
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So I Wrote You a Fairy Tale (For Real)
I started writing a book back in 2015. After about a million rewrites, I’m very happy to share that You Don’t Owe Anyone will be published by Broadleaf Books a year from yesterday, on April 20, 2021. It’s a book about what happens when you decide to free yourself from the weight of expectations, both internal and external. It’s one woman’s story of trying so very hard to be perfect, then learning to trust herself instead. It’s a modern twist on divine grace; You Don’t Owe Anyone is what happens when you realize that you have no relational debt to...
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I used to keep this quiet
There’s a quiet, poignant scene at the beginning of Eat Pray Love, where Liz Gilbert reads a line from a Louise Gluck poem: “From the center of my life, there came a great fountain…” This is what I think of when I go for daily walks with Baby Girl. Each morning, we set out with the stroller. On our way home, I steer us toward the fountain downtown. The closer we get, the more attentive Baby Girl becomes. We circle the perimeter, and her eyes go wide. I can only imagine what she’s thinking, what it feels like for her...
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I couldn’t get this off my mind
There is a man who lives down the road from me in Alabama. Let’s call him Andy, because that is nothing like his name. One of the very first things you’d notice about Andy is that he smokes. His clothes smell of it, and he has a metal pail on his front porch where he drops cigarette butts so they don’t light the house on fire. Most evenings you’ll see him out there, standing by door and smoking. He’ll wave to you politely through the puffs. …
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Say goodbye to second-guessing yourself
Don’t you just love those moments in life when you have total, complete clarity? When all at once there is ZERO ambiguity, and you know exactly what’s most important to you? Even if it’s hard, even if it’s going to stretch you to the limit … there is beauty in knowing precisely what needs to happen next. It’s the moment when you KNOW … It’s time to quit. It’s time to start. This is over. This is beginning. I’m going to marry him. She’ll be my friend for life. …
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Manage Your Mind and Make Progress: A 5 Day Challenge!
Welcome to our new 5 day challenge video series, Manage Your Mind & Make Progress: Break Through the Negative Thought Patterns That Hold You Back. In this series, you’ll learn: The #1 reason why you haven’t been able to shift your negative thought patterns up until now A proven escape hatch from the pain of negative thoughts How to retrain your brain and stop procrastinating What to do when managing your mind just isn’t working! How to stand in your power and choose wisely Thank you to everyone who submitted their painful thoughts; press play and learn how to handle...
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How to Break Through Negative Thought Patterns
Can I get real with you right now? I did something crazy this summer. (It’s kind of embarrassing, but it’s coming up as a story that needs to be told. I’ve learned over the years to pay attention to this feeling, to put aside my ego and be of service.) Here’s what happened. After the epic labor and birth of our baby – which I have compared to being in a street fight with my own body – I needed surgery. Afterward, the nurse offered me a Motrin. Given that, you know, the anesthetic was going to wear off, and...
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Good news: You already have confidence and clarity
This week I had one of those “Sliding Doors” moments – when you can see two different choices, two possible futures spinning out in front of you. What happened was that I did a brave thing and signed up for an adult ballet class. I haven’t done ballet in years, but a conversation with a friend spurred me to act. I was proud of myself … For listening to that desire to dance. For staying focused and eagerly accepting corrections from the teacher. For going to someplace I’d never been and dancing with people I’d never met (and alone as...
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If I had to give one piece of advice …
I love Glennon Doyle’s take on advice, which is basically: Don’t give it. Even when people ask for advice, she says, what they really want is to be heard. So ask good questions, listen, and give love instead. Yet I’m also a sucker for a good modern advice column, such as Dear Sugar or Ask Polly. But … the great thing about those columns is that they tell stories more than they give advice, right? The authors open up about their lives, and by doing so, they free us to see our own lives differently. So let me tell you...
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Don’t give up before the miracle
It’s the end of a seemingly ordinary workday when an email from the senior editor at the publishing house arrives. The subject line is, “Offer of contract coming on Friday.” I gasp. Does this mean what I think it means? I click to open the email, chanting, “Oh my God oh my God oh my God.” It does mean what I think it means. It means that after weeks of waiting and years of work, Broadleaf Books is offering me a book deal. …
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