If you’ve been around here for a while, you know I have had a long struggle with chronic health c…

Read more

Several weeks ago I started a new medication to help my brain with its dopamine issues from my TBI in 2018.

After a few days on t…

Read more

Read more

Read more

But figuring something out. Making it work. Powering through. Adjusting yourself in…

Read more

Most of you get these posts in your email. Take a…

Read more

It feels like just about everyone I know is holding heaviness of some form. The kind of swollen humid air mass churning into dark cumulonimbus clouds, billowing an…

Read more

Never turn your back on the ocean.

All it takes is one wave you don’t expect to catch you in its spin cycle.

Now mind you, my ocean-swimming boogie-boarding days were limited and very tame.

So the spin cycle at most got sand in some uncomfortable places.

I also learned that facing the waves head on wasn’t all that helpful, either.

Even watching them come and knowing they were about to break didn’t stop them from knocking me off balance. Not that that was especially hard… as I have one leg to begin with.

The way to stand when the waves crested was to turn sideways.

It gave them less surface area to impact. You got extra style points for jumping a little bit to enjoy their bounce.

Our world feels like a noisy, frenetic churning ocean right now.

The answer isn’t to turn my back and ignore it. Because there is information that I need to know to make good decisions and play my part. Especially as someone who writes and creates for a living.

Believe me, I’d happily Irish exit out the back to a cottage in the woods many days.

And for a day or two, I might do just that. But only for a day or two.

Neither is the answer to turn fully and stare at the waves as they relentlessly pound and knock me down. Hard pass there as well.

Doom-scrolling? No, thank you.

Emotional or panic buying? Truly not helpful.

Engaging with rage bait? No way ever. If you engage, you amplify. So please don’t feed the trolls.

Arguing with (ahem, over explaining to) strangers on the internet? Nope. I’m in charge of me. I don’t need to convince anyone of anything. Because my energy is worth protecting. Yours is too.

Filling our space with 24-7-365 commentary on the same 10.7 headlines is soul-sucking mind clutter.

Stuffing our days with following all the details we have no control over is building a prison of information, rather than empowering us with purpose and action.

It’s like daring the ocean to not knock you down, over and over and over again. Oh-yeah-fancy pants wave, I’mm’a’gonna show you.

So what do we do differently?

We see the waves and we turn sideways. Extra points if you hop a little as they pass.

How to Stop Breaking News From Breaking Us

Ok journalists, please don’t come for me.

We need your honest, brave reporting and accurate storytelling more than ever.

I am a news junkie as someone who is curious to a fault. And my go-to response in crisis is wanting to understand all the facts. I am FOR you.

But the 24/7 cable churn and never-ending breaking news notifications, are like waves in an ocean. Sometimes it feels like we’re drowning in a very different kind of spin cycle.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that.

Maybe the answer is to turn sideways. Not ignore facts. Not obsess over details we have no control over. Turn sideways.

Maybe resistance and resilience is to just turn sideways.

Perhaps there we will find both our purpose and perspective.

What might that look like?

Maybe it’s a stance of staying informed and choosing one thing to do around an issue important to you.

Maybe it’s helping a neighbor take her trash to the curb.

Calling your electeds on things that matter to you.

Plant pigeon peas as an experiment. My seeds just arrived a few moments ago. I’m going to toss them with abandon into my feral garden this evening as the sun sets and see what happens.

Paint a little something. Scribble a few thoughts. Bake cookies.

Have a cup of tea in the fancy china because you deserve fancy china.

Have ice cream in a fancy teacup because you can.

These are the things that help us not just survive in the waves, but thrive in them.

When I get overwhelmed, it’s usually because…

• I am trying to do too many things at once. Mega-garage sale meets writing a book meets a YouTube channel meets, well, you get the idea.

• I am looking way too far ahead. I cannot handle tomorrow because tomorrow isn’t here yet.

• I am trying to figure it all out, aka feel in control of things that are important, big, and scary. Like not maybe having access to medical care in the near future and having to move states to fix that.

• I am disconnected from myself. There is a reason why “flooding the zone” is such an effective propaganda tactic. It overwhelms by intent. And that overwhelm disconnects us from one another and often our own inner resources.

And in all of this… Wonder is a way back home.

• To find calm in the churn.

• To control what I can control.

• To pick one big thing to get done each day instead of a to-do list that would take a week.

• To keep reading good books and learning new things.

• To try garden experiments.

• To plan my driving route to MN.

• To make a year’s with of laundry detergent for about $40. (It works SO well!)

• To organize the hurricane pantry

• To help the one person in front of me.

• To not let any of the anger, fear, or cruelty out in the world right now change who I am or how I show up in my life.

Just Do the Next Right Thing

This is a tender week for me. As I expect it may be for many of you. Mother’s Day is a wave set all of its own.

In 2020, my mom was making her own Irish exit, and the last movie we watched together was Frozen 2.

She giggled like a little girl with joy. It’s just like Broadway! For that moment, she was five and the cancer that was ravaging her body was a world away.

We got to the point where The Next Right Thing started to play.

Deep in the throes of anticipatory grief that literally felt like my heart was being ripped to shreds, that song hit me in the gut so hard it was all I could do not to sob.

I knew it was going to be my song in a matter of days, if not hours. And indeed it was.

Believe me when I say I cannot hear it or write about it without tears flooding to this moment. And I hope that never changes.

Tears are reminders that tenderness is strength. Tears are love in liquid form.

When the doctor told my mom she wouldn’t live to see Christmas, she defiantly stated she would make it to Mother’s Day. She did just that. And then she was gone.

These lyrics have held me these last 5 years. And they hold me in a new way where I am now.

Just do the next right thing
Take a step, step again
It is all that I can to do
The next right thing
I won't look too far ahead
It's too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath
This next step
This next choice is one that I can make…

Lyrics from Lyrics Find

Because this song isn’t just about the gravity of grief, it’s a way through the overwhelm.

It’s a strategy to stand in the waves. It’s the path to build a dream and forge a future.

I am so very grateful for your presence here.

Turning sideways in the waves is no fun alone. But it can be a joyful riot with friends. We need one another more than ever.

So maybe we should break out some boogie boards and turn some of these waves into rides of delight. Because joy is resistance. Love is a revolution. Kindness is a superpower.

You are dearly loved.

Hugs from here,

Michele

Beauty is all arou…

Read more

A big goal for this space is to add way more videos this year. Sometimes it is just so lovely to see and hear the person you interact with.

Since I was all set up for a TV interview today, I thought, hey, let’s give this a go. Tell some stories. Say hello.

Many of the deep dive videos will be for our paid subscriber level, but because of the topic this covers, I wanted to make it available to everyone.

Yesterday, I posted this Instagram carousel that offers additional insights.

After 7 years of living in an active conflict zone where we had regular food shortages and massive supply chain issues, here are some of the things I’ve purchased a little more of than usual over the last few weeks.

Bonus-they also work for hurricanes. 🤣 Way to get a jump start on hurricane season.

One way wonder is so powerful is it allows us to find the good and beautiful even in the hard.

As I’m organizing and putting items in longer-term pantry storage arrangements, I put on my pinafore apron and think of Anne Shirley… making sure no surprises end up in my food containers.

I imagine all the ways I could make magical meals with these ordinary items and share with my neighbors.

When it comes time to move to MN, I’ll take some things with me, but will be able to donate the rest to local food banks.

So what’s in my resilience rations? Tariff / Hurricane Edition.

• Dried goods like oats, rice, beans, lentils, pasta, chickpeas

• Powdered goods like cheese, milk, avocado, flours

• Freeze dried fruits

• Honey

• Peanut butter

• Coffee, instant and ground

• Canned goods of favorite veggies

• 2 extra of personal products, toothpaste and deodorant primarily

• Laundry detergent pods

• Laundry soap bars

• Dish soap bars

• Basic first aid supplies

• Extra meds as I can

• Batteries

• Solar charger bank for my phone

• Storm radio

• Flashlights and lanterns

• Extra charger cables

• Extra face masks

• Extra trash bags

• Bleach, cleaning wipes, baby wipes, rubbing alcohol

• Copies of important documents

• Plenty of good books, cozy crafts, journals, and pens

Some of these are more important for hurricanes. Others are just great staples to have for uncertain times or surprises.

As always, thank you for being here. You are so very loved, Michele

There I was, the two decad…

Read more

Some days it will be 2 hours before I realize, once again, I am not sitting, sinking into the strength of the seat I paid $37 for on Amazon what now seems like a few lifetimes ago.

Instead, my default mode seems to be set to “sinew in spasm”, as if by the sheer power of muscle contraction alone I could defy the force of gravity if something were to go wrong.

Maybe you relate?

All of this complicated by a spine shaped like the letter S with only 2 movable vertebrae below my neck, held in place by 2 stainless steel rods. My body is a brave creature, beautiful in all the ways she shows up.

A few years ago, I worked with a somatic/posture/embodiment coach to literally learn how to sit in a chair.

(He was incredible, btw. Here’s his Instagram.)

It took hours of practice. Hours of reminding myself to let the frame underneath me do the work. Sticky notes and phone timers, all reminding me to allow my very special body to actually be held by the chair. Or the floor. Or the bed.

It’s a skill I have absolutely not mastered…

And I’m having to revisit it all over again thanks to throwing my back out while trying to not enrage my neck incision further. So it is kind of top of mind at the moment.

My physical balance is feral and fragile all at the same time.

Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There

And here we all are… in this equally feral, fragile moment.

Sitting down is not the same thing as sitting out.

Maybe you’ve heard or felt this phrase bubble up in the middle of chaotic or frightening situations… don’t just sit there, DO something.

Transparently, I’ve only felt that about 1000x in the last 76 days.

Our words really do shape our worlds. And somehow, that phrase shapes a narrative that implies sitting is passivity, weakness, or punishment.

Sitting is none of these things.

Sitting is the active work of taking up space in the storm.

It is the active work of intention and presence that says I will not let the present moment drive me into overwhelm, fear, or shutdown.

Sitting with discomfort is a muscle that builds our capacity for wonder.

Because intentional wonder is almost impossible to find when we are living in reaction mode.

Slowing things down when everything screams do something NOW builds our internal resilience. Each time we stay present, we expand our threshold for what we can manage.

In a world that equates productivity with motion, sitting is an act of resistance that says, “I am worthy of taking up space even when I am not producing.”

Sitting is often where the deeper work begins. The grieving, forgiving, reimagining, accepting, trusting—it all starts with sitting.

And sitting itself can be an act of protest by refusing to be invisible or silent on the things that matter most.

Sitting is all these things. And so much more.

Wonder Isn’t About Finding the Way Out… It’s About Finding the Way Through

Sometimes sitting, letting yourself fully sink in to the present moment may be the only effective way to find your way through it.

The funny thing about wonder. You can’t find it in a moment you’re not presently in.

We can remember and reflect on its experience in the past. We can imagine and see its edges in the future.

But we can only sink into wonder’s fullness in the now.

Also. Sitting isn’t stuckness.

Though, sometimes it feels like it.

When we feel stuck and overwhelmed, reframing our lack of movement can help move us gently toward our next steps.

So what does that look like?

In a moment when I feel the familiar nag of anxiety when I sit down to write or create…

I will very intentionally take a deep breath and, on the exhale, picture my body sinking into the seat.

I will take time to feel the seat beneath me and remind myself...

I am not stuck. I am seated.

Being seated is a place of agency and authority, not helplessness.

I open my eyes and notice the light filtering across my desk. The paintings on my easel… the words in my journals.

In this moment, I am OK.

In this moment, I have what I need.

In this moment, I am writing to you.

And, then, we will write a better story as we rise together.

You are dearly loved.

It has been more intense than I ever…

Read more

Context Note: I’m going to be talking a…

Read more

It feels like…

Read more

I was privileged to stay on the 7th floor* in an old soviet bloc style apartment building with local hosts.…

Read more

I pur…

Read more

The neighborhood is popping off all the firecrackers in anticipation.

In the Fall thi…

Read more

But I get it. That is far easier said than done.

It’s so easy to judge our “success” in the li…

Read more

One of my biggest Christmas…

Read more