Last episode of Season 1 and I explore why I find so much peace leaning into God's plan. I discuss the power of rejection, my own worthiness and why life doesn't happen to us but for us.

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

God's Plan (visual)

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s paradoxes — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack

This isn't the first time I've talked about Ego -- check out Episode 9, too!

But I bring it up again because of the week I've had. There are some of you out there who've probably had a similar week -- you're not alone. My kids were sick, work was overwhelming ... you get it. And then I ran into a lot of egos.

Remember the ego is the part of the brain that wants to keep us safe. The part that's on high-alert and reminds us people are out to get us.

I heard this great quote I heard it from Jesse Itzler, but credit for the original goes to Robin Sharma. It says, "A bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul." Basically, if you can set your ego aside and be curious, the world opens up. I try to live every day open now.

But life is 50/50 and I'm human and so is everyone else.

So this week, my ego flared. I got defensive. Instead of choosing how I wanted to show up, I let the ego take over. It looked like me being frustrated a lot, focusing energy on what I couldn't control, not much good sleep, frustration erupting at home where it shouldn't.

Because I felt hurt.

We're all going to encounter this. But as I detox off this lousy week, I try to have as much gratitude as I can. I've gone for walks, tried to be present, I've sought out sunsets and sunrises, I've just stopped and looked at my loved ones and try to share something that I love them to show them.

When you're frustrated and angry, there's still time to have gratitude. These things will pass.

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

Jesse Itzler

Robin Sharma

Insight Timer metta meditaions

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s tensions — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack

In this episode, I eat a ton of mini Cadbury eggs early in the morning, before drinking my first cup of coffee and I break down why kindness matters, why meditation helps me with the anxiety train, and why grace is important in remembering that we all struggle.

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

Insight Timer

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s paradoxes — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack

Failure is part of life and it's time we embrace it. In this episode, I talk about our family dinners, baseball, taking chances, the importance of failing forward and why the only time you can truly fail is when you don't try.

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

Sarah Blakely's story

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s paradoxes — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack

What happens when you near the end of life? What questions do you find yourself asking. This is what I'm leaning into today and it comes on the heels of James Van Der Beek's death who died of colorectal cancer in February 2026. In the last video before he died, he shares the question he has been asking himself, "Who am I? What am I?"

In the video he said, "I am worthy of God's life simply because I exist and if I'm worthy of God's love, shouldn't I be worthy of my own? And the same is true is for you."

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

James Van Der Beek video

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s paradoxes — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack

This isn't the first time I've talked about Ego -- check out Episode 9, too!

But I bring it up again because of the week I've had. There are some of you out there who've probably had a similar week -- you're not alone. My kids were sick, work was overwhelming ... you get it. And then I ran into a lot of egos.

Remember the ego is the part of the brain that wants to keep us safe. The part that's on high-alert and reminds us people are out to get us.

I heard this great quote I heard it from Jesse Itzler, but credit for the original goes to Robin Sharma. It says, "A bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul." Basically, if you can set your ego aside and be curious, the world opens up. I try to live every day open now.

But life is 50/50 and I'm human and so is everyone else.

So this week, my ego flared. I got defensive. Instead of choosing how I wanted to show up, I let the ego take over. It looked like me being frustrated a lot, focusing energy on what I couldn't control, not much good sleep, frustration erupting at home where it shouldn't.

Because I felt hurt.

We're all going to encounter this. But as I detox from this week, I try to have as much gratitude as I can. I've gone for walks, tried to be present, I've sought out sunsets and sunrises, I've just stopped and looked at my loved ones and try to share something that I love them to show them.

When you're frustrated and angry, there's still time to have gratitude. These things will pass.

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

Jesse Itzler

Robin Sharma

Insight Timer metta meditaions

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s paradoxes — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack

I love puzzles. I do one 1,000-piece puzzle a year, but I want to do more.

I take my time setting up -- turning the pieces over, getting the edge set, and more. Then I go at the puzzle by sections I think I can do first.

It takes me months. I do them a little at a time. I like the music on and a cup of tea at my side. It's so relaxing.

My business coach shared a quote from Virginia Woolf: "Arrange whatever pieces come your way." It's stuck with me for a couple weeks.

I thought I was going to die back in May when I was a passenger in a car accident. I thought I was going to die, upside down, in the swampiest part of Louisiana an hour from home. As I drove home from the hospital later that day, I remember asking myself what I was doing with my life. What had I been doing to get in that car? There was a lot of self-blame. The next couple months were hard. I was trying to make sense of and control everything. What I needed was to give up the wondering and acknowledge I was there for a reason.

Metaphorically, I had to stop using my flashlight to look far into the dark unknown ahead, but rather shine down right by my feet to show me where I was now. Since then, my self-worth and spirituality have grown. I have started showing up the way I want to and treated others the way I want to be treated. I've focused on my circle of control.

Enter the quote: Arrange whatever pieces come your way. It comes when I'm working on this giant puzzle. If you look at the same pieces over and over, and try to cram them in where they won't fit, you get nowhere. But if you step back for a bit, you find the pieces and fit them in where they ought to be,

I've realized the way I want to live my life is to arrange whatever comes my way. To surrender to the fact that there is a path and there is a plan and I'm trusting that I'm on it. If I need to pivot, I will. If I need to turn around, I will. But I have to trust that I'm on the journey that has been planned for me.

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

British author Virginia Woolf

Susie Tucker, my business coach

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s tensions — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack

My soul circle group had another great discussion this week that has stuck with me all week, so I'm expanding on it here because I think it will help others, too.

We're expecting a storm here, so I headed to grocery store to stock up. It's a habit I picked up in the Northeast. We have a fear of scarcity because things might shut down. So there I was in the supermarket for just a few things -- we didn't need much. But I saw people buying up all the bread. There were only a few loaves left. I didn't need bread, but in that moment, I felt like if I didn't get some, something bad would happen. I think that's thanks to lizard brain -- the leftover instincts from our pre-historic ancestors who were hard-wired to survive. We don't want to be left out. That's scarcity.

Then there's abundance. We're pretty materialistic in this country and we want all the things. But it's not really the things we crave, it's the feeling we get when we have the things.

Gratitude helps me keep those feelings of needing to go out and chase more things. It keeps me in that state of abundance. I try to reframe the things I'm afraid of and be thankful for what I do have and have had. My kids are teenagers, and starting to gain their independence. That's hard, because my identity was tied to raising them for so many years. I have a feeling of scarcity about the time we have left and wonder if I did enough, teach them enough, etc. I flip that into abundance by looking back at photos and other memories to remind me of all the good times we had together.

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s tensions — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack

My husband I play a kind of game called Authentic Agility. It has a deck of cards that asks questions that prompt answers that let people get to know each other better. The other morning, we drew one out, and the questions was, "How do you want to be remembered?"

Wow.

That got me thinking pretty hard with not very much coffee on board. But I think the answer is I want to be remembered as vulnerable, that I lived a big life with my heart open.

The same week, a member of my soul circle red a poem that I share today that really spoke to the way I want to live my life.

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

Authentic Agility game

Living Life, by Catherine Garland

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s tensions — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack

I'm a curator of information. I'm incredibly curious and I'm thankful that I'm able to hear all this great information and motivation. Sharing it is one of my purposes. That's why this podcast exists.

This week, I've heard a lot about wins, and the importance of writing down your wins.

I don't think of wins as results so much as processes. You never fail if you try. During a speech in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt famously said, "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Brené Brown took that and ran with it in "Daring Greatly."

My eighth-grade son tried out for the high school baseball team this week. He made the decision to try out. I'm so proud because they cut all the eighth graders on the second of a four-day tryout.

I'm so proud because he reached out the coach immediately to see how he can improve for next year. (The answer was pretty much, "You need to grow.") But he took this as a win and developed a workout routine and more plans to come back in a year.

For me, it was writing my book. I got in the ring and did it, even though it was hard and it was scary. The win is not tied to the number of books I sell. It's about doing it.

Take some time about what you've done and what you've accomplished. And if you find yourself saying no, try to shift. The win is doing it and that's what will bring you happiness.

Links from this episode:

My Book! Living in the Gray – A Memoir About Navigating Life’s Paradoxes

The Strong Mom Project

Teddy Roosevelt

Daring Greatly, by Brené Brown

If you heard yourself in today’s episode, you’re not alone.

My book, Living in the Gray gathers ten years of writing about living inside life’s tensions — the both/and moments that shape who we become. It’s a deeper look at the questions behind these conversations.

Visit my website or Amazon to explore the book, and join me on social media:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn:
• Facebook
• Substack