After a longer-than-expected winter break, Karen returns for Season 7 of The Imperfect Advocate Podcast with reflections on growth, happiness, and what it means to move through life seasonally rather than linearly.

In this episode, Karen shares what she’s been learning while pursuing her Master’s degree in Happiness and Overall Wellbeing at Centenary University, including the SPIRE model for whole-being happiness: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Relational, and Emotional wellbeing.

Through stories about graduate school, surgery recovery, spring planting, and messy personal growth, Karen explores why happiness is not about perfection or constant positivity, but about creating the conditions that support a meaningful life.

Karen also previews the next episode’s exploration of Margaret Wheatley’s work on messy systems, community, and “sane leadership on behalf of the human spirit.”

If you’ve been in a quiet season, this episode is your reminder that growth rarely arrives all at once — and that sometimes we all just need a winter.ou can be.