I got olive oil on my hands making dinner the other night, and water alone did nothing. It just sat there. You need soap, and you need time, and until you have both, it stays on everything you touch.

Some feelings are like that. They don't rinse off when you want them to. And while they're still on your hands, you reach for the people around you, and now it's on them too.

I've spent most of my life with more feeling than I knew what to do with. For years I thought the work was to feel less, to somehow get it under control. I'm not sure that was ever the real problem. The feeling was never wrong. I just kept handing it to whoever was in the room instead of asking where it was actually trying to take me.

I don't have this clean. I'm 54 and I still catch myself doing it, still working out which of these is worth sitting with and which one I'm about to put on someone who didn't earn it. I'm not talking to you from the other side of it. I'm talking to you from the middle.

🎧 No Stage, Just a Chair A podcast for people figuring it out as they go: building honest brands, real decisions, and work that feels like theirs.

Before You Listen:

- What are you still carrying that hasn't washed off yet?

- When something's sitting heavy on you, who's usually in the room?

- Which of your feelings do you sit with, and which do you hand to someone else?