Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays each year (Christmas is the top, but I tell you what…Thanksgiving really gives it a run for its money).  My parents have hosted as long as I can remember (with maybe a dozen exceptions over the past 40 years) and we used to have 25 people lining multiple tables pushed together.  Even now, as many in the family are no longer with us, we still have a sweet little crew that comes together every year.

Interestingly, each year the same conversation comes up at the Thanksgiving table:  “We should do this more often!  It’s so wonderful to see you, let’s not wait until Thanksgiving next year!”

And yet, for many years, it is indeed only at the following year’s Thanksgiving that we reunite with the family over that big delicious meal.

Which makes me think…why do we wait for holidays (or specific occasions) to gather and connect with the most important people in our life?...

It never ceases to amaze me the power and addictive properties of those mini computers we carry around with us everywhere.  Even though we know they trap us, hoard our attention away from the things we care about, ruin conversations, and leave us feeling massive FOMO, most of us still just can’t seem to put them down.

Last week I was driving home from dinner with a friend and saw an unnervingly common sight – someone walking across the street staring at their phone, no attention at all to traffic in any direction. We’ve probably all seen that video by now, from years ago, of that person looking so intently at their cell phone as they walked through the mall that they tripped over the edge and fell right into a fountain.

How do we stop the madness??!...

I was reading an email newsletter the other day and the writer posed a great question – what is your “rich” life?

What an interesting question, I thought; I wonder what that is for me beyond the knee-jerk responses that would probably come up first.

I contemplated the question for a few minutes and wrote the question in my notes app to save for journaling later.

That was probably a month ago.  I still have yet to sit down and define it thoughtfully...

I’ve been surprised by how many people are already feeling the pinch of burnout from the year, overwhelm about the upcoming holidays, and dread for the hustle and bustle of a new year.  Here it is, barely the start of November and people are ready to throw in the town.

As Ali Wong says in her Netflix comedy special, “I don’t want to lean in.  I want to lie down.”

This time of year can be joyful and also fraught.  It’s full of demands on our time, whether family obligations, the push to finish work strong, celebrations, reflections, travel…it feels hard to say no or to set boundaries.

But that might be just what is needed to to move gently (or rambunctiously, or however you might like) through the holidays and the close of 2025...

I’ve been recovering from a small surgical procedure on my abdomen, which has made it uncomfortable to do basic things like roll over in bed or bend over to tie my shoes.  It’s funny to me how we generally have no sense of how our bodies work at everyday routine actions until something is off and then we realize how much is going on at any given time.

While this recovery process is totally normal, I’ve been finding myself quite frustrated and annoyed.  Why is there any pain at all?!  What’s with this discomfort?!  When will this be over??!?!?!!

Contrary to what most people would have done, I didn’t do any up-front research or prep on what the recovery would be so I naively assumed it would be easy-peesy, mac-n-cheesy.

HA.  Joke’s on me...

I recently became inadvertently addicted to a show on a platform I don’t subscribe to (a devastating reality of these modern times):  Couples Therapy.

First of all, humans are fascinating.  Full stop.

Second of all, it’s amazing to see the loops and spirals we get trapped in when we’re ignited (which happens often when two humans interact, no matter their relationship).

The reason I think Orna is a leadership superstar is the way she interacts with and holds her clients – it transcends the therapy arena.  While the show is aptly named and about couples therapy, I think what she does with her clients is applicable for all leaders, from wherever they lead.

Here’s what we can learn from Orna...

When I was young, my uncle taught me to play blackjack.  He would get down on the floor with me, pull a bunch of dimes out of his pocket, and teach me when to hit and when to stand.  I was ready for Vegas before I turned 10.  He also taught me to balance a spoon on my nose and make fart noises with my armpits.

I’m sure my parents were thrilled 😊

(Just kidding, they probably WERE thrilled that someone was holding my attention!)

My uncle died in June after his final (of many) battles with cancer, the last of which was just one time too many.  He kept his same spirit and humor right up to the end...

The Lafayette reservoir is one of my happiest places.  I’ve been going there for years.  As a kid, my parents took me to fish or feed the ducks or ride my bike on the trail around the reservoir.  As an adult, I run the trail or sometimes go for a picnic or to sit and enjoy the scenery.  Needless to say, I know every inch of that reservoir by heart.

When I used to go around the reservoir, I always went clockwise on the trail.  And for no reason I can remember, one day I was walking with my mom and decided to try going the other way.  And that’s the way I’ve been going for at least several decades.

After a recent run, I decided to walk a little extra as I just didn’t quite feel done yet and I started to go clockwise for the first part of the trail.  Despite having walked this loop nearly a thousand times, the stretch I walked (usually at the end of coming around the other way) looked entirely different to me.  It curved dramatically and looked much bumpier than I notice when I come the other way.

Going a different way made it seem like an entirely different trail all together.  Like one I was only seeing for the first time...

Happy anniversary to me!

It’s been two years.

Two years since the last time I opened up facebook or Instagram to scroll.

(And about two months since I finally deleted the apps, well hidden in a folder, off my phone).

And I don’t miss it at all.

Make no mistake – it was hard early on...

It’s a phrase I’ve heard many times but only recently took on a new meaning:

Resistance is futile.

I’ve always understood it from a standpoint of surrender.  Accept what is happening because it’s not going to stop happening so stop protesting or arguing.

That can certainly be a dicey way to look at things (just rolling over and accepting).  But I started to see it in its more figurative, emotional meaning...

Usually when I get home from a trip, my focus and energy are on getting unpacked and re-settled (back to “business as usual”) as soon as I can.  This often means a flurry of activity and making it almost invisible that I was ever gone in the first place.

But I spent the last several days with two dear colleagues, reflecting on 2025 and doing our visioning and planning for 2026.  And one of the things I honed in on, in the slow-paced days together, was my desire to dial way back on my speed and hone in way more closely to connection and present moments.

It’s not 2026 yet, but today brought the first opportunity to slow down...

Being in the dating pool has been a constant study of social psychology at my fingertips at all times.

Dating is inundated with stories.  And the underlying message of most of those stories boils down to “They don’t like me!”

Which is a seriously disempowering story.  Imagine if that were true?!  If every person you connected with didn’t call or text or suggest a date because they didn’t like you?  That would be a tough pill to swallow.

And yet so many do.  They willingly choke down that horse pill of an assumption and treat it as truth.

Instead of what it actually is, which is one possibility...

Remember being a kid and venturing into all kinds of tunnels and hideyholes and nooks and crannies?  I used to love jungle gyms as a kid.  Climbing up those ropey webs, stepping across the wood poles of differing heights as I crossed the play area, running across the hanging bridge…

Everything was fascinating and interesting as a kid.  Every new vantage point and view had so much to offer.  Up high, down low, through the slats of the fort.  Each place offered the promise of something I’d never seen before...

I’ve always been fascinated by my dreams.  They are often vivid in wildly unrealistic ways.  Not only for obvious reasons like when I’m flying, but for the inexplicable inversions of people who appear in the bodies or faces of someone else or for when I jump from one moment in space and time to the next like I’ve been transported, with no discernible transition, and yet it all makes total sense in the dreamworld.

The ones that hit me hardest are the ones where people from my past, or ones who have long since passed from this earth, are so present and engaged that it seems so deeply real.

I’ve heard it said that a realistic encounter or experience with a dead loved one in your dream is a visit from their spirit...

I used to love the summer reading challenge in school.  I wanted to out-read all my classmates, but even more so, I wanted to beat my own record from prior summers.  And it was a double win because that competition was for something I already loved doing:  reading!

It’s a vibe that’s carried forward all through my life.  And there’s just something extra delicious about summer reading.

Sure, there’s the whole “beach read” genre that seems to have its heyday in the summer, but I love summertime reading to expand across lots of genres to keep things spicy.

So this week, in honor of summer’s end approaching, here are a few of my recent favorites to share if you’re looking for that last juicy summer read...

There’s something about walking into a Staples in August that just smells like fresh starts.

Maybe it’s the scent of freshly sharpened pencils (probably more imagined than real because who uses pencils these days?!) or the crinkle of plastic from a pack of trapper-keepers (any Lisa Frank fans out there?!).

Maybe it’s lingering in the aisles, running your fingers over the different notebooks and trying out the pens you’ll use to fill those notebooks.

Maybe it’s just that elusive feeling of possibility than hangs ripe in the ether...

Remember those riddles that used to stump us as kids?

What is black and white and red all over?

What has cities but no houses, forests but no trees, and rivers but no water?

What has one eye but can’t see?

They’re interesting because the answer could be several things and it ends up being something entirely different than what you initially thought.

Here is the biggest unanswered riddle of all:

What is a successful life?...

I’m sure you’ve heard that saying:  Opinions are like a**holes – everyone’s got one and everyone thinks everyone else’s stinks.

In addition to launching me into a fit of giggles, this saying made me think about how wrapped around the axle we get with other people’s opinions.

There’s nothing quite so paralyzing as weighing the input of countless other people on something we’re mulling over.  And worst of all – we ask for it!  We shop our conundrums around like world-class hagglers, trying to get the best (or, more likely, easiest or most pleasing-to-us) response we can find.

And instead, all we do is circle and circle and circle until we’re so dizzy, we collapse into a heap of indecision and panic.

Because here’s the cruelest truth we never acknowledge...

It’s funny how easy it is to just keep going.

To send one more email, to make one more call, to finish one more load of laundry before we can relax.  But, like whack-a-mole, as soon as we finish one thing, the next one pops right up in its place.  And we think – if I can just finish this one more thing, I can finally be done; I can rest.

Brutal spoiler alert:  you will never be done.

We don’t ever finish, we simply choose to be done...

Have you ever felt that tension between getting after that next goal and accepting who or where you are right now in this moment?

Yeah, me too.

I keep finding myself thinking of this paradox as a binary, and only recently did things (including the knot in my chest) loosen up as I started to look at it as a spectrum.

On one side is a deep desire to grow, to evolve, to strive for better.  This is often about work, but also about physical health, emotional development, relationships…it applies to a lot!

And on the other side is a very real, very necessary practice of self-acceptance.  Of not treating myself like a never-ending project. Of recognizing that I’m OK exactly as I am, even in the in-between, the messy middle.

So, of course, this is where it gets tricky...