Clean Living.

Almost every week for the last five years, I’ve been writing these posts.  I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: I write them because I need them.  I don’t presume you or anyone will read them, let alone actually enjoy them.  If for some reason they resonate, I’m truly honored, but more than that, I’m aware that this is because you already know and value their message deep inside you.  I’m not telling you anything new and profound--perhaps just reminding.

There’s a Bible verse, or phrase really, I grew up loving, “As deep calls to deep…”  I’m not going to pretend to know or explain what that means in a Biblical context, yet I know what it means to you and I here.

When you feel resonance with a message, a quote, a song, or a walk in nature, it’s because the goodness of that truth and beauty already lives inside you.  It’s a powerful energetic match being made. A sacred hallelujah! Or Aha!  It’s the stuff we own.  The stuff we honor.  The stuff of value we savor and protect deep inside.

It’s proof we’re all invited and interwoven into the rich tapestry of Grace.

Something I’ve been savoring lately is the beauty of simplicity and brevity.  It’s an invitation into the now—that clean moment of consciousness—of fullness.  Sure, it comes and goes in an instant, yet we are there.  We are all there (if we want to be).  

The abundance of that moment gently collapses over into the next like a domino.  These moments are clean because they keep us tethered to reality, not somewhere in the past or future, both of which are tempting but tough to hold onto like a slick fish flailing for its freedom.

Creativity, though messy, happens in the fullness of the clean present.  A massive part of my healing has been the creative process, namely writing.  I’m convinced it’s part of your journey too.  

And yes,  I’m calling your bluff as you roll your eyes and silently retreat, “But I’m not creative!”  

Back it up.  

Part of your birthright as a human being is to make stuff, whether that’s a story, a way out, a pie, a speech, or a plan.  You’re a born maker!  

I believe a big part of waking up to the gorgeous truth of who we are is owning that creative birthright, and in doing so, moving from consumer to creator.  

So what?  Well, I want to co-create with you.  I want to start conversations here that are short, meaningful, and most of all applicable for you in your now.  I want to give you back some time to go get your hands dirty with intention.  

I don’t want to walk through life in a sleepy haze.  I don’t want to survive or dial it in.  I want to crush it. Don’t you?

If you answered yes to that question (hopefully with feeling), you’re in the right place.  

We’re going to be streamlining the weekly blog to give you more time, more tools, and hopefully more inspiration to start creating more of what you love.  

You ready? 

Love & Gratitude,
Katie 

Why Happiness is an Inside Job

You’ve probably heard it before, the pithy phrase “Happiness is an inside job.” But have you ever stopped to ask yourself why? After all, isn’t happiness based on circumstance while joy is the real coveted virtue? In that case, happiness would seem outside of ourselves altogether.  

While I’m not sure about that, I do know I like being happy more than not. 

In the last several years, I’ve been fascinated by the human brain and have spent tons of time trying to understand it more.  After all, your brain is literally a genius and has the power to heal itself completely over time.  This is why there’s such hopeful prognoses for those who’ve experienced horrific traumas.  

You can’t study the brain without delving into concepts such as the conscious and unconscious mind.  While that’s another post for another day, know this:

Just as the quote mentions above, we possess unfathomable creative control as humans when we learn to harness and practice intentionally directing our thoughts and feelings in the way of our desires.  Sound too airy fairy for your taste?  Fair enough, but check out Dr. Habib Sadeghi’s book Within, to understand the science behind it.  It’s undoubtedly a game-changer. 

Today, I want to give you five helpful reminders as you go about cultivating more happiness and meaning in your everyday experience:

1. Happiness is a practice, not a destination.  We must learn to practice happiness in the small, insignificant moments throughout the day rather than “saving up” for an unrealistic circumstantial pay-off.  

2. We can’t experience happiness without pain.  Life is a series of contractions and expansions.  Picture a caterpillar inching right along.  There are equal contractions and expansions that keep him moving forward.  

3. We create our own emotional experiences by the beliefs we choose to adopt.  Beliefs are simply thoughts we practice thinking over and over again.  Your past thoughts and beliefs have created the reality you’re in today.  

4. Happiness is not contingent on your story.  You and I have agency to write the stories we want to live into.  By taking total responsibility of our experiences and resulting emotions, we are able to move through them and create greater hope and meaning.

5. It’s okay to not be okay.  We put so much pressure on ourselves to be happy.  Yet if life is equal parts expansion and contraction, we must learn to be okay with sadness, heartache, loneliness, and anger.  When we learn to contain our emotions in a healthy way and extend self-compassion to ourselves on the other side, we will likely experience less resistance and more equilibrium in life.  If you have a bad day, let yourself be in it, process it, and move through it instead of faking it. 

Love & Gratitude,
Katie

Permission to Speak Freely

Dear Friend,

I hope this email finds you well.  With the hustle and bustle of the season, whatever shape this takes on in your world, all I could think about this week was gratitude for your presence here. 

I realize you may be traveling, or with family, or perhaps even taking on more work and commitments.  Schedules get thrown off and the faint whiff of structure and routine we may have acknowledged just got sucked right out the window.

I get it. I’m there too. So we’ll keep this one short.

Today I simply want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.  Thank you for accompanying me on this journey deeper into desire, connection, and thriving.  I started this blog a little over two years ago not knowing anything about what a blog was or who the flip would even care to read it.  I really just wanted to voice some deep longings, observations, vulnerabilities, and proof that hope and healing are absolutely always within reach.  

I’ve shared parts of my story that have felt scary and dark.  I’ve been afraid that perhaps you would judge me or see me as unqualified and/or inadequate both as a therapist and a writer.  For all you enneagram nerds out there, I’ve carried the curse of the “four” that whispers the ever so sexy lie, “If they saw you and knew you for who you really are, they wouldn’t love you.” 

As my British friend Lynsey would say every time, “Bollucks!”

The funny thing is, the more I heard that lie, the more I knew what I had to do—lay it all out there, flawed, broken, and wildly imperfect. 

If this year has taught us anything, it has surely been the importance of using our voice even though there is great risk involved and no guarantee of being well-received or even heard for that matter.  

When we speak our truth, it sets a domino effect of courage in motion.

For me and so many, this is very much a journey of first finding our voice—finding our truth.

My prayer and desire is that our weekly conversations will serve as a safe space and subtle nudge for you to keep searching for and using that beautifully powerful voice of yours.  

You may think this is pointless or impossible.  I get it.  You’re busy, you’re taking care of other people, you’re covered up with responsibility, or maybe you’re simply too weary and broken to try.  

Keep searching.

You may fall prey to the lie you have nothing good to say and your story, your voice, doesn’t matter.

Keep speaking.

Along the way, someone may have even told you to stay small and keep very, very quiet.  

Louder. It’s in there, and it’s big.

Okay, so you’ve searched, found, and shared that wobbly, crackling first few words only to fall flat without a nod or reassuring smile to catch them on the other side.  No one cared.

Get back on the horse.  

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.  Anything worth saying bears repeating.  

You belong to you and your voice matters.  

You matter. 

Why?  Because you are here.  It is your birthright to have needs and desires and to voice those valuable messages to the world.  You’re worthy and you belong, just as you are.

The thing is, truth is born out of silence, stillness.  We must slow down enough to hear the soft, rolling nuances of our soul’s longing.  If this feels indulgent, then my gift to you this holiday season is a big fat permission slip to find the time you need to lean into that stillness and listen to the voice of desire longing to speak freely.  

What does she sound like?  What are her words?  What does she need?  

Oh I know she’s in there.  And she is lovely, indeed.

Thank you again.  We’ve journeyed through yet another amazing year and I’m so grateful you are here. Hold on tight for the next leg of the journey. It’s gonna be good.

Until then, have a peace & meaning-filled Holiday!

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

xoxo

Ordinary Things — Lessons from Graham Nash

This past week, Nashville did her thing and hosted the Americana Fest.  Living in Nashville for over twenty years now, I often find myself taking Music City (and sometimes music in general) for granted what with all the insane talent boiling over at every turn.  Hell, you can even hear some pretty first-class country covers the second you deplane at BNA.  Yep, the airport Tootsies will nearly have you convinced 99.99% of this town can carry a tune.  

Friday night was special in that I fell in love with songs all over again and was reminded just how vital story really is. I had the honor of accompanying my better half to a live recorded tribute to the incomparable Graham Nash. The night featured him as well as other established and burgeoning talent, all offering their versions of some of his most memorable tunes. 

His second skin embodiment of the sounds he creates blows me away.  You simply can’t separate him from his music; you’d be dismembering a limb of sorts.  If you’ve ever seen him live, you know his passion and reverence for the craft is unmistakably palpable.

Perhaps my favorite part of the show was hearing the story behind his song, Our House, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s smash hit.  It seems I’ve become just as mesmerized if not more by where songs come from as I am the song itself.  

In his charming British way, Graham (just going to go ahead and assume we’d be pals) recalls a lovely if uncharacteristic blustery, grey Los Angeles afternoon with his then live-in girlfriend, Joni Mitchell—naturally.

He wryly renders “oftentimes songs come from the most ordinary of experiences,” you know, like a Saturday afternoon shopping jaunt with ordinary people like Joni Mitchell?!

He had us all engaged, leaning in, smiling and hungrily eating out of his hand. Apparently, Joni had found a quirky little antique vase for a steal and was eager to put it to good use.  Upon their return home, he turns to her contentedly and urges, “I’ll light a fire, and you should go put some flowers in that vase you found just now…”  An hour later she returns with an arrangement to find Graham wrapping up a classic.  And so, the conception of a song—no big deal.

This post is not about songwriting or Graham Nash for that matter.  It’s about you and the story you believe about your value.  The day after the show I turned to my husband Daniel and said, “You know, he’s had thousands of opportunities to dial in that Joni Mitchell story. It’s so good and clever partly because he’s lived in it so much.”  

Cynical much? No really, that wasn’t my heart behind the comment.  It’s an epic song with an epic story and cast, yet, he’s had decades to perfect it, test it, and perform it.  He’s not getting in his own way every time in order to re-create the wheel; he’s working his edge.

What I’ve curiously pondered in my heart the last several days since is how ingrained our stories get into our hearts and brains; so ingrained we believe them, bowing down to them as if they had the keys to our life’s success.  

You see, people believe what we show them to be true about who we are.  Oftentimes, we clumsily miss the opportunity to draw them in because we’re stuck living out our scarcity story— fearful and highly undervalued.

Over the next several weeks on the blog, we will explore practical ways of tweaking our story in order to “work our edge.”  I heard that phrase in a yoga class recently.  It was one of those classes where the heat’s cranked up, and it smells like a gargantuan eucalyptus plant is sweating.  Our annoyingly fit and enthusiastic teacher kept charging, “find your edge and work it.”  I was too busy slipping all over my mat and looking like a frustrated beet to remotely find anything edgy.  Still, the phrase stuck and I kind of love it.

Awareness is the first step towards change, so this week, I encourage you to be a student of yourself.  With a beginners mind, simply observe the little things you do that make you come alive.  This can be cooking a meal or writing in your journal or going for a run.  What are those things that come naturally to you that you assume everyone else does with such pleasure too?  Is it writing a thank-you note, encouraging a friend, or researching printer ink (sky’s the limit here, folks)?  These little things are the making of your edge.  They are how you lead, and consequently, they are highly valuable.  

So, just like we learned from Mr. Nash, oftentimes the most brilliant stories come from the most ordinary-seeming things.  Your story is one of a kind. Now, its time to work that edge.

Love & Gratitude,

Katie

Emotional Fitness: An Interview with Miles Adcox

Happy Thursday!

Today’s episode is near and dear to my heart, perhaps because it’s personal.

Life is absolutely full of light and dark, good and bad, ups and downs—all kinds of colorful seasons.  Something I love about the passage of time is we get to see many of the complex questions of yesterday make a bit more sense in our today.
 Often times, our painful past experiences have birthed resilience stories that we get to carry along in our pocket and give away to those in need.  It doesn’t mean we’d want to go through those seasons again, yet it sure gives levity and meaning to the wounds.

Part of my story has been a crippling battle with depression/anxiety dating back to high school.   About a decade ago, it came to a head, despite years of therapy, cocktails of medication, you name it.

Thankfully, I heard about Onsite workshops from Cindy, a dear family friend.  I could tell by the way she described her time there that this wasn’t your typical treatment program.  No, Onsite was different; experiential in nature and truly transformative.

I was desperate, so I went.  Scared out of my mind?  Yes.  I still went.

Desperate trumped scared.

Grateful doesn’t begin to describe how I feel in retrospect.  Going through “Living Centered,” their flagship program, was an unforgettable healing experience.

Today, I’m beyond excited to share a very special interview with Miles Adcox, owner and CEO of Onsite.  As you’ll learn in the intro of today’s episode, Miles has quite an impressive resume, and yet, his humility and transparency about the shifting journey he’s been on is inspiring and endearing.

I can’t wait for you to listen and learn more about Miles’ story and upcoming projects.  Every time I talk to Miles, I’m reminded of what it means to truly make life matter, taking each day as a new opportunity for growth and change.  I have a hunch you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about after listening to this interview.

Enjoy and share away!

Love and Gratitude,

Katie

*My podcast theme song is titled “Land of the Living,” written and performed by the very brilliant and gracious Matthew Perryman Jones.