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In April, I bombed a keynote—45 minutes late, broken A/V, a room that wanted their drink tickets.
Here's what that failure taught me about participation, discernment, and why every Enneagram type has its own sophisticated reason to wait until it's "ready."
What if becoming someone was never the goal? A therapist and Enneagram facilitator on shedding the personas we mistake for our true selves.
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Thoughts on motherhood, breast cancer, and what attachment theory and the Enneagram taught me about being loved
In April, I bombed a keynote—45 minutes late, broken A/V, a room that wanted their drink tickets.
Here's what that failure taught me about participation, discernment, and why every Enneagram type has its own sophisticated reason to wait until it's "ready."
What if becoming someone was never the goal? A therapist and Enneagram facilitator on shedding the personas we mistake for our true selves.
Today you’re in for a treat! I’m bringing my pal Koula Callahan, master yoga instructor and speaker for the Self-Care Workshop, on the blog to share why movement, namely yoga, is incredibly powerful and important for us to practice as we move through our days. If you’ve always wondered what all the fuss is about —and yoga and why is really effective, today is the day—you’re going to get some answers.
Six months before my breast cancer diagnosis, I was quietly falling apart. This is my story and the heart behind why I created the Self Care Workshop.
Discover how each Enneagram type relates to structure—and why the right kind of rhythm can help you thrive. Learn how to create supportive routines without stifling growth.
When we hear the phrase self-care, most of us picture bubble baths, yoga classes, or carving out an hour to finally read that book on our nightstand. And while those things absolutely have their place, if we stop there, we miss the deeper, sustaining work that actually helps us thrive.
What I’ve learned in my own healing and in my work with clients is this: self-care without self-compassion can feel more like another to-do list item when it’s really a relationship to nurture.
There’s a moment, sometimes subtle and sometimes seismic, when you realize you have the chance to begin again. Maybe it’s the first crisp morning after a long summer. Maybe it’s a job change, a new relationship, or even the quiet decision to show up differently in the one you’re already in.
I’ve learned that beginnings—whether chosen or thrust upon us—are vulnerable places. They ask something of us: a willingness to step into what we don’t yet know. And if you’re anything like me, that’s both exciting and a little unnerving.
This is where curiosity comes in.
Are you ready to stop running on empty and start living from a place of wholeness?
Join me, alongside Ally Fallon (best selling author + writing coach) and Koula Callahan (yoga teacher + speaker), for an unforgettable day of enneagram insight, intentional writing, and embodied movement — what I call the trifecta of true self-care.
Somewhere between the smell of freshly sharpened pencils and the first rustle of fall leaves, we’re invited into a familiar rhythm—one that feels both nostalgic and energizing. Whether or not you have a backpack in your life anymore, the back-to-school season has a way of nudging us to recalibrate, recommit, and reset. It’s not just for students. It’s for all of us seeking a deeper sense of alignment and intention.
So, in the spirit of fresh starts and The Back-to-School Edit.
“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes…including you.”
— Anne Lamott
“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
Mitch Albom
“The Enneagram helps you discover who you were before the world told you who you were supposed to be.”
-Ian Cron
“Distractions are everywhere. Notice what takes your attention, acknowledge it, and then let it go.”
-Andy Puddicombe, Founder of Headspace
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.
-Anne Lamott
“As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself…The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.”
Bessel van der Kolk
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
-Rumi
“Where we think we need more self-discipline, we usually need more self-love.”
- Tara Mohr
“The human body is a river of intelligence, energy, and information that is constantly renewing itself in every second of our existence.”
- Deepak Chopra
“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
– Winston Churchill
“If we observe ourselves truthfully and non-judgmentally, seeing the mechanisms of our personality in action, we can wake up, and our lives can be a miraculous unfolding of beauty and joy.”
-Richard Rohr
“People will forget what you said, forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
-Maya Angelou
Magic in the Meltdown
“When we put down ideas of what life should be like, we are free to wholeheartedly say Yes to our life as it is.” -Tara Brach
If today’s title caught your eye, you are in the right place—Welcome.
If today’s title caught your eye, you are in the right place—Welcome.
When was the last time you had a meltdown? You know, the powerless, ugly-cry, shut the world out because no one seems to understand how hard it is variety?
It felt as though your body was boiling over with frustration so much so that it had to find a release so naturally, the eager emotional wheelhouse got a proverbial hall pass and skipped town on someone else’s dime. It was a bender of a meltdown, remember?
In those moments, all I want to do is fix it, run, or somehow numb it in order to escape the tight and uncomfortable tension I’m feeling. It’s simply too much.
Days later and with time’s firm and steady grip around my limp hand, I realize something magical: there was and always is a clear way out. However, against my resistant heart’s desire, that magic occurs as we willingly walk through the pain, not around it.
I feel this sometimes when I can’t sleep. I’ve been known to struggle with insomnia. Sometimes there’s a reason for it, and sometimes my stubborn body simply won’t shut off.
You know what the most frustrating bit of this dilemma is? It’s not the actual inability to sleep; it’s the belief that I “should” be able to sleep; that I am somehow guaranteed this right without question. The entitlement trap is what gets me every time, leaving me resentful on top of delirious.
What I realize after those seasons of scant shut-eye pass is something pretty basic, yet poignant:
It didn’t kill me.
In fact, it gave me something to learn from, write about, and understand better in order to amp up my arsenal of sleep tools. (PSA: If you have trouble sleeping, let’s totally talk.)
Last week, I shared a very special interview with Miles Adcox, Owner and CEO of Onsite Workshops, a regular guest expert on the Dr. Phil Show, new Dad, among many other cool things. If you missed the episode, definitely go back and check it out, he delivers some brilliant insight in there for us.
I ask every guest the same question: If you could give your 25-year-old self a piece of advice, what would it be? (For you millennials out there, let’s say 15.)
What he said was stunningly simple and so applicable to you and me: “It’s okay to not be okay.”
Wait. What?
You mean, when I’m mid-meltdown of the century and nothing, I mean, NOTHING, looks as it should, it’s….OKAY?
Yes.
I’ve sat with those words a lot lately, and they bring me continual peace. In my experience, like with the sleep situation, often it’s not the actual pain of the problem that is most piercing. Instead, it’s the belief that whatever is happening shouldn’t be. That, I believe, is the difference between pain and suffering.
Pain inevitably ebbs and flows throughout this life if we are walking around with anything vaguely resembling a heartbeat. However, suffering is the delicately crafted narrative we create about our pain. “I shouldn’t be feeling this way” or “my past was too much to bear.”
Curiously, life is made up of a 50/50 split of positive and negative feeling emotions.
Lately, I’ve been a student of this highly valuable process called unlearning: unlearning the entitlement stories, the fixing agents, the escape routes, and the harsh judgements that accompany my pain.
We spend so much of our lives trying to fix the flaws we think hold us back in life, and little do we know that the unlearning of these remedies will be the savior who picks us off that fast and broken road.
We must be the un-teacher of these numbing agents as we lean into the discomfort and tension of the moment.
After all, it very likely won’t kill us.
You don’t need fixing; you need to be understood. If we are constantly trying to escape ourselves and our pain, we will never get close enough to understand the root of it and answer its cry. We must gently, and with loads of self-compassion, listen and embrace the voice of our dilemma, whatever it speaks. This is the magical crossroads of our painful experience and total acceptance. Not only that but ironically, this is the surest route to our deepest joy.
Love & Gratitude,
Katie
xoxo
Thoughts on motherhood, breast cancer, and what attachment theory and the Enneagram taught me about being loved