Navigating Grief Amidst Tragic Loss

This past week, an unspeakable tragedy hit my very own backyard of Nashville, TN.  Literally, you can see Covenant Presbyterian School and Church from our back deck.  The recent school shooting in our quiet little neighborhood of Green Hills has had a ripple effect all across our country.  

It was 10:30 am on Monday morning.  I was on my way downtown to Centennial Hospital for a pre-op appointment.  As I sat blankly, waiting for the light to turn green at the corner of Franklin road and Harding, I noticed a blur of police cars flying past me.  Traffic was stopped.  

“Lord, have mercy.” I prayed, unknowingly.  I got on the interstate and started to receive an influx of texts.  My friend Beth called me.  Our sons are in pre-school together.  Feeling a little uneasy, I let it go to voicemail to stay focused on my drive downtown.  I had a sick feeling in my stomach.  

As I came to a light on Church street, just a few blocks from the hospital, I looked at my phone long enough to read a few of the texts.  My whole body froze and I got lightheaded.  My heart pounded in my chest.  No stranger to panic attacks, I started to buckle.  I just needed to get to the parking garage.  “You can do this, Katie.” I muttered under my breath.  

As I parked I called my husband, Daniel. Hysterical, I stammered out, “Is it true?” He turned on the news and started to get more information on the school shooting right around the corner from my son’s school.  Without all the details and the steady man that he is, he helped me breath and calm down so I could get through the appointment and get home.  Thankfully, we had kept Tucker home from school that day due to a nasty cough.  They were both safe at home.  

But this wasn’t the case for so many others who suffered unimaginable loss that day.  

After the hysteria and panic subsided, I got angry.  Angrier than I can remember getting in a very long time.  Throughout the days and week, I learned stories connected to the people, the place, and the unfolding of the day.  

You probably have some similar story that connects you to this or other tragic events.  I pray God is near to you during these fragile minutes and hours of every passing day.  

Navigating grief amidst tragic loss is downright awful—punishing.  It’s not linear.  It’s messy as hell.  I could give you the soup to nuts on the grief process and hope it might be helpful but this is not that post.  

Today, I want to give you one simple word: CLING.  

Cling to prayer if you’re the praying type.

Cling to people who love you.

Cling to breath when everything else feels too hard.

Cling to truth and monitor what you’re letting in.

Cling to self-care so you can metabolize your felt emotions and pain.

Cling to the hope that God didn’t bring us here to leave us here.  

And just like Mr. Rogers’ mother told him when responding to scary news, “Look for the helpers.” 

If you are struggling to navigate this thick and complex grief in response to the Covenant School shooting, please reach out for help.  I’d love to be a resource for you right now.

5 Things to Avoid when Using the Enneagram

Do you have a funny taste left in your mouth with regards to the Enneagram?  I’m not going to lie, with its rise in popularity and the obsession with it in Instagram culture, I fear it’s become something of a caricature of itself.  If I see one more meme about type, I may just boycott it altogether.

Ah, but that’s not the response of a self-aware, evolved, and gracious person living in wholeness is it? No, it’s not…

The Enneagram teaches us to grow beyond reaction and choose from a place of responsiveness—and power.  

I do, however, want to point out 5 mistakes to avoid when using this tool for life and relationships.  So here goes:

1. Don’t type other people.  This is a biggie.  The Enneagram isn’t just about the optics of our personality.  It’s about the story, or motivations and beliefs that fuel our patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior.  So unless you are familiar with the deeper aspects of  someone’s core belief system and narrative, avoid typing them.

2. Don’t indulge your type.  In other words, don’t use your type as an excuse for bad behavior (i.e. “I’m going to let her have it when I see her.  She’ll never want to cross me again.  I’m an 8 after all!”)  We identify our type in order to better understand ourselves and grow beyond our personality tactics.   

3. Don’t stereotype others based on type.  Again, this is such a rookie move.  To judge someone and make assumptions based on their type is a big no-no.  Just as there are about 100 unique shades of white, not all persons in a type show up the same.  Especially when you factor in subtypes, you can actually have two people who are the same type look nothing alike.  

4. Don’t force it on others.  Even though the Enneagram is a powerful, transformational tool, not everyone is willing to or interested in subscribing to it.  The worst thing we can do as Enneagram advocates is to force it on others, no matter how much it has helped us.  We must learn to trust others’ process. 

5. Don’t stay on the surface.  Even though it’s incredible fodder for coffee shop or cocktail party conversation, the Enneagram is meant to be applied to our daily lives, not just talked about.  Knowledge without application is, well, just knowledge.  

P.S. If you’re in the market for a way to learn about and apply the Enneagram, you’re in the right place.  Check out my Enneagram-based Self-Care membership program called the Practice!

5 Things I Learned During Chemo

My cancer diagnosis back in April of 2021 was an unexpected gift in  many ways.  Perhaps most glaring was that it forced me to take a forensic inventory of my life—and how I’d been living it up until that point.  It  crystalised the things that were and are truly important.  It invited me into more personal integrity—alignment with my deeply held values.  It convinced me there was no reason to sweat the small stuff—adulting means we have more responsibility, more to live for, more to lose, and more to let go of when it ceases to serve us.  

I’ll never forget the day after I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  We attended a friend’s over-the-top gorgeous wedding outside of Nashville.  I  had no idea what the course of treatment would be at that time.  All I held to that day was the certainty that my story had taken a dramatic shift to the tune of that terrifying “c” word.   

I savored every single minute that day.  I got to dress up (which is my spiritual gift), hugged and kissed my then 2-year old when we dropped  him off at my folks house on the way, sipped champagne, and held my husband’s hand tighter than I can ever remember.  I even got to slow dance with him.  As my cheek pressed up against his crisp suit jacket, I cried hot tears of joy, gratitude, and fear all at once.  I’d been given another day and the days of taking this beautiful life for granted passed right then and there.  That was another gift I was granted: perspective.

From where I sit today, nearly two years later, the lens I look through isn’t fear, it’s possibility.  I’ve undergone a bilateral mastectomy, a brutal recovery, countless doctor visits, three smaller surgeries, and chemotherapy.  I lost my hair completely.  (Thankfully it’s back…and corkscrew curly! Who knew?) I lost the illusion of invincibility.  But I’ve gained so much more.  I’m pretty sure my heart grew a new chamber.  I know my faith did.

Along the way, especially during chemo, I learned five things that I believe  we can apply in the face of any challenge.   I want to share those things with you today.  

1. Guard an open mind:  Keeping an open mind in the face of adversity is necessary.  We will never be able to predict the future and going to the worst-case scenario is futile as a result.  Though oftentimes we slide right into a fight-flight-or-freeze fear response, practicing curiosity is everything as we start to thaw out.  

2. Life is hard—it’s our attitude that makes it a bit easier: At my last oncologist appointment, my doctor told me something that I’ll  always be grateful for.  She told me that in all her years as an oncologist treating cancer patients of every kind, I was in the top  one percent whose chemotherapy experience seemed easy and even inspiring.  She attributed that to my positive attitude every step of the way.  I’ll tuck that away in my pocket the rest of my days and  forever swear by the power of a positive attitude.

3. Protect your time and energy:  It is totally okay and even necessary to pull back from our normal responsibilities during difficult seasons.  One way we do this is by setting boundaries around our time and energy.  For me, my immunocompromised state required this.  However, it was a lesson either way.  I learned to let my “no” be as good as my “yes” without guilt. 

4. Self-care pays off: It’s no accident I started the Practice, my Enneagram-based self-care business, the same year I got cancer.  It was a lesson in synchronicity.  I have been practicing self-care (esp. meditation, exercise, therapy, etc. ) religiously for decades.  I witnessed first hand how every single time I showed up for myself over the years paid it forward to undergird me in the most physically and emotionally daunting season of my life.  Practicing self-care will always serve you when you need it the most. 

5. Let people support you but not always advise you: People are well-meaning. I do believe this.  However, each of us has a unique story and process. There’s no one size fits all. Take the advice of others with a grain of salt and as a gesture of support.  My chemo experience, (that 1% situation my oncologist observed) was not informed by the stories of other’s experience with cancer.  And boy am I glad!  

Thank you for accompanying me through this incredibly wild ride. I’m on the other side for sure.  I hope and pray your journey unfolds in beautifully unexpected ways…and where there is suffering…I pray God’s grace surrounds you.

Your Brain on the Enneagram: A Chat with Dr. Jerome Lubbe

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Jerome Lubbe, an innovative thinker, functional neurologist, and author of The Brain-Based Enneagram: You are not a Number, to talk Enneagram and the brain.  It was truly fascinating.  

The Enneagram stole my heart 17 years ago, but neuroscience and specifically, neuroplasticity came in hot on my radar soon thereafter.  It was around then that I started studying trauma and it’s effect on our brains and bodies.  

You may be wondering what the heck the brain has to do with the Enneagram.  And that would be fair.  That’s why I’m excited to unpack it a bit here today.  

According to Dr. Jerome:

Neuroscience tells us that our brains are plastic. They can and do change. Brain anatomy reveals that our operating system is composed of three primary components which mirror the structure of the Enneagram--Brain-stem (instinct triad), Right hemisphere (intuition triad), and Left hemisphere (intellect triad). Functional Neurology shows us how to target areas of the brain in order to physically improve the efficiency of the distinct natures of our identity. 

The Enneagram integrates seamlessly. It provides language and definition for the process of development. It opens channels for growth by connecting values and expressions to brain function. It offers a guide for increasing physical, mental, and emotional efficiencies by practically implementing effective methods at effective times in effective ways. The Brain-Based EnneagramTM empowers every human being on the planet to engage with the brain, heal and rebuild after trauma, encourage and strengthen efficiencies, and nourish the relational, integrated nature of our whole identity.

Simply stated, understanding how our brains work and develop habits of attention, thought, and emotion over time directly affects our behaviors and the arc of our wellbeing and experienced reality.  When you integrate this knowledge of the brain with the effective self-understanding tool of the Enneagram, you are able to understand how you got where you are and can begin putting into practice a new, empowered way forward.  

Sure, knowledge is power.  However, once we are able to implement tools  (the Enneagram) with this knowledge, power translates to growth and transformation. 

Something I appreciate about Dr. Jerome’s approach to the Enneagram is his advocacy in our capacity for all nine types.  He provides in his extensive research and testing that we can’t be reduced to one number.  Instead, we have fluid elements of all nine that ebb and flow with life’s unfolding.  This allows for the complexity of the human identity and is a sigh of relief to the boxy, stereotypical reign of type.  

As I like to say, we have a dominant type (in my case, a four), yet also have strains of each of the other eight in my Whole Identity Profile, as he has pioneered.  

His personal journey, breadth of work, and available resources for us is simply stunning.  I hope you’ll check out his book, especially if you’ve experienced frustration around knowing your type! 

Resilience: The Ultimate Life Hack

Do you ever get discouraged because you feel like you can’t seem to get unstuck? Maybe you’ve tried therapy or read some self-help books and they bring relief temporarily but leave you wanting in the long run? 

Or, perhaps you make progress along the way yet inevitably find yourself bumping up against the same flipping roadblocks, over and over.  

If your hand is raised, you’re in good company.  Same same. 

I’m reminded that we aren’t here to finally get it right—to one day fully “arrive” and have it all figured out.  If that is your goal, I hate to break it to you, you’re hosed.  

As humans, we have something undeniable in common.  We are imperfect—flawed at best.

I don’t believe we ever fully arrive.  I believe we get good at resilience.  

Resilience is simply the ability to recover (quickly) from difficulty.  

What’s problematic is when we get so thrown off our game, we stay down too long, and in doing so, become calloused or defined by our struggle.  

So how do we become more resilient?  If this is the secret to moving through life with more ease and confidence, how do we condition ourselves to get back up after the fall, no matter how many times we stumble?

I believe we must reframe failure.  Instead of seeing it as an ending, we must see it as an opening.  Instead of seeing it as a personal blow, we must see it as a wise teacher who comes around from time to time.  She has way more to say than her distant cousin, Success.  

I know, Success is way prettier, but Failure is more than meets the eye.   She has a depth and insight about her that comes from the humility only difficulty can form.  

So next time you feel stuck, broken, or discouraged, I hope you won’t lose heart.  Instead, perhaps the invitation and decision to sit with yourself in the space—to hold yourself in kindness—and to speak to yourself  with understanding, will become the strongest parts of you.  Perhaps they will be the conditioning that over time, just like a muscle—grows bigger and more pronounced.  

Perhaps the goal will not become perfection…but growth tethered in compassionate resilience.