This month I’ve been playing with letting go of comparison – noticing it, celebrating the noticing and letting go. This is an opening to trust and transformation. And for me it’s a bumpy road – sometimes it feels impossibly hard to offer compassion to myself and what it is instead is unpracticed, it’s new. As much as I know what the comparison of my judge takes from me, it’s still so solidly conditioned that it’s my go-to way in the world. And that way has lots of downsides and really no upside. It’s funny, it logically makes no sense and yet the familiarity of it brings some hint of comfort that keeps inviting me back. What I’m learning is it’s not only for me that I’m practicing something new. When I let myself be who I am fully and celebrate this, that’s an invitation to those around me to do the same. When I step into the joy of perfectly imperfect with loving arms open to whatever emerges it’s contagious. It’s that invitation into love and that starts within us. It can’t be found within someone else no matter how great our relationships are or within some object no matter how amazing that thing is, it’s only available when we come back to our own selves. And this happens with presence and awareness first. As Mark Nepo tells us it’s our “incorruptible spot of grace at our core.” 

​What I’ve realized over the last couple of weeks as I’ve paid attention is that this habit of comparison is dug into my way of showing up partly because I’m a really good student (hence the MA and PhD 😉). I take things in quickly, I love to make new connections (both between ideas and people), and I work to apply what I’ve learned. This way of being and learning has served me well and it also has me constantly looking outside myself for the requirements.​

“Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace.” ― ​Mark Nepo ​

May is here! I love May, it’s my birthday month, it’s time for blooming flowers after the April showers (or in the Twin Cities the drama of tornadoes that just missed us last week), the temps are warming in Minnesota (some of the days)! And most importantly it’s time for new beginnings and growth. It’s a perfect, or should I say perfectly imperfect, time to blog about compassion, especially self-compassion. This is my learning edge. And I’ve blogged about self-compassion before as an opening for healing ourselves (talk about grounded grace!) and as a way to be our own best friend (talk about coming home to ourselves!). Self-compassion is at the heart of my 2025 commitment to come home to myself, offering grounded grace and love. So this is my work this year. And I have to say, it’s so simple and still not at all easy for me. As I’ve shared before, my default is to judge and compare myself, and my judge is super talented at finding ways I don’t measure up! In fact, she’s taken it on as a full-time job and she’s killing it. 😂 ​

"Now I see that the journey was never meant to lead to some new and improved version of me; that it has always been about coming home to who I already am."
― Katrina Kenison

Last weekend I had a chance to retreat for my soul – what an amazing experience curated by my dear friend Steph Smith Founder of The Listening Field: Spiritual Direction at Birdwing Estate owned by another dear friend Joanna Engstrom. It was a time to really practice what I’ve been blogging about this month, slowing down! And I got to do it with a group of wonderful women some of whom I knew and others who I know now and I’m grateful to call my soul sisters. My heart is still full and I see now that the fullness is all about the coming home moments I experienced and still hold close. So what does it mean to come home? That’s what I’ve been wondering about this month.

​Home is a word that I often associate with the space I live in and it's actually so much more than a location. When I think about what makes home home for me – it’s not the building itself or even all the things held within this structure I call home. It’s who is here and that includes me. Together my family (our pets) and all who spend time with us and I create home together in this place that I live. I know it’s possible to be at a house and not feel at home and I’m incredibly grateful that my house is my home. So what is home if it's more than a space? It's connection to ourselves, to each other, and to the world we live in. And connection is all about being present right now. So basically the whole idea of coming home begins and ends with presence.

"May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of
soul.
Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek
no attention.
Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
​May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder. "
Excerpt from For Presence ― John O'Donohue

​This month I’m thinking about presence. This is not new for me since my Presence-Based Coaching (PBC) training in 2018. Present is what I aspire to be in my work, with my clients, with my family and friends, even and actually most importantly, with myself. It’s simple but not easy to be in the moment. It’s a micro choice of being here, right now, right where I am. And our world is full of distractions from presence – the multitude of devices, the multitude of news stories, ads, websites, the multitude of text messages, the multitude of emails (don’t get me started, my multitude is more than most) all being thrown at me all day long. And then there’s the multitude of to-do’s on my list, the multitude of meetings on my calendar that aren’t distractions at all, however they can be invitations to step away from presence especially when I get in my head and my judge starts prattling on about me, others, what's happening.

Not only is all of this keeping me jumping and worrying but also my brain is keeping me on autopilot which for me is about busy, busy, busy – fit it all in, get it all done and while you are at it don't forget to do it perfectly and make sure everyone is happy too (yes, I do KNOW all that is impossible and yet, that's where my default brain takes me regularly). Every moment we each face an onslaught of sensory, intellectual, and emotional input. Our brains decide what deserves attention and that can depend on many factors, most of which have been baked in since childhood. Old stories and habits that run our lives take us down paths that are well worn. That's definitely where I get stuck, the doing it right, making everyone happy. Phew, it’s a lot!

"To hear
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes an
intimate
private ear
that can
really listen
to another." 
​Excerpt from Start Close In ― David Whyte

"Your job is not to figure out how it's going to happen for you, but to open the door in your head. And when the door opens in real life, just walk through it. And don't worry if you miss your cue because there's always doors opening. They keep opening."
​― Jim Carrey

It’s the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend – this day always feels like extra space and time to me, it’s after the hustle and bustle of the big feast (which was oh so good this year albeit quieter with only one of our three sons at home) and then the energy of Black Friday. It’s a bit like gaining an hour at the beginning of Daylight Savings time. I can give myself permission to sit back, do a puzzle, read a book, play a game. It doesn’t have to be go, go, go on this day. It feels like ease to me and coincidentally this is my word of the year (see my January blog post). I was reminded of this word, ease, during my morning yoga class last week when the teacher brought up effort and ease. It got me thinking of how I’ve done with living into ease this year. I have to say it hasn’t come easily. 😀 In the balance of effort and ease, I’ve spent much more time and energy on effort than I have ease, there has not been much balance at all. There’s always one more thing on the to-do list, one more email to write, one more item to pick up at the store, one more meal to cook, one more problem to solve. ​

Community has been on my mind and heart this month. I've had amazing reminders of the beauty of authentic community alongside devastating examples of how fear divides us. A couple of weeks ago, I basked in the joy of community with our 2024 National Women’s Impact Leadership Institute (NWILI) cohort (thank you to Stephanie Shivar for partnering with me to start and grow this program) – we shared appreciation and gratitude with each other. There were belly laughs and tears, all of it. Even as I am taking in the love of this community, my heart continues to break with the wars around the world along with the politics of fear underpinning the 2024 election. And what I know to be true through it all is that we are meant to be in community. It matters for our health and well-being, it matters for our work and leadership, it matters for our souls. 
​
Community is the outer layer of my leading from the inside out framework and for me it’s a non-negotiable. We are all wired for community and my wiring is especially sensitive, or maybe it’s tight.