The body knows. The mind overrides…and the delay starts sounding like wisdom. I usually feel it before I understand it. A drop in my belly. A low hum of inner turbulence that begins the second I think, I still need to call so-and-so and have that conversation I’ve been avoiding. And what do I do with that feeling? I move the call down the list. Tomorrow. Next week. After I finish this errand. It’s too late in the day now….I’ll do it first thing in the morning. I tell myself I

The body knows. The mind overrides...because the crowd is louder. At the end of Letter #4, I asked, "What are you using to numb, distract, delay, or avoid the thing your body already knows?" There are many answers. None are right and none are wrong. For many of us, one answer can land hard, and you're not even aware you're doing it: outsourcing the decision to other people. A note before we go further. This letter is about everyday life choices. The career move. The unconven

For twenty+ years, I had something to say and I didn't say it. It came out anyway, but only on paper, and only in drawers. Lyrics scribbled on whatever was close. Melodies in my head. Words nobody else ever saw. And the noisy roommate that lived rent free in my head had a full script for why none of it could come out. "They'll talk about you behind your back." "Who are you to say you write music? You've had no training." "If you share these words, they'll think you've lost it

About five years ago, I joined a program with Julie Ciardi, and she changed my life. I'm still in it. I don’t ever want to be without her teachings. One of the first things she introduced me to was the concept of the noisy roommate, the voice inside your head that runs on a loop, coaching you away from everything you actually want. The ongoing reel of old stories, old conditioning, old beliefs playing on repeat. The wake-up call wasn't just that the voice existed. It was tha

Most people don't wake up one day completely disconnected from themselves. It happens slowly, quietly, and repeatedly through small moments of self-abandonment. And you don't even notice until you've lost a lot of yourself. A gut feeling ignored. A boundary dismissed. Exhaustion normalized. A relationship dynamic explained away. A dream delayed (how often do we say, "I'll do it later?"). A body signaling "enough" while the mind keeps pushing forward anyway. Over time, overrid

The body knows. The mind overrides. Let's override the override. I'm holding up a mirror so you can see what your body already knows, but your mind has been overriding. ...but before you look at your reflection, some quick housekeeping. I like to work in bite-size pieces so the overwhelm stays stifled, breathing room opens up for real contemplation (because YOU need to continue reflecting beyond simply reading these words), and no matter how chaotic your day gets, you can f