The Daily Ascent

In today's episode, I'm sharing something that happened at a retreat I hosted recently — watching three women who know each other well slowly put down the performance they'd each been carrying, and discover that underneath their very different stories they were all longing for exactly the same thing. Intimacy. To be truly known.  I opened the retreat with healing and grounding work and asked them:...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something a friend said to me at my house recently that opened up a whole new way of thinking about boundaries — the moment she realized you're allowed to cancel without a reason. Just say you can't make it.  Nedra Tawwab writes in Set Boundaries Find Peace that the hardest thing about implementing boundaries is accepting that some people won't like, understand, or...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something a friend said to me recently that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. He called it a one-handed surrender — the willingness to put down the behavior but not to look at what's underneath it. Not just in recovery.  In the relationship you left but whose patterns you brought to the next one. In the job you resigned from but whose defenses traveled wit...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something I saw on a sign in a cute little cafe that I genuinely could not stop thinking about — don't stumble over something behind you.  I had gotten a call the day before from someone from a chapter of my life that never really fed me, slept on it, and walked into that cafe the next morning still carrying the loop of it.  Today's episode is about the spiritual va...

In today's episode, I'm sharing a conversation I had with someone two weeks into one of the bravest decisions of her life — and the reframe that changed everything about how she thought about asking for what she needed.  Brené Brown writes in Daring Greatly that sometimes our first and greatest dare is asking for support — that true belonging requires us to be who we are, not the version of us tha...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something I caught myself doing recently when a friend of mine started doing some consulting work for me - I wanted twenty years of a business absorbed immediately. And what happened when I recognized my own urgency underneath the frustration and chose to slow down instead.  Harriet Lerner writes in The Dance of Anger that change is a process, not an event, and it d...

In today's episode, I'm talking about something that came up in my SOS group this week that I think doesn't get named nearly enough - one of the greatest abuses of diet culture is what it has done to our capacity for patience. I lived inside that urgency for years.  Sonya Renee Taylor writes in The Body Is Not an Apology that unlearning is challenging - do not expect neat, tidy resolutions, and we...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something that happened at a car dealership recently that revealed something about myself I genuinely didn't see coming - and that I think a lot of us are doing without realizing it.  Geneen Roth writes in Lost and Found that if you're trying to fill something that can't be filled with what you're using, the emptiness never goes away.  And just because we've been li...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something that happened after a group sound healing I hosted at my house last week. One of the participants called me the next day in tears - and what I told her changed everything for her.  Francis Weller writes in The Wild Edge of Sorrow that healing is a process of hollowing ourselves out so we can open to what is emerging - that our work is to make ourselves rec...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something a friend of mine came up with that I found so spiritually alive I couldn't stop thinking about it — a shame fast.  She was at a church lecture about why spiritual traditions throughout history have honored fasting, and had this lightning bolt moment: I need to do this with my shame thoughts. Mark Nepo writes in The Book of Awakening that loving yourself is...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something a friend of mine came up with that I found so spiritually alive I couldn't stop thinking about it — a shame fast.  She was at a church lecture about why spiritual traditions throughout history have honored fasting, and had this lightning bolt moment: I need to do this with my shame thoughts.  Mark Nepo writes in The Book of Awakening that loving yourself i...

In today's episode, I'm sharing one of the most useful questions I know that I learned about two weeks into my recovery when I was catastrophizing about going to Italy, which I had absolutely no plans to do.  Eckhart Tolle writes in The Power of Now that all worry and anxiety are caused by too much future and not enough presence.  Today's episode is about coming back to the only moment that is act...

In today's episode, I'm talking about something I'm genuinely proud of — and something that took me a very long time to build. Consistency. The small, quiet, unglamorous practice of showing up for yourself every single day.  Taking your meds. Trash on Thursdays. The walk even when you're tired.  Karen Casey writes in Each Day a New Beginning that each action we take clearly indicates the person we...

In today's episode, I'm talking about something a client said to me recently that stopped me cold — she wanted to ask her roommate to move food that was making her recovery harder, but she wasn't sure she was allowed to ask.  And it made me think about how often we decide for other people before they've ever had the chance to respond.  Brené Brown writes in Rising Strong that in the absence of dat...

Someone in a spiritual circle I'm part of said something recently I have not been able to stop thinking about — wouldn't it be amazing if our fear voice came in a different accent, so we'd always know it wasn't our truth?  Iyanla Vanzant writes in Acts of Faith that having the thoughts isn't the problem — what sets us back is when we pay homage to them, when we keep entertaining them until they be...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something I've learned about community the hard way and the beautiful way — that if you want a village, you have to be a villager.  I talk about the women's recovery meeting that saved me during COVID, the Sunday morning chairperson position I almost said no to, and what happened when I said yes anyway.  Brené Brown writes that true belonging is a daily practice — a...

In today's episode, I'm talking about a woodpecker I had never seen before — and what it reminded me about the ordinary moments I walk through every day without really seeing them.  Brother David Steindl-Rast writes that everything is a gift, and that the degree to which we are awake to this truth is the measure of our gratefulness — and gratefulness is the measure of our aliveness.  Today's episo...

In today's episode, I'm talking about something a workout instructor said to me that I couldn't shake — and a pattern I catch myself in that I think a lot of us share.  Fragilizing yourself. Deciding you can't before you've tried.  Parker Palmer writes that if we are to live our lives fully and well, we must learn to embrace the opposites — to live in a creative tension between our limits and our...

In today's episode, I'm telling you about Danny's first girls' night back — and what happened when my 75 pound lab mix couldn't find his ground.  A dog trainer taught me years ago that sometimes you have to hold the leash until the spinning stops.  Thich Nhat Hanh writes that our breathing is a stable solid ground always there to take refuge in — that whenever we're carried away, we can return and...

In today's episode, I'm talking about the loneliness you can feel in a crowded room — and why I think it might be the most dangerous kind.  A client of mine hadn't left her house in weeks, completely convinced she needed to stay in her bed. I understood that completely. Because I know what it is to be right there, surrounded by people, with the ice forming around my heart and nothing getting in. ...

In today's episode, I'm talking about a friend who asked her prayer circle to support her in her joy — and what that brave, honest request revealed about why joy is so hard to receive.  Glennon Doyle writes that she wondered if joy had as much to teach her as pain did — and that what the world needs right now is to watch one woman at a time live her truest, most beautiful life without asking for p...

In today's episode, I'm sharing something I learned in my SOS group that I had never heard named before — post-collapse syndrome.  My first sponsor told me years ago: it's not the event where the danger is. It's the exhale after.  And this isn't just about hard things — it's about any big expenditure. Amazing concerts. Dream vacations.  Finished projects. The body doesn't distinguish between good...

In today's episode, I'm talking about a client who couldn't let herself be out of sorts until she could explain why — and what that pattern is costing all of us.  Tara Brach writes that pain is not wrong, and that the moment we decide something is wrong our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat it.  Sometimes understanding why you feel something is a real gift. But making und...

In today's episode, I'm telling you about something a friend said at dinner that I had to write down.  She called it driftwood — the idea that when you see someone else have what you want, it's not a sign it's not coming for you. It's evidence that it's real, that it exists, that it's on its way.  Tosha Silver writes that abundance is something to be, not seek or await — and that when you let the...

In today's episode, I'm telling you about Grandma Bev — who just turned 100, sharp as a tack, the woman who opened her doors to my mom and me when we moved across the country — and the thing she said to me seven times over dinner that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.  Richard Wiseman spent a decade studying hundreds of lucky and unlucky people and found something that stopped me cold: p...