I still believe in good.
My mind has always been rich with dreams.
I was the kind of kid whose imagination was always running away with her, who lost track of time playing make-believe in the forest behind our house. Sensitive and hyper-active, I found refuge in stories and dance. Connection and expression. Stillness and motion.
I studied creating writing in college but found something there that consumed me even more than stories: mindfulness. In my senior year at the University of Pittsburgh, I first heard the name Thich Nhat Hahn from professor Fiona Cheong. She led us in “eating an orange meditation.” Our homework was to do walking meditation (and write a 60 page manuscript).
She taught us that what we called writer’s block is usually dispelled by just getting quiet and asking, “What am I unwilling to feel?”
In my early 20s, I scored a gig directing events at a big indie bookstore in California.
I had been teaching yoga for a few years, spent some time on a biodynamic farm, even wrote some freelance pieces. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, but I knew what I was good at — telling stories, building connection, touching nerves, making meaning.
Through my bookstore job I met my literary icons and studied the way they approached creativity. Ideas weren’t a commodity to be spent or saved. Creativity wasn’t luck or even a skill. It was about willingness to be in flow, in touch. To show up for life, no matter how often the world (or your mind) tells you that your story isn’t worth telling.
In six months, the world would get very quiet. We would huddle inside, in safety, alone but “in it together,” — and lonely, so lonely.
We would have to re-learn how to connect, how to communicate, how to make meaning in a world that can make hope seem like a house of cards.
In these years, I have met with so many clients who are beaten-down-tired from the world telling them how to sell their thing, get heard, make an impact — in a way that feels misaligned with who they are. Use manipulative techniques to get attention, look different, make more content, more more more!
But what if the way to get heard is to be exactly who we are? What if deep, authentic connection is the way we make an impact?
What if your story — your real story, the story of how much you believe in your own worthiness — is what really matters?
Late summer 2019: After a decade designing events and engagement experiences, I left my pay-rolled Silicon Valley job and spread my wings as a communications strategist.
Oh, you were expecting a résumé on this page? Here it is.