I recently returned to a place I had been before, a place that, by all external measures, had not changed in any significant way, where the programming was the same, the structure was familiar, and the rhythm of the experience followed a pattern that my body had learned long ago how to move through without much conscious effort, and yet, despite all of that continuity, the way I experienced it this time was entirely different.

There was a distance I could feel but could not immediately name, something subtle but persistent that sat just beneath the surface of every interaction, as if I were present in the space but no longer fully participating in it in the way that I once had, and as the experience unfolded, I began to notice something that has become a signal for me over time, a kind of internal shift that is easy to overlook if I am not paying close attention.

I began to slip into critique.

Not loudly, not in a way that would draw attention or disrupt the environment around me, but internally, there was a steady current of noticing, of questioning, of evaluating what was landing and what was no longer resonating in the same way, and over time, I have come to understand something about myself that has proven to be consistently true.

When I become critical of a thing, it is rarely because the thing itself has changed.

It is because I have.

And the thing is no longer for me.

There is a moment, though, before that realization is fully accepted, a moment that lives in the body before it becomes language, where something begins to tighten or shift in a way that cannot yet be explained, and for me, that moment often feels like a subtle restlessness in my chest and shoulders, like I am holding something in place that is already trying to move, like there is a quiet misalignment between where I am and what I am becoming.

And in that moment, the question begins to form.

Not as a clear thought, but as a feeling that gradually becomes words.

Should I stay… or should I go?

I have seen this pattern emerge in many areas of my life, not just in physical spaces but in relationships, roles, and environments that once felt aligned, where everything on the surface appeared to remain the same, and yet my internal experience of those spaces began to shift in ways that I could not ignore.

And when that shift happens, my first instinct is rarely to leave.

My first instinct is to adjust.

To reshape the space.

To refine what feels off.

To influence the environment in ways that might allow me to remain.

Because if the space can change, then I do not have to.

This is not a small thing for me.

I am someone who finds comfort in familiarity, in the predictability of patterns that allow me to settle without having to constantly renegotiate my place within them, and I can see this in the smallest details of my life, in the way I return to the same meals, the same spaces, the same routines, not out of limitation but out of a desire for grounding.

So when something that has become familiar begins to feel like it no longer fits, it does not simply disrupt my preference.

It disrupts my sense of stability.

And that is where the tension begins.

Because part of me knows that something has shifted, that something in me has moved in a way that no longer aligns with what once felt natural, and another part of me is trying to hold everything in place, to preserve what has been, to maintain the relationship between who I was and where I have been.

This is what awareness does.

It does not always bring immediate clarity about what to do next, but it brings an undeniable clarity about what is no longer true, and that clarity has a way of complicating things, because it removes the illusion that everything can be made to fit if we are willing to try hard enough.

It introduces a different way of knowing.

One that is not based on right or wrong, good or bad, but on alignment.

On what fits and what no longer does.

And from that place, something becomes clear.

Not every space is for us.

And every space that once was will not always remain so.

Especially if we are still becoming.

But instead of honoring that, we often resist it.

We attempt to negotiate with what has already shifted.

We try to reshape what is no longer meant to hold us.

We search for ways to remain in places that no longer meet who we are.

Because leaving requires stepping into the unknown.

And the unknown is uncomfortable.

The mind responds to that discomfort in predictable ways.

It begins to create stories, to construct futures that feel more certain than the present, to imagine outcomes that provide a sense of stability, even if they are entirely built from assumption rather than reality.

Because even imagined certainty feels safer than not knowing.

So we stay.

Not because the space is aligned.

But because the alternative feels undefined.

But awareness has a way of returning us to the present.

It brings us back into the body, back into the moment, back into what is actually being experienced rather than what could be imagined, and in that return, the question becomes unavoidable.

Not “How do I make this work?”

But “Why am I still trying to?”

Because making something work is not the same as being in alignment with it.

And at some point, the cost of staying becomes impossible to ignore, not because it presents itself dramatically, but because it accumulates quietly, moment by moment, until we can nolonger pretend that what we are holding in place is meant to remain.

This is the gift of emergence.

Not that it makes the path forward easier.

But that it makes what is true impossible to overlook.

I have three rose bushes planted near the walkway into our home.

Two bloom red.
One blooms white — sometimes pink.

Every year, they bloom the same colors.

And every year, because we trim them back in winter, when they bloom again there is a feeling of newness.

New petals.
New fragrance.
New shape.

And yet —

Nothing new at all.

They are not becoming something different.
They are returning to what they have always been.

Spring does not dictate what a rose is.

It reveals it.

Emergence doesn’t invent identity.
It uncovers it.

I’m learning this about myself.

The more curious I become about what I’ve been designed to be,
the easier it is to follow the path of emergence.

Last year, I moved differently.

I was preoccupied with building a profitable business in the pattern of what I believed profitable businesses should look like.

I listened to the podcasts.
I attended the conferences.
I studied the formulas.

Build the funnel.
Scale the offer.
Monetize the brand.
Manufacture the structure.

The self-help industry in the United States alone was valued around $16 billion in 2024. Sixteen billion dollars spent on becoming more.

The “Wellness” industry at large was even greater! The US spent so much in 2024 that the equivalent would be giving two dollars for every human on earth.

A global preoccupation with arrival.

With the idea that something out there will make you more of who you are.

But life — like everything in creation — isn’t about arrival.

It’s about return.

It’s a circle.

I am not arriving at a new version of myself.

I am returning to a deeper understanding of who I have always been.

And the more I return,
the more of me becomes available to the world around me.

I am uniquely different from every other human being.

And at the same time, I am the same.

My ancestry.
My DNA.
The stories carried in my body.

They shape this particular strand of human.

That doesn’t make me better.

It makes me specific.

It means I grow best in certain contexts.

It means my becoming has texture and timing.

And understanding that is not a pursuit of “next.”

It’s a return to “now.”

That is emergence personified.

Emergence is remembering.

Emergence is witnessing what has always been within you.

When I return to myself, I reconnect to source — however you define it.

God.
Energy.
Creative intelligence.

Source exists only here.

Now.

And when I draw from that, I experience something different from manufacturing.

The organic gives as it receives.

When I bloom from presence,
what I give returns in reciprocity.

Like the pollinator drawing from the flower
and carrying that bloom to the next.

Interdependence.

Collective flourishing.

No competition.

No scarcity.

Just becoming.

When I stay near that rhythm, something shifts.

The hum of the machine quiets.

Stillness becomes profound.

Each moment becomes teacher.

Each encounter becomes invitation.

There is play.

There is peace.

There is presence.

It feels like walking through a field of wildflowers —
moving like a butterfly,
experimenting,
learning,
gathering,
becoming.

But let me be honest.

This season is not light.

There is loss in my family.

There is strife in community.

There is noise in our country and across the world.

The temptation is real —
to build shelters.
To construct counter-machines.
To manufacture protection in response to manufactured harm.

But when we respond to the manufactured by building more machinery,
we only feed it.

We give it the energy it needs to survive.

The greater response is slower.

Witness first within yourself:

What is organic?
What is manufactured?

Develop that filter internally.

Then use it externally.

Because that which is manufactured will not outlast what is alive.

What is made can be dismantled.

What is alive continues becoming.

This doesn’t make me indifferent.

It makes me intentional.

It allows me to move without urgency but with depth.

Without drama but with presence.

At times that can look unbothered.

But it is not dismissal.

It is discernment.

I am not here to maintain a machine.

I am here to steward what is alive.

And I am alive.

You do not interrogate it daily for progress.

You trust its design.

True north works the same way.

It does not require you to force momentum.

It requires you to listen.

When I drift, I feel it.

Drift feels like fatigue.

Drift feels like performing.

Drift feels like chasing outcomes in order to secure identity.

Certainty says,

“Once you get there, you can rest.”

Orientation says,

“Rest here.”

True north is not dramatic.

It is subtle.

It is felt in the body before it is articulated in language.

When I am aligned with true north, my pace steadies.

My voice deepens.

My decisions feel proportionate instead of reactive.

I am not scrambling to prove.

I am not scanning for applause.

I am not measuring myself against someone else’s horizon.

I am walking.

Steadily.

There is energy in that kind of alignment.

Not adrenaline.

Not urgency.

Steady energy.

It does not depend on who is watching.

It does not collapse when something does not land.

It is sustainable.

Being drawn but not pulled means I get to become without proving.

Living embodied and guided requires trusting that I am complete — not perfected, not finished, but complete in this moment.

When I say, “I am the way,” I do not mean that I am the destination.

I mean that the presence of who I am is already directing me toward who I am becoming.

The path is not outside of me.

The design is not elsewhere.

Like the seed.

Like the tide.

Like the turning of seasons.

It unfolds.

The practice is not chasing the horizon.

It is walking in alignment

with what I carry.

Again.

And again.

I once sat beneath a oak tree in New Orleans.

Scattered across the ground were acorns.

And I remember thinking how wild it is that one of these — just one — might find itself positioned in such a way, maybe picked up by a squirrel, buried and forgotten, only to break through the soil years later as an oak.

What are the odds?

How many of these acorns never become trees —
yet still serve?

Some nourish the soil.
Some feed the animals.
Some decompose and return their energy to the earth.

None are wasted.

All are in service.

All are interdependent.

All are participating in something larger than themselves.

And none of them are performing.

Sitting there, I realized something humbling.

At best, my relationship to that acorn is stewardship.

I cannot add to it to make it more oak.

I cannot improve its blueprint.

I can steward the space it grows in.
I can co-create an environment where it thrives.

But I cannot make it more of what it already is.

And it cannot make me more of what I already am.

That changes everything.

If it is true for the acorn, it is true for me.

Everything that will ever be
already lives within.

Blooming is not performance.

Blooming is a byproduct of being.

The oak does not compete to become.

It becomes because it is.

Which means I don’t have to compete to become either.

There is enough.

There is timing.

There is inevitability in the revelation of self.

And I don’t get to dictate that timing.

I only get to witness it.

Something else is true for the acorn, the oak, and me.

When grounded in the present moment, we all have access to source.

Call it God.
Call it energy.
Call it evolutionary intelligence.

However you define it —

Source only exists now.

If you’d like to keep walking this path together, the reflection continues below.

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There was a time I considered myself a high-functioning machine.

I would say things like:

“I won’t be outworked.”
“People may be more talented, but they won’t out-hustle me.”
“Difficult takes a day. Impossible takes a week.”

Jay-Z in my headphones.
Grind in my bloodstream.

I built an identity around production.

Performance was proof.

And let me tell you — it felt good.

It felt good to outwork people.
It felt good to outperform people.
It felt good to be at the top of the game.

It felt good to have people look at me and say,
“That’s the standard.”

Even resentment felt good.

Because they were still looking.

Their gaze became fuel.
Or so I thought.

I believed being seen for how hard I worked would fill something inside me.

But here’s the truth:

What came from the outside could never fuel what lived on the inside.

It felt good to be busy.
It felt good to be needed.
It felt good to build systems that helped other people perform and produce.

We built machines that allowed others to perform and produce.
And then rewarded them for their production.

Produce. Perform. Produce. Perform.

But the machine has a flaw.

It cannot return what it takes.

It extracts without reciprocity.

It promises to take your passion, your vision, your energy —
and in exchange, give you the version of yourself you believe you’re missing.

More complete.
More enough.
More worthy of being held.

But here’s the trick:

Everything it promises to give
was already true.

The machine doesn’t create wholeness.

It distracts you from it.

And it feels good while you’re inside it.

Because as long as you are producing,
as long as you are performing,
as long as you are being seen —

you receive affirmation.

Affirmation that temporarily patches the deficits you believe are there.

If you’d like to keep walking this path together, the reflection continues below.

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When I stepped outside this morning, the birds were louder than usual.

It’s February.
It’s cold.
It does not feel like spring.

And yet, there was a knowing in their song.

A knowing that defies the calendar.
A knowing rooted not in what is scheduled —
but in what is emerging.

The birds begin.

Then the weeds push through the soil — the very ground we thought we had cleared in the previous season.

Then the shoots from the rose bushes in the front yard.

Then the yellow blossoms from the neighboring tree.

Then the buds forming on the maple branches.

And before I know it, spring is in full bloom.

It feels sudden.

And at the same time gradual.

Fast.

And at the same time intentional.

Spring isn’t waiting to happen.
It has been happening the entire time.

My witnessing is what allows it to be seen.

There’s something sacred about watching emergence as it unfolds —
not rushing past what it will become,
not measuring it against what it used to be,
but gripping each moment as distinct.

Defined.

Worthy of wonder.

That’s the gift spring gives me.

And in truth, it’s the gift winter makes possible.

What felt dormant was never dead.
Energy was being stored.
Roots were deepening.
Preparation was underway.

Now that stored energy redirects.

Color breaks through ground.
Brilliance rises from beneath what looked barren.

And the birds — the choir — sing not as performance,
but as invitation.

A call to remember.
A call to return.
A call to witness.

Nature is a generous teacher.

It blooms and shares.
Pollinators carry what is given and multiply it.
The maple casts shade so what is beneath it can thrive.
It gives as it receives.

It does not beg to be validated.
It does not perform to prove its worth.

It simply is.

And it continues becoming —
whether we notice or not.

The organic gives life in a way the manufactured never has.

Manufactured things must be maintained.

They extract energy.
They reward productivity over presence.
They demand building and building and building —
until there is nothing left to give.

And when you are spent, the machine replaces you.

It grows only if you keep feeding it.

It never returns what it takes.

This is the tension I feel in this season.

The organic —
interdependent, intentional, reciprocal.

And the manufactured —
churning, mechanical, loud.

One calls me inward.
The other tempts me outward.

“If you produce more, you can have more.”
“If you have more, you can produce more.”

A circle that never ends.

Until I stop building.

Until I return to the cradle of creation.

As winter shifts toward spring, I know what is emerging from me.

I also know what is trying to recruit me.

The cost of building what extracts far outweighs anything it promises to give.

So I’ll ask you what I’m asking myself:

What is emerging in you right now?

And what have you built that has never returned what it asked of you?

I once followed an arrow on a New York City street just because I could.

No rationale.
No destination.
Just curiosity pulling my feet forward.

Another time, I waited—patiently—in a museum to photograph an old-growth tree. No hurry.
No anxiety.
No internal negotiation about what I should be doing instead.

I could only be where I was.

You can’t outrun now.
It doesn’t chase you.
It simply remains.

Those moments taught me something simple and quietly radical:

I don’t have to everything.
I get to everything.

That distinction changed the texture of my life.

Escape, I’ve learned, is driven by fear, scarcity, and ego.
It’s strategic.
Outcome-bound.
Performance-based.

Even when it looks productive, escape is still a flight from presence.

Wandering is something else entirely.

Wandering is intentional without being rigid.
Experimental without needing proof.
Playful without apology.

It doesn’t ask, Where is this going?
It asks, What is alive right here?

Wandering doesn’t promise arrival.
It offers presence instead.

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I’m a cerebral person.

For a long time, I believed that if I could figure something out, I could execute it. If I could understand it, I could endure it. If I could name it, I could master it.

That belief carried me far. It also quietly narrowed my world.

What I learned—slowly, stubbornly—is that brilliance can be constrained by a contracted vessel. Insight doesn’t automatically equal capacity. Clarity doesn’t guarantee sustainability.

For years, I celebrated how well I could function dysfunctionally. Six hours of sleep. Long days. Full calendars. Hustle dressed up as devotion.

I mistook endurance for alignment. Output for aliveness.

Then something shifted—not all at once, but unmistakably.

In a role that no longer fit who I was becoming, my body spoke first. Not in words. In symptoms.

Exhaustion. Restlessness. Overindulgence. A low-grade hum of agitation that no amount of thinking could resolve.

My mind tried to keep up appearances. Rationalized. Reframed. Pushed through.

But the body doesn’t negotiate with stories.

Eventually, my mind caught up to what my body had been saying all along. This wasn’t a motivation problem. It wasn’t a discipline problem. It was a listening problem.

The shift wasn’t my body aligning with my mind. It was my mind learning—finally—to listen to my body.

What changed wasn’t my mindset—it was my relationship to my body. The remainder of this piece explores what happened when I stopped arguing with sensation.

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When you stop moving at the pace of expectation, predictability dissolves.

People can no longer say,
“I know you’ll always…”
“I can count on you to…”

What emerges instead is presence.

For a long time, my relationships were shaped by an unspoken agreement:
If I perform, I can trust.
If I can trust, I can belong.
If I belong, my life has meaning.

When that agreement began to dissolve, some connections changed.

There was a friend I had co-labored with for years—deep community work, shared purpose. When I entered a new phase of life, the tether loosened. I found myself working to maintain the connection past its season. Texting. Checking in. Trying to preserve something that was quietly asking to become different.

There was comfort in the familiarity.
And exhaustion in the maintenance.

Release created relief.
And space.

Not disappearance.
Not rejection.
Room.

Some people acclimated to who I was becoming.
Others didn’t.

The difference wasn’t care.
It was whether the relationship was transactional or human.

When we try to sustain what’s past its need, we manufacture connection. And everything manufactured must be maintained.

That’s exhausting.

Freedom didn’t cost me belonging.
It clarified where belonging lived.

Sometimes what remains isn’t what we expected.
But it’s what’s real.

Release isn’t abandonment.
It’s honesty.

There was a long time when I thought explanation was something we did for other people.
To make our choices make sense.
To soften our edges.
To earn permission.

What I’ve learned is that explanation usually starts much closer to home.

We justify ourselves to ourselves first.

We build a case before we act.
We wait until the timing feels defensible.
We call this responsibility.

But responsibility is often a displacement for desire.

I learned that early. Growing up amid relational instability and economic uncertainty, wanting something had to be weighed. Deferred. Explained. Survival required logic before motion. And so I learned that if something mattered, it needed justification before it deserved movement.

That lesson followed me.

Qualifications.
Credentials.
Experience.
Timing.
Relationships.

If this reflection is stirring something in you, the habit of waiting, the need to explain desire before honoring it, the rest of this piece explores what happened when I stopped waiting, and what became available once intention led.

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There’s a moment that comes after the chrysalis and after the drying of the wings —
a moment when the air is ready to hold you, but you’re not sure if you can trust it.

This is the moment of flight.
The moment when everything you’ve known about yourself must yield to what you’ve become.

For the butterfly, this is instinct.
It doesn’t need lessons or evidence.
It doesn’t remember crawling on its belly — it simply spreads what has grown and moves through air as though it has always known how.

But for us, it’s not that easy.

Because until now, all our data has told us we’re creatures of the ground.
We crawl. We climb. We make progress by friction and effort.
Nothing in our past has told us we could fly — and yet, here we are, emerging with wings.

And so much of learning to fly isn’t about technique.
It’s about release.

To fly means to let go of what was once true but no longer relevant.
The stories that shaped you were not lies — they were simply for another season.
You were a crawler once. You needed that strength. You needed to know how to move low and stay close to the earth. But that story can’t define this moment.

Now the invitation is different:
To trust what’s within you enough to respond to what’s possible.

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Most people think transformation happens in clean stages —
the chrysalis closes, the wings emerge, the butterfly rises.

But the truth is far messier, far more human.

There’s a stretch between the moment the chrysalis dissolves
and the moment the wings lift into the air
that rarely gets talked about.

A space where you’re no longer who you were,
but not yet who you’re becoming.

If this is your first time reading my words, let me offer a grounding:
the chrysalis is the cocooned middle —
that season of dissolving and unlearning,
where the old shape melts into something unrecognizable.

And after that comes the drying of the wings —
a necessary pause where what has formed internally
learns to hold itself externally.

But there’s a moment between drying and flight —
a vulnerable, suspended moment —
that isn’t glamorous or obvious.
It’s quiet.
It’s delicate.
It’s where I’ve been living.

And for those of you journeying with me,
this is the part of the story I haven’t fully shared.

Naming the In-Between

These past weeks — honestly, these past couple of years —
the in-between has lived in my body as a soft tension.
Not stress.
Not fear.
Just the quiet pull between what is and what will be.

It feels like standing in new wings that haven’t yet proven themselves
but already feel more like me than anything I’ve ever worn.

And what’s surprised me most
is the ease I’ve found in this liminal space.
The strange comfort of surrendering to something unnamed,
trusting that whatever emerges next
will be both me and for me.

I’ve slowed down.
I’ve become unrushed.
I’ve learned to sit with people and offer them the fullness of my presence
because I’m not measuring myself against the next moment.
The now has become enough.

The Quiet Cost of Emergence

But every transformation has its price.

When I led an organization,
my name moved through rooms before I did.
Eyes looked for me, listened for me, expected things from me.

Stepping into this new season —
one shaped by coaching, reflection, and deeper presence —
meant stepping out of the spotlight I once occupied.

The quiet cost of this season
was losing the identity that once gave me visibility
and the benefits that visibility brought.

It meant no longer being the headline.
No longer being the one people checked for.
No longer being who I once was
so I could make space for who I’m becoming.

And yet…
the unexpected gift has been discovering how much more I can hear myself
when the world stops applauding.

The Tender Work of Becoming

The part of me needing the most compassion
has been the part that misses knowing.

I used to future-cast easily —
anticipate what was coming.
Design the outcome.
Point to a finish line and start running.

But this season refuses to let me skip ahead.

Now, I’m learning to trust one moment at a time.
To honor the truth that I don’t know where this is going —
and I’m not meant to.

The not knowing is tender.
It asks for softness I didn’t know I had.
It asks me to stay in my wings
before I test them against the sky.

And in that tenderness,
I’ve been held —
by the people who truly see me,
by the serendipities that arrive without announcement,
by creation itself whispering, you’re right where you’re supposed to be.

Finding New Ground Inside Myself

As I’ve settled into this in-between,
I’ve noticed something new forming within me.
A calm that isn’t manufactured.
A peace that isn’t earned.
An intuitive clarity that rises without effort.

It’s as if the more present I become,
the more vivid my inner world grows —
and the clearer I can feel the energy, the intuition,
the truth of what wants to emerge.

These moments feel like glimpses of new wings.
Not the flight itself,
but evidence of what those wings will one day carry.

What I Want You to Know

If you’re new here,
this is where you’re meeting me —
mid-transition,
mid-learning,
mid-emergence.

If you’ve been here,
you may recognize the rhythm —
the dissolving,
the drying,
and now this honest, suspended pause before flight.

I’m not writing from hindsight.
I’m writing from the middle.
From inside the wings that haven’t yet lifted
but are no longer drying either.

And if there’s one truth I’m willing to say out loud,
even though it scares me a little,
it’s this:

I don’t know exactly who I’m becoming,
but I’m grateful that I am.
And you’re watching that Becoming unfold in real time.

I’ve let go of who I was on purpose
so I could discover who I am on purpose.

And as I discover,
the next part of the journey is beginning to call —
a season not of dissolving,
not of drying,
but of trusting what has grown.

Soon enough,
it will be time for something new:

Releasing to the wind
and learning to fly.

Every spring, my wife orders the butterfly kit.
A clear plastic cup arrives in the mail, filled with caterpillars and a layer of food at the bottom. They eat. They grow. And after a few days, they crawl to the top of the cup, attach themselves to the lid, and hang there — still, suspended, wrapped in the mysterious safety of a chrysalis.

We move the lid into the little mesh enclosure and wait. And then, like clockwork, one by one, they emerge. Their wings wet and heavy. Not yet ready for flight.

There’s something about that moment that stops me every year — that fragile pause between emergence and flight. They’ve become what they were meant to be, but they’re not yet capable of being it. They just hang there, wings soft and dripping with the memory of confinement, while the air around them begins to do its quiet work of drying.

And all around them, others are at different stages of becoming.
Some still sealed in their cocoons. Some testing the air. Some already lifting into motion.

It’s beautiful — and a little disorienting — to witness that contrast.

Because this is how becoming works in our lives too.
We emerge at different times, in different ways, and at different paces. Some of us are drying our wings while others are already in the air. Some of us are still learning to trust that what we’ve become is enough to take flight.

And that’s where the human challenge begins.

When we witness someone else soaring while our own wings are still wet, it can be hard not to rush the process. We start to compare, to mimic, to mold our journey after someone else’s. We confuse adjacency for alignment. We watch others’ flight patterns and think that maybe, if we flap like them, we’ll reach the same heights.

But that’s not how emergence works.

The timing of your unfolding is not a mistake.

You’re reading the public reflection.
What follows moves from metaphor into practice — how this truth shows up in our leadership, our pace, and the way we build culture around becoming.

If this rhythm resonates, I’d love for you to join us in the ecosystem of becoming.

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Every spring, the butterfly kit arrives — a small cup of caterpillars and a thin layer of food.
They eat. They grow. They wander the edges of their small plastic world.

And then, one day, they climb to the top and begin to wrap themselves in stillness.

We watch them, day after day.
Hanging there. Motionless.
Becoming something we can’t see.

And then, suddenly — they emerge.
Wings wet. Bodies trembling.
They rest at the threshold, waiting for the air to teach them how to fly.

There’s something about that quiet middle — that space between what was and what will be — that speaks to every one of us.
Because at some point, we all find ourselves there.

The Middle

The chrysalis is not punishment.
It’s not failure or pause.
It’s protection — a container that holds the work of re-formation.

We tend to treat stillness like something to escape.
But transformation often begins with surrender.

In the middle, everything familiar dissolves.
The shape that carried us this far no longer fits.
We stop moving, not because we’re broken, but because motion can’t carry us where becoming will.

You can’t climb your way into flight.
You have to dissolve into it.

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Waiting for the school bus on the very first day of school is no small thing. For my mother, though, it was memorable for a different reason. As she tells it, that morning confirmed for her that my sharp tongue would be both a shield and a sword in the face of the playground inevitability: bullies.

I was born pigeon-toed, my feet turned inward in a way that has always drawn more attention than I ever wanted. By six years old, it was already obvious that kids would seize on it as a target. And sure enough, on that inaugural bus stop morning, another child pointed and blurted out in the piercingly honest—and unmistakably cruel—way that only a six-year-old can: “What is wrong with your feet?”

Without hesitation, my reply came sharp and quick: “What is wrong with your hair?”

The boy had fiery red hair, bright enough to make him stand out before he ever opened his mouth. It was the easiest counterpunch available, and I took it. The attention shifted, the sting subsided, and the balance of power returned to me.

The lesson was simple: to beat the bully, become the bigger bully. And while that worked for a child on the cusp of his first day of school, we all know how that same logic scales up in adulthood. It becomes the seedbed of conflicts between people, communities, and nations. The strategy of retaliation grows from schoolyards to boardrooms, from neighborhood disputes to international politics. Wherever there is a fight, the winner doesn’t just get the last word—they often get the privilege of holding the pen that memorializes the moment. And when the pen is wielded with force, the hero’s journey begins not with courage but with conquest.

Today, the pen has been digitized into the social media post, the thread, the hot take. Every insult, every clapback, every rallying cry is shared into a cavern where opposing sides rarely meet. Each like or retweet becomes a shout into the void, an echo chamber of affirmation. What is gained is the comfort of knowing we are not alone. What is lost is the fragile, essential space where reconciliation might take root.

To be clear, harm is real. Words wound. Systems oppress. People betray. But here’s where nature offers a quiet wisdom.

In the Pacific Northwest where I grew up, stinging nettles are common. Brush against them and your skin will burn and itch for hours. Yet, those same nettles are rich in nutrients used for teas and medicines that nourish the body, they can help support immune function, improve digestion and promote bone health. And nearby, more often than not, grows the bracken fern. Rub its fronds on the irritated skin and the sting begins to fade. The irritant and the antidote, living side by side.

If we only see the nettle as a danger, our impulse might not only be to rip it from the forest floor, eliminating both the sting and the possibility of sustenance but also overlook the nearby fern which holds within it the ability to ease our pain. If we can hold the paradox—that the same plant that wounds can also nourish, and that healing is often waiting close to the harm—then we gain not just relief, but wisdom.

So what does this mean for us when the sting comes not from a nettle, but from a family member’s harsh words, a friend’s betrayal, a stranger’s prejudice, or even a system of oppression?

Could it mean that alongside the sting, there is always the potential for remedy? That the possibility of healing, while not always obvious or immediate, is rarely far away.

Perhaps our work is not simply to retaliate against the sting, but to look for the fern, the unexpected balm that eases our pain and makes space for reconciliation so that we may see within the nettle what is true within all of us; the ability to nurture coupled with the inevitability of causing harm.

If the first day of school taught me that a quick retort could quiet the source of the sting. The years since have taught me something else: healing isn’t found in becoming the louder voice, the sharper edge. It is found in trust—that where harm appears, healing waits nearby, and that even the place of our pain may hold the sustenance we need for today.

My elementary school playground was a masterclass in social hierarchies. The captains, always the most athletic or popular kids, would stand on either side of the field, their eyes scanning the eager crowd. Then came the choosing, a slow, public roll call of desirability. The best players went first—the kid who could kick a ball to the horizon, the one with lightning speed, the one who could catch anything thrown their way. With each name called, the group of us waiting shrank, and the unspoken rules of the game became clearer.

As the numbers dwindled, the choice became less about skill and more about necessity. You were no longer being picked for what you could do, but because the captain literally had no one else left to choose. That’s when it would happen. The moment the game of kickball stopped being a game and started being a performance.

Before that moment, for me, the game was pure play. A space where the energy of my body and the bounds of my imagination could run wild. The objective was simple: kick the ball, run the bases, and have fun. The rules were a loose suggestion, and the outcome of the game was almost an afterthought. The motivation was curiosity—how far could I kick it today? What happens if I try to slide into home base? The joy was in the play, not the outcome of the game.

But as a child, being picked last was a profound message. It was a clear signal that I was a liability, not an asset. The game's unspoken rules had changed, and my role was no longer to play, but to perform.

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Step 1. Start by separating the outside edge pieces from all the others.

Step 2. Using the edge pieces, build the frame of the puzzle.

Step 3. Separate all the remaining pieces into piles based on similar colors or shapes.

Step 4. Using the image of the completed puzzle, start one section at a time and build to the finish.

If you do it differently, I’d love to hear about it, but this is the way my mother taught me, which does, in my opinion, make it the right way.

When the kids were younger, a puzzle would often be on the dining room table, and we would work on it collaboratively with a caveat: everyone wanted to put the last piece in place and be responsible for its completion. This would result in pieces being hidden in bedrooms, pant pockets, and other random places so that when there was only a single space left, the holder of the final piece would claim responsibility for finishing the puzzle.

There is something special about the final piece of the puzzle.

There have been countless moments that have felt like completion was one piece away. Those sentences that begin with “If I only had” or “All we need” pave the way to discovery sessions, strategic plans, goal setting, new year resolutions, and a variety of other activities that metaphorically mirror looking in bedrooms and pant pockets for the last piece of the puzzle that is seemingly keeping completion just out of reach. Each carefully crafted and intentionally curated solution was close but not quite right, or if it did indeed fit perfectly, it exposed a space that I somehow missed, which meant there was more work to be done.

Over time, my identity, my self-worth, began to form around this ability to see what is missing and find a way to fill the gap.

Professionally, this plays well in many spaces, and it served me in entrepreneurship, organizational leadership, politics, and creative expression. When you can be the person who can not only see what is not there but help others see what could be and then co-create the perfect piece to fill the gap, you become magical, needed, and important. This is also an exhausting and extractive way to benefit from this ability, as you end up creating codependent relationships with people and organizations.

The relentless pursuit of the missing piece is a siren song, luring us with the promise of wholeness just beyond our grasp. It’s a relentless cycle of “doing,” a continuous act of searching and acquiring that mirrors a leader’s desire to find the right solutions and articulate the perfect vision. We operate from a fundamental assumption that we are broken puzzles, scattered pieces waiting to be assembled into a picture of worthiness. This belief, this deeply ingrained narrative of incompleteness, is the most profound missing piece of all. It’s the illusion we create and then spend our lives trying to solve, a habit of mind that mirrors the need to be the one to place the final piece, to claim credit for a puzzle’s completion.

My ability to thrive in the various roles I’ve held was largely contingent on how well I could craft these pieces to fit into presumed holes or in other words, problem solve. Professionally, I benefited from this way of being as it led to leadership opportunities and career growth that brought both influence and income. What it didn’t bring was stillness, what it didn’t bring was peace and what it required was to consistently see the wrong in the world so that my value could be reinforced in pointing toward the right.

It was during my time working in philanthropy that I realized that ultimately the only people who benefit from seeing things as incomplete are those who possess the resources to fill in these perceived holes and in turn can incentivize others to do that work for them.

When you no longer are working to fill the hole that someone created, you have the space to pause and witness the wholeness of creation.

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“Tell me about what you do?”

Truth is, for many reasons, I hate this question. I’m also aware that at the root of this disdain is a distinct fear that I’m very present to; the fear of being judged. It often feels that whatever the words are that come next will make the difference between being desired or discarded. Burdened by this binary, my default is often to deflect or redirect so that the outcome of the inquiry no longer feels like a pass or fail.

This fear and I go WAY back! We have a history that certainly precedes questions about my profession, and although the way I respond to it has evolved, the actual method used to meet these moments hasn't changed much over the years.

WORDS, LOTS AND LOTS OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS!

For example: The ability to command language and call it forward to create a collage of creative responses that paint so much possibility on the canvas of the simplicity of these inquiries have served as a shield to guard my insecurities and allow for me to stand in the midst of these minimizing moments.

The intent behind these poetic and often unnecessarily long replies has historically been to disguise what I have believed are shortcomings that are grounded in feelings of not being enough. These feelings foster insecurities that say if I simply answer the question as it is asked, it will be insufficient, just like me.

Insufficient, just like me.

That phrase – "insufficient, just like me" – is the insidious whisper of fear. It’s the voice that tells us we’re not smart enough, capable enough, or worthy enough. This fear, left unchecked, can be a relentless taunter, keeping us trapped in cycles of self-doubt and avoidance. It convinces us to build elaborate shields, to deflect and hide, rather than to simply exist and be seen.

But what if fear could be a teacher instead? What if, in those moments of panic, we could learn something profound about ourselves and our inherent worth? The truth is, fear often points us directly to areas where we feel vulnerable, areas where we have an opportunity to grow.

When fear taunts, it drives us away from the beauty of who we are. When fear teaches, it illuminates the path back to the wonder that lives within you.

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It started subtly, with unsolicited messages hinting at what “people” were saying about me in my absence. Then came the discomfort of shared spaces, where some of the very individuals I had “led” would conspicuously avoid eye contact. The low point, I thought, was attending the organization's annual event, witnessing earnest individuals I cared for choose to ignore me. But the true culmination arrived when I facilitated a panel at a community event where the organization was present, and the majority of those I had served alongside chose not to attend my session.

I won't lie; my initial reaction was ego-driven, a harsh critique of their behavior. I resorted to what felt familiar: commiserating with others to affirm my narrative, crafting stories that cast me as the misunderstood hero. While validating in the moment, it felt fundamentally wrong. Something was out of alignment.

In this journey, I’ve learned that curiosity, when actively embraced, can anchor us in the present and open us to invaluable lessons from those we might otherwise dismiss through our judgments. With curiosity as my guide, a transformative learning journey began. As I allowed the feedback to be instructive, a crucial distinction became clear: I had conflated being an "Influencer" with being a "Leader." While the two share characteristics, they are distinctly different.

When I left the organization, my influence departed with me. Those who had begrudgingly adhered to my vision were no longer compelled by my positional power; they simply stopped. Moreover, the feedback that had been suppressed during my tenure, due to my significant influence and positional authority, flowed freely in my absence.

In hindsight, my lack of understanding regarding the difference between influencing and leading led to unintended consequences. Both approaches are vital, but operating without clarity about which domain we're in can unintentionally cause harm to the people and the movements we are collectively building.

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There's an inherent temptation to perform when you're in front of an audience, especially one that's investing their most valuable resource – their time – to experience what you have to offer. This temptation often manifests as a drive to ensure the content is meticulously clean, undeniably clear, perfectly coherent, and readily applicable. The aim, in such moments, is to create a seamless, meaningful transaction. And while those qualities are important, I’ve come to understand that this wasn't the deepest intention behind starting this journey with you.

The truth is, I didn’t begin down this path to transact with you, but to transform together. My vision has always been to cultivate a space for a community of Movement Makers who are not just surviving, but truly flourishing in a healthy interdependence. And in doing so, we honor where we are by standing authentically in the fullness of who we are. This means acknowledging the messiness, the vulnerability, and the ongoing process of becoming. It means showing up not just with polished ideas, but with the very essence of our being.

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