A Life in Progress | Pursuing a life of purpose, health, and JOY

5 Habits to Help You Show Up Strong When You Must Begin Again

Mar 28, 2020 9 Comments

Inside: Forced or willingly there come times in life when we familiar ground falls away and we are thrust into turbulence or transition. These 5 habits can help you show up strong if you must begin again. In times of turbulence or transition, the structure and flow of our daily life shifts, familiar ground falls away, and we are ushered into a new beginning. This past fall, after a long horrific battle to keep my son alive, after he left this world, I was forced to begin again. From crisis […]

Simple Moments Matter: On Building a Life

Mar 19, 2020 Leave a Comment

Inside: It’s easy to dismiss the ordinariness of life: game nights and favorite desserts, bedtime stories and bubble baths, or walking to the corner store for frosty slurpees after a sticky soccer match. But simple moments matter. When I was little, my dad took my sisters and I skidooing. We’d bundle up warmly and he’d pull us on a wooden sleigh behind the used Ski-Doo that always smelled of gasoline. We’d tumble off in turn despite holding on for dear life. He’d circle back or we’d trudge through the snow […]

It Takes Courage to Become Who You Really Are

Mar 19, 2020 11 Comments

Inside: Growth is messy and it takes courage to become who you really are. But doing this hard, stretching work leads to freedom and a sense of rootedness and calm. These three keys are essential to intentional, sustainable growth. As funny as it sounds, it can take decades for us to become who we really are. We’re called to sift through external and internal pressures and ideas about how we ought to be, push back against outdated messages about gender roles or familial patterns, accept the invitation to peel away […]

Embrace Imperfection or Real Life Will Never Be Enough

Jan 26, 2020 31 Comments

Inside: Our real, messy lives will be “never enough” until we embrace imperfection and accept that we are not in control of it all. I opened up my inbox as I often do in the morning to sift through interesting articles and ideas, share some online, and save a seed or two of thought for a later date. This morning it struck me as funny – in a sort of unfriendly, depressing way – that my intentionally curated inbox, brimming with interesting stats, science, and personal opinion for how to […]

Trail of Myths: Finding Our Way to Enough

Jan 13, 2020 15 Comments

Inside: Questioning our unhelpful stories – the myths that present in the form of false notions or mistaken beliefs – helps us find our way to “enough”. This is a guest post from Heidi Barr. Here the forest floor has a carpet of hepatica, trillium, bloodroot, dutchman’s breeches, and bellwort, a tangle of white, purple, yellow and green as spring blooms open with the season. Adolescent skunk cabbage and uncurling ferns cast a tint of green as far as the eye can see, everything reaching toward the sun’s nourishment. Walking […]

If I Could Bottle Up One Gift For You: On Self-Compassion

Jan 6, 2020 2 Comments

Inside: If I could bottle up just one gift for you this year, it would be that of learning to walk in self-compassion. Here’s why. If I could give you one gift this year, it would be that of self-compassion. Self-compassion is fundamental to living with purpose, health, and joy, and for sustainable and meaningful growth. Self-compassion is also a key tool in learning to quiet the noise of comparison, perfectionism, and fear. Let me tell you how. According to Kristin Neff, associate professor in the University of Texas at […]

Walking Each Other Home: 19 Gifts of this Year as I Walked My Son Home

Dec 31, 2019 30 Comments

Walking each other home is a privilege. Here are 19 gifts I’ve picked up as I walked alongside my son through the final year of his life. TW: suicide, depression, grief On a cold wintry night, just over a year ago, my son and I sobbed and argued together as he finally admitted the truth about his plan to die. As his mama, I already knew. I knew him better than any other human on this planet. I feel like I knew him in ways he did not know himself […]

Simplify Life – Imperfectly

Dec 21, 2019 Leave a Comment

Inside: There is no perfect way to simplify life or home so embrace your own beautifully unique journey and find freedom in the letting go. This is a guest post from Julianna Poplin of The Simplicity Habit. Six years ago, I started reading books about simplifying and decluttering. It came at a key time in life as I was beginning to pack up our family of four to move from California to Washington. As I began putting all of our things into boxes, I started questioning why there were so […]