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Announcing my new Substack: Dirt & Disobedience
I’ve been writing and working in resilience for years—career resilience, embodied resilience, organizational resilience. Because I want to share more regenerative resources with you and I have a deep love of qualitative research, I categorized over 150 blog posts so I can craft them into new resource files and flows for you this year. I’m excited to share those with you throughout 2025.
Yearning for communal connection over isolating individualization
Are you craving more creativity and authenticity in your work? If you’re like a lot of folks I’m talking to these days, you may also be yearning for some communal connection over that isolating individualization many of us were taught and work in. In our upcoming Creativity Lab, we’ll dive deep into the process of deinstitutionalizing your mindset (loosening the grip of the beliefs that are overworking you) in order to shift from a scarcity-driven perspective to one rooted in abundance.
I want this to be an easy yes
Why I want you to join me:
Modern professional life is lonely and intentionally isolating. We have lost our knowledge of how to build and be in a real community. And this is 100% what we need to focus on in 2025. Added to that, if you also have a leader or manager role, it can feel even more friendless in the organization. We are social creative beings who thrive in supportive communities. So I build them in order for you to experience the abundance of growth-oriented folks.
Expanding Your Creative Thinking
I’ve been reading a lot this month as I create our workbooks, practices, and reflection for the upcoming Creativity Lab - The Abundant Imagination (which is open to all). Apparently, that preparation is known as priming your creativity for the AHHA moments. It’s doing the pre-work so that you can draw together different perspectives for that magical dopamine moment when the brain and body connect in insight. Love it! Who here also wants to chase that feeling? (Raises both hands!)
I first began learning about creativity as a process when I taught grad students social science research and scholarly writing.
The world is heavy, but your creativity can feel abundant
Everything outside pulls at me. It’s easy to feel stuck, overwhelmed, and creatively drained. It’s easy to feel as if creativity and community right now is a privilege or luxury. And yet, we must remember our creativity and time in community right now isn’t frivolous or for some other time. It’s your way forward - it’s all of our way forward! Your creativity is a tool for clarity, resilience, and meaningful work!
Embodying Imagination & Reconnecting with Nature
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how deeply interconnected we are - with each other, and the natural world. And yet, many of us live hustle and bustle lives and work that perpetuate an unnatural disconnect from our own bodies, each other, and Nature.
Last week I talked about the importance of deinstitutionalizing our minds and bodies in order to open up to creative and communal abundance. That’s the work we’re doing during the first week of Creativity Lab - The Abundant Imagination. To shift away from scarcity and deficit mindsets and systems we have to shed our own complicity or compliance.
Let’s Make Your Professional Development Funds Work for YOU
There’s been a lot flung at us this week, and I know it will keep coming. But I also know we are more powerful together.
Right now, my goal is to help you plan and scaffold the support you need—mentally, emotionally, and in your nervous system—so that you can show up for yourself and others in ways that are intentional and regenerative, without succumbing to the burnout these systems perpetuate.
That’s why I want to share two things with you today:
Deinstitutionalize Your Mind & Body
Raise your hand if you feel stifled by academia, corporate systems, or societal expectations and our political systems. Now, raise your hand if you shut yourself down before those institutions even need to, which can look like being the ‘good student’ who doesn’t rock the boat or take up too much space. Likely, it’s a both/and answer.
When Systems Collapse, Community Holds You Together
Have you ever hesitated to join a community because you feel like you won’t know anyone or worry everyone else has it more figured out? It’s so common, and I hear this concern all the time. The truth? Wherever you are is perfect.
This year, more than ever, is the time to focus on building and being in community.
Shed to the Bones: Visualize Your Priorities with Clarity
Last week, I hosted a workshop for my Cultivate Connection Community program called 2025: Your Year of Shedding and Rebirth, inspired by the Chinese Year of the Snake and my love for the snake we reside with in our little urban yard. Little did I know how committed I was to snake energy!
While clearing out a funky old cabinet in the house on Sunday, I uncovered a snake’s tail skeleton—beautiful and symbolic of the shedding process that leads to growth. I feel so in awe and encouraged that this is the focus we need right now.
Shed & Rebirth:Start Your 2025 Transformation
As we step into a new year, I invite you to reflect on this powerful question:
What outdated habits or beliefs are you ready to shed in 2025 while building embodied resilience for uncertain times?
Just like the snake sheds its skin, we, too, can release what no longer serves us—perfectionism, overing, self-doubt—and create space for growth, alignment, and resilience for the times ahead.
Reflecting and Celebrating 2024 – Rooting Into Your Growth
As we close out 2024, let’s take a moment to pause, breathe, and root ourselves in reflection. I led my client community through this embodied reflection activity of honoring your journey this year with kindness, gratitude, and presence that recognizes all the visible and invisible growth you’ve made. As I reflected on this time last year, intentional growth often is not showy.