Photo by Mike Arney on Unsplash

We were lying in bed. It was 6:00 am on a Saturday morning. We had both been up since 4:30 am. Weekday habits don’t die on the weekends as much as we wished they would. I said, “All right, I’m getting up.” He said, “Where are you going?” I said, “I’ve got to get my day going.”

It’s 6:00 am. On Saturday.

He said, “Let me tell you a story. Once there was a little girl who lived in the jungle. It was a beautiful jungle. She lived with a big gorilla. She was always trying to go to other places in the jungle, places she thought would be more interesting or fun. And the gorilla just wanted her to stay with him. She always thought those other places were better. But they weren’t.”

He was right.

I teared up a little, but didn’t want to ruin the morning. He was once again showing me what is running my life. He has called me a mouse on more than one occasion and just last week, was teasing me about going home and experimenting with 14 recipes to recreate the muffin we just ate.

It’s my sexual instinct. It’s the instinct that has a lot of energy behind it. Wants to connect deeply. Wants to create (a lot). Wants what it wants and goes for it. The mundane bores it. It has intensity and energy beyong shiny object syndrome. It allows me to get things done but it also allows me to get nothing done.

This has been running my life for as long as I can remember, but now I am hyper aware of it, because I see it play out in real time. And in the past.

Being called a spaz in high school. All the time.

Trying to build my business by creating package after package.

Working at making connections, so many connections (but few become anything).

Starting a new project the moment I get off an inspiring call from my teacher when he requests “take your aim.” Ok, Russ. I’m on it. I will make that list of 300 people I have seen in these classes and write each and every one of them to see if they are interested in my new creation.

The funny thing about this over-doneness is I can be slightly annoyed with those lacking this instinct. I mean, “Get on the freaking train and let’s go get it!” is often my attitude. Otherwise, I will leave you behind.

Chill out, Julie. Chill out.

If you didn’t recognize yourself in this scenario, well, maybe there is another instinct running your show.

I have a client whose Self-Preservation instinct runs him. That’s the instinct that cares deeply about energy stores, likes an order to environment, can feel depleted and needs time alone. This isn’t about control. This is instinct. And it is powerful. It runs his world but with awareness, he has understood it better. He has learned to notice it sooner without making all of his decisions because of it. He sees himself more clearly. And more importantly, so does his partner.

The final instinct that might be running your show is the Social instinct. I have a friend whose life is run by this instinct. She is on high alert for the people around her. She constantly reads the room, wants to be sure she connects and in her case, confirms their happiness. Relationships are very important to her. So much so, that her needs can be sidelined. Or worse, she can’t even recognize her needs.

Sexual.

Self-Preservation.

Social.

We do have all three. We are humans. However, one is usually running the show. The secondary one can sometimes be supportive of the dominant, but can also switch spots with the dominant. The blind spot or tertiary instinct is the one we think doesn’t matter. We have all kinds of judgments about it, too. About other people who let it run them and about ourselves for not tapping into it enough (hence my social blindness blogs).

Keep in mind, they are all important. No stacking (meaning your dominant, secondary, and tertiary instincts) is better than another, and the most important part of this work is bringing awareness to them. It is time to get curious about who is running the show, and which parts of you have been waiting in the wings.

A whole human needs all three. They will never be perfectly balanced, but our soul requires a better balance than the one we are living in. With presence, we can soften, see, and allow the space for something else to show up. And allow our soul to run the show instead.

photo credit: Unsplash - Getty Images

I walked into the orthopedist’s office one person and walked out as another.

This is a first world problem. It’s not a health scare. Or life or traditional physical death. But it is the death of the way things were and the birth of the way things will be.

This aging thing kind of sucks. I hurt myself last year in a dance class and my knee hasn’t been the same. It doesn’t need surgery. It just needs some attention, probably forever.

I was super lucky. I’ve never really been injured. Almost 40 years ago, I had surgery on my foot but it didn’t keep me from living my best physical life. In other words, dance was still a part of it.

But that might be over. Well, it is over, for now. And when I got this news, instead of being stoic in the doctor’s office, I cried. I’m not sure they knew what to do with me, but I wasn’t really looking for that. I was expressing myself in real time. I wasn’t rationalizing it, acting as if this didn’t matter to me. It did. It does. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was crying for myself. The grief was real. I felt it because I made a different choice.

I sat in my car for a few minutes before driving home. Just letting it be what it was.

This is a little “d” death. An inconvenience, but still something that changes my trajectory.

A big “D” death was when my father died right at the beginning of Covid. I had lost him. He was our family’s glue since my mother died. We also lost our gym to lockdown at the same time, which was scary. Everyone kept saying, “We are all in this together.” And I kept saying, “No we are not.” I had no clue what people were talking about. Today I do. Today I understand that grief isolates you but the collective can help you.

This was a big week for me, with more deaths and rebirths than in all of the past six months. Some of these events made me question the way I show up in the world, the way I’ve shown up since I was little.

Since I have been diving into this Enneagram thing and understanding myself a bit better, I’ve chalked up my quietness, my unwillingness to share or burden others, on my type structure. You see, Fives are deep introverts and there is a part of them that feels like the world just doesn’t understand them. In fairness, the world is a bit of a mystery to them too, not in an incomprehensible way, but more in the way of a lack of sense of belonging. They can easily detach. But this week, I discovered something else. This is more than just being a Five. This is about deep impressions from my family of origin and it has affected the way I show up - socially.

I’ve always said that my parents loved me, my oldest brother and sister did too. They did and do. But the brother six years older than me, not so much. I would joke about it. I have joked about it most of my life. And I’m not pointing fingers here. I’m just finally understanding this sense of not belonging. It doesn’t matter how much love you have received. These early relationships affect you. And since he and I spent a lot of time together (we were the youngest in the family), it makes sense that this relationship affected me. When you layer that on top of being a Five, you’ve got a girl, a young lady, a woman, who allowed very few people into her circle and felt like she was on an island most of her life. Because in her mind, this world just doesn’t have her back.

That is a story. A sad story. This family dynamic was my community and I transposed it onto the bigger community…..until this week.

This week that story died.

This week, I was offered up enough challenges to lean into my learning and into someone else. But it took the deep sadness of aloneness and the consciousness to choose differently.

Russ Hudson has said, “Grief is the stripping away of attachment. Grief is the arising of compassion.” I’ve been attached to the island mentality. Stripping this away gave me the necessary compassion for myself to reach out and get some support. To allow the feelings to come up, be acknowledged and felt. To allow my heart to be part of the journey. This is new to me. What a beautiful way to look at grief. The death of something, but the rebirth of something else.

As I drove home from my appointment, knowing Ernie and I would chat about this, I realized how ingrained the two of us are, not just because of our love, but also because of our patterning. His personality is my Growth Point and my personality is his Stress Point. We really see each other and this can be a really good thing, but it can also be a too-comfortable thing, slipping into our patterning without even noticing it. This week there were other challenges and we both were diving into our patterning. I learned that just because something is comfortable doesn’t mean it is healthy. At least one of us needs to be consciously choosing. And so here I am. Choosing.

In all of this observation, pattern unpacking and consciously choosing, there is grief. Grief of what was and will never be again. The little “d” deaths we experience keep us growing, in love and grace, because we can only do this with the Divine presence. Otherwise, our patterns are running the show and we are completely unconscious to life.

My teacher, James Flaherty, shared this story about his Zen teacher - “He did this experiment once, he said, ‘Well, are you different than you were 10 years ago?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you different than you were five years ago?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you different than you were a year ago?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you different than you were a week ago?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you different than you were a day ago?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you different than you were an hour ago, a minute ago, a second ago?’”

Yes.

Image credit: NASA

I loved watching the chronicles of our astronauts — the science going just right, the daily miracles, and for the first time in a long time, Americans joining together in the support of one cause. I loved the idea of them being able to check out from communications with Earth for 40 minutes as they journeyed to the other side of the moon. Complete freedom from responsibilities, in a place no human had ever been. How liberating that must have been (especially since they had faith in their equipment!) to experience this complete disconnect. I was envious of those 40 minutes… until I realized that for 36 of them, they had to conduct experiments. Can’t an astronaut get a break?

It seems this week, or maybe this is just part of the journey, everything keeps pointing me toward the same idea - Freedom:

• Returning from vacation and lamenting the freedom I had while away.

• A client saying the exact same thing about his.

• Continuing Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing and her take on how social media algorithms are basically the opposite of freedom.

The theme keeps showing up. I’ve learned to pay attention when that happens.

Earlier this week, a client asked how I was doing, what was going on with Julie. I don’t get this question that often. I don’t often share my stuff unless I know the audience is ready or I am feeling particularly secure. She and I usually have plenty to talk about, with children and commitments, so I hesitated and said, “Do you really want to know?” And she said, “Yes.” So I told her about my Freedom class.

On the surface, freedom can look like independence, or “free” thought, or fill-in-the-blank. But when I started to explain that freedom is the liberation from judgment, fixated responses, and just overall habits of the mind (aka Ego), she realized I was going a little deeper and she seemed content to come along for the ride for a bit. I explained that when we bring attention to our constricting reactions, we realize exactly how not free we are. She understood and said she would have to think about that one this week. Of course, I loved that.

In an effort to try to experience my own lunar fly-by, over the weekend, I took Ernie (my husband) to a float spa. At a float spa, you get into a tank of heavily epsom-salted water and float. The tank is completely private and dark. It’s a wonderful experience, having faith in the science, being supported, free in the dark with just the moment. It took me some time to settle, but once I did, I moved around experimenting with that support. I was deeply attuned to how my body felt being held, the physical freedom that comes from this buoyancy, the unusual softness of my skin. I practiced my breathing and noticed my heart center. I noticed again and again. When you are alone for an hour in a tank, in the dark, without any distractions, no music, no lights, it’s just you in that moment. And slowly, I dropped into what I can only call the is-ness of it all - The Freedom of Now. Opening the door into the lit room from the deep darkness of the tank made me feel like those astronauts, experiencing Earth again with a new appreciation, returning from a journey I’ve never experienced.

Could all of these events be serendipitous? Happenstance? I don’t believe so.

My teachers told me there would be other experiences, different ones, deeper ones, when I asked about reliving that shift from the retreat in October. I think this is what they meant. Realizing every single experience, whether we’ve done it a thousand times or just one, is not the same.

Listening.

Noticing.

Experiencing.

And none of it comes without practice. My 7-minute practice is the foundation that keeps making room for moments like these - the float tank, the astronauts, the client who needed to think about it for a week. Practice doesn’t just build discipline. It builds a life that keeps surprising you…. in every moment. It takes you to places you’ve never been before, just like experiencing the other side of the moon.

If you want to experience my complimentary 7-minute practices, they are here.

Photo by Максим Степаненко on Unsplash

I’m reading the book, How to do Nothing - Resisting the Attention Economy, by Jenny Odell. Jenny is an artist and a professor. A general observer of life and a bird lover and watcher. While I am only three chapters in, it has given me pause to consider everything that pulls my attention.

One of the exercises in my class, A Journey Toward Embodied Freedom, involves just this - paying attention.

Hmm... is this a coincidence? Fate? The law of attraction?

Nine times a day, we are to pick an object and focus on it for 15-30 seconds and then slowly pull back, taking in the rest of what is around that object. I’ve noticed, in this noticing, that I feel like I am looking at ordinary objects for the first time in my life — the way light reflects off a pair of reading glasses, the messaging on a kombucha bottle, the details of a napkin, its folds and patterns, the way my cat situates himself when he wants to rest. I feel like I am looking at life through the lens of an artist, or maybe even a baby, discovering things for the very first time.

What all of this paying attention has done is make one thing very clear: attention is finite. I can’t give it to everything. So I’ve gotten more intentional about where it actually goes.

The birds at our feeder.

The coos of my grandson.

Lunch (or breakfast or dinner) with my husband.

My guidance practice.

My blogs.

A phone call with one of my adult children, a friend, or a sibling.

And even the mundane - the kombucha bottle, the napkin, my cat.

This book, my new class and practices, all of this paying attention has in turn made me consider what I don’t want to pay attention to:

The newsletters and blogs I swipe right.

Social media.

Regular (left or right leaning) media.

Outgrown relationships.

I don’t need to announce any of it. No big goodbyes. No explanations. Just a quiet unsubscribe and that can look different depending on the day. Sometimes it’s as small as swiping right past a newsletter I’ve outgrown. Sometimes it’s the bigger, harder thing, letting a long-term friendship fade away because we’ve simply grown in different directions. Both are valid. Both are a choice. And neither requires a press release. I have a choice. Engage or not. It really is that simple even when it isn’t.

And then there is room. Room for the in between place of not completely paying attention, not checked out entirely. The places where I engage because something in the discomfort makes me show up differently. A conscious choice. The places where I am doing my work, where my attention is needed even when I’d rather look away. Unsubscribing from those distractions gives me a greater capacity to show up for the things that actually matter:

Engaging in community.

Going to my networking group.

Allowing space for creativity (even if this includes “failures”).

Allowing space for business expansion (even if this includes “failures”).

Being uncomfortable.

Even more uncomfortable things.

Because it’s in that discomfort, that in-between of doing nothing and doing something, where attention becomes Presence. Conscious Presence. And when we lean into that, there’s room for the Divine to show up with whatever gives us that oomph toward growth. Making space by quietly unsubscribing from life’s distractions allows something else to show up.

And I think we could all use a little more something else.

Photo by Maximilian Müller on Unsplash

I debate talking about big topics like this. They can be controversial. They stir up stuff you maybe don’t really want to face.

Like memories of nuns slamming rulers on desks. Or being told you were going to hell because you talked out of turn — or worse, to a boy, in the middle of class. Or Sister Anne Christine informing you, with complete certainty, that missing Mass over the weekend had sealed your fate.

Oh wait. Those are my memories. Yuck.

Maybe you were raised with a version of this, too, the idea that if you behaved, you’d earn your way to Heaven, and if you didn’t, you were headed somewhere far less comfortable. A fiery, terrible place reserved for evil people and the ones on the evening news.

Double yuck.

I’ve got an idea.

Oh, wait, I think this might actually be Jesus’ idea, just not the way most of us were taught it.

Jesus talked about going to heaven when we die. But what if he didn’t only mean when we die physically? What if he also meant when the ego dies? When you read a lot of what he said through that lens, it’s possible — and yes, this is just one interpretation, so stay with me — that heaven and hell aren’t destinations waiting for us at the end. They are experiences available to us right now, at every passing breath.

So what would that look like?

Heaven, I’d argue, is a spiritual experience available right here on earth, when we are fully present. Three-centered. Connected to something bigger than ourselves. It would explain why, on so many deathbeds, the regrets aren’t about money not made or things not bought. They’re always about time. About presence. About the people they loved and how they showed up…. or didn’t.

And hell? Hell is what happens when we’re not present. When the ego is running the show. Which, if we’re being honest, is where most of us spend a lot more time than we’d like to admit.

So what pulls us away from Presence? From heaven? Why is it so hard to just be… here… now? What is our suffering?

Here’s what does the pulling:

• Personalities

• Patterns

• Unconsciousness

• Triggers

• Other people and circumstances

• Stress and anxiety

• Our differences from each other

In other words, being asleep. Asleep to our possibilities. To our reactions. To our ability to pause, to choose, to decide in the moment. Asleep to this moment, right here.

We are prisoners of our egos.

And this is exactly why I’m obsessed with the Enneagram. Because I believe it is one of the most powerful paths to personal freedom, it helps us see ourselves. Clearly. Maybe for the first time.

Our prison cells don’t all look alike. Some are like San Quentin. Others like Alcatraz. Different in design, different in location, but still prison.

From an Enneagram perspective, here’s what those cells look like:

Point Eight: The Challenger — They carry the weight of everyone’s safety on their shoulders, never quite able to rest because letting their guard down has always felt like a risk they can’t afford.

Point Nine: The Peacemaker — They’re so good at making sure everyone around them is okay that they rarely stop to ask themselves the same question.

Point One: The Reformer — They hold themselves to a standard that keeps moving, working so hard to get it right that they rarely give themselves credit for how much they already are.

Point Two: The Helper — They pour so much love into the people around them that they sometimes forget to leave a little for themselves.

Point Three: The Achiever — They’ve worked so hard to build something meaningful that they haven’t had a quiet moment to remember they were already enough before any of it.

Point Four: The Individualist — They feel everything so deeply that the world can seem like a place that never quite has room for all of who they are.

Point Five: The Investigator — They understand so much about the world and yet sometimes find themselves watching life from a safe distance, not quite ready to step all the way in.

Point Six: The Navigator — They care so deeply about the people they love that their mind is always working overtime, trying to keep everyone — including themselves — safe.

Point Seven: The Enthusiast — They bring so much light to every room that almost no one notices how rarely they let themselves simply sit with what’s hard.

Sit with that for a second.

We’re all out here running around, telling ourselves and everyone around us our stories. These programmed inner dialogues, these unconscious scripts, quietly run the show. Keeping us locked up. Keeping us from the very life we want, the one we were meant to live.

That’s prison.

So how do we escape? How do we get a first-class ticket to heaven, right here, on earth?

By doing the work.

You cannot be present if your personality is running the show. And you can’t even see who’s running the show without awareness. That’s where it starts.

So wake up and start your journey. It isn’t too late.

Take a look around. Heaven is right here. You just have to decide how badly you want it and whether you want it badly enough to do the work.

I hope you do.

We need more people living in Presence. Because people who are doing that kind of work, people who are truly awake, they’re the ones who make this world feel a little more like the loving, kind, expansive place we all know it can be.

Right here. Right now.

Photo by Prophsee Journals on Unsplash

I’m taking a class called A Journey toward Embodied Freedom. In the first class, we were assigned some practices, aka homework. We were given instructions to implement four practices daily. Some of them we are to do nine times, others, just once. Still another practice was prescribed five times. Yes, daily. One of our instructors, a Buddhist coach named James Flaherty instructs that practices are not conceptual. It would be like going to the gym, listening to the trainers, and not doing the exercises. You aren’t going to see results.

That’s a metaphor that I could really understand, and it made me want to do the practices even more.

As a good student, I made a habit tracker and started to practice.

A week after class, I met with my Freedom Pod. There are four of us in the group, and we have been given instructions for our meeting, which is held on opposite weeks of our class session. This first week, one of the questions was about these practices.

Someone mentioned their journaling practice and answering the question - I will be free when. Confused, I looked down at the instructions and realized I had totally skipped that.

I didn’t even notice it.

Hmmm.

Why would I not even notice this?

Oh, I know why, I hate journaling.

Hate it.

Why in the world do we need to write down our feelings and thoughts. I already know the answer to the journaling prompt anyway.

I will be free when I’m liberated from ego.

There. Done. Duh.

What else is there to talk about? I know the answer. End of story.

So I decided to sit with this journaling idea. More importantly, my resistance to it. After all, I’ve got a Buddhist telling me the why behind the practices (which I FULLY bought into) and yet, journaling is something I’m not keen on.

I’m not super into gushing out my feelings on paper (for anyone to find and read) or worse, actually feeling those feelings. UGH.

I decide to give it a try. Fine. But I’m not going to expose myself (to myself?) and lay out any deep feelings. I’m just going to answer the prompt.

I will be free when….

I am liberated from ego

I am no longer a prisoner of my wanting

I am capable

I release by fixations

I love freely

I no longer worry about not knowing enough

I embrace the moment

I live in the world

I’m fully awake

I trust God (Universe, Energy, Spirit) and feel supported

I embody oneness

I live without judgment

I love unconditionally

My heart expands

OK, whoa.

I wasn’t expecting any of that.

But I should know better. Repeating questions are powerful. They go deeper and deeper and that is how I approached this exercise.

I will be free when….

I will be free when….

I will be free when….

Looking back, I initially did the exercise because I was supposed to (that Self-Preservation discipline instinct is a strong one for me) and then it transformed from supposed to to need to.

Practices won’t make us perfect. But that isn’t the point of them. It is to bring us to a deeper awareness, understanding and compassion for ourselves and others. This can’t happen without doing the work. Just like you shouldn’t expect physical strength without exercising.

Russ Hudson (my favorite teacher - if you didn’t know this already) says he always gets the question (and he imitates in a nasally voice) “Besides presence, what else am I supposed to do to become more aware?” And he always lets them know, it comes back to Presence. You can’t get present without practice.

Whenever anyone asks me how to become more present, I say, “Start with a 7-minute practice, daily.” (You can access my library here). This gives you the inner muscularity to call on it throughout your day when you need it. Stop expecting changes in your life without doing the practice. It won’t happen. Just like those muscles won’t happen without doing the work.

Because when you combine Sangha (community), Presence (this lived moment), and Essence (your authentic Self), your practices become embodied.

And that is the point of practice. Not perfection.

Embodiment.

Photo by Max LaRochelle on Unsplash

He wasn’t the nicest to me. You see, I’m the baby of the family, and for years, he thought he was going to be that. And then I showed up. My mom’s attention went to me. My sister’s too. My oldest brother’s as well. And most likely my dad’s. This older brother got pushed aside.

After all, babies are cute. And babies get the attention.

It wasn’t until very recently that we started getting along. Really, when my father was dying, and we were all becoming orphaned. Strong word, I know. Can adults be orphaned? That’s what it felt (and feels) like. Orphaned. And so, we only have each other now - let’s figure this out.

I even saw a shift in the relationship between my brothers. From strained, to tolerated, to liked, to loved. Although love may have always been the undercurrent, simply because of the brotherhood. It’s nice to see them texting each other now, later in life.

My mother would be thrilled.

So when the four of us got together recently for what I call a “Farray huddle,” one challenging comment from this older brother came out of his mouth…

…and I lose my mind.

Yes. Julie Roick loses her mind. It’s really incredible, actually. Just when I think I’ve got this whole “walking the talk” thing down, a challenge shows up to put me in my place. Anger shows up to remind me I’m human. That, yes, Ego still has a solid home here on Planet Julie.

The trigger that keeps on giving.

Maybe yours is different.

Shame.

Anger.

Anxiety.

We all have all three, but certain people bring out certain triggers for us. Apparently, anger is my go-to with my brother.

Noticing patterns.

Every day.

My over-knowledging tendency.
Needing to understand.
Wanting to create.

My lack of social intelligence and the work to become more aware.
Taking care of myself.
Getting fired up about possibilities.

My brother driving me nuts.

You know… patterns.

I don’t get angry very often. But because the relationship with my brother is a secure one, I can show him anger. I felt it rising in my body. That was a new noticing. I noticed the anger moving through me. Hmm. This is an unexplored feeling.

Unfortunately, the reliance on my practice took a back seat. Way back. And I allowed the feeling that was rising to take over my reaction. Apparently, that is why we practice, to actually be able to rely on it!

Respond, Julie, instead of reacting. Remember?

Easy to say. Harder to practice.

I didn’t like how out of control I got, attacking him over his (stupid) comment. My oldest brother, the peacemaker, diffused the situation. We moved on.

But apparently, I haven’t. Obviously.

Another pattern.

The inability to let something go.
Replaying the scene over and over.

Sound familiar?

Thank goodness I’m taking a class called A Journey Toward Embodied Freedom.

I’m laughing as I type this because I’m pretty sure losing my marbles over a comment from my brother doesn’t totally embody freedom. I guess that’s why I’m in the class.

When we were asked to define what freedom means to us in our breakout rooms, I talked about how free I felt after our retreat back in October. That deep presence. That awakening to the world. Feeling like I was experiencing life for the first time. Maybe that was freedom. Or maybe it was just a glimpse of it.

The instructors in my class are careful not to define freedom for us. This is our journey. I do know that ultimately, freedom is a liberation from ego.

That’s a tall order. But it’s one I’m willing to embark on.

Maybe in this class, I will finally be free from the trigger that keeps on giving. But until then, I will continue to explore.

And notice.

Pattern after pattern.

Bringing presence to them.

And maybe, eventually, freedom from them.

I am considering pulling a biweekly group together to help explore our patterns.

Sangha, community, is key to understanding ourselves and others. When I am in community, my deepest insights come to fruition. I gain self-compassion and compassion for others. We can learn so much from one another.

If you are interested, please email me. I’ll gather a group and we’ll find a time to meet. I would limit it to six people and charge $30 per person per session. Sometimes the clearest mirrors are the people sitting across from us.

photo by Kateryna Hliznitsova from Unsplash

She said she was annoyed. And a little spent.

Her partner had been away for a while and wasn’t expected to return for a bit. She was handling everything. In her love-language way, she had mailed a Valentine’s card ahead of time so he’d receive it on the day.

What did she get?

Not a card, that’s for sure.

Was she disappointed? Absolutely.
Was he intentionally withholding love? Probably not.

She expected her love language to be his love language. And that just ain’t so!

This is the classic misread in relationships. Contrary to very popular belief, there are more than five love languages. There could be dozens. I won’t bore you with that list, but I will say this: your Instinctual Stack plays a major role in how you give and receive love. And I can almost guarantee it’s not the same as your partner’s.

So let me tell you a little (more) about me, and my husband.

My husband can be intense. He also has a strong Social instinct. The Social instinct is the drive toward connection, participation, and shared meaning. It tunes us into relationships, roles, contribution, and impact. It asks, “Where do I fit? How do I serve? How do we survive together?”

When you pair that instinct with his Eight intensity, he shows love through protection and containment.

Here’s what that looks like.

He works a split shift. He’s at the gym from 5:30 am to noon, then again from 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm. His afternoons aren’t just about income. They create structure. Stability. Space. He is quite literally holding the external world steady so I can work quietly on my guidance practice.

His love language is:
“I will hold the structure so you can flourish inside of it.”

(Side note: As I was leaving for a quick trip to visit our grandson, he said, “Be sure to count the aisles on the plane for the nearest exit.” I smiled, knowing exactly that is how he shows love.)

I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in the Five Love Languages book - just sayin’.

And me?

My dominant instinct is Sexual. Despite the name, it’s not really about sex. It’s about aliveness. Chemistry. Meaningful contact. It pulls us toward what feels charged, vital, alive.

Given my Five tendencies, that means I show love through intense presence. Depth over small talk. Shared inner worlds. Meaningful conversation.

The other day my husband said, “Can we talk? We only have 15 minutes before you go back to class, and we won’t see each other until much later.”

I stopped. I listened. We connected.

He loves me by building the structure.
I love him by giving him my full attention.

Neither of us would have circled those on a quiz. But when I step back, I can see it clearly.

So step back.

How are you showing love?

You don’t need to know your dominant point. Just make a list. How do you show up? What do you naturally offer?

Then, for extra brownie points, ask yourself, “How does my partner show love?”

We tend to assume we want the same things. We don’t.

We give love the way we’re wired. And we often expect to receive it the same way.

Someone with a dominant Social instinct will show love very differently than someone who is Socially blind. Someone driven by Self-Preservation will show love differently than someone driven by aliveness and intensity. There’s no right or wrong here.

Just different.

Going back to my friend, she ended up simply asking for what she needed. “Throw me a bone, buddy.”

No blame. No drama. Just clarity.

That’s someone becoming aware. Acknowledging that her partner doesn’t show up like she does. And instead of assuming neglect, she asked for what she needed.

If you’re wired for Self-Preservation, your love language might look very different still. It might look like stocked refrigerators, paid bills, safe homes, and steady routines. It might look like “Did you eat?” or “I took care of that for you.” It may not be flashy. It may not be romantic in the traditional sense. But it says, You are safe with me. We are okay.

That’s love, too.

So now I’ll ask you:

What is your partner’s love language?

That’s next-level reflection. But once you figure it out, you won’t just avoid disappointment.

You’ll light them up.

Please remember to like or comment. And share with someone you love.

The other day, I had made two salads and rested them on the counter. One for me and one for my husband. Clearing out the refrigerator, I noticed I had about four very small mozzarella balls that didn’t make it to my pizza earlier in the week. It was time to eat them up, or they would be compost - and I’m really working on not wasting food. So I cut them up and put them in our salads. Four pieces for him and four for me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my husband walking toward the counter. This is unusual because he really doesn’t step foot in our kitchen unless he is pouring himself a bowl of cereal. He spends more time at the gym working than I do, so the division of labor means that I am in the kitchen at home. Plus, he can’t cook. At all.

So I’m a bit suspicious as he ventures towards the salads. Specifically, I have mine a certain way, and I make his a certain way. He doesn’t know this so when he leans into taking one of the pieces of mozzarella out of my salad bowl, I could feel the stinginess come over me. It starts in my shoulders or the back of my neck. and it’s like someone is grading their fingernails on the chalkboard - I CANNOT STAND SHARING MY FOOD!

I have always been this way. When I was a little girl, someone reached over to my plate and took some French fries off of it. I lost my marbles on him, and then, if I recall correctly, got teased about it so hard that I ended up crying (my sister reminds me of this scenario and remembers it better than I do). Little “t” trauma for sure ( the teasing, not the French fry theft) but also, those early patterns were showing up. My completely unconscious little self had no idea why I took such offense.

But now I do.

So as he is about to take it, I announce, “That isn’t your salad.” He kindly lets me know he was doing me a favor since he was actually reaching for the cherry tomatoes that I force myself to eat, out of my salad. And then, I started cracking up. I mean, I couldn’t help but just laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. Really? I couldn’t share one piece of mozzarella?

Old habits die hard.

So it got me thinking (of course, it did), how many times in a day are we showing up in a defensive way without giving it any thought?

Here are a few ways the shadows of our dominant patterns show up in real life. You will see yourself somewhere in here. If you don’t, well….. that might be because you aren’t paying much attention. Maybe you didn’t want to hear that.

For some people, the shadow shows up as intensity.
Maybe you walk into a room and immediately take charge. You correct someone mid-sentence because you see the problem clearly. You think you’re being helpful or efficient, but others feel steamrolled. Later, you wonder why people seem guarded around you.

For some, the shadow looks like disappearing.
You go along with the plan even though you don’t want to. You say “it’s fine” when it isn’t. You avoid naming your preference because it feels easier to keep the peace. Then resentment quietly builds and you don’t quite know why.

For others, the shadow shows up as judgment.
You notice what’s wrong before what’s right. You mentally correct grammar, parenting choices, driving, or how someone loads the dishwasher. You hold yourself to impossible standards and feel irritated when others don’t do the same.

For some, the shadow is over-giving.
You say yes when you’re exhausted. You anticipate needs before they’re spoken. You feel unappreciated but don’t say anything because being needed feels safer than being honest. Eventually, you feel depleted and quietly hurt.

For others, the shadow looks like performing.
You shape yourself to the moment. You read the room and become who you think you should be. You stay busy, productive, impressive. And when things slow down, you feel oddly empty or anxious, like you don’t know who you are without the doing.

For some, the shadow shows up as longing.
You compare. You feel like something essential is missing. You replay conversations, moments, relationships, wishing they were deeper or more meaningful. You feel things intensely and assume others don’t quite get it.

For some of us, the shadow looks like hoarding.
Time. Energy. Space. Food. You guard your resources closely. You pull back before anyone can take too much. Sharing feels intrusive, even threatening. And only later do you realize how tight your body got in the moment. (Or someone tries to take some of your salad and you almost lose it!)

For others, the shadow shows up as anxiety.
You scan for what could go wrong. You ask questions to feel safe, but they come out sounding like doubt. You want reassurance, but you don’t quite trust it when you get it. Your nervous system stays on high alert.

And for some, the shadow is excess.
You keep things light. You move on quickly. You plan the next fun thing before fully landing in the present one. Discomfort feels unbearable, so you outrun it. Later, you wonder why things don’t feel as satisfying as you hoped.

Did you see yourself? Did you see someone else? That’s a good thing. This seeing, this awareness, leads to greater compassion (I know, I keep talking about that!). We are all suffering. These shadows are real and they keep us stuck. Seeing them is freeing them.

I hope the next time you witness yourself, you can smile and say, “I see you.” You can then make another choice, because with Presence, anything is possible.

Each and every time we leave one another, we do a checkout. This usually consists of a short phrase or a word (usually depending on the personality). And inevitably, we leave differently than we arrived. Discombobulated. Scattered. Stressed.

Turns to:

Elevated.
Loved.
Seen.
Connected.
Grateful.
Compassionate.

Something shifts when you meet with people and actually do the work together. When you slow down enough to notice…. to listen……, you begin to understand others in a way you didn’t before you arrived. You see them.

In my world, the Enneagram world, two of my three group monthly meetings are centered around this work and these kinds of meetings are especially powerful. Sitting with people who lead from different dominant patterns and hearing what it feels like to be them in the world does something subtle but important. It reminds us that while we are different, we are all living inside our own version of suffering. It feels different. It shows up differently. But it’s there for all of us in our own ways.

(Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash)

And somehow, instead of separating us, our differences begin to bond us.

This is why these groups matter so much right now.

For many of us, the world feels chaotic. It’s hard to get our footing. It feels like one thing after another. And the truth is, it is one thing after another. You’re not imagining it.

But you can’t get your footing back unless you do something about it.

We need connection.

We need understanding.
We need compassion.

Most of us understand how we show up in the world, even if we don’t fully understand why. What we often miss is that others show up very differently than we do. And when we don’t understand that, conflict grows quickly.

This is exactly why I created my workshop, Conflict to Compassion.

In this ninety-minute experiential workshop, you’ll take a free assessment and bring your results into the room. Together, we’ll explore what those results actually mean in real life. You’ll leave with a clearer understanding of how and why you react the way you do under stress, and just as importantly, how others do too.

Assessments alone don’t change us. They only become meaningful when there is human interaction, support, and interpretation. This workshop is meant to be a first touchpoint, a place to begin rebuilding the footing so many of us are looking for.

Because that footing leads to compassion.

And compassion goes deeper than understanding.

Compassion is the heart’s response to understanding.

And honestly, we could all use a little more heart right now, couldn’t we?

So come breathe with me. Come be with others who are curious. Let’s slow down enough to understand why we are showing up the way we do. Perspectives aren’t black and white. Right and wrong. They are nuanced. People are nuanced.

This workshop is for those who want to understand the world we’re living in a little better. Because without understanding, we stay stuck in the chaos.

I hope to see you next week.

You can join me for this workshop here. It’s only $29, a simple full-of-thought investment in yourself and your community. February 7th, 10:00 am EST, Zoom.

At Paige and Ross’ wedding, October 2025

The other day in Starbucks, a father walked in holding his beautiful little girl. She couldn’t have been more than a year old wearting a pink fleece sweatshirt, tiny pants, socks, and the smallest Skida hat I’ve ever seen. We didn’t even know they made them that small.

She gazed out the window, looking up at the church, watching the clouds drift by. Completely present. Then she looked at me. I smiled. She smiled back.

I turned to my husband as tears welled up.
He asked, “What’s wrong?”
I said, “I miss their littleness.”

When I looked back at her, still tear, something in her shifted. Her sweet smile softened into compassion, innocent curiosity. Not wanting her to think she caused my tears, I quickly smiled again. A little reassurance. It was just my stuff. As it usually is.

The Holidays Aren’t the Same

Fourth of July. Halloween. Easter.

These have quietly become holidays I dread. Our children are all grown and have moved away. The anticipation, the excitement, the magic, the tiny costumes, the chaos - those days are behind us.

Now I’m on the outside looking in, watching other families do what we once did. Maybe taking it for granted. I know I did. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re doing the best they can. Youth is wasted on the young. The regret of not being very Present then.

No doublt, I had moments - those I-never-want-to-forget-this flashes of presence, but mostly, I was somewhere else, doing something else. Youth was wasted on the young mom.

The Hardest Part

In a recent phone conversation about the upcoming Christmas holiday, I told one of our daughters, “The hardest part of raising children isn’t the raising. It’s the letting go.”

I wish I’d known that earlier.
Or maybe I don’t.
Or maybe if I had, I would have been more present, knowing how quickly the magic disappears, how fleeting innocence really is. Those moments were gifts. Presents. Gifts I sometimes feel I didn’t receive as deeply as I could have.

And yet… we must have done something right. They all live independent lives. They love us. They love each other. That is the gift and the ache of raising children, that they grow, and go.

The Wings and the Pain

No one told me any of this. My parents were hands-off. But they knew about the Wings, the way children lift off into their own lives. The lift comes with love, support, guidance. And for the ones left behind - pain, regret, and a scarcity of time.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

My mom hinted at the pain once, slamming the door before me, crying in my arms, as I left home for the last time. Years later, my dad confessed I had broken her heart. At the time, she blamed my then-husband, but the truth was simpler: She didn’t want me to leave but knew she couldn’t keep me from leaving.

She didn’t try.
She also didn’t prepare me for how much it would hurt when it was my turn. Thanks, Mom?

So now, I kind of dread our coffee shop runs.
Which tiny bit of yumminess will walk (or be carried) through the door this time?

A sweet song comes on the speakers and I’m undone. Maybe it’s the holidays. Maybe it’s turning 60. Maybe it’s both.

I don’t know.

I just know it’s hard.

And I also know that having children is somehow the most selfish and the most selfless act at the same time. Certainly not for the faint of heart.

Ever since I tried to read Deepak’s book, Digital Dharma, I’ve been playing with this idea of a guru. He argues that AI can be your spiritual guru. I’ve got news for you. AI can’t be your spiritual guru. Neither can Deepak. Neither can I. Only YOU can be your spiritual guru. U R UR GURU. How is that possible? Let me explain.

The more you understand yourself and how you are showing up in the world, the closer you get to seeing how far you are away from your True Self. What did she just say? Let’s put it another way.

Every day we put on a mask. Some days, we wear more masks than others. We show up as a daughter or son to our parents (and behave a certain way). We show up for our children (and behave a certain way). We get triggered by something (lately it has been the news for me and we behave a certain way). We show up at work (and behave a certain way). We don’t show up the same way in every situation. These are all facets of our personality. These facets are very important, and as children, we needed them to survive (whether we grew up in a healthy home or not). The ego (personality) is formed so that we can deal with the world.

We all have gifts. We can be amazing at:

1. Making sure things are done right and people are following rules

2. Helping and supporting people

3. Inspiring others to be their best while being our best

4. Seeing the beauty in the world and having a deep sense of emotional intelligence

5. Sharing our knowledge

6. Focusing on community and averting crises

7. Being the cheerleader

8. Challenging ourselves and others

9. Resolving conflict through seeing others’ perspectives

But as we witness these gifts of ours, we can begin to see how, when overdone, they can pull us away from our Truest Self.

1. We can be a stickler and feel we are the only ones who know what is right

2. We can be overly helpful and resent those who don’t acknowledge us

3. We can be workaholics and lose sight of what is important in our lives

4. We can feel misunderstood and like a victim

5. We can over-rationalize and withdraw

6. We can be hyper vigilant

7. We can become so enthusiastic, we over-commit and under-deliver

8. We can be too controlling

9. We can lose sight of our wants and not show up in the world

For every gift, there is an over-doing of this gift. This pulls you away from your True Self - the one that can show up in Presence and do the closest work to what the Universe intended for you. This is what religious dogmas refer to as “sin.” Sin is not immorality. Sin is being off-track. Off-track from your greatest gifts, which can look like showing up as a jerk, needy, bossy, righteous, paranoid, etc. You are the one who has to do the self-reflection. You are the one what will see you are off-track. Believe me, others see it they just don’t always say it. Or if they do, you then show up defended and in conflict (and out of Presence).

So, you can ask AI some generic spiritual questions and you’ll get some generic spiritual answers. You can even ask AI some specific questions about yourself (which I do, and it is very fun, BUT you must be very self-aware). You can also become Deepak’s best friend or even Eckhart Tolle’s, Marianne Williamson or Pema Chodron, But if you don’t do the work of understanding what pulls you out of Presence, then you will never understand the spiritual journey that was intended for each and every one of us. There is no ONE way. There is your way and only your way works for YOU. U R UR GURU and anyone who tells you otherwise is simply misguided. Don’t follow them. Follow you.