Secular Shepherdess

05/15/2024

Sometimes being clear requires many pieces and parts. For me this morning, it took a more than a few colors.

Acknowledging complexity can be helpful.

04/11/2024

I did a thing!

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with the guys at Positively Terrible and had a conversation about my experience with quiet trauma.

I hope you have a chance to listen. 🤓

This week's Decent Fu***ng Human is Kelli Murbach. Her fu**ed up story is about quiet trauma. Other topics include chronic illness, loneliness, and depression. Kelli’s childhood was filled with wha...

03/12/2024

Earning my right to complain.

02/16/2024

Small changes in how we speak to ourself can crack old habits.

02/15/2024

The Emotional Tide node of the Life Support Paradigm focuses on how the world impacts our emotions and how we experience and regulate our emotions.

How do you know you're able to connect with others?

02/14/2024

The art of reciprocal relationships requires us to ask for and expect what we need while adjusting how we show up so that we can honor our relationship partners' needs as well. Reciprocal relationships require a mix of rigidity and flexibility from both parties.

We connect to one another in myriad ways, and each point of connection represents ways we can be rigid and flexible with each other. Overly rigid systems have limited degrees of freedom, and each instance of imperfect attention or human error has the potential to break something. Overly fluid systems have too many degrees of freedom and can't stand up to the winds of life on their own.

While we may have some gnarly connection needs, there are folks in the world willing and able to work with us to create a stable enough relationship - whether friendship, partnership or something else.

As we look at our connection points within a relationship, we begin by identifying what works and what doesn't work for us about that connection in the present. As we look at the connection, it's helpful to understand how flexible we can be in how this connection need can be met.

Then, we get to use our words to express what's working, what's not, and what shifts we think could make it work better. As relationships are works-in-progress, it's normal to have these conversations multiple times as things shift (or don't) and each person discovers more about themselves.

Keys to these conversations include both people being clear on what needs to shift, being clear on what shifts they're willing to make, and being clear about what cannot change about their approach.

02/13/2024

The Storytelling Loop of the Life Support Paradigm focuses on how our mind connects all of our lived experiences into a messy narrative we use to make meaning of ourselves and our lives.

What storytelling loop of yours needs a bit of editing?

02/13/2024

Despite popular sentiment, making changes in isolation is rarely the answer. A coach can provide just the support you need to begin making those changes that feel just out of reach. Contact me today through the link in my bio for more information.

02/11/2024

Small changes in how we speak to ourselves can crack old habits.

02/10/2024

The Material Interaction node of the Life Support Paradigm focuses on how the physical objects in our lives impact our experience.

How would you describe a good enough maintenance regimen?

02/09/2024

The ubiquity of media makes it difficult to see its impact on our lives. Because it permeates our lives in so many ways and spaces, figuring out where it's souring how we tell our stories about ourselves and the world can be hard to spot.

All media - whether social media, television, or my beloved books - are used as ways to escape from our daily lives. There is a time and place for distraction; it's a favorite tool of mine. Respecting the influence media exposure has on our thinking and our nervous system requires regularly checking in on the cost of our distraction habits.

With practice, awareness, and discipline, we can become more intentional about the media we choose to consume. These practices can also mitigate the impact of the ambient media we're exposed to.

We can also curate media sources that increase our felt sense of hope, joy, and connection. Not every story revolves around people being ugly to each other.

So, take half an hour and consider what you choose to consume. Reflect on how it impacts how you think about yourself. Consider how your nervous system responds when you consume that media, remembering that being able to connect with others is a sign of a non-activated state.

02/08/2024

The Energy Calibration node of the Life Support Paradigm focuses on how we understand and work with our pools of available energy.

What incoming stream of muddy energy do you need to set up a protection filter for?

02/07/2024

Walking through the world with just the right filters takes effort and support. A new perspective can clarify which filters we need where. Contact me today through the link in my bio if you want support as you sort out how you show up in your life.

02/07/2024

Are you looking to extend your reach toward becoming more comfortable with how you walk in the world? Join to the Shepherdess Dispatch for a weekly-ish look into what I'm exploring.

02/02/2024

Who do you want to start practicing with today?

02/01/2024

The Communal Connection node of the Life Support Paradigm focuses on how we connect to ourselves and to the others in our lives.

What limits your capacity to be in supportive, reciprocal relationships?

01/31/2024

Humans are born storytellers. We don't have to have language on board to start telling ourselves stories. In fact, our earliest childhood memories may only come with a sense of something.

We don't have to know what happened for the echo of something we experienced to influence our lives today through the types of stories we tell about who we are and what kind of world we live in.

We can identify stories that no longer serve us and choose to tackle the project of replacing those stories with ones written from a newer, contextually informed perspective.

By repetitively shifting our core stories, we can create room in our system to show up to the world as messy humans who can recognize the acceptance of those who care about us.

This work starts by identifying what stories filter through our thoughts and emotions. We can find those when we look for assumptions. They can also be found at points of difference between how we see ourselves and how those who like us see us.

Identifying and shifting our storytelling loops is best done in a relationship with another. This allows us to bounce what we're seeing off another person and challenge their perceptions.

01/30/2024

The Emotional Tide node of the Life Support Paradigm focuses on how the world impacts our emotions and how we experience and regulate our emotions.

What recent event do you need to emotionally debrief?