Even the most extraordinary seed struggles in barren ground. A reflection on intention, vigilance, and the inner conditions from which we pursue what matters.
Category: Blog for the week
What Story Are You Telling Yourself?
You send a text. No reply. By the next check, you’re wondering whether they’re upset with you. Nothing new has happened in the conversation, but something has happened in your experience of it.
The Boundary Comes After the Resentment
Years ago, a partner asked me a one-sentence question, and I answered with six reasons. Resentment is the signal we notice. The over-explaining, the dread, and the quietly absorbed costs arrive long before it.
Other People’s Boxes
There were boxes in my spare room that did not belong to me. For months, I made room without ever deciding to. A reflection on overfunctioning, on the quiet habit of carrying what belongs to others, and on what we set down in our own lives at the same time.
When You Can No Longer Hear Yourself Think
A Saturday morning, a mind replaying the same situation, and a desk covered in good advice pointing in opposite directions. An essay on the moment more input stops helping, and on the question that returned my own judgment to me.
Finding Authenticity: Two Names, One Person
Recently, I discovered that I could publish under a pen name: Free Ocean Spirit. What surprised me was not the name itself, but the freedom it gave me to create—and the realization that the professional, creative, analytical and reflective parts of me were never separate people to begin with.
Stopped Arguing With Reality
A messy week away with four kids, and the quiet realization that the mess didn't have to mean anything was wrong with me.
Self-Trust: Why We Keep Justifying Our Own Decisions
There is a place near the ocean where I put down everything I have been carrying — the unfinished work, the decisions, the quiet internal defence I keep rehearsing. What I find there is enough space to hear what I already know.
Arguing With the Day – Impatience and Acceptance
Nothing went smoothly all day — disappeared files, a wrong turn, keys in the recycling bin — and then I sat in Friday traffic on a drive I had chosen, arguing with its conditions. A reflection on impatience, acceptance, and patience as a capacity that expands and contracts rather than a trait we either have or lack.
How We Drift From Ourselves Under Pressure
We don't leave ourselves all at once. We drift — one pressured decision at a time — until a feeling quietly becomes the whole story of who we are. This week on Reflections, a quiet drive through Vermont and what it reminded me about coming home to myself. The question I came back with: who is the version of yourself you've stopped visiting?
