“She’s sensitive.” These words couldn’t be more true about me. As a child, teenager, athlete, mom, friend, and partner, my sensitivity to the world presented its challenges before I found the true benefits of what being a sensitive soul is all about. There is a term floating around out there, if you are on the road of seeking deep self awareness, you may have heard of and even be a “highly sensitive person”, otherwise known as HSP. There are so many quizzes out there to discover if you are one but if my words resonate with you, then chances are you don’t need a quiz. The question is have you trained yourself to see sensitivity as a source of strength, even resilience, or has it been something that you have learned is a weakness that has to be overcome. For a long time, I thought it was the latter, that my sensitivity was something that set me up to be hurt by the world, so I’d better tread lightly in order not to feel the pain that seemed to be prickling at my skin at almost every moment.
As HSP’s, we have nervous systems that sense the world in a very intense way. We are constantly processing information that other people don’t have to filter as they go about their day. This can be a huge blessing if we can figure out healthy ways to process this wealth of information that we are constantly taking in, but it takes effort. Which leads me to some reasons HSP’s are tougher than I grew up thinking.
1. We build our strength by finding healthy outlets to process what we feel every day.
As we walk through our days, we are going to feel…a lot. I have had people in my life that I can literally feel the pain emanating from them. You can read it in their body language, their tone of voice, and in just the first few words that come out of their mouths. There is a lot of pain in this world, and as HSP’s that are drawn to listen, our nervous systems can quickly be overwhelmed by all of this stimulation. The shortcut to dealing with the emotions that rise up in us is to numb, to try and dull the pain immediately instead of process it. Numbing can turn into addictions - food, sex, alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping - anything that releases the short term feel good neurochemicals that calm our heightened nerves - but these things can quickly derail our path and keep us from our highest calling. If we want to pursue deep health and come closer to discovering our true self, we find the skills that teach us to process instead of numbing, and through that attract genuine ways to help ourselves and others. These healthy coping skills are always related to finding our mind/body connection, learning to integrate our physiology and our psychology, our heart and our mind. Breath work, a mindfulness practice, learning how the art of slowing down is actually sometimes how we get ahead, there are ways to integrate our sensitivity into our lives for maximum good. Through this experience we know and understand ourselves better, and self awareness is the key to the most fulfilling life here on this earth.
2. Sensitivity disarms even the toughest exteriors…even if it’s just for a minute.
For the souls who walk around finding it hard to trust in other people and the good that is abundant in the world, often HSP’s are the only ones who can pull that perspective out of them. I have always believed that human beings are innately good, even if some of the choices we make are bad. Our sustained life path comes down to how we handle and either make the most of the good choices, or learn and recover from the bad ones, that makes the road ahead bumpy or smooth. HSP’s are blessed to have the moments of disarming connections with even the most guarded among us and help them feel safe in the world. These moments are priceless because they allow us to get a glimpse at the depth of human potential that is always there and get to be the reason that someone else believes in it, even if it’s just a fleeting moment.
3. Sensitivity is drawn to the beauty in the mundane.
As HSP’s we are lucky because it doesn’t take grand gestures for us to see the beauty in life. In my life, I have experienced the heights of travel, luxury, and material comfort, and understand that if we don’t have the ability to find joy in the simple, costless (and priceless) beauty in this world, we can never connect it to the fancier side of life that our country as a whole seems to be seeking at the highest costs. But as HSP’s, we are able to find beauty in abundance in life’s simplest moments. It’s ok to be moved to tears by music, a sunset, or a baby chasing a ball across the beach. I don’t begrudge anyone the heights of luxury but as HSP’s we have the ability to be moved by the notes of the piano whether they are played on a 40 year old untuned upright in the corner of a simple room or a baby grand in the lobby of the world’s fanciest hotel. And if the music from the upright can bring the chills to the back of your neck and the tears to your eyes, imagine what the notes from the baby grand will do when your true self makes it to that fancy hotel one day.
There are so many ways that HSP’s can own their superpowers and use them to strengthen their path, find deep rooted optimism, and benefit the world. Every day we all walk through life, looking to feel connected and be understood. HSP’s have the ability to offer this gift to others, but it’s in mastering the art of self care for our sensitive souls that we attract relationships with others that care for us too. We have to find the ways to be comfortable in our own skin to be able to integrate our sensitive ways for maximum health. For years of my life, my heart beat faster and my mind raced, I didn’t understand the heightened state I was trying to work from and it sapped my energy. Learning to recognize my sensitivity as a core strength instead of a curse that had to be muted, freed my soul to discover true calm, deep sleep, and more connected relationships with the amazing people that fill this world. If you are feeling weary by all you have taken in, I encourage you to slow down and breathe. If I can help you build these tools, reach out here. Freedom and strength are your birthright, we can be our strongest and most optimistic selves, even at the height of our most sensitive and vulnerable moments, if we uncover the tools that give our deepest feelings a comfortable place to rest.
Let’s face it, we’ve had to say goodbye to a lot of things these past five months. When things are as uncertain as they have been, the skill that I have had to improve is to let go of my planning ways and rest on my faith and intuition. The news shifts and changes every day. I find myself with no desire to read the latest newsflash on my phone or another email from the school district or University (Stanford, please take your students back and reinstate Mens Volleyball) because I feel like whatever I digest and plan on is going to take another turn before I can finish taking it all in. These months, whether we feel the strain of finances, relationships, changing work or home environments, or just the flat out scariness of managing the great unknown without our go to escapes like concerts, movies, dining in, hot yoga, and gatherings with our favorite people have taken their toll. It’s no different for the younger generation. Do they get to go off to college? For Luke and Stanford that answer went from a mid September yes to a no this week. Yet another disappointment to test his resilience, there have been a lot of them since March. I have coached and managed myself and others through the feelings of anxiety, isolation, and loneliness, looking to master the art of staying present and build sustainability in the unknown because when I stand in that place, it brings a sense of strength and deep calm…but I won’t tell you I am there in every moment, it ebbs and flows like the waves I’ve been watching. But I know in every moment, if that strength is escaping me, it’s not far away, and we all have access to if we channel the skills of Active Optimism that help bring us there.
It’s been a week of goodbyes, after sending Lauren off to Texas on Saturday, Tuesday morning, I woke up before the sun, our eight year old Lab had cancer, although we couldn’t tell what type after many tests, and he was suffering. It’s the hardest thing to watch and the worst part of being a pet owner. We’ve had Lucky since Matthew was five, with some twists and turns in that story that I won’t get into here. Needless to say, he is loved and Matthew is the best dog owner I have ever known. There is something about the unconditional love of a pet that strengthens us if we lean into it, and he has. He is a kid that no matter how hard the school day is, he’s come home and found love and purpose taking care of Lucky. And on Tuesday he made the decision that he needed to be free of his pain…such a brave decision for him and not easy on my Texas dwelling kiddo as well, to have to say goodbye from that distance. I realized as Tuesday went on, there was a lot attached to this goodbye for me too. Yes, losing the unconditional love of a pet can be counted among the worst days for anyone, but Lucky himself held memories of old times, when things were different in my life, and it got me thinking about the reasons we have to say goodbye, even when we don’t want to. As with every goodbye, there are all of the thoughts of how the good times far outweigh the difficult moments, but there is no getting around the heaviness of today. Sometimes we have to say goodbye, even when we aren’t ready…Tuesday is was to Lucky, but it happens over and over in life…with kids, relationships, homes, the list goes on and on. We can only follow our true path if we are strong enough to say goodbye, when pain is greater than growth and deep health isn’t an option anymore. When we are strong enough to say goodbye to things we love, then we can be strong enough to let go of things that don’t serve our best life, like insecurities so we can find greater love for ourselves, fear so we live bold and free, relationships that are keeping us in a holding pattern instead of uncovering deeper layers of ourselves, and expectation so that we can find simple gratitude for what is meant to be today. Whatever it is we are experiencing, whether it is the greatest or saddest day, the only certainty that we have is that this moment will not last. Mastering the art of letting go is not what creates our suffering but frees us from it. And then, somewhere in the strength of goodbye, we let go and we gain - wisdom, strength, adaptability, faith, and confidence in ourselves that we can handle whatever comes our way.
By a certain point in life, we all have trauma, whether it’s with a big ‘T’ or small ‘t’, and we have to find a healthy way to work it out or the pattern keeps repeating itself in our own life and in the generations that come after us. And just like the big ’T’ or small ’t’ can afflict us, the ways that we pass down our hurts become a cycle. The good news is it only takes one person, who makes the brave decision to heal, to break the cycle. That fact is one of the reasons for my optimism and even more importantly, the ‘why’ in my life. When we don’t heal from the ways that life has come at us, we end up with other wounds that cause us to make choices that don’t allow us to make our greatest positive impact on our life and in the lives of the people we are closest to. Sometimes those choices put us and the people we love in real physical danger, where lives literally hang in the balance. Other times these afflictions, that are more like a dull scratch at a wound, like the way we choose to communicate or attach to relationships in our lives and create a lackluster and less connected existence than what we were meant for.
For much of my life, I battled a shameful conscience that made me feel like I didn’t deserve the goodness that came my way. It silenced me and made me live smaller, so even though I had all of these big thoughts in my head, I had a hard time putting them out there for other people to hear. It wasn’t until I got my first sense of real struggle, through parenting, relationships troubles that ultimately ended in divorce, and then the healing process that I chose to take to recover from these challenges, that I realized that generational patterns run through all families, there isn’t one that hasn’t faced a struggle and had to figure out what to do with it. Do we shine a light on it and create connection with our vulnerability or do we choose to keep it in the dark and let shame take over. The two paths are so different. Today, instead of the outside looking in, four kid family living by the beach, I am a divorced single mom with four amazing kids, with a mission to spread optimism to help other people process their own stories so we can heal together because resilience is as close to perfection as we can get…and I feel more aligned, healthy, and like myself than I ever have in my life.
I talk almost daily to my best friend from high school. The last few weeks during our hour long conversations, we trade stories back and forth as we support each other through the ups and downs going on in our lives, and lately there seem to be plenty of them. Whether it’s relationships, work, family, or kids, having a go to that has known you for most of your life is invaluable and I’m forever grateful to volleyball for bringing us together for a friendship that has lasted 30 years now. She is the most personable, kind hearted human being that keeps my optimistic spirit in tact with her ability to listen. What I have realized through our talks is that there are ways to protect ourselves and the people we love, and live fully, out loud, and on the big stage of life, if we master certain skills to deal with the trauma that comes our way.
1. Surrender to the struggle. I put up a post on Instagram about this in the last week or so because it is the first step to working through our struggles. Trying to keep up a facade is exhausting and keeps us from living a free life. Surrender is not a sign of weakness but the ultimate sign of strength that puts our feet on solid ground to begin to heal. It is the scariest moment of the battle that lies within us because we look our weaknesses squarely in the face. Whether they are relationship challenges, addictions, or the ways we have been lying to ourselves to live a less than true story, it’s the moment we look in the mirror without any makeup on. This is where the good work starts.
2. Spend the time to heal. The biggest trauma that I have faced in my life has been my divorce. After 20 years of marriage, facing life on my own, feeling like a failure, and worrying about the pain my choice would cause my kids put healing on the front burner from the first day I was separated. What I learned was that while it has been said that you are only as happy as your unhappiest child, your children benefit from your strength and resilience as an example to find ways to tap into their own, so I toughened up and flipped the script. I went about healing myself, mind, body, and spirit. Whether it has been through yoga, beach volleyball, acupuncture, a diet that heals the gut/brain connection, alkaline water, opening a business that taps into my passion for sports to train life, or writing this blog and my book, 365 Days of Optimism, there is nothing that has been without a healing purpose and the time dedicated to all of these things builds confidence and healing. Even when the going gets tough and self doubt rears its ugly head, we can answer back with breath, movement, and connection to heal the relationship we have with ourselves and then everything gets better from there.
3. Befriend your nervous system. This sounds so scientific but it’s so basic to our human existence. I spent much of my life feeling anxious, worried I was going to do something wrong, looking for external validation that I was “doing it right” and not understanding that the power to be fine was already within me…I just needed to learn to control my breath to tap into it. Did you know that when breath reaches the lower lungs, neurotransmitters send signals to the brain to release “feel good” chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and melatonin to calm and uplift you? They will help you know that you are safe to experience and allow your mind and emotions to work through traumatic thoughts. When I had Matthew and my experience with life on the spectrum began, I began a self education process that lead me to learn so much about how we can calm ourselves and handle the stress of life. As a mother, I thought I was learning to help him, but soon I realized that we are all so much more alike than different and the same things that help him, help me, my other kids, and even the most elite athletes in the world. Learn more about nasal and diaphragmatic breathing here, it’s a simple game changer. It’s brought me calm, focus, and healing, it’s all within our control and it doesn’t cost a dime!
4. Visualize the “Best Picture”. This is the moment where you believe it’s all possible, that you can heal, that you are strong enough and that your best life is ahead of you if you put in the effort. It’s seeing yourself in a connected relationship, or with a healthy relationship with food or alcohol, believing that you can live a lifestyle that will uplift you and everyone around you. If we can’t see ourselves as successful, whether in relationships, health, business, prosperity, we won’t have the energy to get ourselves there. It’s believing in our “enoughness” even in our most broken moment that our optimism will carry us through. If we can’t believe in our power to heal, it won’t happen.
Now is the time. The stories of my days are heavy, but our human potential is too great and we can overcome our trauma. My vision is for a continually healing family, society, and world and I believe it happens one connection at a time. Put your best foot forward, be honest about your story, do it for yourself and the generations that come after you, they will never know how much they have to thank you for walking that path, but life will begin to be brighter the moment you take the first step toward healing.
Photo credit: Rian Basilio
If there is anything I have learned over the past months, it’s that we cannot afford to take any moment for granted. These unprecedented times, that have all of us wishing to find some normalcy, certainty, and deep health, have taught me that we never know when things will change, when something could be the last time, or when we will have to give up something that we care deeply about. It’s been my practice for the past many years, as I have walked through divorce, parenting struggles, and questions about how I want to show up for myself and in the world, to allow myself to feel it all…the good and the difficult, the heavy and the light, the joy and the sorrow and, through it all, remain optimistic that the best is yet to come. Acknowledging all these feelings is what makes us human. It’s how we learn to appreciate and understand what we value most in life. Connecting with ourselves so that we can connect with others is one of my pillars Active Optimism.
The truth is, allowing ourselves to feel is an important first step; learning to sit with those feelings calmly, process them, and respond with patience and a solid voice, is what stitches the whole experience together.
I’ve always been grateful for my memory. My forte is not facts and figures, but capturing the human side of a story and then backtracking to find the research that backs up the why of what we feel the way we do. Emotion sticks with me…even memories dating back to two years old. I swear I remember foraging around my back yard in Mendota, nose against the fence trying to see what was going on outside of my space. I often think about the places we go in a lifetime, I go from moments as early as this one, to incredible trips to Normandy and Paris, to some of the most traumatic, like Matthew being at the bottom of the pool or the times prior to the end of my 20 year marriage that I hadn’t learned to respond with patience and clarity of mind when I felt hurt, to the freedom I feel today to tell my story and help other people process their own in a matter of minutes. It’s not frenetic, I just love to think about life. Through all this, the message that emerges to me is this:
You have a choice how you want to show up in this world. We are not victims of circumstance. it’s not what happened, it’s how we choose to respond that is most important…it takes training, and that training is entirely up to us.
There is a quote by Maya Angelou that hangs prominently in my home where I can read it everyday (one of the first purchases I made after my divorce) and it reads:
“People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya has had a profound impact on me, as she has for millions of writers, thinkers, and actually probably any human that has been exposed to the other worldly perspective and talent and faith that she brought to this world. Until a few years ago, I had never read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and one of my favorite quarantine reads has been Mom & Me & Mom, about the real and highly charged relationship and life she shared with her mother throughout her lifetime. I highly recommend it to any mom out there who is feeling insignificant in the role that we play as mom’s in our kids lives. It comes with struggles, worry, and mistakes but this book will show you to never doubt the impact we have the chance to make in our children’s lives at every stage of the game.
As I sit in the mountains at the cabin that I have I haven’t been to in eight years because life and kids and volleyball tournaments took over, finishing this blog on the birthday that Lauren and my mom have shared for the last 20 years, I realize how blessed I am to have always been surrounded by people who care deeply how they make other people feel. It’s given us challenges to accept in life, like learning to set boundaries and realize that we can’t control outcomes and even ultimately the way our choices and actions influence the thoughts and feelings of others, but I wouldn’t trade being raised by and with people who have a deep desire to bring warmth and connection to the lives of the people who surround them It’s important to move away from an “I’m ok if you’re ok” mentality, but caring about how others feel will always matter to me and fuel my optimism that it will be returned because of the example I have been shown by my family. Optimism is contagious and trainable, as we move along in life, the ability to have a heart for others and a mind that knows how to take care of myself feels like an incredibly freeing place to be…and that calm translates to my home and the future generations of my family. We know what to live with, what to accept and what to let go. We care, we love, and we are learning to connect with ourselves so that our connection with others can grow deeper…and the optimist’s lens will always grow from this place.
As uncertain as the days have been for the last five months, it has brought an extreme sense of clarity about what is vitally important in life. It’s been a time to bring things back to simple health so that we can protect ourselves and the people around us. It’s been a time to stay present, see each day as a gift and an opportunity…something that as I have said countless times, maybe that is always as it should have been. I’ve been at shaping this optimists outlook for awhile, I know it’s trainable because I have trained my own. Learning to reframe life’s challenges as opportunities for growth when things get heavy is a key to greatness, longevity, and the best life. Through my own training and writing I have developed a platform that I call Active Optimism. So often, optimism is seen as naive or blind, like we can just wish something into existence. Active Optimism is a set of skills, simple but consistent, that train an optimists lens through life’s challenges. These are the pillars that change wishing through rose colored glasses to a wellness platform that shapes an optimists perspective and gives us the energy to transform our lives and go after our goals. Optimism is the backbone of resilience and I’ve realized that when times are tough, these are the basics that always bring me back to center. As with anything that you want to make great, it starts with small and simple steps of consistency that we have a desire to build on.
1. Sleep Enough
2. Hydrate Well
3. Eat Green
4. Celebrate with Music
5. Connect with Yourself & Others
6. Practice Faith & Gratitude
7. Just Breathe
8. Move Everyday
Week by week I want to break these pillars down, using stories and habits from my life that have brought me to the understanding I have today about why each of these things is a pillar of strength and optimism. This week I’m starting with sleep. I’ve always been a fan, my kids know that difficult decisions are left to the morning and that by 9pm, I like to have most things wrapped up and done…and whatever is left, is written on a list to tackle the next morning. Knowing when to say when, knowing that when we are too tired, we lose massive amounts of efficiency and that clarity comes with a rested mind, we can start to understand our circadian rhythm better. Not everyone is a morning person like me…some of us are night owls. When my kids were little, and even with teenagers who love to sleep in, my strategy has always been to get as much done before they get out of bed. I have friends though who were the opposite, putting kids down at night and then relishing the quiet of the evening and checking things off one by one after they sleep. Whether you are a night owl or a morning person, here are some keys to get your sleep right so that you can awaken to your best life. Sleep affects everything - from hormones, what foods we crave, what things we remember, how our muscles repair (or don’t) to the quality of the relationships in our lives. Without it, our optimists lens gets fogged up fast.
Set a consistent sleep and wake time. When we go to sleep and wake up at the same (or close to the same) time every day, our body is able to maintain it’s internal clock, or circadian rhythm. This makes it easier for us to fall asleep and wake up unassisted.
Seek the morning light & the evening sunset. This is another sleep/wake habit that I practice regularly. The morning light coaxes your system awake. Walk outside within minutes of getting out of bed and you will find your mood and energy for the day lifts easily. Watching the sunset adjusts allows your body to begin processing that bedtime is near.
Skip the blue light at least two hours before bed. Blue light blocks melatonin, the hormone that helps us fall asleep. This is by far the hardest one to stick to for me. With the presence of our phones and laptops in life, it’s hard to stay away from blue light for two hours before bed. But if we do, we sleep better and have a better shot at getting ample REM and deep sleep that are key for learning and recovery.
Skip the late night snacks - Intermittent Fasting taught me about how much better I sleep when I don’t have food in my stomach that needs to digest. If we make our last intake at least three hours before going to bed, our heart rate lowers quicker and we get a sounder nights sleep.
Skip the alcohol - My Oura ring (best sleep tracking device ever!) has taught me what alcohol does to our sleep cycle. When we drink, our heart rate lowers later in the night, preventing us from getting enough Deep and REM sleep. We may feel like we fall asleep faster or even “pass out” but the sleep in this state is not restful.
Skip the snooze button, or the alarm altogether. I have always hated the alarm clock and the sleep that we get after we hit the snooze button isn’t quality sleep. Since college, I have left my curtains or shades slightly open so that the morning sunlight will come through and gently wake me. Only if there is a plane to catch at an ungodly hour do I set an alarm.
Deep health through Active Optimism is the answer to the uncertainty we are all feeling these days. We all leave an imprint, big or small, we make an impact on the people we connect with. Active Optimism is the way to make your impact positive. As the power structures in the world get more complicated and feel more broken to me everyday, embracing Active Optimism is a way to make your day, and the day of everyone around you, better. It’s a commitment to consistency, growth, and vulnerability about our story that over time will become second nature and create deep connection with the people we love and have the honor to do life with.
I’ll never forget the first time my parents came to Hermosa. It was the 4th of July 2006, they hadn’t seen our new house and had never spent any time in our new summer adventureland. They had just landed from a trip to Sweden, their first trip to Europe ever, and only had a couple of hours to spend before heading back to Fresno. Fourth of July was my second favorite holiday growing up, right behind Christmas. As a kid, it was all backyard bbq’s and block parties with popsicles and swimming pools but as we walked around Hermosa with them, it looked a lot different than any other fourth that I could remember. People were shoulder to shoulder, there was margarita wrestling on the beach, and of course the famous IronMan competition had just happened as we made our way slowly down the Strand. I found myself wishing that they had come through on a different day, because this scene was not what I had in pictured. For the years after that visit, when we stayed in Hermosa just for the summer before we moved here permanently, the fourth became something that I just wanted to get through. It put me on edge, and I didn’t feel safe having babies and little kids around. Could I have handled it, and even thought it was fun when I was in college? Sure, I get it, it’s just people out having a good time, but at this point in my life, I understand certain patterns that have had major effect on my life more clearly.
So many days of my life have been affected by alcohol and it’s overconsumption. It has been on my mind a lot through this graduation, quarantine, and holiday season. It can be a sensitive subject and sparks defensiveness, but our relationship with alcohol is important because it has had a generational impact on so many families. I am continually reminded as I listen to people how many of our family histories have this common, plaguing, denominator running through them and my story is no different. So often the choices we make affect not just ourselves, but create patterns and ripple effects for the people around us.
My guard was never up when I was younger because I grew up in a home where I never saw my parents drunk. There was a beer after work, or a glass of chardonnay that I saw them have here or there when I was young. As I got older I knew there was vodka in the freezer, but I still never saw the effects of overconsumption in my childhood home. As I grew older, I found out that my dad’s story growing up was different, but thankfully, he both didn’t have the gene, and chose to not let alcohol have that effect on our home. In high school I didn’t drink because, inherently, I’m not a big risk taker so that tended to keep me on the safe side in my teens. It wasn’t until I got to college and had a few of my own crazy nights that I felt the first effects of what alcohol can cause. After a few drinks I had a carefree lack of inhibition that, for a shy kid like me, was totally new and inviting at first. Soon, I realized that as entertaining as a few of those nights were, dancing to Itchy McGuirk in downtown SLO, that if I drank too much, I’d wake up with this guilty feeling sitting in my gurgling stomach. It bothered me more than the hangover, which was also no fun.
We are all human and we make mistakes, I’ve made plenty, in this arena and many others, but learning how to evolve when we do is where the beauty and growth in life lies. One of the curses of alcoholism is the defensiveness that arises from feeling judged. I don’t tell this story because I want to be right, I tell it because I want to be free…and free further generations of the people I love because they understand the effect that alcohol has had on their life story.
There is a quality (and a stage of brain development) that comes with being young and feeling invincible. We don’t have the ability yet to accurately see the risks involved in our actions, it’s part of what makes those years so magical. That’s why the job of parenting is so hard. I have the memory of what it feels like to be them, but the wisdom of my age to know it’s my job to guide them. As a healing adult, I know that shame and guilt are no way to inspire health and freedom in our lifestyles. It’s a vicious cycle, we feel shame and guilt so we drink to numb it, and the drinking creates more shame and guilt. The pattern repeats over and over, taking down authentic relationships in its wake.
Over the years since college, I have had many more encounters with alcohol. For me, it’s something that has never had it’s hooks in my neurochemistry, but I have felt the pull socially or when the mommy wine hours would come in the evening when my kids were little to take the edge off. When they were younger, so much energy went into shielding them from overindulgent situations that were part of the social landscape. It’s a slippery slope because it wasn’t everytime that alcohol was a part of an evening that it became a problem. The trouble was that I never knew when the occasion was going to cross that dangerous line and it left me with an always nervous, walking on eggshells, kind of feeling that made every outing or social engagement less fun. From my kids perspective, I always wanted them to feel safe and connected to me whether we were out or at home, the way I felt in my home as a child. But now they don’t know the real ways their lives had the imprint of alcohol on them before they ever had a drink. Now that I have teenagers, transparency is important to try to break the cycle.
I’ve come to terms with the, “been there, done that, so I don’t judge” mentality. I was them, and I remember and I want them to be able to not feel shamed, but learn from their choices.
But now it's my turn to be sober to handle the choices and experiences that come with raising teenagers with not yet fully developed prefrontal cortexes. Bottom line, I want to be the example of where they are going, while understanding where they are now, and it’s a very fine line. My experience has been that teenagers, in most cases, will take what you say is ok and push past it a little more: it’s in their nature. So it’s on me to set wise boundaries.
I still drink on certain occasions and I’ve been drunk many times in my life, but its been awhile, and I don’t miss it. As I get older, alcohol has moved off the front shelf and the beers in my fridge expire because I am on a quest for a healthy mind, body, and spirit, and excess drinking takes away from that goal. Along the way, I have met beautiful humans who help me see the strength of my story, like Kaitlin Delaney who I met after a yoga workshop, through divine intervention, walking up Pier Avenue. As we walked and talked, I was taken by her sober curious point of view and the glow she had as she talked about how she stopped drinking after she had three little ones.
Kaitlin told me about the stress of being a mother of a four, two, and one year old (boy do I remember) and that, despite getting sucked into the mommy wine culture and taking the edge off with a couple glasses of ‘mom juice’, she had recently realized alcohol no longer served her life in a positive way. She called herself a gray area drinker, which she explained was someone who never had to hit rock bottom to realize alcohol was having a negative impact on her life. She tried drinking on celebrations and realized she felt better when she completely abstained. You can find more of her story on Instagram @mamasayyesto.
Life has proven to me that we learn the most and are motivated to change from painful experiences. Alcohol has taken its toll on my birth family and the family that I belonged to for 20 years when I was married. Its presence in excess is usually a symptom of the deeper rooted pain of brokenness, unworthiness, abandonment, fear, social anxiety, and struggles that we encounter throughout our life and are embedded in our nervous systems. It’s ironic because we rely on it to bring calm to our lives, but that calming effect is artificial.
Alcohol doesn’t process pain, it numbs it, and then creates more.
We drink for many reasons, sometimes to take the edge off a long day, sometimes due to social anxiety or pressure to make a situation feel easier to navigate, but as life moves along, I can’t help but notice the number of middle-aged adults who quit altogether to save a relationship…whether the one they have with themselves or with loved ones. It’s a brave choice that helps us uncover the layers of who we really are by allowing us to feel our feelings. Sobriety is not meant to be white-knuckled, it must be a deep dive into self-awareness to take hold to reap the benefits of real clarity, calm, and deep health. Optimism for what life has to offer lies on the other side of that hangover. It may be baby steps, but it’s never too late, and each of our stories is best told with a clear mind and heart. There is no judgment in the path forward, but there is a clear path to deep health. When we truly know and understand our value and the power we have in this world to create connection, we have the courage to express ourselves without a drink in our hand. Life is better when our eyes are clear, we just have to get to the other side to realize it.
I had a different blog with a topic close to my heart ready to go this week but it turns out that one has to wait for next week. If there is anything that the last four months has taught us its that things can change drastically in an instant and that we have to dig a little deeper to find our optimism on certain days. Corona virus has turned political and I hate that. The effects of being digital and virtual for months on end seems to have made us quicker to react and judge through the portals of social media and even on the street. We are human and our desire for connection hasn’t changed, but our circumstances have. Our healthy outlets like sport and community have been altered or entirely cut off…more and more we’ll do anything for a sense of normalcy, even hot yoga wearing a mask and rubber gloves. Breath, movement, and the ability to stay present are at the heart of our success every day and are also the things that keep us from going down the road of having a few too many drinks or eating our weight in ice cream… which is why the last and largest blow that COVID-19 took left me speechless for a day.
Over and over again sports have trained our toughness, our discipline, and provided motivation and identity to countless athletes at every level of their game. As difficult as they feel in the moment, the 5am wake up calls, the three hour practices on countless nights, and the tenacity it takes to perform at the highest levels consistently, no matter what the other struggles at the time may have been, have been a force in our house and a building block on the path to a successful life. On Tuesday, a year to the day that Luke’s team won the 17 Open National Championship, Stanford University announced that they would cut their men’s volleyball program, along with 10 other sports. There was no warning that this was in the works, Luke committed just one year ago to the school of his dreams where he has been attending games since he was nine years old. Before he had even touched a volleyball, he raced his sister around the track by the field house and went to swim camp, coming home exhausted on both occasions but with the dream set before it had the chance to become an actual goal. He did the tailgate scene at the football games, and even threw a football with Jim Harbaugh’s wife. I say all this because it shows how institutions as great as Stanford build connections and dreams from an early age and set the determined course of action in young hearts. Even in the times we are facing, it was impossible to see this coming from a school that has never cut an athletic program in its long and storied history. The talk about the endowment, $28 billion and climbing, falls on deaf ears as it isn’t earmarked for athletics. Given the size of it, it’s mind-blowing. Tuesday was a day that we just had to sit with it, there was no looking for silver linings, no this too shall pass sentiment to get past it more quickly. Sometimes things need to be acknowledged and felt for the awfulness that they are, and this is one of them.
But not even two days later as I write this, the question is where do we go from here? Although my heart continues to break for him, the feeling of calm that has come over me in the last 24 hours comes from my faith that the path that is right for Luke will present itself. No one can take away the skills that he has learned, both technical to his sport and, even more importantly, the intangibles of discipline, leadership, organization, and so many more that this amazing sport has taught him through his hard work. But the bigger implications for what a cut like this one means to the sport of mens volleyball are severe. When a place like Stanford drops it’s program, who is next? Who feeds our National Team and the Olympic spirit that has taken a hit during this pandemic as well. After being a part of watching players at the highest levels of club develop over the last eight years, and even opening a business to continue to be around the inspiring nature of the developing athlete and the role I know student/athletes play in shaping an optimistic future, it doesn’t feel right not to look for the avenue to change this decision. We all have a path to greatness, and for the men in the Stanford program, volleyball has been an integral part to theirs that will carry far beyond the court and create the compassionate leaders that the world needs more than ever today. Men’s volleyball at Stanford needs to find a way to fund its own endowment, and it even needs to be big enough to fund a women’s sport too due to Title IX requirements. It’s an uphill battle, but nothing unites people more than pain and purpose and we have both of those in abundance here. There is also nothing like fighting for what you believe in to the end, but knowing that no matter what you will land on your feet, because of faith and the human you have trained to be. That is undoubtably the case with this amazing program. The universal truths are being called upon to find the answers in these darkened days…as always, it’s not what happens to us but how we chose to respond. I’m not asking this on behalf of just my own son, but for the men who have worked their entire lives to earn their place at this incredible institution of higher learning. They are not just students, they are athletes, it’s part of their identity and what has created their story and, after all they have put in, it should not be taken away from them.
I’ve heard it said many times and have experienced the feeling first hand, time is something you can’t get back. My follow up to that sentiment is, well then, we’d better enjoy how our time is spent. That may make you picture laying poolside in Mexico while a tall dark and handsome man brings you drinks, and while I’ve had that experience and it can be nice, its reward is fleeting. Ultimately laying around loses is luster and the human spirit ends up craving more, if we choose to answer the call, we find ourselves on a path to understanding our purpose. We long to know why we are here and how best to use our talents. The happiest among us figure that out and sink deep into our mission. As I have experienced in the last couple of years especially, when it became apparent to me that my mission extended past my own dinner table, there are inherent risks to walking your own path. Striking out on the path to our purpose is incredibly lonely. We have to learn to trust our own gut and befriend our inner critic. In so many instances, we have to teach ourselves not to compare ourselves to others or care too much about what the masses think.
Over the past few months, my time has been spent preparing for the next step on my path for my purpose, and although I’m still writing everyday, opening a facility that not only trains sport, but trains the entire game of life, has taken a lot of my time and focus! Man there are a lot of details. But this is a place where we are building something special. I can take the conversations from the pool deck and the gyms that I have had over the years that have turned into a coaching business and have a physical space (it’s beautiful by the way!) to make greater impact on athletes and parents alike. I’m so excited about the opportunity that I have to bring Optimism & Resilience training to help us navigate the inevitable challenges of life - and boy to they seem to be varied and many these days - to find flow in our lives. The beauty of optimism though is that in our hearts, we believe that we have the power to make the next moment better, and with that belief, find the energy to work hard to make that optimistic ideal a reality.
It’s not lost on me that learning to trust my own gut, means making sure that my actual gut is healing. Did you know that your gut is considered your second brain? It is sensitive to our emotions and passes information on to our brain through our enteric nervous system. In short, when we improve our gut, we improve our entire well being. My journey to nutrition follows me from my grandmother, she was always cutting out the latest article on what vegetable was found to fight cancer or preaching the value of not eating too much sugar. When I had Matthew, and began to learn about how our gut influences our brain, and saw the benefit to his system when I cleaned up his diet with the help of his doctor and greater mental clarity was the result, I became more curious and have been learning ever sense. This podcast lead me from practical life nutrition training to getting my Precision Nutrition Coaching Certification that will help me help others not just look, but feel better. What we put in our bodies, and our relationship with food matters to more than just our looks or our waistline, it matters to our brain. Some of us seem to be more resilient than others, or have a bit more of a toleration for a less ideal diet, but all of us will reap the benefits of deep health the more we turn to nutrient dense whole foods and also lock in on the power of our habits and choices to help us feel our best. In essence, nutritional choices are no different than life choices, when we understand our why behind them and the impact that small habits can make, we undergo a powerful shift that effects our entire life. If you aren’t feeling your best, or this sounds interesting to you, let me help.
Our time and our energy are precious commodities. As younger athletes, we learn through sport how to balance and allocate our time as to get better on and off the court. As life goes on, my goal is to build efficiency in my own life by training my body and mind to be able to pull off adult life and still have time to play the games I loved as a kid. It’s a work in progress, and it’s happening. Lock in on what you want out of your day and make it happen…it’s feels like a risk at times, but I’ll take purpose over pleasure any day of the week.
Since I was so young, I always come back to the water…whether physically or metaphorically, when things start to get crazy. Yes, I’ve watched the new 30 for 30 on Bruce Lee, Be Water, and when I visualize to down regulate an over active mind, I picture myself floating on my back, sun on my face, with the ebb and flow of the current underneath me. It calms me, I never sink. I’ve talked about the VIA Character Strength test before as a means to understand ourselves better through the lens of positive psychology, but I learned about another trustworthy measure called the High 5 Test in a course I have taken called Zero To Dangerous from The Flow Research Collective. I gravitate toward these tests because they are simple, scientifically validated ways, to get to know ourselves better. Part of healing, finding our purpose, and reaching our highest potential lies in our ability to understand ourselves, our tendencies, and why we do the things we do. Not everyone is on this path, but chances are if you read my blog, it’s something that you are interested in for yourself. It’s a journey that is never complete and is always available to us if we make the choice to ask the bigger questions about our lives…the ones that help us discover our unique why.
The High 5 Test is made up of 100 questions that you answer on a sliding scale. When you go with your gut instinct and don’t overthink it, (which is how you are supposed to take the quiz) it takes about 10 mins. When I took it, the results definitely resonated with the way I understand myself. Although the learning is never done, the insights from this quiz align beautifully with the path that I have worked to create for myself throughout my life and with even greater intensity over the last couple of years. I’m confident that it will bring continued satisfaction and growth for me, and a ripple effect of improvement for the lives of people around me because the vision for my day and the way I spend my time is in alignment with my values and the person that I am. In that pocket there is infinite room to work from our strengths and grow.
My High 5 results revealed no surprises for me:
EMPATHIZER
COACH
OPTIMIST
STORYTELLER
THINKER
There is scientific evidence that says we are able to maximize flow state in our lives with our top 5 strengths are in play and I feel this each day right now as I write and coach myself and others to use optimism as the energy to become their best. As an EMPATHIZER, it is natural for me to feel into another persons experience in their life, and I love the way it connects us as humans and to my work. As a COACH, I have created amazing bonds and seek out other coaches to learn from and continue to be inspired by the talent and heart that blankets this profession. At my core, I am an OPTIMIST, it’s a quality that carries on the best days and buoys my spirits through life’s challenges. My blog is the place where my STORYTELLER nature is recorded and even before that began, stories have been the predominant way I teach the lessons of life to my kids. Lastly, I stand back and laugh a little on the THINKER perspective because boy have I had to learn how to handle this one. I believe that my passion for music kicked in at an early age because before I had a mindfulness practice, it was the only thing that slowed down my philosophizing brain. But in the end, the reason this description sits so calmly in my soul is because of the way it aligns with the way I spend my days and my newest business venture.
A lot of time, risk, and effort has gone into the planning and launch of Championship Performance Advantage, our new sports, physicality, and mentality training facility just off the 405 in Lawndale, CA. But when I see how perfectly it intersects with my “game of life” philosophy and my strengths, I get really excited and understand why I feel so deeply about the mission that my partners and I believe in…to help others who are on the path to greatness, (which is everyone who recognizes the power of their choice) become their best. It’s a place where I can use my strengths to connect with clients, through optimism & resilience coaching to help reframe life’s challenges to become opportunities in our lives, nutrition coaching to take care of our second brain (our gut), or yoga, mediation, and breath work to calm our monkey minds and overtaxed nervous systems. All of these offerings help maximize both my own potential, and that of my clients, which is a pretty amazing way to get to spend the day. I hope you will come visit us. We have countless offerings both on and off the court to strengthen your sport, physicality, and mentality for the best life.
Ask yourself today where your true strengths lie, take the High 5 Test, and let’s get to work aligning vision and values to create the biggest and best life that makes the positive impact the world needs today and always. If something is standing in your way, let me know if I can help you. The vision for our lives is as big as we say it is and are willing to work for. By asking ourselves the right questions, we inspire ourselves and each other to greatness…and that’s when we become unsinkable.
When I was about thirty, I sat on a patio chatting with friends who were older than me. I had a hard time connecting with their ominous warning:
“Just wait until you turn 40…then all the sh#t hits the fan.”
I remember thinking that I didn’t understand, it was so hard to put myself anywhere but with kids in carseats, and my parents seemed like they were closer to 40 than I was. Now, here I sit, halfway through that very decade I couldn’t imagine, and I understand exactly what they meant. What that conversation didn’t include though, was the follow up question that is required for anyone who looks for the best in life:
“What are you going to do about it?”
I took my optimists lens for granted until it felt like one of the few things I could take with me as I began a reinvention at midlife. It was something that was at the heart of my being, it gave me the energy to push and believe that I could always turn a challenge into a choice to learn something and make a better day. As most of us have experienced, this stay at home pause has inspired organization and a file clean out at home, and for me, that led to revisiting old memories. As I pulled out the file with my Agribusiness degree from Cal Poly SLO and articles and letters to the editor from California Farmer and The Fresno Bee on water use in California and agricultural history, my mind wandered briefly to that place that raises a question that used to really bother me…why do things in my life not relate? Why do I have these distinct paths that seem to disconnect mid run? The great thing about a mindfulness practice though is that we learn to observe our thoughts without sinking into them. So, I observe, and the message I need to hear rises to the surface. Everything I learned with my undergrad degree is connected, I just realized that my strengths are better used growing people than plants. As I listened to a lesson from a course on Flow I have been taking with the FLOW RESEARCH COLLECTIVE about working from your strengths, I remembered a lesson from a soil scientist I used to work with. His theory on productivity was the same for growing healthy plants…if we worked to improve the nutrients that had the least deficiency, the plant would thrive more quickly, and then the lesser elements would catch up after that. In short, we worked from the soil strengths. The same theory applies to growing humans…our goals and path in life are better served when we work from our strengths and there is nowhere I feel stronger than when I’m connecting my mind, body, and spirit. There are no decisions in life that are wasted when we use them to create angles for future growth. No matter what point we are in life, even when our routines and obligations feel set, when we are mindful and listen to our intuition, our strengths and our path emerges. When we do the work, we find the place where our vision and values intersect and energy is endless.
Lauren and I were having one of our deep but funny nighttime conversations this past week about whether I would live by myself forever. It wasn’t morbid, there is so much I like about having my own space and independence, but nighttime conversation, someone to break down the day with, is something that will poke at that lonely feeling, and I was being transparent with her about that. It’s ok she says, you can come live with me and we’ll drink coffee and talk and solve the world’s problems. While my heart couldn’t swell any bigger to have this relationship with my first born human (I can’t believe that she’s almost 20!), we laughed because she knows I’m not ready to cash in my chips just yet. The midlife crisis gets a rightfully bad wrap…but the midlife reinvention can do a lot of good in this world, and that’s exactly what I’m aiming for.
There are so many things I have learned to make a midlife reinvention possible, from healthy stress management, to coping with the loneliness that comes when you turn over a new leaf, to wrestling with our inner critic, and the importance of consistent habits that include proper rest and recovery. But what I firmly believe today, is that the essence of success in this process lies with my ability to be present…because with the many choices that I encounter every day, balance always evades me. My goal every week is to set aside time to strategize, then execute and maintain presence with whatever task is in front of me, without letting my mind race ahead to what’s next…a sure bet to invite in overwhelm and anxiety. As I learn more about human biology and the way our brains work, I learn to use stress to sharpen my edge, and breath to bring calm so I can focus.
I”m so excited to show you how my reinvention has taken on a new physical space this week with my latest business endeavor. Championship Performance Advantage is a sports, physicality, and mentality training facility…a place for me to spread the message of optimism and resilience through movement, consciousness, and recovery. It is never too late to become your best. In short, this place is a game changer. Over my lifetime, sports have allowed me to build strength and relationships that are a central part of who I am today. Whether the breath to movement of yoga, racing to the wall with Masters Swimming, or meeting my friends on the beach every week to get at least six volleyball games in, there has been no greater teacher for my brain or biology and no better place to build strong, healthy relationships. I’ve used the principles that I’ve learned from these places to raise kids, and now am excited to kick off this chapter with a new business for any age human looking to find their best. If you live in Southern California, or even if you are just passing through, come check us out because we are doing something special here. We’ve got something for everyone who wants to do the work. Whether it’s invention or reinvention, come see us, because there is new opportunity with every sunrise.
So many things on my mind these days, which is pretty normal. The reminder that we are standing on the edge of regular life happened for me this morning. I’d been up since 5:30, my favorite time of day is when the sun is just over the horizon. Anyone who knows me understands that it’s the time when my optimism is at it’s peak. I had already done a meeting, a drop off, a dog walk, and was sitting down to write when the text came in
“Are you close?”
I was supposed to be on the beach playing volleyball, which I would never knowingly skip! For a moment, the overwhelm crept in. Life is coming back, and after days of quiet and ample time to think, the demands of regular life are calling. I knew I was enjoying the quiet and the extra time to think, talk, and write at a slower pace. As much as I want the world to be healthy and the economy to churn and have us all back to work, feeling our sense of purpose, if I’m honest, there are things I’m not looking forward to…like traffic and more options to choose from than there is time. But the time spent at home has helped me organize, not just my files and home, but my mind. It has made me focus on intentional choices, like what I want in my day, by way of conversation and experience. While we all have obligations that we must honor as we get going again, I have made a pact with myself to do what matters and not let the busyness of life take away the meaningful interactions in my day. How can we pinpoint our actions to honor our own uniqueness? Or are we just going to get back on the hamster wheel and start running again?
I’ve never been one for small talk, I want my time and effort going into things that deeply matter to me and to the world. Over the past few weeks, as a country, we have been asked to experience the deep questions that race in America brings to all of us. For people from my vantage point…white, suburban, given the gift of safety and belonging in society generation after generation, who have had the ability to be underexposed to the real nature of the experience of being black in America, my mindset has been that it our turn to listen. We can actively seek out content, there are so many good reads and podcasts out there for us to broaden our lens, but in the end, we have to hone the ability to be masterful listeners. Not to probe for answers in someone’s experience that may be an open wound, but rather patiently hold space and see what experiences are offered up and entrusted to us. Then figure out how to respond with empathy. For us to be able to access that empathy, we need to be able to think and experience from a place of calm, rather than being activated by shame or our own ignorance. We have to have the ability to look honestly at ourselves and the struggles in our own lives to access the ability to understand what another human is going through. We have to be able to realize if we are triggered, breath through it, not react, and continue to listen. If we are hardened to our own experience, we will be hardened to the experience of all humanity. If we can muster the humility to not need to be right to calm our own nerves, then maybe this time we can make real lasting change. Let’s not wait this one out, go back to “normal”, and wait for the next thing to spark outrage, let’s build bridges.
The truth is I’ve used this unprecedented pause in life to start something that is aligned with my values and close to my heart. Lots of thought, intention, and work has gone into creating a new business…by next week you will all hear about it. It combines my passion for sports and the game of life mentality that grows healthy human systems and families and I’m filled with optimism for what it will bring to the community. It’s for anyone who wants to get better everyday, whether in sports or in life. I can’t wait to share it all with you…stay tuned. We’re almost there!
Don’t Blink…it’s one of my favorite songs that, right now, I can’t listen to without crying. I learned when Lauren graduated last year, it’s what graduations do to you. Suddenly the little faces that you hadn’t thought of in so long pop into your head every other minute. You see them in their Halloween costume from when they were four, or relive the first time they scored a goal or served a ball over the net, almost nightly, for those months leading up to graduation day. Every conversation with a parent who has been through this comes flooding back to your head because somehow you thought you would never be them, and yet here you are. It’s a time for new beginnings…again.
Twenty eight years ago today I graduated from high school, and I still remember the feeling of freedom that ran through my veins after the ceremony. Everything ahead was so bright. Looking back now, it was easy to take for granted what it looked and felt like, young and energetic with the world by the tail. There have been so many amazing days since then, but as we all know and have seen so clearly over the past few months, no life comes without its share of challenge. There is no way to make sense of what this graduation season has been like for the Class of 2020. Since Luke walked off campus on March 12, the day his team’s home gym rivalry match was cancelled, so many rites of passage have been altered in the name of health and safety. Who ever would have thought they would not go back to school, not get to finish their volleyball season, not have a school prom, grad night, or a live graduation ceremony? No one ever sees change like this coming, and yet they rolled with it. I have cried for these graduates as there is nothing about them that didn’t ‘deserve’ to experience these American traditions, but so many storylines in life take unexpected turns, and the silver lining of these unprecedented times is that they have already proven themselves ready and able to adapt. There is something greater and stronger about them because of what they have been through at this transition in their lives.
With the importance and weight of the stories challenging our country, the homily at Friday’s Baccalauereate Mass reminded me to be grateful for the Jesuit education Luke received. They have such a beautiful way of seeing the space between discipline and compassion, between ethics, grace, mercy and our human imperfection. The world needs this so much right now. It’s been hard to speak up this last week, because it is a privilege to get to talk and write about the things that I do. Self actualization as a psychological concept is at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs…the fact that I can write this blog and talk with my kids and connections on these topics means that so many foundational needs have been fulfilled in my life. And every part of me wishes that this was the starting line for everyone. Even with life’s struggles, my mind can easily wander off to a place of guilt for the position I wake up in everyday. This same concept that I have spent so much time thinking about over the last week came up in Fr. Goethals speech at the graduation ceremony this morning. Life is a journey not to just self actualization but to get to take the next step and play an active and positive role in the lives of others. We can only do this when we know and understand ourselves and what we can contribute to the world. Loyola aimed to do both of these things for Luke and the other graduates and my greatest hope is that they will carry these principles with them as they head out into the world.
Class of 2020, as you saw by the teachers and staff lining the parade route for you today with so much enthusiasm, you will forever hold a special place in our hearts for the way you took the challenges that came your way in stride. You made the best of it, leaned on your faith, family, and friends and managed to find the silver linings at every turn. These are the skills that will make life great. And I have no complaints about Family Prom and the extra time around the dinner table that was a result of the stay at home order either;)
Father Goethals said it best last night:
“When I gave up my notions of what would be perfect, it all fell into place.”
When we let go of perfection and take direct aim at progress, we can’t fail, and end up elevating not only our own lives, but the lives of those around us. Turn toward the light. Be the ripple effect. Build the bridge. Not everyone with agree with you, but you are wise because you have been taught to question, and strong enough to handle dissent with humility and intelligence because of the confidence that comes with the education you have received. Use it for good, the world needs you now more than ever.
As Fr. Goethals said in yet another memorable quote last night:
“Your reach is greater than you imagine it to be.”
Go out, listen, and lead with a humble heart. Congratulations Class of 2020! You are equipped to do amazing things because through our struggles, our true strengths revealed.
