This week, I want to talk about affirmations, not as wishful thinking but as a way to deliberately choose some of the lines that go into your draft. I think affirmations get a bad rap. We picture ourselves staring into a mirror and repeating some generic line like, "you are powerful" or even worse, "you are beautiful." It seems so silly and uncomfortable. And sometimes it feels so far from the truth that it makes us feel worse than when we started. Here's what the research sa

This week, there was a fire in my apartment building. Everyone is okay, and I want to say that first. The fire was small, one floor up and one apartment over. But when the alarms went off, none of us knew that yet. I grabbed my dog's leash and headed outside, and that's where we stayed for two and a half hours. If you've ever stood outside your own home with no idea what's happening inside it, you know the strange kind of waiting I mean. There was nothing to do. Nothing to fi

If you've been with me awhile, you know that when we evaluate our year, one of my "buckets" is play. Since my birthday was last week, I am working on my yearly assessment now in preparation of our retreat in December. I was stuck recently on play. Do I play? What do I do just for the joy of it? I think I'm fairly boring. I go for walks, but I have to walk my dog, and I like to move my body for my health; I read A LOT. But reading is also sometimes for self-improvement. I thin

Mornings. If you would have asked me ten or even two years ago if I would love morning, I would have emphatically told you "No!" I would snooze my alarm numerous times, actually setting it at least 30 minutes before I absolutely had to be out of bed. Sleep was paramount to everything. After it was inevitable that I had to emerge from my cozy cave, I then had to rush around, getting myself and my son ready for the day. Sometimes I would have time to make a quick coffee in a to

It' my birthday this week. Thursday to be exact. There seem to be two camps of people when it comes to their birthdays. One type tends to ignore it for whatever reason (although I truly wonder if they actually do), the other wants all the celebration and stretches it out to include their entire birthday week and birthday month. I'm solidly in camp two. I have always loved my birthday. Words of affirmation and gift-giving are my love languages, and they are both wrapped into b

I have been sitting with a reframe for quite some time. Some of you may have heard me talk about it. My life circumstances have been such that I am approaching our year-end planning just a bit differently this year. You see, every January I start all excited for my year. I do the work. I cast the vision, I plan the habits, I set the goals. But then something happens. A plot twist happens at some point in the next few months, and I have to completely regroup. Do I throw it all

Today's email inspiration came from . . . surprise, surprise . . . Taylor Swift. In her song The Black Dog, she says "old habits die screaming." That's been bouncing around in my head this week so I wanted to share my thoughts. As you all know, I am behavior and habit obsessed. For more than twenty years I have studied and bought into the notion that it's simple to create new habits and get rid of bad habits. Behavior change is science. It makes total sense to me. Cue - Cravi

Our move to Virginia was not a simple, one-step process. It was almost a full year of limbo, of in-between. My husband had moved to start his new job in August and we listed our home for sale in September. I was prepared to move when the house sold . . . but it didn't. It was months of keeping the house "ready" for a showing. It was months of going to my job that I knew would end. It was months of my son going to school and activities, not knowing when it would be his last sw

I can vividly remember following my cancer surgery, laying in the intensive care unit at the hospital, all alone at night, just thinking that I wanted my life back. I wanted things to go "back to normal." I couldn't wait until I wasn't a cancer patient anymore. Going back even further, I remember when I had my son, wondering when things would feel "normal" again. Ha! Our life before we had him was great and I didn't want it to change. I just wanted to simply add him to the mi

How much time do you spend thinking about things that you don't actually know? You worry about how someone might react. You obsess over what someone might say. You project an event in your mind that might never happen. We treat imagined situations like they are already true. We think we know what others are thinking, and we spend so much of our time imagining how we might react to their words or actions (that may or may not ever happen). Does this sound familiar? I know I hav

I've been in a long season of revision. Basically, right now is a culmination of several years of transition coming to a close. You know when people announce on social media that they are now "Ashley 2.0"? Yeah, I feel like Candice 4.0 at this point. So it seems like a good time for my business to evolve just a bit. Not a new business, or a radical change, but an edited version. Even though sometimes it may feel like it, you're never really starting from a blank page. Sure, s

Why can't I just do the thing? Whether it's a new exercise program, waking up early, weekly meal planning, taking vitamins . . . you get the idea. Starting a new habit is just hard! Even if we know it's good for us. Even if we know we will feel great when we complete it. Even if we go to bed the night before, setting the early alarm with the intention of waking up to start our miracle morning. I have a few theories as to why it's so hard to start a new habit. Our nervous syst

I know, I know, it's only mid-July. But with how fast this summer seems to be flying by, I'm starting to become wistful for Fall. While I do enjoy the long, hot days of summer - the lounging by the ocean with a good book, the walks in the morning before it gets too hot - I really, really love Fall. OK, so I'm done waxing poetic about the autumnal season. What I really want to share about today is my love of Gilmore Girls. Fall and Gilmore Girls just go together (if you know,

Have you ever found yourself experiencing seemingly conflicting emotions? When they seem to fluctuate several times throughout the day. It can be confusing at times. It makes you question how you really feel. But I have come to realize this . . . Two things can be true. Especially during particularly emotional times like transitions, we naturally feel a wide range of emotions and think any number of seemingly opposite thoughts about our situation. Because we are in between. S

I've been experiencing a lot of seemingly conflicting emotions lately. They seem to fluctuate several times throughout the day. It can be confusing at times. It makes me question how I really feel. But now more than ever, I have come to realize that this . . . Two things can be true. Especially during particularly emotional times like transitions, we naturally feel a wide range of emotions and think any number of seemingly opposite thoughts about our situation. Because we are

What is your tolerance for uncertainty? I recently read something that stopped me cold—your level of anxiety is directly related to your ability to handle uncertainty. To sit with the unknown. That landed hard. Because if I'm honest, I've spent a good chunk of my life trying to outthink the future. Planning for every scenario. Trying to feel ready before I took the leap. But here's what I've learned: the certainty we're waiting for rarely shows up. And while we're waiting, li

I come across a lot of confusion about optimism. We've been taught that optimism means looking on the bright side. Finding the silver lining. Believing that everything happens for a reason. Insisting that "it'll all work out." But that's not the kind of optimism I believe in. Some things are simply awful. We all experience seasons of grief, disappointment, heartbreak, illness, uncertainty, and loss. There are moments that knock the wind out of us. Moments we would never choos

There is something about summer that awakens a different part of us. The smell of sunscreen. Fireflies blinking in the dusk. Ice cream dripping down your hand. Staying outside a little longer because the sun hasn't set yet. Music with the windows down. Fresh peaches from the farmer's market. Reading on the porch while the laundry waits. As children, summer often represented freedom. Play. Possibility. A break from routine. As adults, many of us lose that. We become experts at

Hello friends, Have you noticed that June feels different? The days are longer. The weather is warmer. Vacations start appearing on the calendar. Kids are home from school. Routines become a little less routine. Even if your schedule hasn't changed much, there's often a shift in energy this time of year. And yet many of us are still carrying expectations from January. We want to stay productive. We want to make progress on our goals. We want to keep moving forward. At the sam

Happy almost June. Remember way back in January (that somehow simultaneously feels like yesterday and ten years ago!) when we set our 2026 goals? On Monday, we'll turn the page to a new month and, somehow, find ourselves nearly halfway through 2026. Back in January, many of us sat down together and created goals, intentions, and plans for the year ahead. We thought about what we wanted to build, change, pursue, and become. We mapped out our next draft. So here we are at almos

I have to start with an apology. Last week, I missed you. Life was life-ing, as it does, and I've been living inside a stretch of constant unfamiliarity. That takes something out of you. When everything around you is new, your brain doesn't get to coast. It runs diagnostics all day long. There is no normal setting right now for me, so I am creating little spaces of time that feel comfortable. If you've been feeling it too—the foggy thinking, the shorter fuse, the blank page t

I was at an amazing networking meeting a couple weeks ago, The speaker (a career coach) shared a concept that really resonated with me and I wanted to share it with you. It was called the Johari Window. Imagine it on a grid like this: The OPEN WINDOW Things known by both you and others. This is your visible self. The things you openly share or consistently show. Maybe you know you’re organized. People know you’re organized. You know you’re funny. Other people know you’re funn

Imagine you're faced with a decision, or you're putting yourself out there in a new situation, or you're worried about your performance, or you're in a relationship, or you have a new ache/pain/illness - you get the idea. Does your mind immediately jump to the "what ifs"? What if I make the wrong choice? What if they hate it? What if they take it the wrong way? What if I fall flat on my face? What if something is seriously wrong with me? It's so easy to get stuck in the worst

Not all guilt is created equally. With my close family and friends, I’m a fixer. A peacemaker. I want everyone and everything to be OK at all times. For a long time, I’ve felt like it was my responsibility to make others happy—and when they weren’t, I felt it in my body. A kind of visceral uneasiness, like something is off and it must be my fault. So, I’d look for how to fix it. How to smooth it over. How to put the smile back on their face . . . even if it meant changing mys