Making Concessions: Covid While 40 Weeks Pregnant

Posted on by Christina Noel Mitchell
toilet paper

I am rarely surprised or frightened by the world around me. When COVID-19 first came out and I kept hearing people worry about it, I kept becoming annoyed by it all and saying, “Yeah yeah yeah. Relax people. Why aren’t we worried about the common flu that kills between 12,000 and 61,000 people every year just in the US? Or heart disease, which kills 650,000 people in the US every year? Or car accidents that kill 35,000 people every year in the US?” I kept saying, “this is a media-driven panic, goddamnit! Turn off your TV!” I heard a very […]

A New Kind of Revolution: The Politics of Listening

Posted on by Paige Webster
politics of listening

This may not be a popular opinion. I’m writing it anyway because my own integrity requires it. First, I do not like what I see and hear on the news about what is happening in our country. In fact, I became so disempowered by the news that I opted out about 18 months ago. I just stopped paying attention and figured if there was something I needed to know, I’d hear about it eventually. This chafes my mother to no end. I’m not saying this was a good approach nor am I advocating you follow it. I’m just saying it’s […]

Six Things You Can Do Right Now to Move Toward Finding Your Soulmate

Posted on by Marissa Johnson
ferriswheeldate

In 2013, I decided to make some significant changes in my life.  I was divorced, working in administrative assistant level positions, doodling on the sides of my notebooks, and wondering where my ambition and passion had gone. What was I doing?! What did I really want in my one, beautiful life? Luckily I had some great friends on the same journey. Asking themselves the same questions. One of those friends was Heidi Busche Jasmond. Heidi was two steps ahead in her journey of self-discovery and finding love. I got to watch her do the work that has now become her […]

Running Toward Me

Posted on by Michael Anthony
8. Les Preuves Fatiguent La Veritéjpg

The day that I left Indiana I had to pull over to the side of the road after passing the Illinois border to cry. I couldn’t contain myself and didn’t want to swerve into the median or off into the corn. I finally did it. I always wanted to leave Indianapolis, and for years I put it off. I was so afraid of what the possibility of self-actualization might look like that I was paralyzed. Until that moment I had never been overwhelmed with happiness and I was moved to tears, both unexpected surprises. The day that I landed in […]

We Are All Entrepreneurs: Being the CEO of You, Inc.

Posted on by Ciara Pressler
parker-amstutz-701794-unsplash

In today’s culture, entrepreneurship is glorified. But for all the wrong reasons. We elevate founders – well, the conventionally successful ones – to heights previously reserved only for rock bands and movie stars. Success, the ultimate American value, is exemplified by the narrative of the solo dreamer who had an idea and then through grit, determination, and deserved good fortune, achieved fame and material wealth within his lifetime. Of course, this story is a fabrication. No one achieves success alone. The road from idea to IPO is never a straight, ascending line. And the original seed was usually planted in […]

At the Corner of Wisdom and Love

Posted on by Christina Noel Mitchell
PURE, 2018 Mixed media installation of washing machine, mirror, globe lights, mallet, plaster Ivory soaps Dimensions variable

I find myself, thirty-nine years old, at the self-help book stage of my life. It dawned on me about two years ago (and progressively became more clear as time went by) that I knew next to nothing of value to me. Give me a hammer and I’d build you a fence, give me a piano and I’d play you a song, show me a sentence and I’d diagram it, but ask me a couple years ago to articulate my needs and I’d sit there, baffled. Ask me what I’m feeling and I didn’t actually have the vocabulary. I didn’t even […]

Confessions of a Life Coach: Does Goal-Setting Really Matter?

Posted on by Paige Webster
chess bw pregame magazine

  Confession #1: I don’t like setting goals. They scare me. Setting a goal raises the possibility that I won’t reach it. If I never commit to anything, I can’t fail, right? Oy. If only that were true. I spent a few years living without making any goals. The problem was that I wasn’t really living. When I don’t commit to a challenge, I don’t grow, and if I don’t grow, I feel unmoored and lost. Or firmly stuck in a rut. Either way, not committing to a goal is a fast-track to depression. But setting an unrealistic goal, or […]

Approaching the New Year with Love

Posted on by Christina Noel Mitchell
tic tac toe pregame

The New Year comes like a new baby: unavoidable, headlong, and full of promise. We can worry that the amount of promise the new year brings is entirely up to us (and that is certainly one way to look at it), but as with a new baby, the new year will most likely thrive and bring us all the joy and fullness we could hope for, if only we approach it with one thing. As my Uncle Claudio says when I start arguing as to why I am afraid to have children, “It is just love, Christina. Very simple.” Easy […]

A Story About Love and Asking and Listening in Silence

Posted on by Ciara Pressler
Peter D. Gerakaris, Floating Garden

Once a week I take a morning run up into the park behind my home with my furry little friend, Max. It’s windy and steep and lush with new Spring growth this time of year – a feast for the senses.  At the turnaround meadow, I sit in silence for a few minutes and meditate. Looking forward to this special quiet time at the halfway mark is what gets me out the door every time. This morning after a few minutes of sitting in silence, I asked myself what intention I wanted to set for today’s meditation. LOVE: receiving and […]

To My Younger Self

Posted on by Torri Wright
Xin Song, Message from Nature

Be Unapologetically You. Trust who you are, beyond what others have placed upon you. Know the person you have stared at your entire life is out of this world gorgeous inside and out! Those blemishes and imperfections are proof you exist in this world where we are asked to continuously find our core and trust that space beyond anything else. You will have days when you lose your cool; moments you will break down without explanation, mornings you cannot seem to drag yourself out of bed to only do it all over again. In those moments be grateful for this […]