The Journal
A space for wisdom seekers, levity lovers, and embodied beings
with stories, personal learnings, and gentle explorations
The Power of “No”
I spent years saying yes when my body was screaming no. Every time, there was a signal—a tightening in my chest, a sinking in my gut, a sudden exhaustion I'd rationalize away. It wasn't until I started listening that I realized my body had been setting boundaries long before I had the words for it.
What your body is trying to tell you
I spent most of my life treating my body's signals like interference—something to push through or distract myself from. It wasn't until someone asked me what my body needed that I realized I had no idea. Turns out, it had been trying to tell me something for years.
Sound meditation
I tried meditation. I sat still, focused on my breath, and left more exhausted than when I arrived. What I didn't know yet was that I wasn't bad at meditation—I just needed an invitation instead of a command. That's when I found sound bathing.
Mindfulness & Cigarettes
For a long time, cigarettes were the only tool I had that would successfully make me take a break. And it wasn't just the physical dependence to the nicotine; it was the ritual of stepping outside, connecting with nature and the understanding of seeking permission to take time for myself throughout the day.
What to Expect in a Somatic-Oriented Coaching Session
Most coaching asks what you think. Somatic coaching asks what your body already knows that your brain is busy filtering out. Here's what an actual session looks like—and why the first fifteen minutes aren't small talk.
Birdsong
On a wall inside the Virginia Holocaust Museum, among poetry and drawings made by people trying to survive the unthinkable, one poem found me. I'm still not sure I have words for what it did. But I've been thinking about nests, and loveliness, and what it means to actually live.
Words and their meaning
When the pandemic arrived, so did a new phrase: "social distancing." It was meant to describe a logistics problem, but the language did something else entirely. We're still living with what it cost us.
Things to consider before giving somatic-oriented coaching a go
I can't tell you what somatic coaching will do for you—that's genuinely not mine to predict. But I can tell you three things that tend to shape the experience before you even begin. One of them has nothing to do with the work itself.
An invitation of reconnection
For most of my life, I treated my body like a logistics problem. Hungry? Wait. Tired? Push through. It wasn't until someone asked me what my body needed that I realized I had no idea—and that the not-knowing wasn't personal. It was learned.
Benefits of taking an improv class
Improv taught me how to listen—not just hear words, but notice tone, hesitation, and what's underneath. It taught me how to stay present when I had no idea what was coming next. Most importantly, it taught me that mistakes aren't failures—they're information.
FECALGLOW
When an AI business name generator suggested "FecalGlow" for my coaching practice, I couldn't stop laughing. But the experience taught me exactly what I wanted to offer: permission to be imperfect, messy, and still growing.
Out of the story, into the storyteller
During my first stand-up set, I had a moment where I watched myself from the outside—noticing my tone, my gestures, my timing—as if I were in the audience. I had completely disconnected. What I learned wasn't about comedy. It was about how often we abandon our own experience to finish the story we think we're supposed to tell.
the every evolving sense of self
Self-worth isn't something you arrive at once and keep forever. It's an ongoing practice of noticing—who you are, what you value, and how those things shift over time.