Mindfulness Is The Worst
Mindfulness is the worst. I’m serious. It has single-handedly forced me to face reality and accept that so much of my suffering is of my own making. I can’t sit around pointing fingers anymore. I can’t wait around for other people to change or fulfill me. I can’t hit the easy button and pretend that my unproductive habits will fix (read: ignore, numb, avoid) my pain. I can’t just implode and wallow in my own misery without also witnessing myself imploding and wallowing in my own misery.
Fran Hauser
This is the first time I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing a dear friend. Being a new experience, I took a decidedly different approach. I typically curate my questions around a specific theme, but instead I crafted a list of questions for my friend, Fran Hauser, based on the qualities I love most about her—her faith in the process, her devotion to family and ritual, her emotional intelligence, her decisiveness, and her generosity. Our conversation revealed not only a deeper understanding of my friend, but also of the core principles she has nurtured on her path to success.
Palm Springs
Billy and I escaped the cold and jetted to California for a little baby moon. I’ve always wanted to go on a baby moon, only because the only thing I’ve ever wanted was a baby. This trip was an opportunity to relax, yes, but more importantly it gave me a chance to celebrate and enjoy my pregnancy. The first trimester was a practice in faith—getting through all the testing, facing my very real fear of losing yet another baby, and trying not to wait for the other shoe to drop. I don’t think I fully accepted this miracle until I could feel her moving inside of me. Each kick was a reminder—she’s real.
Be Here, Now
Life is impermanent. This truth has been both a source of pain and a source of hope for me over the past five years as I struggled through a heartbreaking journey to become a mother. Living with the darkness of grief and summoning the courage to cultivate hope became my main practice. It broke me over and over again, and in doing so, it also broke my heart wide open. The depth it excavated within me now holds the love for the very thing I’ve always wanted. It is with so much joy that I share the news that my beloved and I are expecting a baby in June!
Top Chef Teachings
It’s no secret that I love to cook, so it might come as a surprise to know that, until recently, I’d never watched the show Top Chef. Honestly, I’m a little surprised myself. Despite the buzz surrounding the show and how much I love a good competition (hello, I used to work on Wall Street), I had never tuned in.
Kathryn Budig
When I reached out to Kathryn for this interview, we had never met. Whatever I thought I knew about her was pieced together from mutual friends and—what else—social media. From the outside, she seemed to have it all: a happy marriage, a hugely successful career, and a multidimensional platform that included books, DVDs, and endorsements. Then, in what felt like a surprising shift, those tiny squares on Instagram began to tell a different story. While I had always admired her success, I became more interested in the fact that she appeared to be walking away from it all. Here’s someone who, at the top of her game, decided that the success for which she had worked so hard no longer made her happy. What I was surprised to learn over the course our conversation was that, at the height of her career in the yoga industry, Kathryn was miserable.