As I sit here this morning in my morning routine (journaling and meditating), I am reflecting on my granddaughter’s birthday party that we threw last weekend. Sometimes we just move through life without thinking, but part of my purpose now is to slow down, notice what’s really happening, and grow through it instead of reacting the same old way. These three challenging people and situations come up again and again for me to learn and grow through.

I am always doing and learning new things, and my lifelong love of rocks and masonry is an itch that I am truly ready to scratch. I have watched tons of videos and made the trip to Menards to get all of the supplies. I’m ready to tackle this calling that truly lights me up—it makes me really happy. 

It’s three years off, but turning 60 is gonna happen. 

Some birthdays just hit differently. I remember turning 26 and feeling like it was a big jump, one step closer to 30 maybe. Funny how certain ages feel heavier than others. 

I thought this retreat would be about hiking, journaling, and peace. Instead, from the moment I arrived at the tiny house in Hocking Hills, uneasiness crept in. My phone dropped to SOS on the trail, an abandoned dock stirred up strange thoughts, and by the time I was sitting alone by a fire with my heart pounding at 102 beats per minute, I knew something bigger was happening. What I didn’t realize then was that the real SOS wasn’t in the woods around me. It was in my body, responding to a storm high above me.

I was watching Joe Rogan’s interview with Matthew McConaughey and about 54 minutes in Matthew asks Joe, “where do you get your ethics, your values?” Watch the whole podcast here.

Joe is a great interviewer and conversationalist. But not necessarily a contemplative thinker. Joe thought for a quick second and said that he had good parents, and he has been blessed with good friends.

This was not the first time the question of where we get our values had come up in my life recently. That made it a cue for me to write about it. To research the topic, look at myself and wonder a little.

Add “interviewing” Glenn (my husband) to my research and I came to something curious also.

Yesterday I started writing this blog, I was headed to the zoo with my daughter, granddaughter and my father. What I was expecting to write about was “how hard it is to manage each of these roles” in one situation. 

As someone who, due to life circumstance, does not often find myself playing all of these roles in the same moment, and who in the past has not navigated or managed my emotions and experiences well with what I used to call these “pressures,” for yesterday I would give myself a gold star. 

Although I did not know it at the time, 2012 was the beginning of my spiritual awakening. Toria and I moved from Cincinnati to live with Glenn and his children in Columbus, Ohio. At the same time, my anxiety spiked. 

Did I always have anxiety? I’m not sure, but all of a sudden when I was walking the dogs I would have to stop just to breathe. I couldn’t get air into the tightness that felt deep in my lungs. There was also this strange squeezing in my shoulder, arm, or neck, like someone was clenching my muscles from the inside. It scared me. 

We only have eleven customers left in our car business. Crazy as it may sound, the last one won’t be paid off until the end of 2026. Eleven accounts may not sound like much, but the daily and monthly banking entries haven’t shrunk one bit. Phone bills, banking fees, checks, it all still has to be entered into our accounting software for tax and business reporting. 

Several years ago, I let an employee go. Someone I worked with for about four years. Our families were close and involved, often I treated her like another daughter. Getting as many would say “too close,” and as her friends told her, “she could do anything she wanted” at her job. 

Until the day when, after numerous disciplinary conversations, I made the decision to let her go. 

I’m starting to feel like everything I write needs a disclaimer.
This is about me, not about you.
I can’t control your reaction to it, and I mean no offense.
I’m just learning about myself—and sometimes, the people around me become teachers whether they know it or not. 

I’d been doing the work for years, spiritual growth, meditation, mindset coaching, Human Design, journaling, the whole thing. I’d grown so much, but I still couldn’t move forward. I couldn’t get myself to believe I could write my book. I couldn’t stay consistent in launching the workshops I wanted to teach. The same stuckness kept showing up, a feeling in my chest that I could not move past. 

So tired of trying to move past this, I asked ChatGPT “what’s a shortcut to break through being stuck?” It gave me a few ways to achieve a breakthrough, and one of them was ketamine. Ketamine, I had heard of it on Andrew Huberman’s podcast but did not know how it would help ME? Nonetheless, it was a full body yes. I just knew it was the way, and I never doubted the decision for a moment.  

One of our employees came back from lunch, waved his hand through the air, and asked, “Are you doing some of your juju stuff?” I gave him a confused look. “You know,” he said, “clearing the energy or something.”
“Oh—smudging?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah, that!” 

But I hadn’t been smudging. So I started wondering—what smell? 

The Shift Begins I’m not done with worrying. But I’m starting to see how it’s not the same as loving. And how it’s not actually helping. And how maybe—just maybe—I can still care just as much without all the tension and anxiety in my chest. 

Sometimes it makes more sense to start at the end. 

When I made the decision to stop drinking about four years ago, I commemorated it by getting the word “free” tattooed on my left arm. It was small, just for me, and it felt like a declaration. I was a little nervous Glenn would say, “Oops, another tattoo,” but this one wasn’t about anyone else. It was about me. 

It happened during the annual NIADA convention in Austin, TX. Getting a tattoo in a strange place just felt right—no one knew me, and I didn’t know anyone at the shop. I didn’t tell anyone I was getting it. My husband had sort of drawn a line after my third tattoo: “You shouldn’t get any more.”

This is a familiar pain—friends past and present, even family members—people I long to feel deeply connected to. A history of unanswered Voxer messages and text messages. My desire or need for connection just left… sitting there. 

I find myself wondering, what is wrong with me? 

We talk a lot these days about nervous system regulation, childhood development, and how to cope with stress. But what if some of the answers are simpler than we think? This week, something as small as a teddy bear—and watching my granddaughter go through a transition—brought up some big questions about comfort, regulation, and the things we hold onto when life feels too big. 

I am 56 years old and still sleep with a teddy bear. 

In 1995, I was living in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was married, pregnant, and working full time. We needed two incomes to survive. As women, we were expected to do it all—and told we could have it all. We worked 9 to 5, cared for our kids and husbands, and although we were being told to start conversations about sharing household chores, those conversations weren’t going very well.

A few weeks ago, I noticed I was yawning during the day—which is not like me. I give my body plenty of sleep and rest. But by 2 p.m., I was tired—deep in my bones, in a hard-to-describe way. I wanted to fall asleep, and by 4:30 p.m., I found myself dozing, watching TV. Something was off. I went to bed crazy early, giving my body what it was asking for. 

Then my heart rate started climbing. I could feel my blood pulsing in my veins. The overnight stats on my Oura Ringtold me my resting heart rate was about 10 points higher than average. My HRV (heart rate variability—see definition below) was dipping well below my baseline. One morning it even asked, “How are you feeling today?” and suggested I take it easy. 

There are things we think about doing and then talk ourselves out of. But ever since I said yes to ketamine, it’s been a full-on hell yes. No doubts. No second-guessing. No “shouldn’t spend the money” narrative. No fear.

Just clarity. Which, to me, is the clearest sign: this is what I need. This is what’s going to change everything.

Yes, ketamine is a psychedelic. And yes, it’s legal through a doctor here in Ohio.

A year ago, I started drinking cacao every day—not just as a wellness trend, but as a spiritual path. Plant medicines have power. I believe that. Many would agree. Cacao helped me begin to reconnect with the version of myself I had lost somewhere along the way—the real me, the expressive me, the one who had been conditioned out of existence by family expectations, peer pressure, and the need to belong. And amazingly, got me off my anxiety meds FOREVER.