Support for women ripening into their second bite of life. Dear Reader, Lately, in my group coaching circles, there’s been a shared hum: A hundred days left in the year. You can feel the world revving up—countdowns, checklists, that familiar chorus of not enough time. But the women I work with? We’re choosing another rhythm.We’re clapping back at the frenzy, and tuning our ears to something older, wiser—a hymn that whispers: there’s still time to tend what matters. And, we're returning to one...
14 days ago • 1 min read
Support for women ripening into their second bite of life. Dear Reader, Friday night I walked through the hospital doors with a visceral thought:shhh… it’s okay, you’ll be mothered here. I’d been sent to the ER to rule out “the scary stuff” behind sudden vertigo.Not how I imagined kicking off a weekend. Last year I came to this same hospital weekly for iron infusions. And strangely—I loved it. Not the needles or the fatigue, but the care. The nurses knew my name. They tucked warm blankets...
21 days ago • 1 min read
Support for women ripening into the second half of life. Dear Reader, I was on the phone with a friend recently, circling together around how life feels right now. We talked about how my mother’s terminal illness has been the backdrop to my whole adulthood. When my friend asked how that was shaping me now, I paused, searched for a word, and heard myself say something about recalibration. I’ve been turning that word over ever since, trying to put language to the shifts inside me. My mom’s...
28 days ago • 1 min read
Midlife isn’t a crisis—it’s a wild, holy becoming. I'd love you to share this message with a friend, feel free to forward. Dear Reader, There’s a woman I talk to before almost every big decision.I call her Joy. She’s my inner mentor. She first appeared years ago, when I was on my knees from chronic burnout—begging for life to be different but having no map for how to change it.At first, she was only a whisper. Now, she’s a constant. Everything Joy does is artful and soothing. She wears...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Midlife isn’t a crisis—it’s a wild, holy becoming. I'd love you to share this message with a friend, feel free to forward. Dear Reader, Last year, I had two unexpected surgeries just three months apart. I healed quickly—except for the anemia. When food and supplements didn’t help, my doctor prescribed a series of iron infusions at the local hospital. Every Monday at 3 p.m.—their final slot of the day, just ten minutes after I wrapped up teaching—I’d walk briskly across campus, pulse still...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Midlife isn’t a crisis—it’s a wild, holy becoming. I'd love you to share this message with a friend, feel free to forward. Dear Reader, If you’ve been here a while, you might have noticed that I begin each month with a blessing. But have I ever shared how I craft them? My process is simple—and like most things I do, sacred. I do something to soften and listen—to open the door between my inner life and the page. I walk, sit in the sun, run a hot bath, or curl up with the dogs. I think of the...
7 months ago • 1 min read
My husband’s voice wavered in our cactus green kitchen nearly 20 years ago:“I’m just worried you’ll never be happy, Brooke.” I had just told him—again—that I felt the pull to shift directions. That something in me was stretching, reaching, refusing to settle. Back then, I didn’t have the language for what was happening to me. I only knew I had to keep following the clues. In my 20s and 30s, I moved from teaching high schoolers to working with young children, from grad school to leading...
7 months ago • 1 min read
Dear Reader, As part of my February blessing, I wished this for you: When you realize you’re in the wrong room—whether it’s the wrong table, the wrong conversation, or the wrong chapter—may you be brave enough to rise up and leave. So, I want to ask you: Have you ever realized you were in the wrong room? What happened next? Sometimes, I wonder if the hardest part isn’t leaving, but admitting—to yourself—that you’re no longer in the right place. Let me share a story with you. Just after...
8 months ago • 2 min read
Reader, Over golden lattes and biscuits glossed with tart apple butter, my dear friend and I named our “terrifying thought of the day.” We spoke them into the quiet café, setting them down like heavy bags at our feet. We noticed what was loosening the grip—the small intentions we were tending to, like embers in the dark: tucking our phones away in another room, stirring sauce until it thickens, shaping felted stones with our hands, dreaming up new gardens and inked talismans. And we reminded...
8 months ago • 1 min read