He had binge-watched all the videos in his review copy in less than 24 hours and written me one of the kindest emails I've ever received.

When he finally asked how the program launch went, assuming I'd already done it, I had to sheepishly tell him I hadn't launched it yet.

What followed was a solid hour of every compassionate persuasion technique I've ever heard.

He told me that keeping the information to myself was completely selfish. That by withholding it, I was preventing every confused, unhappy person who could use it from ever finding it.

He asked how many symphonies have been written that no one has ever heard because their composers couldn't get it together to execute.

Then he said something that has stuck with me since.

My work is clearly not for everyone, but if I don't at least share what I have to offer, I'm not for anyone.

It's probably still the most powerful ass kicking I've ever received.

That kind of impact reminds me of the 92-year-old counselor I found when I was freshly separated from my ex-husband and an absolute emotional wreck. He had helped save marriages for 60 years when I met him.

In only a few months, he helped me turn my life around. By April of 2016, he passed away.

He published exactly one book. I know this for sure because I wrote to his widow over snail mail to ask if there was anything more. She responded that he hadn't, but sometimes she listened to his old audio recordings when she missed him.

I've shared his ideas countless times since, in every format I could find, because what he gave me was that powerful. If he had left more behind, I would probably have it memorized by now.

And.. if he hadn't shared his gift, I can't even imagine what my life would look like today.

I used to be afraid that getting divorced meant I actually knew nothing about love and relationships. Then I worried what people would think of me if they knew.

It turns out the people I most enjoy working with are exactly the ones who appreciate that they aren't talking to someone who can't even remember what getting dumped or rejected really feels like.

When the chips are down, people want a wilderness guide who has actually gone to the wilderness. Not someone who has just thought about going, theoretically. Someone who made it out alive and well, with a better map.

If you have something uniquely yours to share, it's time.

Do it before you croak and people like me start writing letters to your loved ones asking if you left more behind.

If you’re curious about what program I’m talking about, it was The Secrets To Understanding Men No One Tells You.

You can find it here.

Don’t waste your time and energy fixing a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter.

It’s free. Get immediate results here.

Years ago, after we had been dating for 7 months, my partner decided he needed to deal with some serious personal problems alone.

He meant “alone” with a capital A.

No relationship, no contact. We were done.

Over the following months, one by one my friends made reasonable and compelling cases for why I should reach out and check in.

Why I should offer support from one human being to another. And I understood the argument. I just couldn’t make myself do it.

Here’s the thing: I want a full relationship with this man or nothing. I cannot downgrade my feelings for him into friendly caring about “how things are going.”

Pretending I could offer support without hoping for more would have been lying to myself, which is something I’m done doing.

You can’t abandon someone who told you clearly to go away. That is not a thing. Continuing to try and “help” someone who does not want your help is not helpful.

I respect him more than I want to decide for him what he needs.

In all of those nightmare scenarios my friends said, “what if he needs someone to talk to, what if he’s barely holding it together,” all of that might have been true. It’s also not my job.

Those are fear talking. And fear-based reasoning has never once gotten me anywhere worth going.

Sometimes the highest level of love and caring you can give someone is to respect their wishes.

There is a time to not take no for an answer, and there is a time to back off, sit down and shut up.

My acceptance doesn’t make me an uncaring monster. It just meant I loved myself and respected him more than I thought it was worth forcing him to have me in his life if he didn’t want that.

He eventually reached out once he solved his own problems.

It took a long time but we got back together. Over 10 years later, we’re still going strong. I’m still glad I never made that call.

P.S. If you want my help, get details here.

P.P.S. To feel more connection anytime you choose, check out The Love Magnet Meditation.

Fifteen minutes into the first workout, as my biceps were crying for help and I had almost fainted (embarrassing), she quickly corrected several subtle but significant things I had been doing wrong forever without realizing it.

I had been going to the gym since I was a teenager.

Not only were those habits preventing me from getting results, they were all causing pain I wasn’t even specifically aware of.

At the end of the session, as we were joking about me doing all these things wrong, she said, “this is what happens when you try and do everything yourself.”

She didn’t know me all that well yet.

But doing it myself has probably been my number one struggle. And source of secret pride. Otherwise I wouldn’t keep doing things that way.

It was pain that made me get help with trying to save my marriage.

At the time, on the edge of divorce and basically broke, I felt like I was giving my marriage counselor my firstborn.

But it was the best thing I’ve ever done.

Knowing things and doing the right thing are not the same. Even if you’re a professional at whatever it is.

If you already know what to do but you’re having trouble doing it, what then?!

Get a second opinion that isn’t you (or your AI chat bot that maintains endless enthusiasm for your most half-baked ideas).

It’s for the same reason therapists get their own therapists and doctors have their own doctors.

What we don’t see about any given situation usually moves the needle-- not an imaginary laundry list of “things we would do if we had infinite time and energy.”

In the case of BOTH the trainer and the marriage counselor, I showed up thinking I already knew what to do and was just having trouble doing it.

Both times were lessons in humility. It took someone outside of the situation to see what I didn’t.

I was reminded these kinds of struggles don’t just affect us alone, in a vacuum. They attach to everyone we try to imperfectly love.

Sometimes you don’t know what you’re doing wrong until someone looks at you and tells you, in that profoundly correct tone, exactly where you’re weak.

If I reached for anything within a foot of him, he would immediately move his whole body unusually far away.

Like he was avoiding a blast radius or had a hula hoop hidden somewhere that he wanted to toss in the gap.

I tried to invite him closer since this seemed so odd. Nothing changed.

After we left the kitchen it was always as though nothing happened.

It wasn’t the stale silence of pretending either, there was nothing wrong at all.

Over time I tested several theories about why this happened but none of them rang true.

At first I thought I had accidentally done something to upset him.

This seemed overly cautious and also reaching for the salt isn’t usually a war declaration. He isn’t easily upset either.

Then I wondered if maybe he didn’t like sharing his personal bubble in the kitchen and wanted the room to himself.

Or maybe I was distracting him.

So I decided to let him go first in there, then I would do whatever I planned afterwards. We often made separate food anyway so I figured maybe he would be happier.

This theory proved false after he noticed and wondered out loud why I didn’t join him in the kitchen.

So I went back to making food together and worked around it.

Sometimes when he moved clear of me, I would openly announce he wasn’t in my way and then let the topic drop.

This weird dance went on for years until one day after I reached for a loaf of bread on the counter next to him, he quit cooking entirely, bolted a good 10 feet away and stood completely still, watching me.

Like he had accidentally wandered onto the stage during my solo performance when he should have been waiting in the wings.

I worried this meant there was something bad about me and he was voting with his feet.

The hot burn of upset bloomed in my chest.

Without thinking, I stopped and went over to where he was standing, facing him.

“Why do you do that?” I asked with real curiosity, attempting to put aside my bruised feelings.

“What? I’m getting out of your way,” he replied in a defiant tone verging on anger.

“No, you weren’t in my way. I want to know why, really.”

I tilted my head and waited.

Suddenly he looked boyish, like a small child struggling to keep a secret.

He shifted his weight back and forth. His eyes darted around, then he settled into a faraway stare; glassy, vacant. No eye contact.

“She used to hit me in the kitchen. If I was in her way at all, she would freak out and that was it…”

His voice sounded like it might crack and trailed off.

Oh. His ex wife. The vicious one.

“I will never hit you,” I said flatly.

He did not always seem to like affection during upset but I took an emotional risk and I put my hands gently on his upper arms. This turned into a long, silent hug. Something changed.

We made dinner.

He never bolted again.

Not vanished exactly.

More like I wandered off to rearrange some furniture, then decided it might be good to knock out a few walls and rethink the layout of the whole house.

Either way, it’s already April and this feels like coming back into the main room and sitting down properly.

So I thought I would keep the first one simple and share three things I like and use or built myself.

Expand

This is the only meditation app I have ever wanted to use more than once.

I use it when my mind is acting like it has been hired to make everything harder than it needs to be.

It settles me down much faster than trying to reason or willpower my way into a better mood, which has never once impressed me with its success rate.

The Mirror Assessment

I built this for the kind of stuck that is hard to explain without a quart of wine and a white board flow chart.

Not the obvious kind of stuck where you know exactly what to change and just need to get after it.

The other kind.

Where something feels off in your life and everything seems heavier than it should.

When you can’t quite tell what is a real problem and what is your own thinking making everything more sticky.

It’s not a personality test or a forever label.

The Mirror is just a quick look at the pattern that might be making things harder than they need to be.

It’s free, and I made it myself. I’d love if you would check it out.

FutureMe

This one lets you write an email to your future self and choose when it arrives.

A few years ago one landed on a morning I happened to wake up next to my partner Jonathan.

I had written it the year before, when we were still broken up and I was convinced our relationship was over for good.

In the email I had described the life I wanted, including being with him.

Reading about my old heartbreak while he was still asleep next to me had a certain kind of thrill to it.

Not because the website performed magic. Because it reminded me how convincing a frightened mind can be about the future, and how wrong.

That night I had been spinning, unfortunately thinking about all the things I hadn’t done (right) yet.

I dragged myself out of bed to visit the restroom and realized that every item I saw on that short walk had been given to me.

We could call it manifesting or generosity or caring. Or something else.

While spiraling and feeling the full weight of my thinking around my dusty, shaky luck, everything within my current view had all appeared here at some point, not as an act of personal will.

The bed, inherited in the divorce. The towels, a gift. The mini fridge another gift.

All brought by the spontaneous generosity of my friends and family. Or odd circumstance.

How I came to be standing within these walls at all bordered on the miraculous.

Even my relationship— once something I had nearly given up on, despite his stubbornly unforgettable presence— had been made real now, again. Revived, then cherished.

I used to feel hopeless about that too.

At some point, I had wanted all of this in that specific “I know about you and you aren’t here yet but you’re coming” way of knowing that has always seemed to either be a premonition or a summoning.

These things all eventually came around naturally. Like it was all meant to be here.

But natural ease had not been the case lately.

If anything, lately almost all creations had felt forced, annoying, like trying to paddle upstream and stay afloat while low key wishing to drown just to get it over with.

Playing the game on hard mode.

The power of inspired action had seemed to be in very short supply.

As though the lights were suddenly cut and the darkness blinding for too long to seem temporary.

Like the magic wands of yesteryear no longer could be counted on to hold a charge.

All incantations seemed unsuccessful at summoning their usual magical effects.

An old teacher I used to follow spoke at length about shadow work.

And while I don’t think about shadow work very often anymore, I had also not consciously conjured the wanted conditions of life very often lately, so I figured I was probably standing in some shadow.

This teacher did everything full out.

Used to talk about meat hook moments— a metaphor for dark nights of the soul where the body is picked clean and the protagonist hangs there, on the meat hook, waiting for something new to arise.

This seemed to be her favorite way to express the turmoil around rising consciousness or perhaps an encouraging message for how downright miserable and lost most of her followers happened to seem.

I’d try to normalize that kind of agony too if I had her followers.

Anyway, this night, a mini existential crisis was at hand. A meat hook moment.

And tonight’s flavor was emotional. Fear of loss. Of being outclassed and obsolete. And out of touch.

The imaginary, real-feeling thought that being passed by had already happened.

Of being caught out, holding the bag, the only one without a chair as the music careened to a stop.

Magic wand not working properly, intentions stubbornly failing, the palpable slow dull ache of creations undone and unmade.

The phoenix (bird, not demon) right after being burned down and still unrevived.

The stale, sweaty disappointment of loss and failure and slow march toward oblivion with the pilot light still woefully unlit despite all efforts to create a spark.

The unique sense of knowing exactly what was possible and doubting. Because reality here looked different than expected and those thoughts became tinged with sadness, disappointment and cold rage.

Angry at the slide downwards.

Frustrated that different choices couldn’t have been made.

Furious that shipping the creation du jour felt hard on some days and impossible on others.

This must surely be a case of low mood winter.

Before the hopeful green shoots of spring, when everything seems deserted, barren, gone.

The only thing left clinging to hope, the stale, clammy consciousness, pulsing below the surface.

And yet, there in the darkness, the hints of past successes still scattered all around, hopefully as reminders.

Waiting.

She’s an artist with an extremely sharp visual sense. If things don’t look right to her, she notices.

Her acute visual perception, plus the way her personal internal reality works clues her into visual details way sooner than mine.

When something is off visually, it looks and feels wrong, immediately.

And, if she can influence how things look– say, by trimming the trees in my front yard or fixing my droopy shrubs– she will.

She’ll start pruning things.

She’ll beautify and sculpt until everything looks beautiful and right to her.

“The neighbor’s plants over there would look so much better if they did a little more maintenance,” she said.

This idea had not occurred to me in any way.

When I look over at my neighbor’s yards, I don’t usually think about the plants unless there is something extreme going on.

Or my attention is drawn there like she had just done.

I technically “see” the plants and get an idea if I like the whole scene or not, but that’s about as far as my thought process goes on it’s own.

I said slowly, “hmm.. I could see that.”

The way her face changed told me she thought I was hiding my disagreement or disinterest in what she said.

Without really considering why, I shared a truth about myself I had never considered explaining before.

“I don’t think you’re wrong about that. I’m sure those plants could look different with some pruning.

In my mind, it would never occur to me to think about changing those plants unless they are directly pointed out as possible like you just did.

That they could be changed at all doesn’t occur to me.

Plus, I don’t seem to get a good feeling if they were different. I’m not saying this not to disagree with how you think about it though.”

She considered my point and said, “it’s what I see right away and then it keeps drawing my attention. It’s annoying to me when things look overgrown.”

“Interesting,” I said and pointed toward the neighbor’s yard.

“When I look out this way, my eye is drawn to that big tree across the street. It reminds me of when I was a kid and we used to visit Holiday Park.

Then I remember playing at that park and feel a warm, happy feeling.

That the tree could be pruned differently is not a thought I am very likely to think.

Now that you point it out, I suppose it could look different and maybe that would feel better once I saw it.”

She pointed at some exposed pipe near my front door, “Like that. That is offensive,” she said jokingly.

I laughed and agreed the pipe was ugly and I didn’t like it either. We moved on to planning what could be done about it.

This short interaction points out a simple truth which is a big deal.

It’s not only that ugly visual phenomena is offensive to her.

That’s what the world looks like to her.

I love beautiful things when I see them, but creating a beautiful space or changing what I see around me is something that rarely occurs to me.

It’s usually an invisible idea.

In my reality, things in the 3D world simply are how they are.

For example, I would be WAY more likely to move somewhere new than remodel a house without a lot of professional design help.

My habitual thoughts and reference point are completely different than hers (or anyone else’s).

Not just in the content or context, as in “we agree on this or not” or “we don’t know the same amount of data” but in the structure which our thoughts appear and are experienced.

My mother can conjure up something beautiful entirely in her imagination and then switch out the details all in her head before she creates anything in her 3D reality.

This whole ability seems like magic to me.

It’s a giant pain in the butt for me to have to see all the options before I can decide if any of them look right.

Beautification feels annoying and hard and it’s why I have beige walls that require very little thought.

Shopping or discernment around anything that requires visual choices feels draining.

My reality is different than hers (and yours, and everyone’s) in a way we’ll both never be able to completely understand.

And, having this level of awareness around just how different my reality is than anyone else has been both enlightening and useful.

This difference in reality between two people is behind most– if not all– misunderstandings in life.

People tend to automatically think that everyone thinks about things the same way they do and that the real “problem” with another person’s point of view is simple disagreement.

So we go about our lives treating these differences in perception as problems to solve or misunderstandings to be cleared up.

As if true consensus is actually possible in the first place.

There is a world of difference between knowing factually correct information about objective material facts and the implications of, “I think LIKE that, so I think everyone else does too.”

For example, my mother is such a visually aware person, she assumes that everyone else notices what she does.

Someone more likely to consider people and associations first will tend to assume everyone else appreciates connecting with others like they do.

Someone who experiences a lot of emotion will tend to think everyone else feels as much as they do.

People who use a lot of logic and reason tend to think others are willfully ignoring logical conclusions that are dead obvious to them.

It is very human to try to sort ideas and understand people by absorbing knowledge then applying it to our internal awareness of “how things work,” then deciding whether it “makes sense or not.”

Because our personal thinking is so familiar and automatic, we often miss that others don’t just have different beliefs— they experience the world in ways we can’t fully access or feel ourselves.

But, we’re social creatures who want to experience together, be understood, seen, witnessed, and share connection.

Given how different our experiences are, it’s miraculous that we have the potential for such deep connections in the first place.

Because it’s so easy for our experience to get lost in translation, it’s no surprise that we tend to like and love people who think similarly to us.

When there is shared understanding, we have an easier time feeling safe, open and willing to let people know who we really are underneath.

When I’m coaching a couple, the real issue is usually this: their separate realities aren’t meeting in any shared understanding or connection yet.

And it cannot be underestimated just HOW different and separate these realities are.

Not only because of culture, socialization, gender, or lived experience.

Because neither can truly know what the color red looks like to the other.

Or what an experience truly feels like. Or which thoughts follow that experience.

Or what thought sparked that feeling. And that one. And so on.

Since everyone filters reality through their own personal system of mind, consciousness and thought, no one sees their world in exactly the same way.

I had two reasons for working out, and vanity was definitely near the top of the list.

If I was going to win my husband back, looking fitter certainly couldn’t hurt.

Vanity aside, my mental health felt shaky.

Dragging myself to the gym became one of the few reliable ways to keep the depression I felt looming in the background from taking over.

One morning, while dragging myself through cardio and reading Byron Katie's book, I Need Your Love, Is It True?, a passage stopped me cold.

A woman described how her husband had left her for their next door neighbor.

By recognizing that her thoughts about the situation were not true, she got out of suffering and realized she could love her husband whether he was with her or not.

The insight was so intense I almost fell off the elliptical machine.

That’s when I realized the root of everything: I didn’t just want my husband back.

I needed him to love me, because I thought his love was the only proof that I was lovable.

And I believed that if something was wrong in my marriage, it meant something was fundamentally wrong with me.

No wonder I was in so much pain.

I wasn’t just grieving the loss of my marriage— I was fighting to keep my self-worth from collapsing.

Before this moment, I did not understand where my own feelings came from.

I thought my happy, contented, loving feelings in a relationship came from the other person.

If my husband behaved how I wanted, I’d look at our relationship, judge it positively, then feel happy and in love.

But the minute something felt off, I immediately assumed something was deeply wrong with me.

Feeling good wasn’t just impossible— it seemed irresponsible— until whatever I thought was wrong got fixed.

Believing this thought meant no relationship problem, however minor, was ever acceptable.

Every issue seemed like an emergency, proof something was very, very wrong that needed fixing right away.

That’s why even the slightest hint of trouble triggered my internal alarm to spike straight to “OMG MUST FIX THIS” panic level 11.

This made me a difficult, needy, critical partner and a hard person to divorce.

I didn’t realize it, but the act of getting married had ratcheted up the seriousness of our relationship to an intolerably heavy level.

It was only a matter of time until I strangled the whole thing.

And that time had come.

Which is why, after he left, the only thing that made sense was to singlehandedly fix everything and make him love me again.

Whatever it took.

Since feeling good again was impossible without pulling off this miracle, I had to fix our marriage and somehow ensure he'd behave perfectly— forever.

No pressure.

No wonder I had been so miserable leading up to him dropping that bomb on me.

I was treating our relationship as though it was life or death.

No wonder my husband wanted nothing to do with me.

I couldn’t handle losing his love, because I thought his love was the only proof I was lovable, as though my worth disappeared with him.

In a flash, I saw it: the happy, loving feelings didn’t come from him.

My feelings came from me.

All this intense suffering was mine too.

I realized I could feel the warmth of loving him any time— whether he was there or not.

That loving feeling had always come directly from inside. It wasn’t an outside-in thing like I thought it was.

Suddenly my possessiveness and terror seemed absurd.

Grief over the loss made sense, a gnawing sense of overall panic and desperation did not.

I stopped pedaling and burst out laughing. Something deep inside me let go.

With the illusion broken, I could finally stop fighting reality.

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Earlier in the week I sent him a link to an article I wrote. He didn’t respond at all.

He kept sending his usual good morning text but didn’t say very much.

When he called to confirm our plans, there is no hiding my disappointment. I’m on the verge of tears and also in a particularly low mood, so I warn him.

He doesn’t understand my disappointment until I mention the article.

He sounds crestfallen. He apologizes and explains he missed my message.

I can tell it’s genuine, but also now we’re veering into “deep, dark relationship talk” territory.

I've practically got my dynamite loaded up and it's nearly ready to blow.

Before it goes off the rails on the phone, I say I’ll still come over.

On the drive over, I keep dodging my extreme and unhelpful thoughts about our relationship like I’m playing Frogger.

I’m expecting this to go badly, not because I want that to be true, but because I’m quickly nearing “what the heck are we even doing here?!” territory and I know it.

It’s a slow moving train wreck that I’m trying hard to look away from but there is no hiding it.

He does something totally new.

When I get to his house, he is waiting outside.

He comes over to my car smiling big.

He hugs me, kisses me a bunch of times until I can’t help laughing.

Before I can get a word in, he tells me he was really looking forward to seeing me.

He explains how slammed he was with work and home repair.

He says there is no excuse and apologizes again for missing my message.

He repeats how much he had been looking forward to seeing me, which is such a surprise that I asked him why.

He says something about how he couldn’t wait for sanity to return, but it’s cute, he’s caught off guard by the question.

He tells me more about his week and I take a deep breath, relax and exhale.

Having a deep, dark relationship talk was suddenly completely unnecessary and we had a wonderful evening.

Why did this approach work so ridiculously well?

He kept his peace of mind and solved the problem directly— in the present moment, using the most effective way that occurred to him.

He didn't let my mood drag him down with it.

Instead of falling for it, he gave me what I actually wanted instead of trying to negotiate with my upset feelings.

He understands that behind every complaint is a request.

What I wanted was his presence, affection, and to be seen, to be witnessed.

That was what I was actually doing by sharing the link to my work with him.

He hadn't been present with me throughout the week, so that was why I was disappointed in the first place. The effect of his inattention was stacking up.

With a clearer state of mind, I know good and well that complaining about what anyone is doing is probably not going to result in more closeness, care and affection.

But from a mood that low, it was starting to make complete sense to me to share ALL of my disappointment.

That’s a direct effect of the unfortunate fun house mirror of low mood.

He didn't fall for my low mood and through his actions, he gave instead of flinching.

He didn't retreat, he leaned forward-- which was my entire ask.

He didn't go into a shame spiral or allow himself to fall for any worry or fear that my tone might have inspired.

He approached joyfully.

He didn't accept my sad invitation to have a deep, dark relationship talk. Not because he was avoiding my feelings, but because he responded to them immediately with heartfelt sincerity.

In fact, exactly no one is ever really looking forward to having a deep, dark relationship talk.

Deep, dark relationship talks are a RESULT of someone wanting something else, usually presence, to be witnessed, to feel loved.

If the presence, love and affection part comes first, the deep, dark talks aren't that way any more.

If you put this into practice for yourself, let me know how it works for you.

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Between the thoughts.

Underneath thought.

This space can be felt and known, while evading direct capture.

More of it energizes, rejuvenates, heals.

Less time spent centered there leaves us to listen to our personal thinking— with much less potent results.

Personal thought can be endlessly entertaining and also can’t be us because since it can be experienced, it must be separate.

We can watch our thoughts like some teacher suggests. Countless things have been said about pretzel-twisting the thoughts into something else.

If it can be transmuted, rearranged, ignored, thought is not us and yet…

Thought is all we’ve got, except for everything else in that empty space, just less clear because of the way we are that.

Fewer things have been said about the quiet space behind thought. Maybe because it’s so close we take it for granted.

Beyond the nagging dishes and whatever morning routine. Behind the tittering sound of everything that already has form.

That nothing-now where all inspired creativity comes from.

The space where thought begins, arises, disappears.

The empty mind with endless refills, that is no-thing, no-where.

The practical miracle from which all genius, creative work flows before the intellect wrestles hold and demands it sit still for it’s closeup.

Only in reality now. And now. And now.

Aliveness, awake-ness, focus, the hint of a thrill. The ordered chaos in the background that is somehow always there.

The storied realm of losing oneself completely but feeling more like oneself than ever before.

Where masterpieces live, and non-masterpieces. Silence with loud tones.

Sitting there, going there– is all people are ever yearning to do when they hope to feel their best.

It’s where they lost themselves last time and feel forsaken, wishing they could go back.

Indeed, riding some random train of thought– often for months, years, all the time– lugs human disappointment with it, on par with losing Shangra-La.

That nothing is both us and greater than us; all at the same time.

The most ordinary space in the world, yet the most extraordinary.

The beyond time, the full, small, vast void everyone is looking for, and which everyone and everything is actually made of.

At some point, I thought to show you fancy scientific references but I forgot them and felt better.

Maybe I will talk about that later, right now it’s time to bask in that warm bath of conscious presence.

The wordless nothing which could also be called the beloved who never leaves, always sitting right there, watching the show.

Whatever is left when everything, every concept, every idea falls away.

Reach for her and she leaves. Nag her and she quits on you. Whine that she doesn’t speak to you enough and she smirks.

She isn’t a “her” either, but just as all cats are fickle and don’t care to prove their cat-ness, so is the irony of reaching for something that is always there.

Losing the great nothing is kind of like bitching about not being able to find your glasses while you’re still wearing them.

That place, that nothing which is always.. always there.

Go there– to that timeless presence and nothing can ever be wrong.

Nothing may feel disorienting, but luckily judgement fails entirely on the wordless edge of now-here.

And yet… as empty as it seems, things seem to want to happen from that space.

That energy– whatever THAT empty full space is– which is us and also not coming from us.

We could get our gongs out, sit in meditation, and study fancy spiritual words but the student who is studying, that nobody IS it already.

Here folks, step right up, behind this curtain is the YOU we’ve all been waiting for.

She’s right there, see her? She’s nothing. And she’s stunning. She’s you.

She IS the beloved already. And she doesn’t really like taking dictation.

Unless it sounds fun.

Unless it reminds her of who she actually is.

Not who someone told her human to be. Never that.

Insecurity thoughts just make her seem tired, old, staid. She isn’t, but that isn’t the point.

Instead, we can simply sit there, be it, claim it, bask in the warm bath, enjoy the timeless, ordinary void, forget ourselves while doing something that we aren’t doing.

Watch what happens when our attention widens, when the conscious aperture sticks open.

When we act from there. When we experience from there.

I thought that background silence– that nothing– meant something was wrong, while feeling confused at just how right it all seemed.

Like the room of requirement, where there is nothing until something is requested.

“Is this IT? I thought there would be more cowbell.”

Entertaining this confusing thought was just a well-worn habit. I didn’t know.

It was kind of like having a Ferrari as a first car or meeting a great life partner at only 14 years old.

There is no proper context from which to understand. Spontaneous gratitude fails to spring from an expected result. Contrast is required for knowing.

Forgetting that habit was all it took to go home.

And creating from there is all it takes to…

But look, it’s gone again.

Maybe you’re going through a big change or level up.

Maybe being a high performer actually feels awful and something has to change ASAP or you’ll actually snap.

Or perhaps work is on fire but at home you wish things were different.

All of that, none of that— something else, better than we can actually imagine now.

All of them sound interesting to me.

If you’re feeling stuck, take The Mirror Assessment— A simple five minute diagnostic that reflects the pattern currently hijacking your attention so you can stop pouring energy into the wrong fix.

Don’t waste your time and energy fixing a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter.

It’s free. Get immediate results here.

Who the heck am I?

I’m Elizabeth Stone, a transformative coach who helps people create the richest, most loved and satisfying lives possible.

I will use this space to explore things that don’t fit neatly into a checklist or some forced idea of progress.

In fact, if someone gave me a checklist, I would probably ignore the checklist and look around at the people in the room.

I bring over a decade of experience in coaching people through most life circumstances you can think of– creating and nurturing new love, divorce, business, money, and relationship repair (a soft spot).

Lots of relationship repair. More about that later.

Here are 3 promises I can make you:

1. This is a bullshit free zone.

I promise to do my best to keep everything as bullshit free and simple as possible.

What I share is the clearest, truest version I can offer at the time.

Sometimes I change my mind. Sometimes I get it wrong.

I’ve shared over a million words online in the past 15 years— some of it I still stand by. Some of it I don’t.

If something I said once makes you want to throw your phone into traffic, fair enough. Discard what does not resonate.

Snatch what sparks insight like you’re an Olympic hopeful competing for gold.

2. This is not a shame farm.

I intend for you to feel more hopeful, evolved and clear after you experience my work, not worse about yourself or your life.

This is my art and I prefer power over force.

This is not– and never will be– a shame farm.

Shame is emotional junk food.

Using shame as core motivation is like running your Ferrari on moonshine.

Workable for a few minutes in a pinch but the end result will be hot, hard, dirty and eventually burn you out.

If you want shame-based coaching, go find one of those intense coaches with big teeth who want you to throw your hands in the air and shriek “yeah!” while demanding that you optimize everything. Their way.

That’s not me.

If I’m in that kind of room at all, I’m probably sitting in a balcony box seat wearing whatever the heck I want, enjoying some deep conversation or spirited people watching.

I’m probably also sipping homemade iced tea with the lights at a nice, comfortable warm level.

You are not broken, you don’t need renovation or fixing. You aren’t a victim who requires eggshell dancing through life.

That brings me to this:

3. Freedom and wisdom are the core values here.

Metaphorically, I eat my own cooking and will not waste your time with suggestions I don’t value personally and professionally.

Freedom is the ultimate luxury and that’s how I choose to live.

The voice of wisdom speaks to all of us.

Listening to this wisdom— no matter how inconvenient, strange or impractical it sounded at the time— has never failed me.

When your arms have gotten tired from all the manipulative hand raising and your Ferrari has gone kaput from it’s last injection of shame-flavored moonshine, that’s when you might be ready for me.

Here’s what I cover here:

• Artfully creating leverage so you have more time, energy and resources

• Useful insights about the human experience

• Creativity for fun and profit

• How desire actually works— and how to stop sabotaging yours

• Optimal love, dating, and connection

• The difference between performance and presence

• Power and the art of being unforgettable

• Metaphysics, but without all the trendy over-complications and drama

• Whatever else seems interesting and helpful in the moment

This is not a space for the trendy, the cheap, the boring or the needlessly complicated.

It’s not for assholes and/or people who want to argue about dogma or trauma.

It could be for you if you already realize you aren’t made for some repetitive, boring sleepwalk through life.

And away we go.

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