Written by Jane Oppegaard, Director & Founder of Happy Little Yogi Jane Oppegaard, Founder and Director of Happy Little Yogi, specialises in helping children find their peaceful, happy place. She has supported schools across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire with yoga and well-being programmes since 2009, and leads the accredited Happy Little Yogi Flow Teacher Training Programme and newly launched Business in a Box. You already know something needs to change. You have known for a while. You go through the daily motions, the commute, the meetings, the inbox, yet somewhere underneath the routine there is a quiet voice that keeps whispering, "Is this really it?" Maybe running side by side with that voice is another, your health, quietly asking for attention too. You've been carrying more than your fair share for longer than you want to admit. You feel depleted, frayed at the edges, defeated, but somewhere beneath all of that is a yearning to do something truly worthwhile. To pour your energy into something that builds people up rather than burns you out. I know that feeling. I've lived it. And what I discovered on the other side changed not just my life, but the lives of the children and families I now get to serve every day, because sometimes the life we're searching for isn't somewhere out there waiting to be found. The clues have been quietly gathering inside the life we've already lived. When your body becomes your teacher At 28, I was finally given a name for something I had carried my whole life, scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that had been there all along, quietly shaping the way I moved, worked and endured. The diagnosis came with no surgical solution. The curvature wasn't severe enough to warrant the risks of an operation, but it was significant enough that ignoring it wasn't an option either. What no one told me then, and what I had to discover for myself, was that my body wasn't simply a problem to be solved. It became a doorway into a journey of self-discovery. Around the same time, I was navigating grief that almost broke me. Within two years, I lost both of my parents. My mother died after a five-year battle with cancer. My father, her devoted soulmate, died eighteen months later. What do grief and chronic pain have in common? For me, they both had a way of asking the same question, "What are you going to do now?" I could wait for someone to come and fix everything, or I could begin looking for a different kind of answer. The medicine that changed everything for me I found it entirely by accident while watching a documentary about Madonna, the pop icon! Her yoga teacher appeared on my TV screen, and something in me stopped. She radiated a quality I had never encountered before, deeply calm, yet fully alive. Her energy was soft and radiant, yet there was an unmistakable strength and resilience about her that reached me even through the television screen. She moved in ways I had never seen in a yoga class. I ordered her book and DVD immediately. What I discovered was Kundalini Yoga, a practice unlike anything I had tried before, bringing together movement, breathwork, meditation and sound. For me, it became the medicine I had been searching for. Within six months, the pain I had lived with for much of my life began to ease. Within a year, the progress felt undeniable. The benefits I was experiencing were significant enough that staying committed no longer felt difficult, and each small step seemed to bring another improvement. By year four, I realised I was no longer living as the pain-filled version of myself. My pain was no longer restricting my movement or defining me or my life. Here is what I learned I share this not simply as a story about my body, but because the experience taught me something much bigger about change. For me, transformation didn't come through force, sheer willpower or gritting my teeth and pushing through. It came through consistent, gentle and intentional practice. I began to understand the importance of breath, movement and simply showing up repeatedly, with patience and trust. Each practice became a quiet promise to myself, I trust my body. I trust this process. One of my teachers once told me, "Age is measured by the flexibility of the spine." Those words have stayed with me throughout my journey. If your life feels rigid right now, stuck, heavy, as though movement in any direction is impossible, I want you to consider this, that rigidity doesn't have to be permanent. It can be a starting point. And sometimes, that is exactly where transformation begins. What children know that most adults have forgotten After eight years of practice, I finally trained as a Kundalini Yoga teacher. By then, my husband and I had adopted three children, and my 5 a.m. yoga sessions, sneaking downstairs before the rest of the house woke up, didn't always go to plan. The children would often follow me. And then something remarkable happened. The practice that had helped me heal my back and rebuild myself after grief began to have a profound effect on my children too. In particular, my daughter, a little live wire, stood out. From morning until night, she was constantly on the go, bursting with energy and rarely still. Yet whenever she wandered into my yoga space, something magical began to happen. This little girl who rarely stopped moving would settle quietly beside me and begin singing along to the meditations. There was no need to persuade her, explain what we were doing or ask her to sit still. She simply joined in. As I watched her, I began to notice something extraordinary about the way children respond to these practices. They don't need convincing. They don't question whether they're doing it correctly. They simply experience it, as though they're reconnecting with something they already know. I've often wondered whether meditation comes more naturally to children than we realise. After all, a baby spends its first nine months in the womb, surrounded by warmth, rhythm and sound, simply being. I like to imagine it as their very first experience of meditation. Perhaps that is why children can respond so beautifully when we give them the opportunity to slow down, breathe and reconnect with themselves. That realisation became the seed from which everything else grew. I began to realise that if we could teach children these simple tools while they were young, we could give them something many of us spend our adult lives searching for, the ability to recognise what we're feeling, find calm within ourselves and trust our own bodies. That became my life's work. The question you're quietly asking yourself If you're reading this, you're probably not simply curious about yoga. You might be someone who has spent years in a career that pays the bills but costs you something harder to quantify. You might be a parent, a carer, or someone who has put everyone else's needs ahead of your own for so long that you've lost track of what you actually want. Or maybe you're someone who feels a genuine pull towards working with children, towards something more meaningful, towards a life that doesn't feel like a trade-off between security and purpose. Here is what I want you to know, purpose is not always found. Sometimes, it is built slowly and deliberately from the exact material your life has already given you, including the painful parts. My chronic pain pointed me towards healing. My grief pointed me towards presence. My children pointed me towards the next generation who needed these tools. Your path will look different from mine, but perhaps the clues are already there. The next chapter: A business built from the inside out Imagine waking up on a Monday morning actually looking forward to the workday ahead of you. Work that fits around your life rather than asking your life to fit around it. Work where you can choose the schools, nurseries and communities you want to serve, knowing that what you are teaching has the potential to stay with a child for years to come. Perhaps you simply want to qualify as a children's yoga teacher and begin sharing these tools alongside the work you already do. Or maybe you're ready for something bigger, a meaningful business of your own, one that gives you greater freedom and flexibility while allowing you to make a genuine difference to children's lives. That is why I created The Happy Little Yogi Academy. After more than 17 years of teaching children and working within schools and nurseries, I have brought together everything I've learned into two pathways. You can train in the Happy Little Yogi Flow, gaining a specialist children's yoga qualification accredited by Yoga Alliance Professionals, along with the knowledge and confidence to begin sharing these tools with children. Or, if you have a bigger vision and want to turn your qualification into a business, you can choose the newly launched Business in a Box, combining the teacher training with twelve months of coaching and support to help you take what you've learned out into the world and build something of your own. You choose how far you want to take it. For some, becoming a children's yoga teacher is the dream. For others, it's just the beginning. Whichever path you choose, the reason behind it remains the same. Our children are growing up in a world where the pressures they face extend far beyond exams and qualifications. They need tools to help them understand their emotions, connect with their bodies, use their breath and find their way back to themselves when life feels overwhelming. That is what the Happy Little Yogi Flow is designed to give them. And every time I train another teacher, those tools have the potential to reach another classroom, another school and another child. I started this journey in my living room with a DVD, a spinal diagnosis and a grief I didn't know how to carry. Twenty-seven years later, I know something I couldn't have known then, the tools that help you heal are sometimes the very tools you're meant to share. The next Happy Little Yogi Academy programme is in February 2027. If something in my story has stirred something in you, perhaps it's worth listening to. Whether you feel called to become a children's yoga teacher or dream of creating something bigger, I'd love to invite you to discover which pathway might be right for you. One thing you can try today If nothing else, take this with you. The next time you feel overwhelmed at work, at home, or simply inside your own head, just pause before automatically reaching for your phone, another coffee, or the next thing on your to-do list. Sit comfortably with both feet on the floor. Take a few moments to notice your breathing. Then gently close your right nostril and breathe slowly through your left nostril for a short period of time, without forcing the breath. Notice what changes. Notice your breathing. Notice your body. Notice whether your thoughts begin to slow. For me, the breath has become one of the simplest ways to pause, reconnect, and create a little space between what is happening around me and how I choose to respond. It costs nothing. It can take just a few minutes. And it is a practice we can share with children too. That is where change really begins, not with one enormous leap, but with a small moment of reconnection. The life you're meant to live may not require you to become someone entirely new. It may simply be asking you to recognise the value in everything you've already lived through. If this resonates with you, if you feel ready to take what you've lived through and explore how it could become something that lights you up while serving others, the first step can simply be a conversation. You can find out more about The Happy Little Yogi Academy and our children's yoga teacher training and business programme here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jane Oppegaard Jane Oppegaard, Director & Founder of Happy Little Yogi Jane Oppegaard is a leader in children's yoga, meditation and mindfulness. Diagnosed with scoliosis at 28, she found Kundalini yoga and meditation, and it changed the course of her life. She has since dedicated her work to helping children find calm, resilience and their own peaceful place, and also supports adults living with back pain. She is Founder and Director of Happy Little Yogi, delivering yoga and wellbeing programmes in schools across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire since 2009, and leads the accredited Happy Little Yogi Flow Teacher Training Programme. Her mission is empowering children to self-regulate from a young age, teaching them to breathe, tune in with their body and be mindful.

Written by Jo Warwick, Founder of Glitches to Gold™, Author & Podcast Host Jo Warwick is The Money Therapist, host of the Glitches to Gold podcast, and author of The Big Book of Love. Blending over 25 years of expertise in psychotherapy, business, energetics, and Human Design, she guides women to uncover inherited and unconscious patterns that drive their money and success in life. When an established business starts losing revenue, staff and momentum, the problems may be far more connected than they appear. Jo Warwick explores the invisible electrical circuitry running through a business, and how a shift in its energy helped one declining company return to growth and more than £2 million in annual turnover. When success starts to unravel What happens when a business that's been successful for years suddenly starts going backwards? Revenue starts dropping. Good people leave. The management team starts pulling in different directions, and everyone is working harder to get back to the success they once had. It's easy to look at these as separate business problems, sales, staffing, leadership, marketing and performance. But they're all connected. What you're actually seeing is a disruption in the electrical pulse running through the entire business. Every business has an energy moving through it. It starts with the people who create and lead it, then travels through management, employees, the environment, the brand, the customers and the money. Just like an electrical circuit, when that flow gets interrupted in one place, the effects can show up somewhere completely different. A few years ago, I was brought in as a consultant to an established company that had been turning over around £1 million a year for many years. Now, it was unravelling. The invisible electrical circuit When a business begins to lose momentum, the natural response is to examine the individual areas where things aren't working. Sales figures are analysed. Management structures are questioned. Marketing is reviewed. Staff performance comes under scrutiny. All of those things matter. But a business isn't a collection of independent departments. It's an interconnected system, with an electrical pulse moving through the entire organisation. Its leaders' energy shapes decision-making, how people work together, how customers experience the business, and ultimately how money moves through it. The flow isn't simply travelling in one direction. Every part of the business is continually influencing the others. A leadership interruption can show up as poor staff retention. Conflicting management decisions can affect the environment, customer relationships and sales. A brand that no longer reflects the business can influence how it's positioned and received in the market. This is why examining each problem in isolation can miss what's actually happening. Understanding a business's systemic layout lets you see where the electrical pulse is moving, where the flow is interrupted, and how those interruptions affect the company as a whole. In this business, those interruptions were becoming increasingly visible. When it's not allowed to evolve The business had spent years building its success. It had customers, a reputation, an established market position and an offering that had evolved considerably. Yet the energy running through it still belonged to its early start-up days. The hustle. The drive. The young, vibrant, everyone-pushing-to-make-it-happen atmosphere. That energy had helped create a successful company. But the business had grown, and its leaders hadn't allowed it to evolve into the established company it had become. The managing director had become increasingly controlling. The management team had lost its shared direction, with conflicting ideas about where the company was going and what they wanted to create. Relationships were breaking down. People who were supposed to lead the business together were fighting. That conflict was disrupting the operational flow. The working environment had become unpleasant. Staff no longer felt loyalty towards the company, and people were leaving because they simply didn't want to work there. The business was losing the very people it needed to move forward. Meanwhile, the leadership was still trying to operate from the same identity and way of working that had built the company in the first place. But it wasn't that company anymore. Its experience, offering, market position and what it could now deliver were all very different. The business needed to catch up with what it had become. Bringing the business back into unison The shift began with getting honest. Honest about what was happening right in front of them. The business was falling apart. Revenue was declining, good people were leaving, relationships were breaking down, and the management team was losing hope in the company they'd spent years building. They had to acknowledge where they actually were, rather than keep trying to operate as though everything was still working. They also needed to be honest about who they had become. The business had matured, and so had the people leading it. They weren't the same individuals who had started the company years earlier. Experience had changed them, their lives had evolved, and what they wanted now wasn't necessarily what they'd wanted when they started. So we had to clarify what they wanted. What did they actually want from this business now? What excited them? Where did they want to take it? What kind of company did they want to lead, and how did they want to feel being part of it? Somewhere along the way, amid the conflict, pressure, and declining results, they'd lost their passion for what they were creating. That loss of desire and direction was draining the energy from the entire company. The people responsible for leading the business were no longer moving together. Conflicting ideas, control battles, frustration, and a lack of shared vision continually interrupted the electrical pulse flowing through the organisation. So this wasn't simply about agreeing on a new direction, changing the management or updating the brand. It was about the energy underpinning all of those things. As they clarified what they actually wanted to create, the energy between them began to shift. Excitement about the business returned. A shared focus and genuine cohesion emerged among the leaders, the company's identity, and its direction. That changed how they led, communicated, made decisions, and showed up throughout the business. The electrical pulse, once interrupted by conflict and competing directions, began to flow with a much greater sense of unison. When the flow changes, the business changes The effects were felt across the company almost immediately. The working environment changed overnight. The atmosphere became more positive, relationships improved, and the team's energy shifted completely. Hiring became easier, with people joining who fit the business's next stage. The brand and offering began to reflect the established company it had become. The way the business presented itself, communicated, and connected with customers changed. Deals began moving again, and the business regained its momentum. These weren't isolated improvements. They were all part of the same shift in the company's energy. Revenue quickly returned to over £120,000 a month, and the business subsequently grew to more than £2 million in annual turnover. The company hadn't lost its ability to be successful. It had grown beyond the way it was still being operated. Once the leaders recognised that, reconnected with their desire, and came back into unison, the electrical pulse running through the company could flow in a completely different way. Success isn't the end of evolution Building a successful business is one thing. Letting it keep evolving is another. As a company matures, so do the people behind it. Their experience, ambitions, and desires change. What once felt exciting and expansive can become restrictive when the business continues operating as though nothing has changed. The next stage of growth requires the business and its leaders to evolve together. When they align on who they've become, what they want to create, and how the company operates, the entire business can move forward with them. Is your business ready for its next evolution? If you're recognising something of your own business in this article, get in touch. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jo Warwick Jo Warwick, Founder of Glitches to Gold™, Author & Podcast Host Jo Warwick brings over two decades of experience in psychotherapy, human behaviour, business and energetics to her work exploring the hidden patterns and systemic circuitry shaping money, business, success, love and life. A former elite athlete, entrepreneur and author of two books, she is also the host of the Glitches to Gold™ podcast, with over 250,000 plays and 1,500 five-star reviews across four seasons. Discover more at GlitchesToGold.com.

Pippa Rauch is an Industrial and Organisational Psychologist and Coach who supports ambitious professionals to navigate change, uncertainty and the often uncomfortable space between who they have been and who they are becoming. Her work combines psychological insight with a deeply human approach to understanding identity, self-trust and meaningful transitions. In this interview, Pippa explores why even successful professionals can feel stuck or disconnected from their careers, the emotional complexities of change, and why finding the “right” next step is not always the answer. She shares how slowing down, developing self-awareness and taking small, courageous steps can help people navigate uncertainty and create more meaningful careers and lives. Pippa Rauch, Industrial Psychologist and Transition Coach What tends to bring someone to you when a successful career no longer feels like the right fit? Often, there is a disconnect between how someone’s life or career looks from the outside and how it feels on the inside. Many of the people I work with have done everything they thought they were supposed to do. They have worked hard, built successful careers, taken on more responsibility and reached goals they once really wanted. Yet, at some point, something stops fitting. They might describe feeling stuck, burnt out, restless or disconnected from their work. Often, they assume the answer is simply to find another job or career. But when we slow things down, the conversation frequently becomes much bigger than that. The person who built this career may have changed. Their priorities may have shifted. A life transition may have altered what success means to them now. Or they may be realising that they have spent a long time following expectations without asking what they actually want. That is why I see career questions as deeply human questions. Sometimes, “What should I do next?” is really asking, “Who am I now, and what matters to me from here?” How do you help clients distinguish temporary frustration from a deeper shift in identity, values or direction? I encourage people not to rush to solve the discomfort. When something feels wrong at work, our instinct is often to immediately ask, “Should I leave?” I prefer to slow down and become curious about what the discomfort might be communicating and revealing to us. We explore when the feeling began, what has changed, what emotions are present and what they notice in their body when they talk about different aspects of their work. We also pay attention to the internal narratives, such as the “shoulds”, expectations and beliefs they hold about who they need to be. Sometimes we discover that the role itself still fits, but the person is exhausted, under-supported or navigating a particularly demanding season. Sometimes there are changes that could make their current work feel very different. Sometimes we realise that something more fundamental has shifted. The goal is not to remove uncertainty as quickly as possible. It is to understand it. When we create enough space to notice what is happening beneath the frustration, the next step often becomes much clearer. Why does self-trust often become harder, rather than easier, for high-achieving professionals facing major change? High achievers often become very good at succeeding within structures where the markers of success are relatively clear. For example, work hard, perform well, get the qualification, then earn the promotion and take the next opportunity. Major transitions can remove those markers. Suddenly, there may be no obvious “right” answer, and that can feel incredibly uncomfortable. Someone who is used to feeling competent can find themselves in unfamiliar territory where research, achievement and hard work cannot guarantee certainty. This is often when people start looking outward. They ask more people for advice, consume more information, compare themselves with peers and try to think their way towards the perfect decision. Ironically, the more external noise they gather, the harder it can become to hear themselves. For me, self-trust is not about always knowing the answer or feeling completely confident. It is about developing the belief that even when I do not know exactly what comes next, I can listen to myself, make a thoughtful choice and trust my ability to respond to what follows. What do workplaces still misunderstand about the emotional side of career and leadership transitions? We often treat workplace transitions as logistical events when they are also deeply emotional experiences. A promotion, restructure, return from parental leave, move into leadership, or organisational change may look straightforward on an organisational chart, but psychologically, something much more complex can be happening. Transitions often involve identity. A first-time manager, for example, is not simply learning a new set of leadership skills. They may be letting go of an identity built around being the expert individual contributor and now learning how to create success through other people. Someone returning to work after becoming a parent may be returning as a person whose priorities, values, identity, and relationship with ambition have shifted. When we experience change, there are almost always experiences of grief, even in positive change. Moving towards something new often means leaving something familiar behind. It is important for organisations to understand and acknowledge this grief while also validating that it is part of the transition process. I think workplaces could support transitions far better by creating space for both the practical and human dimensions of change. People do not leave their emotions, identities, and uncertainty at the door when they arrive at work. These experiences shape how they lead, perform, connect, and adapt. Why can the pressure to find the “right next step” make career change more difficult? Because it turns exploration into a test you believe you have to pass. People often come to career change wanting certainty. They might say, “Tell me what I should do next.” Beneath that can be an understandable fear of making the wrong decision, wasting time, or regretting a choice. But when every decision feels as though it needs to determine the next ten years or our whole career, we can become paralysed. We overthink, gather endless information, and wait for a level of certainty that may never arrive. I prefer to encourage people to ask, “What is my next best step?” while keeping their eyes on their values and the kind of life they want to create. Our values can act as a compass, giving us a sense of direction without requiring us to have the entire journey mapped out. The next best step doesn't have to solve your entire future. It simply needs to move you towards what matters or help you learn something about yourself. Meaningful change rarely comes from one perfect decision. It unfolds through small, intentional, and courageous steps that gradually bring us closer to a life that feels more aligned with who we are and what we value. What is one useful way to notice whether someone is experiencing burnout, misalignment, or simply a demanding season at work? I would start by becoming curious about the pattern rather than immediately trying to label the experience. Ask, “When do I feel like this?” Is the exhaustion present across almost everything, including areas of work that previously felt energising? Does rest make a meaningful difference? Is the difficulty linked to a particular manager, responsibility, or season? Or do you notice that even when you have capacity, something about the work itself no longer feels meaningful or aligned? I also encourage people to notice what happens emotionally and physically. Our bodies can offer useful information before we have found the language for what we are experiencing. There is rarely one question that neatly separates burnout from misalignment or a demanding season, and sometimes they overlap. Prolonged misalignment can contribute to burnout, for example. The important thing is to resist making a major decision from a place of depletion, if possible. Before asking, “Do I need a different career?”, we may first need to ask, “What do I need in order to hear myself clearly again?” How can small experiments help someone move forward before they feel completely certain about what comes next? Small experiments not only lower the stakes of change but also help us build confidence, create momentum and develop greater trust in ourselves. When people believe they need to know exactly what they want before taking action, they can remain stuck for a very long time. I encourage clients to reverse that process, take a small, thoughtful action and allow the experience to teach you something. An experiment could be having a conversation with someone whose work interests you, volunteering for a different type of project, testing a new boundary or exploring an idea without immediately committing to it. Then we reflect, "What did you notice? What energised you? What felt uncomfortable? What surprised you? What might you want to try next?" These small actions create opportunities for learning, but they also help us experience ourselves as capable of moving forward, even when things feel uncertain. Each step can build a little more confidence and momentum, reminding us that we don't need to have everything figured out to make progress. Over time, we begin to develop self-trust, not because every experiment works out as expected, but because we learn that we can navigate uncertainty, respond to what we discover and keep moving forward. Sometimes confidence doesn't come before action. It grows because we were courageous enough to begin. What has your own experience taught you about moving from proving yourself toward trusting yourself? This is something I continue to learn. Earlier in my career, I think I placed a lot of value on doing things well, being useful and proving that I was capable. There is nothing inherently wrong with ambition or wanting to do good work, but I have learnt that achievement can become a very noisy measure of whether we are “enough”. Building my own practice, becoming a mother and allowing my work to evolve have all challenged me to loosen my grip on certainty and externally defined ideas of success. I have had to become more comfortable with seasons where the next chapter is still taking shape. I have also had to practise many of the things I ask of my clients, slowing down, noticing what I need, questioning my own “shoulds”, allowing priorities to change and trusting that small steps still count. For me, moving from proving to trusting does not mean losing ambition. It means changing the relationship I have with it. I can still want to grow and contribute meaningfully without needing every achievement to validate who I am. What question would you encourage someone to ask themselves when they know something needs to change but do not yet know what? I would ask, “What is the next small step I can take that would help me understand myself or my situation a little better?” We often ask enormous questions when we are in transition, "What should I do with my life? What is my purpose? Should I stay or leave? What career am I meant to have?" These questions matter, but when we are already overwhelmed or uncertain, they can create even more pressure. A smaller question invites curiosity rather than demanding certainty. Maybe the next step is noticing what consistently drains you. Maybe it is having an honest conversation, setting a boundary, researching something you keep returning to, resting before deciding, or admitting to yourself that what you once wanted has changed. You do not need a complete map of the next chapter to begin moving towards it. Sometimes self-trust is built precisely this way, not by suddenly knowing the answer, but by learning that you can listen to yourself and respond to what you hear. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Pippa Rauch

Written by Malak ElShazly, Somatic Coach Malak ElShazly is a UK-certified somatic coach specializing in nervous system regulation and trauma-informed practice. She works through 1:1 sessions, group classes, and educational tools to help individuals build safety in the body, process emotions, and restore a sense of agency. Have you ever felt overwhelmed by your emotions without knowing what to do with them? Maybe your jaw is clenched, your chest feels tight, or your thoughts won’t slow down. You might know something is bothering you but struggle to identify what you’re feeling or what you need. Many of us have learned how to push through difficult experiences, but we haven’t necessarily learned how to understand our bodies, recognize our emotions, or respond to ourselves when things feel like too much. We often try to think our way through emotional discomfort, distract ourselves, or wait for difficult feelings to pass. But developing a healthier relationship with ourselves also involves learning to notice what’s happening inside us and discovering different ways to respond. Emotional regulation isn’t about never feeling overwhelmed. It’s about building the capacity to experience emotions without feeling completely consumed by them. This is the idea behind the Safety Box, a collection of practical tools designed to help you understand your body, explore your emotions, and find ways to support yourself when you need it most. Why does body awareness matter? Stress doesn’t only affect our thoughts. It can also contribute to physical tension, changes in breathing, restlessness, and other sensations in the body. Sometimes, we notice these physical changes before we recognize the emotions behind them. Body awareness helps us become more familiar with these sensations and the patterns associated with our experiences. For example, you might notice that your shoulders tense during difficult conversations or that your jaw clenches when you’re frustrated. These sensations don’t tell you everything about what you’re feeling, but they can offer a starting point for reflection. Instead of immediately judging yourself for feeling uncomfortable, you can begin by asking, “What am I noticing in my body right now?” This is where the Safety Box comes in. It offers different ways to explore your physical sensations, identify your emotions, and experiment with practices that may help you feel more grounded. What’s inside the Safety Box? Each item serves a different purpose, but they share the same intention, helping you become more aware of your internal experiences and giving you practical options when you don’t know where to begin. The myofascial ball: Releasing physical tension Stress can contribute to muscular tension, and many of us become so accustomed to holding tension that we barely notice it anymore. The myofascial ball can be used for gentle self-massage, helping you explore areas of muscular tension and reconnect with physical sensations. The intention is to slow down and pay attention to what your body needs rather than forcing yourself to relax. It offers a practical way to explore muscular tension and physical comfort. The notebook: Understanding yourself more deeply Sometimes, we know we’re feeling something but struggle to understand what it is or where it comes from. The notebook includes guided prompts to help you explore your physical sensations, emotional experiences, needs, and recurring patterns. Through questions that encourage self-reflection, you can begin noticing how different situations affect you and what helps you feel more connected to yourself. The goal isn’t to find perfect answers. It’s to develop greater body awareness and a clearer understanding of your internal experiences. The emotion wheel: Naming what you feel Have you ever felt overwhelmed without being able to explain exactly why? The color-coded emotion wheel, included at the back of the notebook, helps you explore and name your emotions more specifically. For example, you might recognize anger in the red section and discover that what you’re feeling is actually frustration, resentment, or disappointment. Putting feelings into words can help make them easier to understand and explore. Naming an emotion doesn’t automatically make it disappear, but it gives you a clearer starting point for deciding how to respond. The emotion cards: Finding ways to respond Recognizing an emotion is one thing. Knowing what to do with it is another. The Safety Box includes color-coded cards with exercises corresponding to the emotion wheel. Once you’ve identified what you’re feeling, you can use the matching color to find a practice to explore. These exercises offer practical ways to engage with your emotions through movement, grounding, and body awareness. The goal isn’t to eliminate every uncomfortable feeling. It’s to give yourself options when you’re overwhelmed and gradually discover which practices feel supportive to you. The candle: Creating space to slow down Our surroundings can influence our routines and our experience of rest. After a busy day, constant stimulation can make it difficult to transition into a quieter evening. The candle invites you to create a small ritual around slowing down. You might pair it with dim lighting, journaling, or a few minutes away from your phone before bed. It’s a simple reminder to pause and give yourself space rather than moving through every moment on autopilot. The ice cube: Grounding during moments of panic When panic or intense anxiety arises, it can feel difficult to stay connected to the present moment. The ice cube provides a brief, cool sensory sensation that you can focus on when you feel overwhelmed. Noticing the temperature and describing the sensation may help redirect your attention toward the present. For some people, sensory grounding can be a helpful way to navigate moments of distress, although it isn’t a guaranteed way to stop a panic attack. Use the cold sensation briefly and comfortably, avoiding prolonged direct contact with your skin. The intention isn’t to force yourself to calm down. It’s to give yourself another point of focus while you navigate what you’re experiencing. Is the goal to always feel calm? Not at all. Emotional regulation doesn’t mean eliminating anxiety, sadness, anger, or discomfort. It means gradually developing more flexibility in how you experience and respond to these emotions. Building capacity involves learning to recognize your internal experiences, tolerate discomfort when it’s manageable, and discover what supports you when life feels overwhelming. Sometimes, a grounding exercise may help. Other times, you might need rest, support from someone you trust, or professional help. The Safety Box isn’t a promise that you’ll never feel overwhelmed again. It’s a collection of tools that can help make self-reflection and regulation practices more accessible in everyday life. You don’t have to use everything at once. Sometimes, one prompt, one gentle movement, or one moment of grounding is enough to begin exploring what you need. Creating a different relationship with yourself Many of us respond to difficult emotions with impatience. We criticize ourselves for being sensitive, push through exhaustion, or feel frustrated when we cannot simply switch off what we’re feeling. But understanding yourself begins with a different kind of attention. Instead of asking, “How do I make this feeling go away?” you can begin by asking, “What is happening inside me, and what might help me meet this moment?” You don’t need to have every answer. You don’t need to feel calm all the time. And you don’t need to turn self-care into another thing you must do perfectly. The Safety Box was created to give you practical tools to explore your body, understand your emotions, and develop a more intentional relationship with yourself at your own pace. Because you deserve more than being told to calm down. You deserve the tools and understanding to discover what helps you navigate what you’re feeling. The Safety Box is coming soon. Follow me on Instagram, TikTok, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Malak ElShazly Malak ElShazly, Somatic Coach Malak ElShazly is a UK-certified, trauma-informed somatic coach specializing in nervous system regulation and embodied emotional processing. She offers 1:1 freelance coaching, works across digital platforms, and teaches group classes in studio settings. Her work supports individuals in building safety in the body, completing emotional cycles, and strengthening a sense of agency. Malak also creates practical somatic tools and products designed to support long-term emotional regulation and resilience. Her approach integrates evidence-informed somatic practices with accessible, body-based education.

Written by Jade Taussig, Psychotherapist, Coach & CEO Jade Taussig is an accredited psychotherapist, coach, and entrepreneur dedicated to helping people unlock lasting change, process their emotions, and find their voices. As co-founder of Integrated Wellness, creator of Mood Moved, and CEO of We Are The News, she combines psychological expertise with innovation, creativity, and personal growth. Do you ever find yourself lost for words or feel that the words available to you aren't quite right? When writing, we have the luxury of time. We can pause, edit, delete and fiddle around with the synonyms option until we find precisely or approximately the word we want. Talking is different. It is dynamic and immediate. There is no thesaurus available in the middle of a conversation. My core training is as a talking therapist. However, I have always been fascinated by the different ways we can access and express our emotions. A feeling or memory may be powerful, yet the words to describe it can elude us. Sometimes, the experience is felt more readily in the body through tension, tightness in the chest or shallow, panicked breathing. This is where creative expression can offer us another language. How can making art be therapeutic? Through art making, we can access and express our emotions in different and novel ways. If we remain open and curious about what emerges, the creative process can allow us to encounter different perspectives and potentially disrupt rigid or unhelpful thought patterns. What we produce also gives us something tangible to reflect upon, a form of non-verbal language with which we can engage. Expression may remain entirely wordless. Alternatively, when an image is shared and reflected upon with another person or within a group, something that began without words may gradually move into the verbal sphere. I’m reminded of the adult colouring book phenomenon in 2015, when sales skyrocketed. Although this form of activity is demonstrably more bounded and less creative than working with a blank canvas, it gives us insight into the mindful nature of adding colour and the adult desire to tap into an activity that was commonplace in our childhood but largely abandoned in adulthood. Perhaps this is why it returned, because it was deeply rewarding. What happens with no predetermined lines, cues or structures? This is where the mind, body and unconscious interact, potentially giving us insight into our inner world and the way we experience the world around us. It also has the potential to show us what is hidden, difficult to articulate, obscure or evocative. Or perhaps it is simply just a yellow blob? It is blob-like and yellow. That too is allowed. The place of art in a progressively logical world Increasingly, our lives seem driven by systems, efficiency, data and logic. We are constantly being told that artificial intelligence (AI) is the answer to absolutely everything. On that point, I strongly beg to differ. Comprehending and connecting with the human condition is an art more than it is a science. A large language model may produce something impressively structured and seemingly near perfect, but therein lies the problem. Being human is a messy business, and our attempts to understand ourselves and one another can be messier still. Art lives and thrives in this space. Once an artwork has been created, we can become curious about it and ask questions such as, "What did I notice while creating this? What do I notice now? What feelings arise when I look at this? What do I make of this?" One question may cascade into another, opening up unexpected avenues for reflection. Exploration can continue through talking, further art making or simply spending time with what has emerged. Neat and tidy it is not. Dynamically human, it is. Stress relief and beyond There is a growing research base examining the relationship between creative activity, art therapy and wellbeing. A study by Kaimal, Ray and Muniz demonstrated that cortisol levels, our stress hormone, considerably decreased after a creative session, with participants also reporting feelings of entering into a flow state that was enjoyable, freeing and relaxing. Importantly, previous artistic experience was not significantly associated with the outcome. The therapeutic benefits of art are experienced irrespective of whether a person is artistically inclined, trained or good at art. Research by art therapist Vija Lusebrink also provides an interesting framework for understanding what may be happening during art making. Her work on the Expressive Therapies Continuum explores how creative expression can engage sensory, movement, perceptual, emotional and cognitive processes. Research has also explored creative and art-based interventions in relation to cognitive processes and conditions such as dementia. Studies involving people living with dementia suggest that art-based interventions may provide opportunities for communication, engagement and person-centred activity. From thoughts to feelings Rather than relying exclusively on language, art allows different aspects of experience to interact. Art can also be useful for people who have a tendency to intellectualise their experiences. Words can, of course, be magnificently artistic. Poetry, for example, can hit us on a gut level and say considerably more than an equation. However, sometimes we can drown in words or tie ourselves in knots with them. A clever wordsmith can be extremely skilled at using language to obfuscate how they actually feel. Art has the potential to bypass that. A talking therapist’s experiences of the therapeutic benefits of art making Occasionally, in my clinical work, clients share their artwork and their experiences of creating it with me. This can bring an interesting new dimension into the therapeutic room and foster deeper understanding and connection. The chosen medium, colours, lines, shapes and expressions can all become areas for exploration. I can become curious about what those things mean to the client. In some ways, an image may be less rigid than a word. Words generally carry established meanings. An image, by contrast, may hold multiple meanings, both for its creator and for the observer. Recently, I experienced this for myself during a therapeutic art session with Art Psychotherapist Ran Dang. She offered me a range of materials to experiment with, from felt-tip pens and pencils to charcoal and crayons. I elected to sit on the floor and spent very little time thinking about what I wanted to produce or which medium I should use. Instead, I approached the exercise as play rather than putting pressure on myself to create something seminal. Sitting on the floor transported me to a place I’d not been for many a decade. The experience was akin to playing as a child. I had no expectations and even made a bit of a mess. The resultant image was that of a winter tree on a sunny beach. Post-production, Ran invited me to explore what I had experienced while making the piece and what I noticed as I looked at it. What emerged surprised me. The image felt strongly connected to the death of my father, which happened almost ten years ago. His death is not something I consciously think about day to day, and I had assumed that much of my grieving had been completed. Yet reflecting on the image revealed that there was still considerably more sitting beneath the surface. There was grief, but also frustration that practical responsibilities had interrupted that process and, in some ways, continued to do so. Alongside this, there was something else, hope and a strong sense that our connection continues. None of this had been planned when I picked up the art materials. It emerged through the process and then through becoming curious about what I had made. Art making with others My daughter, a very talented young artist, fell in love with my piece and now keeps it among her own treasured art collection. For her, art making has long been a primary source of pleasure and self-exploration. It is something she can lose herself in, whatever mood she happens to be experiencing. She describes the process as stress relieving and immersive. She also enjoys the added gratification of producing work she is proud of, which inspires further pieces. On occasion, we draw together. The process of sitting with one another and sharing our work is pleasurable in itself. Creating art within a group introduces another dimension. Alongside individual experiences of expression, reflection and self-awareness, participants can share an experience, witness one another's work and, if they choose to, communicate about what they have created. Research has also explored whether art therapy can support self-esteem. One small study by Hartz and Thick examined art therapy approaches with 27 female juvenile offenders over approximately 12 weeks. The researchers compared art psychotherapy with an art as therapy approach and found improvements in aspects of self-worth, alongside different improvements in areas such as social acceptance, behavioural conduct and close friendship. When movement and art come together In previous articles, I have written about the powerful relationship between movement and mental wellbeing. Art making adds a further dimension. Movement is still involved, but something potentially permanent is also created. When words are spoken, the sound disappears at the point of utterance. What remains may become part of our or another person’s memory. Artwork is different because it remains. Like a diary entry or photograph, it can become a snapshot of a particular moment, a window into our inner world at a particular point in time. We can return to it at later times or in different emotional states. This opens up the potential to see or feel something new. Move, create, reflect My interest in the relationship between art, movement and emotional wellbeing inspired me to create Mood Moved, a workshop series in which I collaborate with specialists, including art psychotherapists, dancers, actors, martial artists and holistic health practitioners. The workshops explore different ways of connecting with ourselves beyond talking alone, using movement, creativity and psychologically informed reflection to support emotional exploration, self-expression, stress relief and wellbeing. At our next Therapeutic Movement & Creative Art workshop, Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) Registered Art Psychotherapist Ran Dang and I will bring movement and creative expression together in a supportive, non-judgemental environment. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jade Taussig Jade Taussig, Psychotherapist, Coach & CEO Jade Taussig is a United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) accredited psychotherapist, coach, and co-founder of Integrated Wellness, with over 17 years’ experience supporting mental health, emotional wellbeing, confidence, and personal growth. Her holistic approach draws on Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), coaching, and movement-based practices. She is also the creator of Mood Moved, a workshop series combining psychotherapy, movement, creativity, and self-expression, and the CEO and co-founder of We Are The News, a community-driven social media platform focused on freedom of expression, transparency, and informed discussion.

Written by Dr. Nina Jatuparisuthiseen, Acupuncturist Dr. Kanokwan “Nina” Jatuparisuthiseen is a board-certified and licensed acupuncturist, a Certified Sports Medicine Acupuncture® practitioner, and the founder of Nina Acupuncture. Her work is known for its clinical precision, individualized care, and effective results for pain, stress-related conditions, and well-being. At 48, I am noticing changes I once associated with other women, gray hair, shifting energy, and a body that no longer responds to every demand in quite the same way. I am also noticing something else. I know myself better. I am less interested in proving that I can do everything and more interested in choosing what matters. A recent midlife wellness symposium in Westport, Connecticut, brought these thoughts into focus. Hearing women speak openly about menopause reminded me how easily this transition gets reduced to a list of symptoms. As an acupuncturist and a woman in midlife, I see a fuller story, biology changes, and so can our relationship with work, care, rest, and ourselves. What second spring means In Traditional Chinese Medicine, menopause is sometimes called a “second spring.” I love the image because it makes room for renewal without pretending that the transition is easy. A spring does not arrive on command. It follows a season of change. Perimenopause can bring irregular periods, hot flashes, night sweats, sleep problems, mood changes, and vaginal dryness. Experiences vary widely. Some women have mild symptoms, others find that symptoms disrupt daily life. These changes deserve attention and appropriate care, not a demand to simply endure them. Traditional Chinese Medicine describes patterns of imbalance using concepts such as Yin and Yang. Yin is associated with cooling, nourishment, and restoration. A practitioner might interpret heat and night sweats as signs of a Yin pattern. When life leaves little room to recover Many women I meet have spent years caring for children, partners, or aging parents while keeping careers and households moving. They may be skilled at meeting everyone else’s needs and unsure when they last had time to meet their own. It is tempting to explain every midlife symptom as the result of stress or “depletion.” That would miss the real hormonal changes of menopause. Yet daily life still matters. Interrupted sleep, long hours, little time to eat, and constant responsibility can make an already demanding transition harder to navigate. I ask patients about more than hot flashes. How are they sleeping? What feels sustainable in their schedule? Do they have space to move, eat, and rest? The answers do not replace a diagnosis. They help us see the whole person who is living through it. Making care personal There is no single menopause plan for every woman. Hormone therapy is the most effective treatment for hot flashes and night sweats for many eligible patients, and effective nonhormonal options are available. A clinician can help weigh symptoms, medical history, preferences, and risks. Some women also seek acupuncture as part of their care. Research on acupuncture for hot flashes is mixed, and professional guidelines do not recommend it as a proven treatment for vasomotor symptoms. In my practice, I discuss it as an individualized complementary option, especially when a patient wants space to address sleep, stress, and how she feels overall. Acupuncture can also be a useful complement to conventional care. Some patients tell me they feel better with an individualized plan that includes acupuncture and, when appropriate, Traditional Chinese herbal medicine. Their experiences matter, but I encourage each woman to discuss persistent or disruptive symptoms with her medical clinician so she can consider all her options. Small changes can still be meaningful, a steadier sleep routine, meals that nourish and satisfy, movement that feels good, and honest boundaries around what one person can carry. Restorative yoga, Qigong, or meditation may provide a welcome pause. They are choices to explore, not another set of tasks to perform perfectly. Bringing Yin nourishment to the table In Traditional Chinese Medicine, foods such as black beans, black sesame, tofu, seaweed, black ear mushroom, oysters, and pears are often described as Yin nourishing. I think of them as ordinary ways to bring variety and nourishment to the table. Try adding black beans to a soup or grain bowl, sprinkling black sesame over oatmeal, or serving tofu with vegetables. A ripe pear makes a simple afternoon snack. Prepare the foods by steaming, poaching, or boiling, which are considered more Yin-supporting than high-heat frying or grilling. For a gentle tea ritual, simmer thin slices of pear with a few goji berries and a Chinese date in water for 10 to 15 minutes, then drink it warm. You can eat the softened fruit, too. If you take warfarin, check with your clinician before using goji berries. Chrysanthemum tea is another traditional choice, people with allergies to plants in the daisy family should check before trying it. The beauty of becoming With World Menopause Day approaching on October 18, I wanted to write about more than symptoms. I wanted to make room for the personal side of this transition, too. I see my gray hair and wrinkles. I also see years of experience that have made me a more compassionate practitioner and a more honest version of myself. My appearance will continue to change, it does not determine my worth. Perhaps the invitation of a second spring is to listen with curiosity. What needs care now? What can be released? Which ordinary moments bring joy? For me, the answers often include sunlight, a nourishing meal, movement, connection, and quiet time without an agenda. Menopause can be uncomfortable, and no one needs to romanticize suffering. With support and room to adapt, this season can also open a different way of living, one shaped less by the pressure to remain unchanged and more by the freedom to become ourselves. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Dr. Nina Jatuparisuthiseen Dr. Nina Jatuparisuthiseen, Acupuncturist Dr. Nina Jatuparisuthiseen, DAc, L.Ac., LMT, C.SMA, LE, is a board-certified licensed acupuncturist and founder of Nina Acupuncture. She holds advanced training in sports medicine acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, and lifestyle and wellness coaching through Harvard Medical School Executive Education and specializes in evidence-based pain management, sports injury recovery, mental and women’s health, preventive care, and systems-based approaches to long-term health and resilience. Her work emphasizes mindful, ethical, and patient-centered care.

Written by Kim Lackie, Transformational Guide & Alchemist Kim Lackie is a retired Canadian law enforcement professional with 27+ years of service, a Master Practitioner in Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) and Time Line Therapy® (TLT®), NLP Coaching and Hypnotherapy, and founder of Sovereign Path Alchemy, guiding women through navigating the major life transitions of midlife. Most life transitions do not arrive all at once. They build quietly, one small shift at a time, while we are too busy to see them. Autumn offers a simple way to notice them sooner, so the bigger changes in life arrive more gently. There is a morning, usually sometime in September, when you step outside and realize the light has changed. It did not change that day. It has been changing for weeks, a minute or two at a time. You were simply moving too fast to see it. Most of the transitions in our lives arrive the same way. Some come with a dramatic ending, though many more arrive as a series of small shifts we do not notice until they have added up to something we cannot ignore. The child who no longer needs help with her shoes, then no longer needs a ride to school, then no longer needs you in the way your days were built around. The new position at work that slowly asks for a different version of you. The rhythm of your own body, changing month by month. Each of these is a small Autumn. Most of them pass without a single pause. What does living like Autumn mean? Autumn is more than a season. It is a pattern. Something ripens, it is gathered in, and whatever has finished its purpose is released so that space can open for what comes next. That pattern does not only happen once a year. It happens at the close of every day, at the turn of every month, and at the end of every stage of life, however small that stage might seem. Look at how a maple tree actually does it. It does not drop every leaf in a single afternoon. Its leaves turn from green to bright red, and then it lets them go one by one, over weeks, each small release making the next one easier. By the time winter arrives, the tree is not shocked by the change. It has been adjusting all along. Living like Autumn means practising that same rhythm in your own life. Noticing the small turns as they happen. Gathering what each one gave you. Letting go of what is done. Adjusting a little, often, rather than all at once, when the change can overwhelm you. Why small transitions go unnoticed For most of my adult life, I lived at an operational tempo, from dispatch calls to mommy emergencies. The calendar I set had no room for regular pauses. The small transitions kept happening until a big one arrived, and then I did one of two things. I dug deep and pushed through, or I collapsed from the stress. I remember when my girls wanted to join Brownies. At the first information session, the parents were told that without a volunteer leader, there would be no group. The disappointment in the room was palpable. Another mother and I agreed to lead it. Within six months, I was having panic attacks. One evening I arrived for the session and could not walk into the classroom. The months of small shifts had accumulated, each one a little more taken on when I did not have the capacity to give it. I had to step away, and the guilt I felt was enormous. Looking back, I can see the pattern that ran through my life. I was not honest with myself about how much energy each commitment, small or large, would take. Then I carried it for extended periods until I collapsed under the weight. I kept moving at full tempo, and the small transitions kept passing by unnoticed. I did not truly see the pattern until I retired and the pace finally stopped. I have written about what that season asked of me, and it was there, in the quiet, that I began to understand what I had been missing all along. There is a reason busy women miss these moments, and it is not a lack of awareness. In 2021, researchers at the University of Virginia published a series of experiments in the journal Nature showing that people tend to look for ways to improve things by adding, and as a result they routinely miss the option of taking something away, even when that is what is needed. The pattern was stronger when participants were carrying a heavier cognitive load, and the authors suggested it may help explain why people struggle to ease overburdened schedules. In other words, the faster and fuller life becomes, the less able we are to see what could be released. We keep adding, keep moving, and the small Autumns pile up unnoticed, until their weight finally forces us to stop. Pausing steers your momentum Many capable women resist slowing down because they fear losing ground. In many careers, the culture itself warns that a pause means losing your position or your momentum, so the pressure builds to keep your foot on the gas. ‘If I stop, everything stops.’ I understand that fear. I lived inside it for decades. Though what I have come to understand is that pausing does not stop your momentum. It steers it. When you stop regularly, even briefly, you can make the smallest course corrections while they are still small. The pause is brief and deliberate. You notice that a commitment no longer fits before it becomes a burden. You notice that your child needs something different from you before your patience runs thin. You notice that your energy is shifting before your body has to insist on being heard. This is preferable to waiting until a larger intervention is needed. The effort you are already putting in becomes aligned with where you envision your life going. It moves in harmony with the season you are in, rather than against it. You begin to trust your own inner knowing with more discernment and become open to new opportunities that may never have been on your horizon. Without these pauses, the drift adds up quietly. The years pass, and one day you realize the life you built is not fulfilling your deeper desires, and you feel hollow. Or the woman you have become no longer finds her needs and wants met by the life around her. When the correction finally comes, it has to be large. That is often what a crisis is. Not one sudden failure, but many small adjustments that were never made. This kind of noticing is not one more thing to perform well. There is nothing to achieve, track, or perfect. It is simply the practice of looking up long enough to see where you are, and being honest about what you find. You can make new adjustments at any time, in any season of life. Life does not come with a blueprint. You are the constant, your own North Star. So connect with her, and use this Autumn to make those small shifts with her as your guide. 5 ways to practise Autumn Close each day gently Before you sleep, take two minutes to ask yourself two questions. What did today give me? What am I ready to set down? You do not need to write anything or answer well. This is a daily harvest, small enough to fit into any life. Over time, it teaches your body that endings can be gentle and that nothing has to be carried into tomorrow simply because it was carried today. Harvest the small endings When you notice something you are no longer needed for, or no longer need, pause and name it. The first morning your teenager makes his own breakfast. The week you are no longer the new one at work. The moment you recognize a project is ready to be handed to someone else, so you can focus on the work you do best and that lights you up. Then take it one step further and gather what that stage grew in you. Not what you did, but who you became while doing it. The patience. The insights. The ability to stay steady when others could not. This stage may have ended, though what it grew in you has not. Write a line or two, and you will often find that a small ending leaves you with more than it took. Ask what you could take away Once a week, before you add anything new, ask yourself where you are overgiving and what you could release. One commitment kept only from habit. One expectation that belonged to an earlier version of you. One task someone else is now ready to own. Let one thing fall away. This is the course correction in its simplest form, and it is the option the research tells us we are most likely to overlook. As you lighten the load, you free up mental capacity, your energy flows more easily, and your body carries less stress. Follow your body's monthly rhythm Your body has been moving through its own seasons all along. Whether you are noticing the rhythm of a monthly cycle, the changes of womanhood, or simply the way your energy rises and falls across a month, begin paying attention. Notice the weeks when you feel expansive and the weeks when you want to withdraw. These are signals, not something to hide or feel ashamed of. Where you can, place your most demanding commitments in your stronger weeks and leave room for quiet in the others. There is a real difference between resting and retreating, and your body often knows which one it needs. It is not inconsistent. It is biology. It is seasonal. Mark the turning points Every culture that lived close to the land marked the turning of the seasons. In my own life, I mark Samhain, a seasonal festival, as the close of the harvest and the turn toward the darker, quieter months. Dee Hennessy explores this season beautifully in The Wisdom of Nature at Samhain. You do not need any particular tradition to do this, and you do not need to wait for a big moment. It is often in the smaller moments that we find the most meaning. Light a candle on the night your child leaves for her first sleepover. Take a walk at dusk after your first week in a new role. Write one sentence about what you are carrying forward and one about what you are leaving behind. The ritual is small. What it tells your body is not. A practice, not a date The large Autumns of life will still come. Many of the bigger transitions cannot be prevented, and no practice will spare you from them. What honouring the small Autumns can do is change how the large ones land. You have allowed yourself to see your life shift and evolve, with your North Star as your guide. You know what you are carrying and what you have already set down. The shift is still real, though it is not so great, because you did not wait until the end to notice it was coming. This Autumn can be the season you begin. Not by doing more, but by looking up, more often. Start with one small pause If you can sense a shift in your life that you have not yet had the time or space to name, I invite you to book a free Path Clarity Conversation here. It is a no-pressure call where we look at where you are, what is quietly changing, and what your next small course correction might be in this season. If what you are carrying feels heavier than a course correction, please reach out to a mental health professional. You deserve support that matches the weight of what you are holding. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Kim Lackie Kim Lackie, Transformational Guide & Alchemist Kim Lackie is the founder of Sovereign Path Alchemy and the creator of the Sovereign Embodiment Method, a clinically grounded framework for identity transformation designed for women navigating the major life transitions of midlife. After more than 27 years in Canadian law enforcement and raising triplets, she knows firsthand what it means to lose yourself inside the demands of a life built for everyone else. She works with women through some of life’s biggest transitions to reach the identity wound underneath, not just the surface adjustment. She holds Master Practitioner certifications in Neuro-linguistic Programming and Time Line Therapy® and Hypnotherapy. She writes from her own lived experiences and clinical depth.

Written by DJ Jesse Hudson, AI-Driven Cognitive Health Advocate DJ Jesse Hudson is a cognitive health advocate, media creator, and founder of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Fight (CTE Fight). Through The Rabbit Hole, he documents lived experience with brain injury while exploring how artificial intelligence (AI), storytelling, and community can support cognitive awareness, recovery, and resilience. A company’s reputation does not always reflect the experience of its customers. Through personal accounts of inaccessible systems and meaningful support, DJ Jesse Hudson explores why human dignity and accountability must remain central as businesses adopt artificial intelligence. The companies we think we know There are businesses you see in the news and think: “Wow. That must be an incredible company.” Their executives appear in interviews, their innovations attract headlines, and their reputations seem almost untouchable. If you have never encountered the other side of the story, why would you question it? But I have learned that perception can often be replaced with misconception. Sometimes all it takes is becoming a customer. Sometimes it takes becoming a customer with disabilities. I live with traumatic brain injuries following a workplace accident in September 2020. I navigate cognitive, visual, physical and motor challenges, as well as seizures. I am also a disc jockey (DJ), writer, and technology journalist. I am not asking businesses to abandon their rules. I am asking them to honour their commitments and provide reasonable ways for people like me to use their services. When impressive companies disappoint A little over a year ago, I admired Starlink and the ambition behind Elon Musk's technology ventures. My experience with a refund dispute involving equipment I returned unopened changed my opinion of its customer service processes. Innovation and customer accountability, I discovered, are not the same thing. TELUS, another prominent company with a Canadian identity, has also left me struggling to obtain a clear written account summary explaining how payments, billing and adjustments were applied. For someone dealing with cognitive disabilities, that written clarity is not a trivial request. I should not have to become a forensic accountant to understand my own bill. These are my experiences and unresolved concerns, not findings that every customer will have the same experience. The night McDonald’s sent me on a walk One night, after working late on articles, I ordered food through the McDonald's app. The app accepted payment and indicated that I could collect the order. I walked to the restaurant because I do not drive due to seizures. The doors were locked, and I was refused service at the drive-through window while cars continued to be served. I understand that drive-through safety policies can have legitimate reasons. But if an app accepts an order and directs a customer to a restaurant, shouldn't the technology communicate the available collection methods before taking payment? I wasn't asking for a favour. I wanted the meal I had purchased. The digital promise and the physical operation did not match, and the customer absorbed the consequences. The companies that treated me like a person Now for the other side. Cashbox Pawn Shop in Red Deer has treated me with respect for well over a year. They have helped me through financial difficulties without looking down on me. I still have belongings there and obligations to meet. I intend to pay what I owe, as I have worked to do before. Their willingness to communicate does not erase my responsibilities, it recognizes that a person exists behind the transaction. Sentinel Storage in Red Deer holds one of my most precious possessions: my record collection. Those records are part of my identity and my history as a DJ. I now live in Edmonton and hope to bring them home soon. A company does not need to make grand claims about changing the world to earn trust. Sometimes it just needs to provide a dependable service and treat people decently. The consequences of inaccessible systems My move to Edmonton was not something I planned. I came here in connection with an independent medical examination involving the Workers' Compensation Board of Alberta. I requested an accessibility tool and say that request was refused. I subsequently experienced homelessness in Edmonton. I believe the handling of my case contributed to that outcome. Those are serious allegations about my own experience, and they deserve proper examination rather than assumptions. But they also raise a wider question: what happens when institutions design procedures for an imagined standard user, then fail to respond when a person with disabilities cannot navigate them in that way? A gold star for Brainz Magazine That brings me to Brainz Magazine, the publication for which I am writing this article. My relationship with Brainz has been built on communication. There have been periods when health problems and instability in my workers' compensation income made payments difficult. I have tried to be upfront, and in my experience, the people at Brainz have been understanding while still expecting me to honour my obligations. I have also been honoured with an award from Brainz Magazine. I value the breadth of its articles, from leadership and technology to health, mental health and real-life experience. There are plenty of good things on Brainz Magazine, as I like to say. As I develop my own media outlet, I intend to keep writing here. Brainz and its people have earned my Rabbit Hole Gold Star. Why I mention No Frills and Real Canadian Superstore I have also encountered helpful, accommodating employees and positive shopping experiences at No Frills and Real Canadian Superstore, both grocery banners of Loblaw Companies Limited. President's Choice is one of Loblaw's brands. I mention these experiences not to claim any retailer is perfect, but because a recent experience with Walmart Canada brought the difference between people and systems into sharp focus. Trying to order basic groceries became a prolonged exercise in navigating payment obstacles, cancelled orders, and customer service channels that did not resolve my concerns. I have described orders being cancelled shortly after confirmation, difficulties using a gift card, and groceries that did not arrive as expected. Following these experiences led me into a broader examination of public reporting about accessibility barriers and human rights concerns. Those reports deserve careful scrutiny, they are not proof of a legal violation in my own case. I want to be very clear: I have met excellent Walmart employees. The people who tried to help me were not the problem. The system they were expected to work within was the problem. Customers did not build the technology A customer does not select the payment infrastructure, write the checkout software, configure automated risk systems, or decide whether a help channel will be accessible. A customer does not bolt new technologies onto processes that are already failing. Corporations do. When a transaction fails repeatedly, the customer should not be treated as though they created the failure simply by trying again. Nor should frontline workers carry all the blame for decisions made far above them. This is where accountability belongs: with the organizations that design, purchase, deploy, and govern their systems. Good employees cannot permanently compensate for bad infrastructure. A technological universe on a broken foundation Now artificial intelligence is being integrated into ordering, billing, customer service, healthcare administration and institutional decision-making. It is not just another layer of software. It is an increasingly complex technological universe being connected to systems that may already be unreliable or inaccessible. What happens if a company cannot provide a comprehensible account statement but adds an AI assistant to explain why? What happens when a retailer cannot reliably fulfil an ordinary order but automates more of the conversation around that failure? What happens when a person requests accommodation and an automated system becomes another gatekeeper? Artificial intelligence may improve these services, but it can also amplify their weaknesses. Automation does not automatically create accountability. More technology is not the same thing as better service. AI governance must include the human being We are finally having more public conversations about AI governance. That is necessary, but governance must mean more than impressive policies and executive presentations. It must ask whether a system is accessible, whether its decisions can be challenged, whether it distinguishes facts from assumptions, and whether a real person can obtain meaningful help when things go wrong. I live with more than one disability. Some days, my cognitive and visual limitations are more difficult than others. My motor abilities and stamina can fluctuate. I can be a complicated customer, but I am not an unreasonable one. I need businesses to communicate clearly, provide appropriate accommodations, honour their promises and take responsibility for what their technology does. If a company deploys a system before its foundation is ready, the customer should not be made responsible for fixing it. The real measure of a business I have learned that a corporation's size does not determine its humanity. Its public relations budget does not establish its integrity. Its technological sophistication does not guarantee respect. Sometimes a pawn shop or a storage company demonstrates more practical understanding than a global technology brand. Sometimes a publisher earns loyalty simply by listening. Sometimes the most important difference is an employee who sees the human being behind the transaction. Reputation is what we hear about a business. Character is what we experience when something goes wrong. As AI becomes more deeply embedded in everyday life, I hope corporations remember that distinction. If they are not prepared to do what they say they will do, they should expect customers to ask questions. Welcome to the Rabbit Hole. One Love and peace, love, unity and respect (PLUR). Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from DJ Jesse Hudson DJ Jesse Hudson, AI-Driven Cognitive Health Advocate DJ Jesse Hudson is a cognitive health advocate, media creator, and founder of CTE Fight. Living with the long-term effects of brain injury, he uses storytelling and lived experience to raise global awareness around cognitive health and recovery. Through The Rabbit Hole, he explores how AI, media, and community can support resilience, continuity, and human dignity. His work bridges advocacy, innovation, and culture to make complex brain health conversations accessible and real.

Written by Omu Obilor, Coach, Transition & Transformation Omu Obilor is an international coach, speaker, trainer, and thought leader. She specializes in guiding individuals through life transitions and transformation. Through intentional living, she empowers others to create fulfilling personal and professional lives. Success is supposed to be rewarding. We pursue it with determination, sacrifice for it, and measure our progress by how much of it we achieve. The promotion. The recognition. The impressive title. The thriving business. The invitation to sit at tables we once dreamed of joining. But what happens when the success you worked so hard to achieve begins to distance you from the person you wanted to become? It is a question worth asking because professional accomplishment and personal fulfilment do not always arrive together. Some leaders reach extraordinary heights only to discover that they have become prisoners of the very achievements that once represented freedom. I call this the success trap: when achievement stops serving your purpose and begins defining your identity. The danger is that, from the outside, everything still looks successful. 1. When achievement becomes identity Ambition is not the problem. In fact, ambition drives innovation, excellence and meaningful progress. The problem begins when we stop distinguishing between what we accomplish and who we are. Consider a senior executive whose entire identity revolves around their professional responsibilities. They are respected, influential and highly accomplished. Their opinions carry weight, their decisions matter, and their presence commands attention. But remove the title, the office and the recognition. What remains? For some leaders, that question is surprisingly uncomfortable. When identity becomes inseparable from achievement, professional setbacks begin to feel like personal failures. A missed promotion threatens a leader's sense of worth. A business challenge becomes an identity crisis. This creates a dangerous dependency: the need to keep achieving simply to feel valuable. Your achievements should reflect your capabilities, not determine your worth. Leadership maturity includes developing an identity strong enough to withstand both applause and disappointment. 2. The moving finish line One of the paradoxes of success is that achieving more does not necessarily make us feel more accomplished. The promotion we once celebrated becomes ordinary. The financial milestone that seemed extraordinary becomes the new minimum. The recognition we worked towards creates pressure to remain relevant. Before long, success becomes a moving finish line. There is always another target, another opportunity, another level. This is particularly significant for senior leaders because external expectations tend to increase alongside professional influence. Stakeholders expect consistent results. Teams expect answers. Organisations expect growth. Leaders begin placing similar demands on themselves. The danger is not high expectations. It is pursuing them without periodically questioning their purpose. There is a difference between asking, What else can I achieve? and asking, What is worth achieving? The first question encourages expansion. The second demands discernment. Both matter, but without the second, ambition can become an exhausting exercise in accumulating accomplishments that no longer reflect our priorities. Not every opportunity represents progress. Sometimes success requires the courage to stop pursuing what no longer aligns with your purpose. 3. The cost of being indispensable There is another success trap that organisations rarely discuss. The leader who becomes too successful at being needed. They are the person everyone consults. They solve complex problems, make difficult decisions and ensure things get done. Their calendar is full, their expertise is constantly requested, and their absence is immediately felt. On the surface, this appears to demonstrate exceptional leadership. But consider the organisational implications. What happens when every important decision requires one person’s approval? What happens when capable employees become reluctant to act independently? What happens when the organisation cannot function effectively without its most accomplished leader? What initially looked like strength may actually reveal a weakness in organisational capability. Being indispensable can become personally rewarding while simultaneously limiting the growth of others. This is why leadership effectiveness must be measured beyond individual performance. Developing successors, distributing authority to make decisions and building strong systems are not threats to a leader’s relevance. They are evidence of leadership maturity. The ultimate measure of leadership is not how much depends on you, but how much becomes possible because of you. The strongest leaders build organisations that can thrive beyond their immediate involvement. 4. Redefining success without abandoning ambition Escaping the success trap does not mean becoming less ambitious. It means becoming more intentional. For leaders, this requires more than setting new goals. It requires examining the assumptions behind existing ones. Here are four questions I encourage leaders to consider. Whose definition of success am I pursuing? Are your ambitions genuinely yours, or have they been shaped primarily by professional expectations, social comparison and the desire for recognition? What is my success costing me? Every achievement requires investment. But leaders must periodically evaluate whether the demands on their time, relationships, wellbeing and personal values remain sustainable. Am I developing others or simply demonstrating my competence? Leadership is not an endless opportunity to prove how capable you are. It is a responsibility to build capability beyond yourself. If nobody applauded this achievement, would it still matter to me? Perhaps this is the most revealing question. It separates achievement driven by personal conviction from achievement sustained primarily by external validation. These questions are not invitations to lower standards. They are opportunities to establish more meaningful ones. A leader who understands what matters can make better decisions about where to invest attention, energy and influence. That clarity becomes increasingly valuable as responsibilities grow. The courage to succeed on your own terms One of the most important lessons in leadership development is that success does not have to retain the same definition throughout our lives. What represented success at thirty may not represent success at fifty. What once motivated us may no longer inspire us. An achievement that looks extraordinary to others may not reflect the future we genuinely want. There is nothing inherently wrong with changing direction. The greater danger is continuing to pursue a definition of success that no longer belongs to you simply because you have invested so much in achieving it. As an executive coach, I believe leadership development must go beyond improving performance. It must strengthen awareness of oneself, personal clarity and the courage to make decisions aligned with one’s values. Because the most impressive career is not necessarily the most meaningful one. The most celebrated leader is not automatically the most fulfilled. Perhaps the question we should ask ourselves more often is not, How much more can I achieve? But rather, am I becoming more of who I truly want to be as I achieve it? Success should expand your life, not distance you from yourself. Because success isn’t only about how far you’ve gone. It’s about whether you still recognise yourself when you get there. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Omu Obilor Omu Obilor, Coach, Transition & Transformation Omu is an international coach, speaker, trainer, and thought leader. Her mantra is “Living my best life,” which she achieves by living intentionally. Her mission is to empower others to live their best lives by curating the lives they want for themselves. As a founding member of the John Maxwell Team, she has mastered intentional living in her personal and professional life. She serves as Executive Director and National Trainer at Business Network International (BNI), which has empowered her to master training and networking. Over the years, Omu has poured her heart into her clients' lives, walking them through various life transitions and mentoring them through their transformations. Her approach is designed to increase awareness and accountability, boost morale, and clarify values. She runs a mentor mind group for women looking to grow in their personal and professional lives. She also runs monthly mastermind groups, among other initiatives.

Written by Dana Hatch, Executive & Neurolinguistics Coach Dana Hatch is renowned for employing a variety of coaching methods to assist leaders in overcoming their struggles and achieving the next level of success. Her expertise in executive and neurolinguistic coaching helps professionals overcome imposter syndrome, strengthen communication skills, and build cohesive, high-performing teams. Leadership does not need another acronym. I realize the irony of writing another article about leadership when there is already no shortage of books, podcasts, frameworks, assessments, and methodologies telling us how to do it. We have frameworks for communication. Assessments for personality. Models for motivation. Systems for accountability. We categorize people by colors, letters, numbers, generations, strengths, tendencies, and working styles. Listen, I use some of them. I think they can be incredibly valuable. But for an industry with this many tools, organizations are still struggling with some remarkably basic human problems. People don't communicate. Leaders don't say what they actually mean. Employees don't understand expectations everyone assumes were obvious. Difficult conversations get avoided until relatively small issues become expensive ones. High performers disengage. Managers get frustrated. Trust erodes. Accountability either disappears entirely or becomes synonymous with punishment. Eventually, someone ends up sitting across from me saying some version of “I don't understand. We've tried everything.” Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe we've spent so much time teaching people how to do leadership that we've forgotten to teach them how to understand people. Because leadership isn't happening inside a framework. It's happening between human beings. Complicated, contextual, occasionally irrational human beings who can hear the exact same sentence and somehow participate in two entirely different conversations. They respond differently to pressure. They process information differently. They need different levels of context, autonomy, challenge, and support. Inconveniently, they don't always behave the way their personality assessment said they would. Yet we keep searching for a standardized way to lead them. That is where I think we've overcomplicated leadership. A framework can give you somewhere to start. An assessment can give you language. A model can help you recognize a pattern. But none of them can tell you exactly what is happening with the person sitting across from you. For that, you still have to pay attention. We keep trying to standardize something fundamentally human I understand why leadership became so driven by frameworks. Organizations need leadership development to be teachable and scalable. We need common language. We need ways to make complicated concepts easier to understand. That makes sense. What doesn't make sense is treating those tools like an instruction manual for human behavior. I see this all the time. A manager tells me, “I've given them complete autonomy. I don't understand why they're struggling.” To the manager, autonomy means trust: I believe you're capable. I'm not going to micromanage you. Great. Except the employee isn't experiencing trust. They're experiencing: I have absolutely no idea what this person wants from me. Nobody is necessarily wrong. They're having two different experiences of the exact same leadership behavior. Quiet is another one. A leader tells me someone has become disengaged because they aren't contributing in meetings anymore. Maybe. Or maybe they disagree and don't feel comfortable saying it. Maybe they're processing. Maybe they've tried contributing for six months, watched every idea disappear into the organizational abyss, and decided to conserve their energy. All three people are sitting quietly. Only one might actually be disengaged. This is where leadership gets interesting. We see behavior and immediately want to explain it. They're difficult. They're resistant to change. They're not accountable. They're not motivated. They're not leadership material. Labels are efficient. They're also a fantastic way to stop being curious. Because behavior is information. It isn't always an explanation. What you're seeing is the output. The leadership work is figuring out what's producing it. People aren't static. Someone who normally thrives with autonomy may need more direction during a major organizational change. Someone who usually handles feedback well may become defensive under enormous pressure. A confident executive may start second-guessing decisions after making a costly mistake. Same person. Different context. Different behavior. That's not inconsistency. That's being human. Pressure matters. Relationships matter. Experience matters. Perceived risk matters. The environment matters. Oh, and by the way, yes, the behavior of the leader matters too. The danger isn't using tools to understand people. It's becoming so confident in what the tools told us that we stop looking at the actual person. You can know someone's personality type, communication style, strengths profile, and preferred working style. You can put all of it into ChatGPT and ask for a beautifully organized analysis of how to lead them. You may get one. Unfortunately, at some point you still have to talk to the person. Because the moment the profile becomes more interesting than the human being it was supposed to help you understand, we've missed the point. Knowing leadership is not the same as leading humans Most leadership principles sound fantastic in a conference room. Then someone gets angry. Someone shuts down. Someone challenges you in front of your entire leadership team. Your highest performer starts behaving as though everyone should simply be grateful for the opportunity to work near them. Or, and this one is my favorite, the difficult conversation you've been coaching everyone else to have is suddenly the difficult conversation you have to have. This is where leadership stops being theoretical. I've worked with so many leaders who can explain exactly how a difficult conversation should happen. They understand accountability. They know the importance of psychological safety. They can practically teach the workshop. Then I'll ask: “Okay. Have you actually said any of this to them?” “No.” There it is. Apparently, somewhere along the way, we started hoping expectations could be absorbed through organizational osmosis. Unfortunately, your team cannot be held accountable for a conversation that only happened in your head. Knowing what good leadership looks like and being able to practice it when another human being is emotional, defensive, or unpredictable, or when you are frustrated or uncomfortable, are completely different capabilities. A leader can know the perfect feedback process and be so focused on getting through it that they don't notice the employee stopped processing five minutes ago. They can understand psychological safety and still somehow be the person everyone becomes quiet around. They can know someone's personality profile inside and out and still misunderstand what is driving their behavior today. They can attend every accountability workshop available and still avoid holding their highest performer accountable because they're afraid that person might leave. Knowing the model is one skill. Reading the moment is another. Research gives us reason to take that distinction seriously. A 2018 meta-analysis examining 98 studies and more than 27,000 participants found a moderate positive relationship between leaders' emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness, with the strength of that relationship varying across organizational and methodological contexts. That context matters. Leadership doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens when you're frustrated. When you're under pressure to deliver. When the person across from you is defensive. When you genuinely care about someone and still have to tell them they're not meeting expectations. It happens when someone's behavior gets under your skin, and you have to figure out whether you're responding to the situation or reacting to your own reaction to it. There is no acronym that's going to do that part for you. A model can give you direction. It cannot exercise judgment for you. It definitely cannot regulate your behavior for you. That part still belongs to the leader. Different approach, same standard This is usually where someone pushes back: “If I'm leading people differently, isn't that inconsistent?” No. Changing your approach is not the same thing as changing the standard. I think we confuse those two things far too often. Take two employees who repeatedly miss deadlines. The first is trying to prioritize six different things that have all somehow been labeled the organization's “number one priority.” Which is always helpful. The second knows exactly what needs to happen, has the time and resources to do it, and simply doesn't follow through. Same outcome. Completely different problem. If I give the first employee another lecture about accountability, I'm holding them accountable for navigating ambiguity leadership helped create. If I give the second employee another project tracker, additional support, and a beautifully color-coded priority system, I've turned an accountability problem into an arts and crafts project. Neither solves anything. The deadline still matters. The performance expectation still matters. Accountability still matters. None of that changes because I'm willing to understand why two people arrived at the same outcome. What changes is the conversation that needs to happen next. One may need clarity. The other may need accountability. Knowing the difference requires something no standardized leadership response can give you: judgment. This is the distinction that matters. Adapt the approach. Keep the standard. Understanding people isn't about lowering expectations or making exceptions for every behavior. It's about understanding what you're actually looking at before deciding how to respond. That's not inconsistent leadership. That's what leadership looks like when the leader is actually paying attention. Leaders need to become students of people again That brings me back to what I think we've lost somewhere along the way. We need leaders to become students of people again. Not amateur psychologists. Not experts in diagnosing every behavior. Just leaders willing to slow down long enough to notice what is actually happening before deciding what it means. What changed? What am I seeing versus what have I decided it means? What am I assuming this person understands? What have I already tried? Then there is my personal favorite, the question leaders generally enjoy considerably less: What am I doing that might be contributing to this? Because leadership isn't something we simply do to other people. We're in it too. I've watched leaders tell their teams they want more initiative and then require approval for nearly every meaningful decision. I've seen executives say, “Bring problems to me early,” and then react so strongly to bad news that everyone learns to bring problems to them late, preferably after they're already solved. I've seen leaders ask for honest feedback, defend themselves against every piece of honest feedback they receive, and then wonder why everyone suddenly thinks everything is “fine.” A mystery for the ages. The team learned. That's the part leaders sometimes miss. People are always learning from our behavior. Amy Edmondson's foundational research on psychological safety described it as a shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking and connected it with team learning behavior. But in practice, I think about it much more simply: Every leadership reaction teaches people something. Challenge the boss. What happens? Admit a mistake. What happens? Bring bad news. What happens? Say “I disagree” in a meeting. What happens? Those moments tell you more about the real culture of an organization than almost anything written on its website. People learn the unwritten rules. They learn whether it's actually safe to speak up. They learn which mistakes can be admitted and which ones should be quietly buried. They learn whose opinions matter. They learn whether disagreement is actually welcomed or merely something leadership says it welcomes. Eventually, they stop consciously thinking about any of it. They just behave accordingly. This is why understanding people can't stop with trying to understand the employee. Leaders have to be willing to study the environment they're creating too. Not because leadership needs to become softer. Not because expectations should change depending on someone's feelings. But because you cannot effectively influence behavior you haven't taken the time to understand. Sometimes the first behavior you need to understand is your own. Maybe leadership is simpler than we've made it Let me be clear: I'm not opposed to frameworks. I use assessments, leadership models, and structured methodologies. They can give us language, surface patterns, and help us ask better questions. I'm not suggesting we abandon the tools and start leading entirely on instinct. That sounds like an entirely different organizational problem. What I am suggesting is that we use them as information, not conclusions. Because eventually, leadership requires judgment. Maybe we've made leadership increasingly complicated because complexity feels reassuring. Systems give us structure. Steps feel controllable. People, inconveniently, do not. Sometimes understanding people makes trying to figure out a broken Excel formula feel refreshingly straightforward. At least Excel has the decency to give you an error message when something isn't working. People rarely do. Sometimes leadership is having the conversation you've been avoiding while searching for a better framework to help you have the conversation you've been avoiding. Sometimes it's shutting up long enough to hear the answer, which, depending on the leader, can apparently be an advanced leadership competency all by itself. Sometimes it's realizing what looked like a motivation problem was actually a clarity problem. Sometimes it's realizing you've provided clarity, resources, coaching, and support for six months and the person still isn't doing the job. At that point, another development plan may not be the breakthrough everyone is hoping for. Sometimes the employee isn't the problem. Sometimes they absolutely are. Sometimes it's you. Sometimes it's the environment everyone is operating inside. The hard part is figuring out which one you're actually looking at and being willing to accept the answer when it isn't the one you wanted. I'm not convinced more leadership tools and information are going to solve that. We already know a lot about leadership. We have decades of research, assessments, certifications, executive programs, and an endless supply of books and podcasts telling us what good leadership should look like. At this point, information is not exactly the scarce resource. The next evolution may not be knowing more. It may be noticing more. Developing leaders who observe before they assume. Who stay curious long enough to understand what is actually driving behavior. Who know the difference between someone who can't meet an expectation and someone who won't. Leaders who understand that empathy and accountability are not opposites. Who can adapt their approach without moving the standard. Leaders who are self-aware enough to recognize that when the same problem keeps showing up around them, eventually they have to entertain the deeply inconvenient possibility that they might be part of the pattern. That kind of leadership is harder to package. Good. Human beings aren't standardized. Leadership cannot be completely standardized either. Use the tools. Learn the models. Take the assessments. They can make you a more informed leader. Just don't confuse having more information with actually understanding the person in front of you. Because information was never supposed to replace attention. Eventually, leadership requires something no assessment, methodology, or model can do for you. You have to look at the person sitting across from you, pay attention to what is actually happening, and do what leadership was supposed to be about in the first place: Lead the human being in front of you. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Dana Hatch Dana Hatch, Executive & Neurolinguistics Coach As a certified executive and neurolinguistics coach with over 15 years of experience in business consulting, I bring a unique blend of psychological insight and practical business acumen to help leaders and organizations achieve transformative results. My approach combines cutting-edge coaching techniques with deep industry knowledge to unlock potential, drive performance, and foster sustainable growth.

East Hampton, New York – September 11, 2026 – What if time isn't simply something that happens to us, but something we actively participate in creating? Author and inventor Michael Galileo is inviting readers to reconsider one of the most familiar concepts in human life: time. Through his book, Where Time Comes From: A Handbook for Humans, and his handcrafted Real Time Earth Clock, Galileo brings together science, philosophy, spirituality and personal experience to explore the relationship between time, movement, choice and reality. His central premise is expressed simply, "Reality = Possibility + Choice." Galileo's work begins with a deceptively familiar observation: we commonly speak of the Sun “rising” and “setting,” when in fact the Earth is moving. The distinction is more than semantics to Galileo. It represents a larger question about how humans perceive reality, and what happens when we begin looking at the world as an evolving process rather than a collection of fixed things. “Life is just one thing after another. That's the good news.” – Michael Galileo From timekeeping to a different way of seeing The Real Time Earth Clock is designed to make Earth's movement tangible. Rather than simply representing time as the familiar progression of numbers on a conventional clock, Galileo's design reflects Earth's movement and gives viewers a visual reminder that they, and the planet they inhabit, are constantly in motion. The clock has become a physical expression of the ideas explored in Where Time Comes From: that every moment is part of an ongoing process in which circumstances, possibilities and choices interact to create what comes next. Galileo describes the concept as learning to “read the river” of life. “We don't control the entire river,” he explains. “But we can learn to navigate it. We can pay attention to what is approaching, recognize the possibilities and make conscious choices.” A lifetime of exploring reality Galileo's path to this work began outside traditional academic philosophy or science. His professional background includes craftsmanship, entrepreneurship and design, experiences that ultimately contributed to his interest in how people perceive and interact with the world around them. That curiosity eventually became an exploration of time, consciousness and reality, resulting in both his book and the Real Time Earth Clock. His work has attracted attention from readers, media personalities and intellectual communities. His writing has also appeared in the Mensa Bulletin, where his article “It's Electric!” explored his perspective on reality. A previous profile of Galileo described his work as bringing together science, spirituality and human potential, while emphasizing his ability to make complex ideas accessible to a general audience. The question behind the work At the heart of Galileo's philosophy is a question, "What is this becoming?" Rather than viewing life as a series of finished events, Galileo encourages people to see every circumstance as part of an emerging process. A relationship is becoming something. A business is becoming something. A problem is becoming something. So are we. His goal is not to tell people what to believe, but to encourage them to question familiar assumptions and become more conscious of the choices they make within the constantly changing reality around them. As Galileo puts it, “We're all traveling 18.5 miles every second around the Sun and every choice we make shapes where we go next.” That perspective is the foundation of both his writing and his clocks: time as movement, life as an evolving process, and choice as our means of navigation. About Michael Galileo Michael Galileo is an author, inventor and independent thinker whose work explores time, reality, perception and human potential. He is the author of Where Time Comes From: A Handbook for Humans and creator of the Real Time Earth Clock. His work combines scientific concepts, philosophical inquiry and spirituality in an effort to help people examine familiar ideas from a different perspective. About Where Time Comes From: A Handbook for Humans Where Time Comes From explores the nature of time and reality while connecting concepts from physics, consciousness, philosophy and spirituality. The book presents Galileo's framework for understanding how moments, choices and circumstances interact to create the reality we experience. Media contact Michael Galileo Author & Inventor Website: www.galileorealtime.com Email: galileorelatime@yahoo.com Phone: 516-398-4910 Book: Where Time Comes From: A Handbook for Humans Product: Real Time Earth Clock

Written by Haifa Hamdi, Scientist, Nutritionist & Author Dr. Haifa Hamdi is a research scientist, holistic nutritionist, and author whose work focuses on cancer, autoimmune diseases, and digestive health. She is passionate about helping families embrace healthier lifestyles and inspiring a world where health is joyful and empowering. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that many mothers know very well. You finish a full day of work, perhaps after spending most of it sitting at a desk, answering emails, solving problems, attending meetings, and making decisions. By the time you get home, you feel as though you have run a marathon, even though your muscles have barely been asked to move. Now imagine adding the responsibility of caring for a child with a chronic condition. There may be medications to remember, symptoms to watch, appointments to schedule, school accommodations to negotiate, meals to rethink, specialists to coordinate, pharmacies to call, and insurance authorizations to fight. Somewhere underneath all of those responsibilities is the thought that rarely completely disappears. Is my child okay? That exhaustion is real. But I think we need to understand it better, because feeling exhausted does not always mean that the body needs to become even more still. When the caregiver becomes invisible When a child develops a chronic condition, the family's attention understandably turns toward the child. Someone begins carrying the timeline of the illness. Someone remembers when a medication changed, notices that breakfast is being left unfinished, keeps track of laboratory results, communicates with the school, and spends an afternoon on the telephone trying to solve an insurance problem that should never have consumed an afternoon. Very often, much of that responsibility falls to the mother. Research confirms that caring for a child with a chronic illness can carry a substantial psychological burden. A 2013 systematic review found greater anxiety, depression, and parenting stress among these parents compared with parents of healthy children. This does not mean caregiving inevitably makes someone ill, but it does mean that chronic caregiving creates a sustained mental and emotional load that deserves to be taken seriously. There is another piece of this story that interests me particularly. Many women are carrying these responsibilities during the same decades when protecting their own muscle, bone, and metabolic health becomes increasingly important. Their attention is directed toward keeping someone else healthy at precisely the time when their own body is asking not to be forgotten. We talk about caregiver mental health, and rightly so. I think we also need to start talking about the caregiver's physical reserve. You can sit all day and still come home exhausted One of the mistakes we make is assuming that feeling tired necessarily means our muscles have been physically exhausted. Think about a difficult day at work. You may have spent eight hours sitting in front of a computer and still arrive home completely depleted. Your brain has been working continuously. You have been concentrating, making decisions, responding to problems, perhaps worrying, and regulating your emotions. For the caregiver, concern about a child may remain active underneath all of this. Mental fatigue and physical muscular work are not the same thing. Mental exhaustion is not imaginary exhaustion. It is a real response to cognitive and emotional demands, but it does not always mean our muscles need more inactivity. This is why, on some evenings, I think it is worth experimenting before automatically surrendering to the sofa. Change your clothes and move for ten minutes. Walk outside. Do a few controlled squats. Use a resistance band. Put on music and move around the house. Then see how you feel. Sometimes rest really is what your body needs, particularly after inadequate sleep, illness, or genuine physical exhaustion. But sometimes something surprising happens. Movement makes us feel more awake rather than less. Exercise engages systems involved in alertness and mood, and research has shown that even relatively brief exercise can increase feelings of vigor in some people experiencing fatigue. In a small controlled study involving sedentary women who reported persistent fatigue, researchers found that a bout of resistance exercise increased feelings of vigor compared with a non-exercise condition. This does not mean exercise cures exhaustion, but it supports an idea worth exploring. The energy we feel is not always a simple reflection of how much physical effort we have already performed. This changes the familiar sentence, "I will exercise when I have more energy." Perhaps sometimes we should reverse it. I will move, and then see what happens to my energy. A physical therapist taught me something I never forgot I once met a physical therapist who told me about a rule he had created for himself when he was a student. Whenever he moved from one room to another, he had to perform some kind of movement first. Before going into the bathroom, he might do ten push-ups. Before entering the living room, he would do squats. Another room meant another movement. I loved the simplicity of his idea. He wasn't waiting until he had an uninterrupted hour. He wasn't negotiating with himself about whether he had time to exercise. He had attached movement to something that was already happening. In other words, he had made movement part of the architecture of his day. This may be particularly useful for caregivers because time is often exactly what they do not have. When we imagine exercise only as changing clothes, driving to a gym, exercising for an hour, showering, and driving home, it becomes easy to conclude that exercise does not fit into our lives. But almost all of us walk through doors, go to the bathroom, wait for coffee, prepare food, brush our teeth, and move from one room to another. Movement can live inside those transitions. Your home does not have to be a gym You can live in a small apartment and still create an environment that invites your body to move. A sturdy chair can remind you to perform controlled sit-to-stands. A kitchen counter can support modified push-ups. A resistance band occupies almost no space. A telephone call can sometimes become a reason to walk rather than sit. If stairs are available and appropriate for your physical ability, they already ask your body to work against gravity. Even resistance does not necessarily have to begin with sophisticated equipment. Body weight can be resistance. As strength improves, appropriately selected dumbbells or resistance bands can add load. Some stable household objects may sometimes be used safely, but I would not encourage people to start lifting random heavy objects simply because they are available. Strength should be developed progressively and with good technique, particularly for anyone with osteoporosis, joint problems, balance difficulties, or another condition affecting exercise safety. The goal is not to turn the house into a gym. It is to stop designing movement out of everyday life. Science is paying attention to small movements too What I find fascinating is that research is increasingly examining what happens when prolonged sitting is interrupted by remarkably small amounts of activity. Controlled studies have interrupted sitting approximately every 30 minutes with short periods of movement. Researchers have tested activities such as chair stands, calf raises, half-squats, and other simple resistance movements and have reported improvements in post-meal metabolic responses in some populations compared with uninterrupted sitting. For example, a 2016 randomized study involving adults with type 2 diabetes compared uninterrupted sitting with sitting interrupted by brief periods of walking or simple resistance activities. These resistance movements included half-squats, calf raises, gluteal contractions, and knee raises. The researchers found improvements in post-meal glucose and insulin responses when prolonged sitting was interrupted. This does not mean that ten squats every 30 or 45 minutes will prevent diabetes, heart disease, or osteoporosis. There is no magical number of squats and no magical 45-minute threshold. But there is an important principle underneath those studies, one echoed in global guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behavior. Prolonged stillness and movement are biologically different states. Instead of asking ourselves only, "Did I exercise today?" perhaps we should occasionally ask another question. How long have I been sitting? If 45 minutes works as a reminder for you, use it. Stand up, walk around the room, perform several controlled squats or chair stands, stretch, and then return to what you were doing. The 45 minutes is not the medicine. It is simply the cue. Do we lose muscle because we age, or age because we stop using it? I often think about a simple reframe. We don't lose strength because years pass. We lose it when our muscles stop being asked to work, and over time, we start calling that aging. Scientifically, I'd add some nuance to that reframe. Aging does bring biological changes that can contribute to declining muscle mass and strength. But inactivity and periods of muscle disuse can accelerate those losses dramatically. A position statement from the National Strength and Conditioning Association describes resistance exercise as one of our most powerful tools for counteracting disuse-related muscle loss. This is an idea I strongly agree with. We should stop treating weakness as though it were an unavoidable identity that arrives with another birthday. One of the studies that changed how scientists thought about this question was published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers studied frail nursing home residents with an average age of approximately 87 years and found that progressive resistance training produced substantial improvements in muscle strength and physical performance. Think about what that means. If skeletal muscle can still respond to training in people approaching 90, what should those of us in our forties and fifties be doing now? Perhaps the question should not be, "How much muscle am I destined to lose as I age?" A better question may be, "What am I doing today to tell my body that I still need this muscle?" Muscle is not about looking younger This is where I think women, especially, deserve a different conversation about muscle. We have spent decades discussing women's bodies primarily through weight, dress size, and appearance. Muscle deserves to be understood as something much more important. Muscle helps determine whether we can carry groceries, climb stairs, rise easily from the floor, travel independently, and continue doing ordinary things without needing assistance. Skeletal muscle is also metabolically active tissue and plays an important role in glucose metabolism and overall metabolic health. Resistance training therefore becomes less about creating a certain appearance and more about preserving physical capacity. As women move through midlife and menopause, this becomes increasingly important. We should be thinking about the body we want to inhabit twenty and thirty years from now while we still have decades in which to build and maintain it. Our bones are part of this conversation The same philosophy applies to bone. Nutrition matters alongside movement. Adequate protein, calcium, and vitamin D are important for musculoskeletal health, while hormonal changes, genetics, medications, and medical conditions can all influence bone health. Appropriate weight-bearing and resistance activity provide another important stimulus to the skeleton. I would never tell a woman that eating correctly and doing squats guarantees she will never develop osteoporosis. Biology does not offer those guarantees. But we can create better conditions for maintaining muscle and bone as we age. That is very different from waiting until something has already been lost and then asking how to get it back. Why aren't we caring for the caregiver at the clinic? Here is a question I think our healthcare systems should begin asking. When a mother brings her child to a pediatric gastroenterology appointment, an infusion center, or another chronic care clinic, we rightly focus on the child. We monitor disease activity, adjust treatment, review laboratory results, and discuss the next steps. But what if part of that visit also created an opportunity for the caregiver to take care of herself? Imagine pediatric chronic care centers offering caregivers a brief, optional physical activity session, a supervised introduction to safe resistance exercises, or access to a physical therapist who could help them design a realistic movement routine. While a child is receiving care, a parent might have an opportunity to learn how to protect her own strength rather than spend the entire visit sitting in another chair. We already ask parents to participate actively in managing their child's condition, often expecting them to become experts in medications, nutrition, symptoms, and care coordination. Perhaps healthcare should recognize that maintaining the caregiver's own physical health is part of sustaining that care. A few minutes of guided movement, education, or access to appropriate exercise support during a child's appointment could be a meaningful first step. Of course, such programs would need to respect the child's needs, supervision requirements, privacy, and the caregiver's willingness to participate. They would not replace clinical treatment or solve the structural pressures placed on families. But the idea deserves exploration. We already recognize that family-centered pediatric care involves more than treating a diagnosis. Why not extend that thinking to the caregiver's physical health? A parent who spends years coordinating medical care should not have to become physically depleted before anyone asks how she is doing. This is not about adding another responsibility to her schedule. It is about making support available in a place where she already has to be. The caregiver does not need another impossible assignment There is an important caution here. I do not want this article to become another demand placed on women who are already carrying too much. Caregivers hear enough advice about what they should be doing. Exercise should not become another reason to feel guilty. The point is almost the opposite. If you cannot find an hour, use ten minutes. If you cannot leave the house, use the house. If you cannot follow a complicated program today, attach one movement to something you already do. Perhaps the bathroom door becomes your reminder to squat. Perhaps making coffee reminds you to do calf raises. Perhaps an insurance call becomes a walking call instead of a sitting call. Perhaps, before collapsing onto the sofa after work, you give your body ten minutes of movement and then decide whether what you really need is rest. Small actions do not replace a well-designed exercise program. But they can change the relationship we have with movement, and sometimes that is where a program begins. Give your body some of the attention you give theirs Parents of children with chronic conditions become remarkably skilled observers. We notice changes in appetite, sleep, energy, symptoms, mood, and behavior because we love our children and because sometimes those changes matter. I think caregivers deserve some of that observation too. Notice how long you sit and whether your strength is changing. Pay attention to what happens to your energy after movement, whether you are nourishing yourself adequately, and whether stress is pushing your own health permanently to the bottom of the list. You may not be able to remove the medical appointments. You may not be able to eliminate the insurance battles. You cannot simply switch off the part of a parent's mind that worries about a child who is unwell. But you can leave small reminders throughout your environment that your body exists too. The physical therapist I met understood something important when he was still a student. He did not wait for movement to conveniently fit into his life. He built his life so that movement kept finding him. Perhaps that is one of the simplest things caregivers can borrow. We do not need to fear getting older. But neither should we surrender our muscles to inactivity and call it aging. Perhaps our healthcare systems can learn something from that simple principle too. If we want caregivers to remain strong enough to sustain years of care, we should help make their health part of the conversation rather than another problem they must solve alone. Sometimes we wait for energy before we move. Perhaps, on some days, we should move first and allow the energy to follow. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Haifa Hamdi Haifa Hamdi, Scientist, Nutritionist & Author Dr. Haifa Hamdi is a research scientist, holistic nutritionist, and author dedicated to advancing health and wellness. After earning her Ph.D. in Immunology, she built an international career across Europe and North America, contributing to the development of cell therapy protocols to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases in patients. Her research includes more than 15 peer-reviewed scientific publications, with expertise in lung cancer therapies, immune tolerance, and innovative approaches to inflammatory and infectious diseases. She is also collaborating on new strategies for managing and treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Her mission: to inspire a world where health is seen not as a burden, but as a joyful and empowering journey.