I’m afraid of dying. Well, maybe not. I’m afraid of dying too soon. Dying before I get to make the impact that I want to make, or the impact I feel like I’m meant to make on the world.

That part is scary. It’s not that I think I’m the only one who can do it, or that I want to be the hero. It’s just that the work is so desperately needed right now. And it feels like it’d be such a shame to be down another person who can help make things better.

And I just see how alone and sad and lonely and miserable and hopeless and depressed and anxious and in pain most of the world is in. I guess it takes one to know one.

Maybe my gift is that I have an undying hope in the goodness of people. No matter how grim it’s gotten. I know there’s goodness in there. And I believe we can uncover it and find it again.

Do you ever wish someone asked about the boring part of your day? You know, the insignificant, “in-between” moments.

Because you see, with friends, family, whoever, there’s limited time. Cut to the chase. Give me the highlights.

But no. I don't want the abridged, cleaned up version. I want to hear all the mundane parts.

The thoughts you thought when waiting in line and seeing the one lady’s fancy outfit.

The random idea you had on the way to the grocery store.

Your commentary on the price of milk and all the different kinds there are these days.

Last night—
It was nothing special. We made some dinner and hung out at home.
But something about it was just magic. 
I kept saying how happy I was. 
How much I love you. 
It just felt so perfect.

Thanks for seasoning the chicken 
The way that you do
And getting right to it
Didn’t even take off your shoes

Add the fennel, shallot, garlic
Always asking for the ranch
So we settle on tzatziki
And call it a plan

Your double ice cream cone
And your smile there, so cute
The chocolate-filled bottom 
So it doesn’t leak right through 

If you’ve ever had a resolution set that didn’t last past January or February, you're not alone. In fact, some studies suggest that only 9% of people who make goals for the new year end up keeping them. 

It turns out of those 90%+ of folks who don’t keep their resolutions, there are common reasons why they don’t last. Many of them are very simple, but as motivational speaker Jim Rohn would say, “What’s simple to do is also simple not to do.” 

As a professional life coach, I meet with people every day who have great ambitions of what they want to achieve, and yet have lots of confusion as to why they’re not successful. The thing is, it typically comes down to just a few common mistakes.

Check out this list to learn what those top pitfalls are, and what you can do about it. Some of them might be things you’ve heard of, but read until the end and you’ll definitely find a way to diagnose whatever roadblock you’re encountering.

It was December 2019. I woke up with anxiety, shaking, in a house that I owned, one that I paid the mortgage for, but that wasn’t home anymore. My partner for the past nearly 8 years had recently given me an ultimatum: either I agree to let her start dating another woman, or we’re over. 

Welp…. Well. In my super codependent, people-pleasing, terribly-afraid-to-be-alone 27-year old brain, my answer was simple. I barely needed to think about it:

“Okay. We can make this work….” 

At this point in our relationship, I was so deep in denial and years of emotional abuse that I had no grounding of how I actually felt and what I wanted. It was just about whatever would make the relationship last. I believed a successful relationship is one that lasts, period.

One where you don’t quit and walk away just because things get hard.

To grieve is to be human. So even if grief isn’t knocking loudly at your door right now, chances are that someone close to you is dealing with it. And even if you are dealing with it, too, being there for someone else can help advance the healing process for both of you. But only if you do it the right way. 

There’s a lot of ways people try to support people through grief that are actually more damaging. It’s not as intuitive as you may initially think: there’s plenty of seeming contradictions in what is best to do and not do.  

Given my experience as a life coach working with people going through all types of grief, I’ve seen and heard it all. Some practices are definitely more helpful than others. And while many loved ones may be well-intended, they often don’t really know what to do and make common missteps. 

So here are the top 5 DONT’S: the mistakes people tend to make that you should definitely NOT do if you’re trying to be supportive to someone in grief.

Every year I have a tradition of posting a new article or poem or story for the 12 days leading up to Christmas. Yesterday for 12 Days of Christmas, I published a poem that I’d started a few years ago. It’s a letter to an oak tree that used to be in front of the house I owned. I say used to not because the tree isn’t there anymore, but just because it’s no longer my house. 

It was a way of saying thank you, goodbye, and asking for some help, too. You know, all from a tree that may or may not actually be an oak tree. And all in a poem. Because poems can do that. 

Anyway, a friend suggested I drive by the house to take a picture of the actual tree, so I did today. It’s beautiful.

But then something really wild happened, wild and cool enough that this is the story for today’s 12 Days of Christmas article. An interruption to your regularly scheduled programming.

Oh, wise oak
Tell me what you’ve seen, what you’ve heard
From all the years and seasons of people moving in 
With their big trucks hitting your branches
The new sprinklers for the lawn
The raccoon hiding on the roof
The homeowners raking the leaves and pine cones
Just for you to shower them down again
You’ve seen the cheap wood fences curl and morph 
And the young bucks so sure they can straighten them back up

You’ve seen the new cars on the street 
Each finding their own unnamed spot
You’ve seen the new dogs walking past 
On rare and frequent occasions 

You’ve seen the signs and lock boxes
The homes that turned into houses
Abandoned, just waiting to be torn down
And made into something more beautiful
You must have seen the crews of men 
Building up that one house you shaded

Do you remember my car that used to park there, under your branches?
On a rare drive down that street, you probably see me slow down passing that purple house. 
Just to remember, to soak it in: 
“Wow. That used to be mine. That used to be my life. My home.” 
And oh how foreign home can become, sometimes. 

So life just isn’t hard enough for you these days, huh? Life gotten a bit dull, boring, predictable? Thinking you’d like a bit of a new challenge? Something to shake things up a bit? 

Well, I’ve got just the thing you need! A good, old-fashioned, homemade, mid-life crisis!

Oh, don’t worry. You can adjust the spice as you prefer. And if you want to partake, but not quite at middle age yet? No worries! Just reduce the recipe amounts and you can have your own quarter life crisis instead if that’s more your speed!

Now, there are lots of recipes out there, there’s lots of ways to make them. So I thought I’d condense my favorite ingredients. Of course, these are all interchangeable and you can skip one if it’s not your vibe. 

You know how some people skip the adding the nutmeg in their pumpkin pies? Yea, it’s like that. It’ll lose a little bit of the kick, but the essence is still there. 

So without further ado, here’s a recipe that’s been passed down by generations that you, my lovely friends, I am choosing to share with you! 

In my work as a life coach these days, I’ve seen all types of recipes. Some of which are very creative and ingenuity filled. Resourceful cooks, I must say. 

But here are some of the most common ingredients I’ve seen to give you a start in making your own mid-life crisis!

(English translation also below)

Perdon, amigo.

Me odio qué estás triste. Y te sientes que estás solo. Yo estoy aquí. Pero no puedes verme. Creo que yo estoy algunos pisos abajo de tu. Pero creo que puedes oírme cuando hablo contigo. Porque por un momento, pares llorando, y tal vez quieres comunicar conmigo.

Y tengo un perro que lo hace todo el tiempo. Es muy vocal. Creo que ella piensa que es una persona. Or, tal vez solo que yo puedo hablar y entender la lengua de perros.

Thank you for not smoothing out your corners and rough edges. Yea, they’d poke and scratch me up every now and again, but with enough distance, from all these months apart, I’m grateful you’re you. The pokes challenged me in a new way, and at the end of the day, weren’t really a big deal. 

You embraced my edges, too. 

Thanks for crying so much with me. And letting me cry. And let me hold space for you to cry. 

When you zoom out, it’s kinda funny to think that it’s entirely possible that our relationship involved more time crying together than anything else. But it was beautiful. It was healing.

I cried about you yesterday. It was the first time in a long time. I’ve needed to get it out, but I’ve been too angry. Too hurt. 

I’ve been holding on to it for a while. I’ve wanted to let it out but couldn’t get myself to.

It still hurts. I feel like I was left behind. Or used. 

But I know I can’t entirely blame you and I have to ask myself why I put myself in that position. And that’s heavy. There’s some shame in that.

But you know, it feels good to be used, sometimes. It feels good to be needed. To be useful. To have something to offer. I guess it’s easier to measure worth that way sometimes. It makes it easier to pinpoint something tangible. 

I don’t want to admit that I still miss you. I don’t want to admit that every now and then I still open that one drawer that has your shirt in it, just to see if it still smells like you. 

Because we both knew it wasn’t going to be forever. And I don’t even know what I’m really missing. Whether it was just lying next to you, or staying up late talking about the difference between being silly vs goofy. Or whether it was just knowing you were there. 

If we were still talking, I'd ask you about this tank top from Pride that’s too big. I know one tailor in town but I don’t know if tank tops are things people bring to tailors. Or I’d ask you for advice on how to do it myself. Or if you were feeling enthusiastic, I’d let you go at it.

But we’re not talking, so no, I’m not going to reach out. 

After all, I remind myself, you have a husband now. 

I've gotten better at differentiating real love from the "knock offs" so to speak, and wanted to share what I've learned with you.

Love is actually really simple, but our society confuses it so much with fake look-a-likes (like codependence and enmeshment).

Oh how I love the skin that’s holding you in
It keeps you in one place
So I can find you

I love the skull that holds that mind of yours
And your ribs to cradle those lungs
Those deep breaths you take when you finally let yourself relax
When you know you’re home for the night

Your deep barrel chest, holding in your heart
Your sweet, playful, eternal puppy heart

Some of our decorations never made it out of the box, nevermind out of the closet
Some of our Christmas cards are in a pile still unopened 
Some of our cards still haven’t been sent

Some of us can only think about who isn’t here
Some of us won’t be having that first Christmas together
Some of us are returning wrapped gifts we’ll never get to give
For some of us, it’s the first Christmas we can’t pretend to have a happy family
Some of us just miss pretending
Some of us are dreading being alone
Some of us are tired of rushing from one place to another
Some of us can’t wait to be back home, alone, with nothing to do

Recently I had the opportunity to have a conversation about coaching, personal growth, relationships, and self-awareness with Alix Sandler on the Biz Wiz Podcast. Check out the recording above and the transcript below.

It’s taken me a long time to have a better relationship with my feminine side. For the majority of my life, I was convinced that it didn’t exist–that I was a tomboy who was naturally more masculine and androgynous. 

In fifth grade, long before I came out as gay, I had this burning desire to cut my hair. I’d wanted to cut it for a while, and I don’t remember specifically why.

My mom kept not letting me, probably hoping it was just a phase that I’d get over before I made a drastic decision that I couldn’t just grow back overnight. Eventually, my persistence wore her down and she agreed to let me.

I couldn’t wait, and the feeling when I finally got it cut was amazing. It was barely longer than a buzz cut.

It’s not that I wanted to be a boy. I just didn’t want my long hair. And I just didn’t like girly clothing. Or heels. Or dolls. Or makeup. Or other girly things. I just felt so much like I didn't fit anywhere. 

I’m pretty sure my DARE instructors in 5th grade couldn’t stand me.

DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is a school program where police officers come into classrooms to teach students about not doing drugs. We had workbooks with different exercises to think about the scenarios we might find ourselves in to plan in advance how we’d navigate peer pressure and different circumstances when we might be offered or pressured to use drugs. 

Our workbook had tons of space for us to write explanations of how we’d respond to the other person who was offering or pressuring us to use drugs. Most of the students wrote out detailed justifications about why drugs were bad, how they’re saying no because of all that it would cost us, and all the other reasons and ways they’d say no.