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If you’ve ever felt lost in grief, this month’s practice is for you.

I was sitting in a crowded airport terminal when I got the call a few weeks ago. My husband, Chris, spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, “My dad passed away last night.”

The words confused me. My father-in-law had experienced some heart issues years ago but was doing everything “right” to modify his lifestyle, improve his health, and keep up with the recommended medications.

“Your dad?!” I stood up and started pacing back and forth. A lump formed in my throat as tears welled in my eyes.

In that moment, life shifted into a parallel dimension where nothing felt real. Everything felt temporary. Conversations about a medical examiner, human remains transport, a death certificate, cremation, an obituary, and memorial services became as ordinary as compiling a grocery list. We gathered with family and friends under the most disorienting of circumstances. In a haze we greeted nearly 300 people during calling hours at my father-in-law’s memorial service.

I stared, shocked, into the distance. I growled my frustration into pillows. I broke down in tears. My body felt simultaneously saturated with grief and completely wrung out from emotional processing, hosting, and over-socialization.

Moving through this family loss has been a test of my nervous system’s capacity. My body has been struggling with insomnia, holding tension at the base of my skull, and erupting in acne breakouts.

Over the past few weeks, my personal power practice has kept me afloat.

Not yet a paid subscriber? Here’s your invitation!

If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can access this month’s personal power practice (and more!) by subscribing for just $8 for the month or $80 for the year.

In Our Powers paid subscribers receive:

• Monthly personal power practices that include reflective prompts, videos, rituals, embodied practices, or guided meditations

• Access to the full archive of personal power practices

• A private chat where you can share your experiences & ask any questions

Not sure if you’re ready to commit? Try it out for a month and cancel anytime!

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I had the honor of sitting down with Beth Docherty, principal of The TRUST Project, a research and outreach initiative that educates healthcare professionals, students, and communities about trauma and its impact on health and well-being. A former research chemist, Beth combines scientific thinking with lived experience to advance trauma-informed practices and strengthen communities. I’ve gotten to know Beth over the past couple of years through our writing group with trauma-informed writing coach Lisa Cooper Ellison.

We talk about what it really means to be trauma-informed, why trauma is so common, and how shifting from “what’s wrong with you?” to “what might have happened to you?” can change the way we show up for one another. Beth walks through the six guiding principles of a trauma-informed approach from SAMHSA ( Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), starting with safety, and shares simple, concrete ways to create it, from explaining what’s about to happen before it happens to offering real choices.

I share a personal story about going through TSA screening and how my body responded, even after years of therapy. Together, we explore body memory and why trauma knows no time or place.  We also discuss that when there’s been trauma in the context of a relationship, healing happens in relationship, and not necessarily with that person who caused the harm, but in relationship with other people and finding safety with other people.

Beth and I also get practical about self-defense. We talk about how to tell whether a class is trauma-informed, the red flags to watch for (like surprise contact, teaching through shame, or pressure to share your story), and the question to ask an instructor before you sign up. We also talk about why everything in a workshop should be an invitation, why instructors should model checking in, and why you should never have to explain yourself to take a break.

We close with self-advocacy, including what it’s like to be labeled a “difficult patient” for listening to your own body, and Beth’s three tools for moments when a space doesn’t feel safe: trust yourself, advocate for yourself, and calm your nervous system. Her reminder that the goal is a toolbox of strategies, not one perfect fix, is one I’ll keep coming back to.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Beth Docherty as much as I did. I’m still thinking about her reminder that every interaction we have can either reinforce trauma or promote healing, which means every one of us has more power than we realize to create safety for the people around us.

Enjoy the wisdom of Beth and this conversation about trauma-informed care, safety, choice, self-advocacy, and healing in relationship.

More about this episode’s guest:

Beth Docherty is the principal of The TRUST Project, a research and outreach initiative that educates healthcare professionals, students, and communities about trauma and its impact on health and well-being. A former research chemist, she combines scientific thinking with lived experience to advance trauma-informed practices and strengthen communities.

Beth is a member of the Physical and Behavioral Action Team of HEAL PA, helping implement trauma-informed care across Pennsylvania. She serves as co-chair of The Crime Victims Alliance of PA and Empowered Advocacy group, is a member of Resilient Voices, and serves on the Board of Directors for The PA Organization for Women in Early Recovery (POWER). Her previous leadership includes service with Pittsburgh Action Against Rape (PAAR), the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape (PCAR), and the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations (PANO). Beth has testified in judicial policy hearings and presents and speaks nationally about sexual abuse and trauma-informed care.

Other links from Beth:

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/beth-docherty-trust

• HuffPost essay: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/doctor-trauma-informed-health-care-septic_n_686af8dde4b0762f74e11c1e?eyo

• PA Centered podcast interview:

• How Nature Nurtures: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01720-6

• Pittsburgh Parks Rx: https://pittsburghparks.org/parks-rx/

• Brené Brown on empathy vs. sympathy:

• JAMA Op Ed: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2843896

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A few weeks ago I was meditating (as I often do) and asked myself the question: “What is getting in the way of my success?”

A visual appeared in my mind: I was completely surrounded by fire and being burned at the stake, like a witch.

A bit dramatic, I know.

Sitting with this image, I realized those lapping flames represented two deep-seated fears I had been harboring for decades.

First, I feared becoming a cringe-worthy failure and attracting a mob of angry people determined to annihilate me and everything I create

Second, I feared becoming wildly successful in everything I do and attracting a mob of angry people determined to annihilate me and everything I create

Between the two, winning felt impossible.

Surfacing from my meditation, I felt a little crazy. Why in the world am I anxious about being burned at the stake by a mob? I’m not living in 1500s Europe or in late 1600s Salem.

Maybe I was a witch in a previous life? Maybe some distant ancestors was burned at the stake? Maybe the recent autumn equinox, harvest full moon, and release of Practical Magic 2 has me feeling a little witchy?

Struggling to make sense of my seemingly unfounded phobia, I started searching for answers. I remembered hearing the phrase “witch wound” somewhere in passing. So, wondering if it could explain my angst, I looked it up.

According to Claude, the “witch wound” is a metaphysical and psychological framework that describes a collective, inherited fear of being shunned, silenced, or punished for defying social norms, expressing authenticity, and claiming personal power. It’s rooted in the European persecution against and execution of women for being traditional healers, midwives, or independent figures.

As I was editing this Substack post, I came across a copy of the Second Edition of Witches Midwives & Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English at the grocery store. (Yes, I shop at a grocery that sells such a book.)

Originally written in the early 1970s during the second wave of feminism in the United States, it offered a deeper explanation of this collective witch wound.

According to Ehrenreich’s and English’s research, most women suspected of witchcraft were poor wise women and lay healers who served peasant populations during feudalism in Europe. Their “crimes” were things like expressing their sexuality, organizing or gathering in groups with other women, and healing the sick.

The Church, the State, and (newly created) medical professionals viewed these women as a threat to their political and economic power. Men in power feared wise women would erode the public’s compliance with the Church, organize an uprising against the State, and/or steal business from newly minted doctors.

So, together, these men systematically hunted, tried, and executed women to threaten, control, silence, and disempower them for more than four centuries. There is evidence that they tortured and killed 50,000 to 100,000 women as “witches.” The actual number may be higher.

As I read and reflected on this history, it became obvious why I’m afraid of being visible, using my voice, taking up space, and stepping into my authentic power.

For centuries, women have been punished for doing so.

Even though the “witch craze” was centuries ago, this pattern of “witch-hunting” still exists today. We still see men, religious leaders, and political leaders threaten, silence, control, and disempower women. The “witch hunts” never really ended, persisting in new forms on social media, in politics, in courts, and in business.

And, if I want to successfully sharing my gifts with the world, I need to overcome this fear.

In an attempt to conquer my phobia, I’ve started questioning my image of a witch and redrawing her in my mind. Instead of poisonous potions, she concocts healing ointments, nourishing broths, and medicinal teas. Instead of cursing people with magical incantations, she repeats supportive mantras. Her cackle is not an evil call but unrestrained joy and laughter. Her “ugly” appearance defies beauty standards without shame. Her coven is not dangerous. It is a powerful, loving sisterhood.

My new image of a witch reminds me of the younger version of myself. Little Carolyn loved making magic potions from mud, grass, and wildflowers. She imagined flying over the tall oak trees in her backyard. She repeated incantations to help her body fall asleep at night. She believed in magic and spirits, convinced she had seen a ghost more than once. Sometimes she caught her grandfather’s spirit sitting at the end of her parents’ bed.

The younger version of me was, according to society’s definition, a witch.

So, maybe, I’m a “witch” too. I brew hair rinses with rosemary, rose-hip, chamomile, and nettle. I stir soup pots with healing remedies. I watch birds of prey soar in the sky. I let myself laugh until I cry. I meditate on mantras. I marvel at the full moon and render my own rituals. I am sexual, organized with other women, healing, and powerful.

Maybe “being a witch” isn’t a bad thing at all. Maybe “being a witch” means I’m fully connected to my feminine presence, voice, and power. Maybe “being a witch” means I’m joining a legacy of wise women and healers who organized in sisterhood.

Maybe “being a witch” is how we heal our witch wounds.

An invitation to upgrade

If you are not yet a paid In Our Powers subscriber, I invite you to join for just $8 a month (or $80 a year). As a paid subscriber, you’ll get all the benefits of a free subscription plus:

• Monthly personal power practices that include journaling prompts, guided meditations, and/or video lessons

• Access to the full archive of personal power practices

• A private chat where you can share your experiences & ask any questions

Not sure if you’re ready to commit? Try it out for a month and cancel anytime!

Powers Play

In each of my free posts, you’ll find this “Powers Play” section. Here, I share my latest moments of play and pleasure, an essential part of how I reclaim power.

Here’s the latest (see photos below!):

• Delighting in CJ Hendry’s opaque ice cream at Jeni’s Ice Creams

• Watching My Brilliant Career on Netflix. This delightful series set in 1900 Australia feels like Bridgerton meets Dickinson.

• Reading One & Only by Maurene Goo. In this novel Cassia Park has inherited a magical power to read people’s faces and find their fated true love. When she finds her own fated after decades of searching, her undeniable love for someone else calls her entire understanding of love into question. Lots of twists and turns. A delightful easy read

• Attending Magnetic, a conference with Dr. Amanda Hanson, in Fort Lauderdale. Think hundreds of women in a room, moving through rituals to love themselves in the mirror, release rage, and reconnect with their sensuality. There’s nothing like it.

• Honoring my father-in-law’s passing. Chris’ dad passed away unexpectedly two weeks ago. We’ve been moving through waves of shock, grief, and everything else that comes in the wake of such a devastating loss. Receiving cards, home-cooked butternut squash soup, beautiful bouquets of flowers, and warm banana bread, and so much more love and comfort from family and friends has been such a gift

• Walks on the Monon trail while visiting and supporting my husband’s family in Indianapolis. There’s sometimes so healing about the presence of trees

I had the honor of sharing space with Felicia Savage Friedman, founder and CEO of Yoga Roots on Location, an anti-racist Raja Yoga school, and an interdisciplinary artist. Felicia has been practicing yoga for 36 years, teaching for 31, and brings an incredible depth of lived experience, creativity, and wisdom to this conversation.

We talk about Raja Yoga and what it can teach us about cultivating safety from within. Felicia shares how her practice helped her reclaim agency through some of the most difficult experiences of her life, and how healing, for her, is not a destination but a continuum.

Together, we explore the difference between safety and comfort, and what happens when our foundations get shaken. Felicia talks about “groundwater”: the messages and beliefs we absorb so deeply from our families, cultures, and societies that they can shape what we believe is safe without us even realizing it.

We talk about intuition, inherited fear, and what it means to step into our own power even when the people who love us might see that as unsafe. We also explore what happens when we get curious about our triggers instead of immediately treating them as problems to solve.

There’s a lot here about what it means to stay curious, listen inward, and acknowledge when we’ve caused harm, and to find a path back through apology, accountability, and love.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Felicia Savage Friedman as much as I did. I’m still thinking about her reminder that we can be shaken without necessarily being unsafe, and that sometimes what feels like disruption is an invitation to grow.

Enjoy the wisdom of Felicia and this conversation about Raja Yoga, safety, agency, intuition, accountability, and coming home to our own power.

More about this episode’s guest:

Felicia Savage Friedman, also known as The Cussin’ Yogini, is a Pittsburgh-born and raised Black community cultural worker, artist, writer, Raja Yoga teacher, and founder and CEO of YogaRoots On Location and The Cussin’ Yogini. For more than 30 years, Felicia has taught Raja yoga and integrated embodied antiracist practices and collective liberation in community, educational, health care, and institutional spaces.

Through YogaRoots On Location, she offers AntiRacist Raja Yoga Teacher Training, professional development, community yoga, youth and adult programming, and integrated embodied practices that support healing, accountability, and social change. Her work has reached students, educators, physicians, medical students, artists, organizers, families, and community leaders across the country into Canada, Wales, Nigeria, South Africa, and Nova Scotia.

As The Cussin’ Yogini, Felicia brings together art, yoga, writing, handmade papermaking, cursive and calligraphy, storytelling, poetry, performance, and electric cultural memory. She is the creator of We Are All Connected, We Are The StarDust Crew, a poem-workbook that explores belonging, breath, stardust, mycelium, and the truth that all of our lives are deeply interconnected.

Felicia is entering a new chapter as an artist-scholar and PhD student in Language, Literacy, and Culture at the University of Pittsburgh School of Education. Her emerging research and creative work focus on handmade papermaking as material literacy, embodied knowledge, cultural memory, and a liberatory practice. Across all of her work, Felicia invites people to breathe, remember, create, tell the truth, and practice collective liberation with joy.

LINKS

• YogaRoots On Location

• YogaRoots On Location — Our Story

• YogaRoots On Location Patreon

• The Cussin’ Yogini and https://www.thecussinyogini.com/art

• The Cussin’ Yogini on Instagram

• YogaRoots On Location on Instagram

• Medium writing by Felicia Savage Friedman / The Cussin’ Yogini

• We Are All Connected, We Are The StarDust Crew Workbook Shop

• We Are All Connected, We Are The StarDust Crew Workbook Workshop

• RiverLife’s A Shore Thing + YogaRoots On Location Yoga Sessions Summer/Fall 2026

• Donation Link For YogaRoots On Location

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If you’ve been feeling numb and a little dead inside… this personal power practice is for you!

The superpowers of our senses

I spent decades moving through the world feeling like a zombie: numb, hallowed out, and a little dead inside. I performed everything expected of me, but never felt fully alive.

It took me years to discover the secret to resuscitating myself: my senses.

When I notice and nourish my senses, they become my superpowers. Not only do they keep me safe, they turn on my sensuality and bring me back to life.

This fall season feels like a feast for my senses: the soft sweaters I pull over my skin, the brilliant blue skies igniting marigolds, the crunch and smell of decomposing leaves, the steaming soups and sweet apple cider donuts.

And, by no coincidence, it’s the season I feel most powerful.

Because, when my senses are turned on, my power is turned on.

This month’s personal power practice is curated to help you tap into your senses and their superpowers.

If you’re tired of feeling numb, this personal power practice is for you. It will guide you out of the zombie march and into a life turn-on.

Not yet a paid subscriber? Here’s your invitation!

If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can access this month’s personal power practice (and more!) by subscribing for just $8 for the month or $80 for the year.

In Our Powers paid subscribers receive:

• Monthly personal power practices that include videos, rituals, reflective prompts, embodied practices, powerful potions, and/or guided meditations

• Access to the full archive of personal power practices

• A private chat where you can share your experiences & ask any questions

Not sure if you’re ready to commit? Try it out for a month and cancel anytime!

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Superpower Your Senses

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I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Tahirah Walker, a personal and professional expert on the power of joy as resistance.

This episode explores joy and how it often co-exists with rage and grief. Dr. Walker explains how joy is resistance because our joy is power. It’s a power no one can take from you. And it a power amplified when shared with others.

In this conversation, we consider all the ways we use joy as protection, whether inserting humor to diffuse a difficult interaction, laughing uncontrollably to deter unwanted attention, or performing joy to reclaim a feeling of safety.

Along the way we arrive at a powerful realization: Feeling authentic joy (rather than performing it) requires safety. So, when we find ourselves in situations where we are performing joy or having trouble accessing joy, it might be worth asking: what’s making us feel unsafe?

As you listen, you’ll delight in the joyful moments throughout our conversation. We cover everything from the thrill of making a basketball hoop from across the court, to Pittsburgh poet Toi Derricotte, to Ghostbusters blasting “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher and Higher,” to comedian Richard Pryor, to bee-shaped pins and fabulous hats.

Enjoy the wisdom and joy of Dr. Tahirah Walker!

More about this episode’s guest:

Dr. Tahirah Walker is a brilliant educator, researcher, writer, and mother. She is the author of Rhetoric, Intersectionality, and Black Women in Pittsburgh: Living Enough for the City, a book about the power of words to both oppress and resist. She has a degree in Anthropology from Sarah Lawrence College, a Masters in Education and Instructional Technology from Carnegie Mellon University, and a PhD in Rhetoric from Duquesne University. She is currently the Chair of the Department of Community Engagement & Leadership at Rowland School of Business at Point Park University, where she has taught for many years. She has also served as faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, and Bethany College. Beyond being brilliant, Dr. Walker is a fierce believer in the power of joy as resistance.

You can learn more about Dr. Tahirah Walker and her love of books on her website, blackbooklady.com, and at on Substack.

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I sat alone in the large event space at our local community center. May I Have this Dance by Francis and the Lights played on the stereo overhead. I had arranged yoga mats in a beautiful circle around colorful markers, stickers, name tags, and a stack of workbooks.

I had poured weeks of time, creativity, and soul energy into this workshop. It was everything I wished someone had taught me, delivered in a fun and entertaining way.

The only problem? It was almost an hour into class. And I was the only person there.

This wasn’t the first time I had shown up with courage, seeking connection, only to be met with silence or disinterest. I had noticed this pattern on Instagram, with friends, here on Substack, and even initiating sex with my husband. It seemed to appear in every dimension of my life.

Feeling disappointed, frustrated, lonely, and exhausted, I decided to turn off the uplifting music, pack up, and head home. That evening, I focused on what I could control: taking care of my body. I nourished myself with a steaming bowl of vegetable soup and crusty bread, drew myself a lavender-scented Epsom salt bath, read a great book (Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris), and sank into my bed earlier than usual.

The next day, I took a walk through Frick Park. Wandering the trails, I hoped to make sense of this persist pattern.

A few months earlier, I had joined The Pathway community at To Be Magnetic (TBM), an organization that uses neuroscience and psychology to help people rewire limiting beliefs and magnetize their desires.

TBM has a philosophy that the universe sends us “tests” or “opportunities, situations, or triggers (emotionally activating moment) that invite [us] to respond from a place of high self-worth, authenticity, and magnetism.”

These repeated situations of silence and/or disinterest in my life seemed like tests from the universe. But, what were they trying to teach me?

As I walked among the oak, maple, and hemlocks trees, I realized that each moment of silence and disinterest had reflected back a belief I held to be true:

“I am unwanted.”

I subscribed so strongly to this belief that each time I experienced silence or disinterest, I clocked it as evidence that I was, indeed, unwanted.

Through The Pathway community at TBM, I had also learned that our brains and beliefs are malleable. Just because I’ve subscribed to this belief for decades doesn’t mean I need to subscribe to it forever.

To rewire this belief, I needed to return to the earliest moment I could remember feeling unwanted. I needed to offer that younger version of myself all of the validation, love, and care she needed.

Then, I needed to offer a new belief, a neural pathway for my brain to build.

That new belief came quickly: “I am wanted because I want myself.” With each step through the park I meditated on this new affirmation. Such simple words, but they contained so much. They invited me to:

• Want and desire my body and being

• Want and desire everything I create. Or, in other words, create only what I desire.

• Let myself want and desire more beautiful things in my life

Since that moment in the woods, I’ve been committing and re-committing to wanting myself. When I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I give her a head nod and remind her how gorgeous she is. I’ve been letting my little me decide what videos to record for my Instagram reel. I’ve been fantasizing about all sorts of things I desire: a vacation in Rio, new ballet slippers, learning how to quilt.

This reorientation doesn’t magically fix people’s silence and disinterest in me or the things I create. It dissolves other people’s power over my self-worth.

The truth is: When I rely on other people to determine whether or not “I am wanted,” I give them a lot of power over my self-worth.

One of the most powerful things I can do is reclaim the power to make myself feel wanted, loved, and worthy. (And to pursue desire myself.)

Then, if my bid for connection meets silence, disinterest, or rejection, it doesn’t erode my self-worth. It’s simply data. And, when that bid for connection is met with an enthusiasm “Yes!” it becomes a sprinkle of jewels over the golden well of worthy I’m already feeling within.

Have you ever experienced feeling unwanted? How do you navigate these moments? I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment or send me a DM!

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P.S. Happy Fall Equinox!

An invitation to upgrade

If you are not yet a paid In Our Powers subscriber, I invite you to join for just $8 a month (or $80 a year). As a paid subscriber, you’ll get all the benefits of a free subscription plus:

• Monthly personal power practices that include journaling prompts, guided meditations, and/or video lessons

• Access to the full archive of personal power practices

• A private chat where you can share your experiences & ask any questions

Not sure if you’re ready to commit? Try it out for a month and cancel anytime!

October’s personal power practice will be (drum roll…..)

Superpowered Senses

Sharpen your senses, strengthen your safety, and turn on your sensuality

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Powers Play

In each of my free posts, you’ll find this “Powers Play” section. Here, I share my latest moments of play and pleasure, an essential part of how I reclaim power.

Here’s the latest (see photos below!):

• Attending my sister’s 30th birthday celebration. The theme was “pink, sparkly, unicorns,” so Chris and I decided to go all out with fully-pink attire and pink wigs. So worth is.

• Taking a final dip in our community pool to bid farewell to summer

• Making what I call “kitchen sink” soups and salads that throw together whatever is in the fridge and pantry. These creations never follow a recipe, but always end up with fantastic combinations of flavors

• Marveling at the early signs of autumn in Pittsburgh’s leaves

• Digging up some childhood photos. I’ve been trying to remember what brought me joy as a kid and invite more of that into my everyday life

• Reading Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris. The protagonist, Leigh, is an incarcerated person being transported from one facility to another when the bus goes flying over a bridge and down into a ravine. She is the only person to survive the crash and escape the scene, giving her a blank slate on life. Her new life leads her to a flower farm where the seasonal cycles of dahlias, lilies, and roses bring her back to life. This book is a such a beautiful demonstration of trauma-informed story-telling that honors the protagonist’s journey with so much love, care, and transformation. It feels like a joy to turn each page.

• Discovering Earlybirds Club: A Dance Party for Ladies who have Shit to do in the Morning. These dance parties are hosted all over the US. They run from 6 to 10 PM, so you can be in bed before 11. The room was filled with women and gender-expansive folks rocking in flip flops and sneakers, bubble guns, lights, earplugs, and fantastic music from a woman DJ. Does a dance party get any better?

Have you wished you would have spoken up, resisted, or fought back?

You are not alone.

Victim-blaming is so pervasive in our society that, when we become a victim, it’s tempting to blame ourselves.

I know this because, for decades, I blamed myself for the assault I experienced in high school Even as I began my self-defense training, I felt responsible for what happened. I believed that, if I could just master self-defense, I could guarantee my safety in the future.

It took me years to realize: no matter how much self-defense I mastered, I would never be able to predict or control the behavior of other people.

In this episode, I propose an alternative to the victim-blaming (or self-blaming) mindset that so often colors self-defense courses.

Instead, I suggest reframing self-defense as a reclamation of our power.

Our power to respond.

Our power to chart our own unique self-defense journey.

Our power to reclaim the narrative, to tell our truth.

Check it out. Let me know what you think.

Holistic self-defense is body honoring

When I tell people I teach “holistic self-defense,” they often imagine punches and groin kicks.

But I teach so much more than that. I help people reclaim their power to resist violence in all forms. I invite people to practice loving, protecting, and advocating for themselves individually and as a collective.

Perhaps a better term for what I teach is “body honoring”: honoring the value, wisdom, and power not just of our body, but of all bodies.

This month, I’ve curated a body-honoring practice for In Our Powers paid subscribers. If you are not a paid subscriber, you can access this practice by subscribing for just $8 for the month. You are welcome to cancel your subscription any time.

In Our Powers paid subscribers receive:

• A monthly holistic self-defense lesson

• Access to an archive of holistic self-defense lessons

• A private chat where you can share your experiences & ask any questions

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Origins of this body-honoring practice

I trained for fourteen years to become a professional ballerina. As you might imagine, the ballet world is pretty brutal toward bodies. I witnessed ballet instructors slap stomachs, jam joints, celebrate anxiety-induced anorexia, and push people through pain. Throughout my training, I internalized a library’s worth of harsh things to say to myself, hoping self-criticism would anticipate and protect me from other people’s judgement.

I replayed that negative-self talk so often it became constant background noise.

Then, in 2020, I started studying the ancient (we’re talking thousands of years) philosophy of yoga. Upon opening The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, I learned a foundational principle of yoga: ahimsa or “non-violence.”

Ahimsa is not just reducing harm toward others, but also toward ourselves.

I realized that, to truly resistance violence, I needed to resist violence within myself. I needed to replace my self-criticism and negative self-talk with self-love, self-compassion, and body-honoring.

From that moment, I committed to honoring my body with love and appreciation. Returning to these practices again and again has helped me cultivate a more loving relationship with myself.

A guide to this practice

This body-honoring practice includes:

• A welcome video

• A 30-minute guided meditation to honor your body

• A guided writing exercise to honor your body

• A private chat to ask questions & share your experience

Paid subscribers are welcome to move through it at the time and pace that feels right for you. Return to it and repeat it anytime.

Everything in this lesson is an invitation. Please listen to and honor what your body needs. Say no to what doesn’t feel good. Your body knows best.

To best access the audio and video of today’s lesson, you may need to watch it on the Substack website or in the Substack app on your phone. Take a moment to orient yourself to this technology. And, if you have any trouble accessing it, please let me know.

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Reflecting on my self-defense journey and my yoga training, I explain why self-defense goes far beyond physical confrontation to include all the ways we honor and protect ourselves.

We have an abundance of tools available to us: our awareness, our intuition, the wisdom of our emotions, our voice, our community, and beyond. And, when we tap into all of these self-defense powers, it strengths our ability to avoid and/or resist violence when we need to.

Honoring the breath and depth of self-defense practices available to us, I celebrate that there is no “one right way” to practice self-defense. And one practice can beautifully complement and amplify another.

My invitation is to create the self-defense practice that meets your needs where you are right now and give space for it to evolve. Through this conversation, I offer specific examples for what that could look like.

If you’ve been told that self-defense is all about punches, groin kicks, and eye pokes or if you’ve never felt like self-defense is “for you,” then this episode is for you.

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A few weeks ago I celebrated my ninth wedding anniversary. To honor the day, I pulled our wedding album off our bookshelf and spread it open.

Our wedding was gorgeous. The ceremony took place under tall trees in a beautiful garden. The sun emerged just as our guests arrived. There was a beautiful white tent with white tables, white chairs, and white flower arrangements, all intended to be the blank canvas for what mattered most: the beautiful colors of our guests. Every detail had been anticipated, from the signature cocktails, to the delicious menu, to the table numbers with images of me and my husband at corresponding ages.

It was, truly, a bride’s dream.

But I wasn’t there.

Well, technically, I was there in the flesh. There’s photo evidence of that.

But I wasn’t there in mind, body, or spirit.

Instead, I was lost in the land of self-loathing, what Sonya Renee Taylor aptly calls “body terrorism” in her book The Body is Not an Apology.

My self-loathing started long before my wedding day. The exact origin is difficult to pin point, but I can recall every moment that amplified it. The moment I heard my grandmother’s words: “Your figure is your best accessory.” The moment a ballet instructor told me I’d need to lose twenty pounds to dance professionally. The moment a high school boyfriend dumped me for having a happy trail.

And so many more.

At some point, the critical messages about my body became so loud they drowned out my own opinions about myself. I adopted them as my own ever-present self-loathing script.

Wedding planning and preparations took the self-loathing volume knob and cranked it all the way up. Within moments of becoming engaged, I felt like a magnet for unsolicited beauty advice. Wedding weight-loss regimes. Twelve-month skin care routines. Advice to get facials. Advice to avoid facials. The secrets to eye brow prep. The encouragement of coffee and red wine consumption through a straw. Wince-worthy teeth whitening techniques. Juice cleanses. Tanning tips. Fake eyelashes that made it impossible to keep your eyes open. (Because we’d rather you not look!)

One woman told me that the most beautiful I’d ever be would be on my wedding day. “It’s all downhill from there,” she assured me.

The unsolicited advice seemed to reinforce the same message: What matters is how you look, not how you feel. And your body needs a lot of work to look good.

If you know someone who is engaged to be married or anticipating a milestone anniversary, please share this post with them. I’m offering five complimentary coaching sessions to the first five people who contact me. I’d love to help them resist the pressure to focus on their appearance and ground, instead, in a place of unconditional self-love instead. Anyone interested can send me a DM on Substack!

At the time, I refused to comply with all of the mounting advice. (Though I did develop a teeth sensitivity while attempting whitening.) It overwhelmed me and made me angry. I cursed every wedding crash diet that came across my line of sight. I had dieted for fourteen years as a pre-professional ballerina. I didn’t want toxic, disordered eating to contaminate what was supposed to be a beautiful celebrations of love.

Despite my resistance, the volume of the self-loathing noise persisted at an ear-drum-blowing high.

When my wedding day finally arrived, I was there in the flesh, but my beautiful being was somewhere else, lost in that desolate desert of self-loathing. From the outside, I appeared happy and smiling. But I could not hear myself think. I could not feel the fabric of my wedding dress on my skin, the weight of the bouquet in my hand, or the loving touch of family and friends. I was numb to my emotional experience and easily overwhelmed with tears when I became the center of attention. When my wedding planner asked me, “How are you doing?” I stared at her, dumbfounded by the question.

In many ways, I missed my own wedding.

Flipping through our wedding album on my ninth anniversary, I felt my heart swell with love, compassion, and grief for the bride I was. She was gorgeous. She was strong. She committed to a beautiful relationship with an amazing man, surrounded by incredible people in a divine setting.

And she missed so much. The blaring, terrorizing, self-loathing stole so much from her that day.

And, you know what’s wild? None of that self-loathing belonged to her. All of it had been inherited, ingested, internalized from other sources.

Over the past nine years, I’ve evolved my relationship with self-loathing. I’ve noticed that, when I start berating my physical appearance, it’s usually a sign of misdirected that anger that has ricocheted back at me. The judgement and criticism is always divorced from the reality of my beautiful, amazing body.

When the self-loathing script starts, it’s an invitation to move through my anger and step into a place of forgiveness. It’s an invitation to return to a place of love. It’s an invitation to marvel at the mind-blowing wonder of my body and everything it does for me.

In many ways, it’s an invitation to return to my holistic self-defense practice: noticing harmful the patterns around and within me, resisting the violence I’ve internalized, and honoring what my body really needs, which is lots and lots of love.

Next year we’ll celebrate our tenth year anniversary. I’m already fantasizing about a beautiful anniversary celebration. I want to curate a gorgeous ritual for just the two of us that feels deeply healing. I want to feel so divinely in love with myself and with the man I married. I want to feel the silk of an emerald dress on my skin, the weight of a gorgeous bouquet of coral dahlias, the earth beneath my bare feet, and the loving touch of my husband. I want to feel so radiant with love that there is no room for anything else. I want to feel fully turned on, fully present, and fully alive.

Because this life is too beautiful to lose to self-loathing.

Carolyn

If you know someone who is engaged to be married or anticipating a milestone anniversary, please share this post with them. I’m offering five complimentary coaching sessions to the first five people who contact me. I’d love to help them resist the pressure to focus on their appearance and ground their big moment in a place of unconditional self-love instead. Anyone interested can send me a DM on Substack!

Powers Play

In each of my free posts, you’ll find this “Powers Play” section. Here, I share my latest moments of play and pleasure, an essential part of how I reclaim power.

Here’s the latest:

• Taking a pole dancing class at Fitness with a Twist. This was WAY more fun than I ever expected it to be!

• Concocting a yogurt, honey, and rosehip oil facemask in my kitchen and rubbing it all over my face. Who knew these ingredients had so many magical benefits for our skin?

• Taking over our dining room table with flowers, colorful post-it notes, markers, stickers, crystals, and incense to bring a new holistic self-defense workshop to life

• Taking a lavender-scented Epsom salt bath

• Finding a fabulous pair of gold shoes on sale. They were meant to be!

• Swinging on the swings at the park

• Witnessing a humming bird hoover next to me on my back porch

• Sipping at matcha latte in the sunshine at KLVN Coffee Lab

• Walking past a bright red door that was definitely watching me

• Taking myself on a solo artist date at the delightful craft cafe at War Streets Art Salon

• Blowing bubbles to celebrate the launch of my new podcast: In Our Powers: The Holistic Self-defense Podcast

• Reading The Bonobo Sisterhood: Revolution through Female Alliance by Diane Rosenfeld. This brilliant author shows us what bonobo primates can teach us about dismantling patriarchal violence using the power of female alliance.

• Watching the new Ted Lasso season

If you’re curious about self-defense but have always felt intimidated, this episode is for you.

After I was sexually assaulted in high school, it took me more than fifteen years to find the courage to take a self-defense class.

In this podcast episode, I share the roots of my resistance to self-defense training: denial about my past experiences, fears about physical confrontation, and anxiety about the psychological side of fighting back. I recall the misguided and confusing advice I received out of context and the advice that finally convinced me to move through my fear and reclaim my power.

Listen to learn more about the practices that helped me experience a level of peace I hadn’t experienced in a very, very long time.

I am writing to you from the emerald velvet couch in my living room. I’m wearing a soft pink silk slip dress à la Carrie Bradshaw, over-the-top jeweled earrings in the shape of vanilla ice cream cones, and a pat of argan oil on my skin. A mug of hot lemon water is steaming next to me. Soft jazz music is pouring from our record player. Scents of olive tree, almond, citrus, and wild herbs are wafting from a candle on the coffee table. I’m witnessing a thunderstorm roaring outside, pounding rain on the window.

It all feels so delightful and delicious… it’s hard to believe I’m at work! Sure, not every moment of my work day feels this magical. I also spend time cursing QuickBooks, squinting at legal documents, and tracking down receipts. But this moment, moving my pen across paper to create sentences about a topic that energizes me in a divinely romantic setting, can and does exist.

Part of what makes this moment so magical (and radically different from any other work I’ve experienced) is the feminine energy with which I’ve infused it.

I spent the first eight years of my professional career binge-drinking masculine energy in academic and professional environments. That masculine energy manifested as urgency, competition, constant action, worshiping logic, brute force, a need to win, efficiency, productivity, and overwork. I worked eighty-hour work weeks on the road as a management consultant. I learned the blueprint of capitalistic market competition, profit maximization, and prioritizing share-holder return at Harvard Business School. I drove my body into the ground trying to grow an international staffing firm.

That masculine approach to work gave me a terrible hangover. My body revolted with insomnia, double vision, stress-induced vomiting, muscle spasms, constipation, thyroid issues, precancerous lumps on my breasts, and more. Constantly operating from this masculine energy left me hollowed out and dead inside, and threatened to kill me.

It was in its own way, violent.

I walked away from the corporate world in 2020 and took several years to recover my physical, mental, and emotional health. In my healing process, I decided to pursue a career in creative writing.

Then, at the start of this year, a feminine voice whispered in my ear, It’s time to start your own business, to build the financial foundation for the work you’re called to do. My intuition called me back to the world of business, this time as an entrepreneur.

I’m now six-months into growing a business that offers trauma-informed self-defense workshops, self-guided self-defense lessons through Substack, and podcast episodes about self-defense. As a SA survivor myself, I’m on a mission to help people heal from and resist gender-based violence.

The moment I received my EIN from the IRS, my body made one thing clear: it would not build this business with the masculine energy that dictated the first decade-or-so of my professional career.

This entrepreneurial work needed to be rooted in the feminine.

As Audre Lorde said, “…the masters tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”

To bring about genuine change in a world filled with gender-based violence, I needed to build my business with a foundation of feminine energy: creativity, love, pleasure, patience, intuitive wisdom, collaboration community, ease, rest, authenticity, and some nonsensical whimsy.

So, how am I using feminine energy to build my business?

Let me count the ways… in no particular order:

1. Resting. Grinding myself to the point of burnout doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t help me. And it doesn’t help the people I serve. Rest is non-negotiable, whether it’s going to bed at 9:00 PM on a Friday or taking a 20 minute nap in between projects and meetings. I credit the brilliant Tricia Hersey for my rest practice. If you’d like to guide yourself through a deep, restorative rest practice, check out my recent holistic self-defense lesson on rest.

2. Honoring my intuition. As an entrepreneur I often need to make decisions without full information. I simply can’t predict the future of something that has never been built. I’ve gotten incredibly good at feeling and sensing my body’s assessment of what needs to happen next and trusting it. I delight in Mama Gena’s truly feminine strategy for this: she asks her pussy for guidance on everything.

3. Practicing collaboration and celebration, instead of competition. When I decided to become a self-defense instructor, one of my first self-defense coaches offered to train me on one condition: I needed to sign a non-compete. He’d require me to teach his style under his roof so I couldn’t under-cut his prices. His conditional support put a nasty, bitter taste in my mouth. Ever since, I’ve been in search of ways to not only collaborate with, but also celebrate other self-defense teachers and thought-leaders. And, you know what’s magical? When I choose collaboration and celebration over competition, we end up creating something even better together.

4. Finding inspiration in other feminine beings. When I feel myself slipping into fear and self-doubt, I seek inspiration in other fabulous beings with powerful feminine energy (in no particular order): Felicia Savage Friedman, Meg Stone, Diane Rosenfeld, Georgia O’Keeffe, the cast of Queer Eye, Beyoncé, Dr. Amanda Hanson, , Mama Gena, Julia Cameron, Taylor Swift, , and so many more. I imagine them standing around me in their most fabulous attire, reminding that what I feel called to do is, indeed, possible.

5. Protecting space to play. Over time, I’ve realized that joy, pleasure, and play have the power to override my fear and self-doubt every time. When I take the time to play and create joy in my life, it returns to me tenfold. I credit Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for inspiring me to take myself on delightful solo dates once a week, whether to throw pottery or take a pole dancing class. These moments of play reveal my most fantastic, creative ideas.

6. Riding the waves of emotion. When I lean into my feminine energy, it comes with a lot of big feelings: fear, anxiety, self-doubt, grief, disappointment, frustration, overwhelm, joy, elation, excitement, anticipation, and more. Over time, I’ve realized that I need to move through these emotions instead of ignoring or suppressing them. That might mean crying on the couch for a few minutes, punching a heavy bag for an hour, or growling into the steering wheel of my car. Always, there is powerful insight and wisdom on the other side.

7. Honoring my body as a sacred, living thing, not a machine. This business depends on my amazing body. So, I honor it as the incredible creation it is. I nourish it with healthy, delicious food. I hydrate it with lemon water. I’ve started using natural oils and herbal rinses to anoint my hair. At night, I lay my head on a silk pillowcase. I adorn my body with clothes that bring me joy and soak it in a lavender Epsom salt bath when I feel sore. Instead of “taking care” of my body to uphold an external standard of appearance, I’m honoring it with rituals that feel delicious and revitalizing.

8. Inviting ease. Since starting this business, I’ve realized that, if something feels forced or rushed, it’s not meant to be. The best opportunities have come to me with a lot of ease. The opportunities that are meant for me appear when I’m ready for them. I don’t need to chase them down. This strategy saves so much time and energy.

9. Charging a fair price for my time. This world demands a lot of free and underpaid labor from beings with feminine energy. I offer coaching and content at a range prices to ensure accessibility. And I charge a fair price for my time. Not only because I value the gifts I create for the world and expect an energetic exchange for my energy, but also to avoid under-cutting other wildly gifted feminine beings so they too can make a living from their gifts.

10. Loving myself. In a misogynistic, patriarchal world, loving myself can feel like a radical practice. When I love myself I don’t rely on the love or approval from anyone else. I create my own source of love and positive energy that translates directly into my work.

Using feminine energy to build my business is just one more way I practice holistic self-defense and resist gender-based violence. Feminine energy helps me honor, protect, and advocate for myself. It roots me in my powers.

I’d love to hear from you: Do you feel more grounded in masculine energy or rooted in feminine energy? Have you found a balance? What’s one way you invite more feminine ways into your life? Feel free to leave a comment or send me a DM!

Leave a comment

Powers Play

In each of my free posts, you’ll find this “Powers Play” section. Here I share my latest moments of play and pleasure, an essential part of how I reclaim power.

Here’s the latest:

• Reading The Missed Connection by Tia Williams. This was a recent Bad Bitch Book Club pick and did not disappoint! The protagonist of this novel moves through the trauma of a scary stalking experience to reclaim her power and self-love.

• Attending the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation conference in Chicago. This is an incredible group of women and non-binary folks collectively resisting gender-based violence in a trauma-informed and inclusive way. Each instructor and speaker left me feeling inspired! If you practice or teach self-defense, martial arts, or healing arts (e.g. yoga, meditation, social work), I invite you to check them out.

• Enjoying dinner on our back porch. This rainy summer in Pittsburgh has created a small jungle growing in our pots. At least once a day we get a visit from a shy but very curious hummingbird who squeaks like a mouse.

• Reading Strangers by Belle Burden. This book hit me in the gut. In her memoir, Belle Burden tries to make sense of her husband’s infidelity, abandonment, and financial control over her. It played out one of my greatest fears: being abandoned and left financially destitute. She gentle reminds people in all relationships not to fall asleep at the wheel, to maintain a pulse on our finances no matter how competent our partners are.

• Playing hooky to go to Sandcastle for the afternoon. Something about water slides in the summer puts the world back on its axis.

• Finding a gold mine at the Phoenix Boutique consignment shop in Lawrenceville.

• Co-working at Field Day in Lawrenceville. I love the tall ceilings of this old building, reimagined into a beautiful workspace.

• Watching the first episode of the new Ted Lasso season! Can’t wait for more.

• Purchasing dried chamomile, rose, nettle, and rosemary from the East-End Food Co-op to brew beautiful hair rinses inspired by .

Lesson 1: Rest is a holistic self-defense practice

This month’s lesson is about rest, a foundation of holistic self-defense. If we move through the world in a constant state of hyper-vigilance, productivity, or anxiety, it’s very difficult to feel safe in our bodies. When we rest, we invite our bodies and our nervous systems to practice feeling safe.

A story that inspired this month’s lesson

A few weeks ago, I walked into a community center to teach a holistic self-defense class. As each student entered the space, they shared with me how exhausted they were. I watched each of their bodies drag, wanting to melt toward the floor. One student put their head down and fell asleep.

When I teach holistic self-defense, I notice and honor my students’ needs. Doing so helps them build trust with their bodies and with me.

Sitting among my students, I decided to scrap my teaching plan for the day and offer them what their bodies needed: rest. I guided them through a delicious, restful, and restorative yin yoga practice.

It was amazing to witness the magic in the room. I watched my students’ bodies slowly shift out of hyper-vigilance into a place of finally feeling comfortable. After class, several students told me that they felt safer and more relaxed than they had in years.

We didn’t practice kicks or punches. We practiced something more powerful: inviting our nervous systems to relax and rest long enough to finally feel safe.

In this month’s lesson, I guide you through a rest practice I often use myself. I’ve watched my husband fall in love with this practice too. He calls it the “cloud nap” because it feels like taking a nap on a cloud. Now, I get to offer it to all of you.

A guide to this month’s lesson

This is a self-guided lesson, so feel free to move through it at the time and pace that feels right for you. You’re welcome to return to it and repeat it anytime.

To fully appreciate this rest practice, I suggest reserving an hour or two to be by yourself, uninterrupted. If you have care-taking responsibilities, consider asking a partner, family-member, or friend to cover you for an hour. Protecting this time for yourself is also a practice of self-defense. Notice what it feels like to ask for support and claim this time as your own.

Everything in this lesson is an invitation. Please listen to and honor what your body needs. Say no to what doesn’t feel good. Your body knows best.

To best access the audio and video of today’s lesson, you may need to watch it on the Substack website or in the Substack app on your phone. Take a moment to orient yourself to this technology. (If you have any trouble accessing it, please let me know.)

When you’re ready to dive in, slip into some comfy clothes and gather what you need in a restful space. You can do this lesson on a soft rug, on a yoga mat, on a couch, or even in bed. For today’s lesson, I invite you to gather the following things:

• Pen & paper

• Blankets and pillows (as many as you can find)

• Anything that helps you feel safe. This might be keepsake or a photo from someone you love, a book that resonates with you, a scented candle, calming music, or anything else that comes to mind.

• A timer or alarm clock if you need to keep track of time

Take a moment to arrange everything and make any adjustments you need to the space around you.

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I want to take a moment to say, with my full heart, THANK YOU!

I’ve received each of your financial pledges and payments with a gooey warmth in my chest and deep gratitude. Your s…

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New name

What was Powers is now In Our Powers: The Holistic Self-defense Substack and Podcast. (More on the soon-to-be-launched podcast below!)

This new name honors the many holistic self-defense tools that are already “in our powers” and how it is “in our powers” to respond to the world around us.

This new name also references “our” collective powers because self-defense isn’t just about honoring, protecting, and advocating for ourselves as individuals. It’s also about using our collective powers to strengthen our collective safety. Because, when we are safer collectively, we are also safer individually.

New logo

Instead of using AI to create a new logo, I decided to commission real artwork from a real artist who is special to me.

The new In Our Powers logo is hand-painted by my mom, Julianne Fallert. (You can find her on Instagram:@greatday2paint.)

Julianne specializes in watercolor images of gardens, both real and imagined. In helping create this new logo, she has shared her creative powers with all of us.

For the new logo, I invited my mom to paint flowers whose colors and variations represent the beautiful diversity of my audience.

In the new logo, you’ll notice colors that honor people’s varied experiences with gender-based violence. Teal is a nationally recognized color that unites sexual assault survivors. Red, pink, and orange are used in advocacy movements for rape survivors. Green is used in advocacy efforts for child abuse survivors. Yellow represents justice movements for battery and assault survivors. And purple is a symbol of both domestic violence awareness and sovereignty.

Beyond this powerful symbolism, the logo also acknowledges that gender-based violence impacts people across the gender spectrum and across the spectrum of sexual orientation. It also represents the spectrum of emotions each person may experience in their healing process.

The many colorful flowers capture the diversity and beauty of our community, each person brilliant in their own way and splendid as a collective.

New socials

In Our Powers also has new pages Instagram and YouTube! If you’d like to support and help promote In Our Powers and the holistic self-defense content I share, please follow and engage with these new In Our Powers pages:

• Instagram: @in.our.powers

• YouTube: @inourpowers

New offerings

I have also expanded the In Our Powers Substack offerings.

When you subscribe to In Our Powers for free, you’ll receive posts directly in your inbox every 1-2 weeks on Tuesdays. These posts will include new podcast releases, stories of how I’m practicing self-defense in my everyday life, and prompts to build your own holistic self-defense practice.

Subscribe now

When you upgrade to a paid In Our Powers subscription, you’ll receive all the benefits of a free subscription plus:

• A monthly self-defense lesson

• Access to the full archive of self-defense lessons

• A private chat where you can share your experience & ask any questions

Self-defense lessons for paid subscribers will pick one dimension of holistic self-defense and dive deeper with an instructional video, journal prompts, guided meditations, suggested exercises, and/or accessible practices that are easy to incorporate into your daily life.

These lessons will be delivered directly to your inbox where you can explore them on your own time, at your own pace. Any clarifying questions about the content? Share your question in the private chat!

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When you join the In Our Powers Circle as a founding member, you’ll receive all the benefits of a free and paid subscription plus:

• A complimentary 30-minute virtual coaching session with me

• The satisfaction of making holistic self-defense more accessible to others. Because we are all safer when we practice together

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New podcast

On August 25th, I’m launching In Our Powers: The Holistic Self-defense Podcast.

Through stories, conversations, and practical insights, this show will explore a broader definition of self-defense, one that goes beyond physical confrontation to include all the ways we honor, protect, and advocate for ourselves.

As a subscriber to In Our Powers, you’ll receive new episodes about every other week.

The show will include both solo episodes (me talking about holistic self-defense) and interviews with topic experts. Here’s a sneak peak into some of the early topics we’ll cover:

• How & Why I Started Self-defense

• What is Self-defense, Anyway?

• Is Self-defense Victim Blaming?

• The Power of Joy as Resistance with Dr. Tahirah Walker

• What Raja Yoga Teaches Us About Safety with Felicia Savage Friedman

• What it Means to Be Trauma-Informed with Beth Docherty

• Empowerment Self-defense with Michele Montag

• And more!

Be on the lookout for more in August!

Same mission

Behind this beautiful new brand is the same mission that has always inspired this Substack: To strengthen our collective powers and reclaim our safety from within.

As a holistic self-defense coach, I pull from my personal experience as a sexual assault survivor, four years of teaching trauma-informed Raja yoga, three years of practice as a Yellow Belt in Krav Maga, Basic Physical Self-Defense Instructor training with Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.), and experience teaching holistic self-defense classes in my local community.

Together on Substack, we’ll continue moving through fear, building confidence in our powers, and strengthening safety with ourselves.

Because self-defense isn’t just about throwing strikes and kicks in a moment of danger. It’s about building trust and safety from within.

Powers Play

The “Powers Play” section of my newsletter isn’t going anywhere. (Whew!)

Practicing play is essential to reclaiming our power. When I practice play, I fill myself with positive energy. That positive energy empowers me to show up not only for myself, but also for my community. It gives me a strategic advantage in life… like a power play.

In my free Substack posts, I will continue to include my latest play practice (and hopefully inspire you to find your own moments of play!) Here’s the latest:

• Seeing Toy Story Five at Manor Theater (our tiny, local movie theater with all the charms). You’d think this fifth iteration would be a total flop, but Pixar’s still got it. I think this might be one of the best Toy Story movies yet!

• Savoring a delicious dinner and great conversation with friends on a Monday evening at Pusadee’s Garden in Lawrenceville

• Recording upcoming podcast episodes with brilliant topic experts at StudioME. The team at this podcast recording studio is fantastic.

• Going for morning walks outside while listening to Deep Imaginings from To Be Magnetic’s The Pathway.

• Reading The Missed Connection by Tia Williams. Great plot-driven, juicy romance from the author of Seven Days in June.

• Going to bed at 9 PM on a Friday. Sometimes, the body just needs rest.

• Watching Season Two of Running Point. Mindy Kaling’s writing and executive producing does not disappoint.

• Treating myself to this alarm clock and officially making my bedroom a no-phone zone.

• Taking myself out to lunch at Pigeon bagel and getting whitefish sandwich all over my hands.

• Dressing up for a date night with Chris to see The Invite. What a great movie from Olivia Wilde. Could not recommend enough.

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For more content, you can also follow In Our Powers on Instagram: @in.our.powers

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You can listen to me read this post here…

I climbed the stairs with my duffel strapped to my back and my backpack across my chest. My bra and underwear were soaked in sweat, two more items to add to my suitcase full of stinky clothes.

I had spent more than seven hours on delayed trains with broken air-conditioning from Tegernsee, a tiny town in the Alps, to Berlin during a heat wave only scheduled to get hotter. Between tight travel connections and canceled food service, I hadn’t eaten in eight hours.

Grumpy was one way to describe me.

I finally reached the door of my AirBnb, feeling desperate for air-conditioning and a place to rest.

As I pushed the door open, a wall of humid heat blasted me in the face. The bachelor-pad-looking space had been baking in the sun, making it suffocating. I double checked the listing: no air conditioning.

I should have expected it. Air conditioning wasn’t common in Berlin. But I was an American softened by constant climatization.

I dropped my bags and wandered in search of a washing machine. While the washer seemed functional, there was no dryer or drying rack in sight.

Well, this was not how I expected to experience this solo trip. I had wanted this time to feel restful, rejuvenating, and a lot less sweaty.

I’ve done enough solo travel to know that I should expect the unexpected. I’ve been stuck waiting for a 6 AM metro in Paris, held my breath around blind curves next to steep drop-offs on a public bus near Thekkady, and spent the night in Heathrow Airport using my backpack as a pillow.

Even my self-defense training has taught me: the only thing predictable is unpredictability. In self-defense, we cannot predict if, when, how, or by whom we might be violated or assaulted.

So, how do we face the most certain: uncertainty?

One strategy I’ve tested for decades is using my wild imagination to try to predict and plan for every possible scenario. One might say I’ve done my best to master this tactic, falling prey to hyper-vigilant treadmills in my head. Before departing for this Germany trip, I had asked myself all sorts of “what-if” questions: What if I lose my bags? What if the strap on my duffel breaks? What is I lose my train tickets? What if I lose my passport? What if someone steals my phone? And so many more.

Sometimes this method is helpful, especially when I run through the worst-case scenarios and assure myself that the worst-case isn’t actually that bad and that I have a back-up plan.

But this strategy can be exhausting. It keeps my nervous system in a perpetual state of high-alert, planning for unlikely disaster. And even my best imaginations had not predicted this particular hot, hungry, exhausted, sweaty, stinky moment.

So, sweating in the suffocating heat, I decided to choose the strategy that self-defense recommends: trusting myself. When the only thing predictable is unpredictability, it’s just not possible to prepare for every possible scenario. Instead, the best approach is to trust my intuition and my ability to respond.

Sweat dripping down my triceps toward my elbows, I heard myself say aloud: “These accommodations are not going to work for me, especially in this heat wave.” It was forecast to reach 103 degrees Fahrenheit (about 40 degrees Celsius).

I knew I could afford to check into an air-conditioned hotel with laundry service. So, that’s what I did.

And I did so without guilt. I was on vacation. My body wanted rest, clean clothes, and a moment to cool down. And I deserved to treat myself, as we all do.

Over the next few days I indulged in air conditioning, cold showers, delicious smelling soaps, a bath robe, clean laundry, clean sheets on a king-sized bed all to myself, leisurely breakfasts, hours lounging in the shade of tall trees in the Tiergarten, and six hours at a local German day spa.

My body felt safe to rest in ways it hadn’t in months. I finished my trip feeling replenished, rejuvenated, and re-energized to continue the world I feel called to do, here on Substack and beyond. Trusting my intuition and my ability to respond returned to me a positive energy I never would have accessed otherwise.

On the surface, choosing to check into a hotel may seem like a minor decision. But it has a big impact on my self-defense practice. When my intuition tells me what I need and I take action to honor it, I build a foundation of trust with my body.

And, when I build that foundation of trust in low-stakes, unexpected situations, like a solo, sweaty, stinky travel moment, it becomes the trust that keeps me safe in the more threatening, unpredictable moments.

Have you ever traveled solo? Did it lead you somewhere unexpected? How did you navigate that unpredictable moment? I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment or send me a DM.

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Take care out there,

Carolyn

Powers Play

Practicing play is essential to reclaiming my power. When I practice play, I’m filled with positive energy. That positive energy empowers me to show up not only for myself, but also for my community. It gives me a strategic advantage in life… like a power play.

In each Substack post, I include this Powers Play section to share my recent moments of play. Here’s the latest:

• Finishing Love by the Book by Jessica George. This novel was a delightful read about female friendship: the risks, loss, and love it involves. A great read!

• Taking a two week break from social media. (My brain would love for me to do this more often.)

• Celebrating a friend’s fortieth birthday in the garden of his childhood home in Munich. There was something so delightful about seeing my friend surrounded by his closest family and friends, and getting to know him more deeply through their stories.

• Hiking in the German Alps and drinking johannisbeerschorle with a view of turquoise blue lakes, snow-capped mountains, and a lightning storm at night.

• Taking a dip in Tegernsee Lake and enjoying sunsets over its waters.

• Smelling fragrant, vibrant roses.

• Resting in the shaded grass of tall trees in Berlin’s Tiergarten

• Spending six hours at Vibali, a textile-free day spa in Berlin. There’s nothing quite like swimming nude among a hundred naked Germans.

• Eating German strawberries in the summer. I think Germany’s strawberries have officially spoiled me.

• Crying and sweating through a brilliant Noah Kahan concert at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Love that man.

Where are you finding play and positive energy? Leave a comment or send me a DM, and I’ll add it to the Powers Play section of my next newsletter!

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“We’ve reached Manhattan!” my husband exclaimed.

His caffeine-fueled enthusiasm pulled me from the depths of precious sleep that, after several nights of insomnia and four-AM-wake-ups in his sailboat’s tiny berth, my body desperately needed.

I rubbed my crusty eyes and felt a new constellations of pimples on my forehead. I had been constipated for three days and my body had taken to pooping out of my pores.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“A little after five AM. When you’re ready, come up to the deck. It’s raining, so you might want to wear your rain gear.”

Before I could protest, he bounced back up to the deck like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.

I felt like I was back in middle school, urged out of bed by my alarm clock, somehow behind on a day that I didn’t want and that hadn’t even begun. I fumbled to find my clothes, rain gear, and contact lenses. I popped a cancer-patient-level-anti-nausea pill in my mouth and took a sip of bottled water. As the boat rocked from side to side and a diesel odor emanated from the engine, I grabbed onto whatever was available to catch my balance and tried not to breathe.

It was day three of being on this boat and I was feeling done with all of it. Though I have deep respect for her, Cole Brauer I am not.

I climbed the steep steps from the cabin into the cockpit. Rain spat in my face. My husband was giddy with excitement as he steered his boat down the East River, staring up at the tall sky scrapers that passed by.

I plopped down on the bench, grumpy, exhausted, bitter, and definitely in an angry Eeyore energy. A part of me wanted to jump overboard, swim to shore, check into a glorious Manhattan hotel, and book a flight home.

As the rain continued to drip down my face, I realized: “My body didn’t consent to this.” It was pissed-off and telling me every way it knew how.

I had committed to this multi-day, live-aboard sailing trip on my husband’s boat not because it would make me happy, but because I wanted to make him happy.

To be clear: My husband never forced me to come on this trip. He expressed how happy it would make him to have my company and he gave me plenty of opportunities to bail.

But I was a life-long people-pleaser. For decades, I had believed that satisfying other people would ensure not just my safety, but also my lovability. I knew my husband had a fantasy of us sailing around the world together on a boat. And I was determined to satisfy his desires.

So, I said yes to this trip without asking my body for consent.

My cells had communicated their reservations for months: a tightness in my stomach each time I saw the trip on my calendar, a petulance while preparing, and an exhaustion while packing.

Now my body’s resistance had become a full-on revolt. It so unhappy with the situation that it was making me miserable.

As a trauma-informed, feminist self-defense coach, I define self-defense as everything we do to honor and protect ourselves.

In this moment, I was not honoring myself because I had not asked my body for consent.

Practicing consent is a core practice in self-defense. If we know how to ask for and feel consent from our own bodies, it’s so much easier to know when we want to give consent to other people.

To ask my body for consent, I ask it what it wants and needs.

Sometimes those wants and needs feel hard to hear.

Sometimes they feel murky.

Sometimes they change over time.

Sometimes they feel drowned out by social obligation.

But I do my best to listen.

Once I hear my body’s preferences, I honor them.

I don’t ignore them.

I don’t get frustrated with my body for resisting what would be socially convenient.

I don’t force my body to do what it doesn’t want to do.

I honor its preferences.

When I practiced this kind of consent with myself, it is always easier to practice consent with other people — whether agreeing to a make-out session, sex, or being stuck on a sailboat for several days.

Practicing this kind of consent, also builds trust with my body.

Instead of berating my body for not enjoying the sailing trip or criticizing myself for agreeing to come in the first place, I decided to ask my body: What do you want and need right now?

It told me: It didn’t care about stupid skyscrapers. It wanted to go back down into the boat’s cabin, wash my face, brush my teeth, make myself a cup of tea, curl up on a cushion, cry my eyes out for a little while, and then fall asleep.

So, that's what I did.

When the boat approached the statue of liberty, I emerged for a moment to say hi to her, knowing that honoring consent in my body was a true practice of freedom.

This summer, my husband is sailing from Newport, RI to Bermuda.

My body told me it wasn’t interested. So, I’m not going. And, guess what? Everyone is happier.

Here’s to practicing consent with ourselves and everyone else.

Carolyn

Powers Play

When I practice play, I’m filled with positive energy. That positive energy empowers me to show up not only for myself, but also for my community. It gives me a strategic advantage in life… like a power play.

In each Substack post, I include this Powers Play section to share my latest moments of play and pleasure, an essential part of how I reclaim power. Here’s the latest:

• Reading Love by the Book by Jessica George. This novel is a delightful read about female friendship: the risks, loss, and love it involves. A great read!

• Doing a sauna and cold-plunge session at Heal PGH. It’s taken decades to conquer my fear of cold water. Baking in a sauna for twenty minutes beforehand helps.

• Cuddling with the poochon. Yes, I’m squarely in the DINKWAD category.

• Celebrating my dad’s birthday with a waffle breakfast and helping him set up his Catalina 22 for the summer. (This boat trip was consensual.)

• Taking early morning walks while listening to To Be Magnetic Deep Imaginings for their ongoing “Be Seen Challenge.”

• Treating myself to freshly baked olive bread at Five Points Bakery.

• Savoring summer cherries.

• Attending ’s Journaling Club with Jon Batiste live and listening to a sneak peak of Jon’s forthcoming album. I’m such a huge fan of these two human beings. I have a massive creative crush on both and a couple crush on them together.

• Receiving my Secret Plan Club card from the brilliant of ! Boaz inspires me to appreciate the power of Mother Nature, even in smallest of ways.

• Starting a much-needed two-week social media break! Wooohooooo!

Where are you finding play and positive energy? Leave a comment or send me a DM, and I’ll add it to the POWERS Play section of my next newsletter!

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It was 11:45 pm. Exhausted, my husband and I re-played the same argument we had remixed for months: I wanted more sex and blamed our recent dry spell on his lack of initiative. He argued that, no matter what he did to initiate, it was never enough.

Bleary-eyed, we stared at each other from across the bedroom, stuck in a stalemate.

Being honest with myself, I believed my pleasure was my husband’s responsibility. And, because I wasn’t experiencing enough pleasure in my life, I blamed him.

Yes, I realize this stance is a bit juvenile. But, the presence of such a belief isn’t surprising.

As a young girl and woman, I learned that the sexual pleasure of my body existed for men, not for me.

Growing up in the Presbyterian church, I listened to adults tell me to “save” my body for marriage. I knew girls who participated in the “Silver Ring Thing” ceremony, promising to keep their bodies “sexually pure” for their future husbands. My body was for making babies, they told me.

In high school, I learned to prioritize boys’ pleasure over my own. During bus rides, sleepovers, and even Model UN conferences, girls discussed all the ways to sexually satisfy boys. Never once did they talk about experiencing pleasure themselves.

Those sought-after high school boys claimed that if a girl sexually aroused them but didn’t help them ejaculate, they would experience crippling pain called “blue balls.” The implication was that if girls didn’t offer the pleasure of their body, they would cause physical harm to a boy’s genitals. (It would take me years to realize this wasn’t true.)

In college, I felt so disconnected from sensations in my body, I couldn’t even identify what felt pleasurable, let alone ask for or receive it. During my sophomore year, a boyfriend finally told me I needed to figure out how to masturbate. “I can’t make you orgasm if you can’t make yourself orgasm,” he told me. When I finally figured out how my body worked, it felt more like a favor for him than a gift for me.

Through these experiences and more, I became socially programmed to relinquish power over my sexual pleasure and hand it to boys who later became men.

Outside of that late-night argument with my husband, I had been participating in a group therapy and coaching program for women led by Dr. Amanda Hanson. (Her book, Muse: The Magnetism of Women who Stop Abandoning Themselves, is great, by the way.)

Dr. Amanda had invited me and the other women to take responsibility for our own turn-on, not just in the bedroom, but in every aspect of life. According to her, pleasure was our birthright and a superhighway to our truth. Infusing even a little bit of pleasure into everyday moments would be enough to make us feel more alive.

But a woman’s turn-on is no one’s responsibility but her own.

Staring at my husband from across the room, I wondered: What would it feel like to take radical responsibility for my own turn on and reclaim power over my own pleasure?

With my arms cross and brow furrowed, I decided that a sex fast from my husband would give me the space to find out.

The next morning, after our disagreement cooled, I declared my sex fast and explained my reasoning. Thrilled that I was taking responsibility for my own sexual satisfaction, my husband was not only supportive, he was relieved.

Over the coming weeks, I gave myself the freedom to pursue whatever pleasure my body wanted.

I started with simple things. Adorning my body with beautiful clothes and red lipstick to go grocery shopping. Moving my hips to Olivia Dean in the kitchen. Cooking a pot of nourishing soup and enjoying it with fresh, crusty bread. Drawing hot baths filled aromatherapy mineral salts and surrounding myself with candlelight. Arranging fresh flowers, taking time to smell and feel their petals between my fingers. Letting chocolate melt on my tongue.

As I reconnected with sensations in my body, I discovered new ways of seducing myself. As I started to feel more turned on by life, I felt inspired to buy new lingerie and silk pajamas that pleased me, not someone else. I slowly melted a sex stone that felt divine on my skin. Instead of defaulting to electronic dildos (which always felt like too much, too fast for my body), I selected a beautiful rhodonite crystal wand and discovered a book of sacred self-pleasuring rituals. I explored everything there is to know about my g-spot.

As I took radical responsibility for my own turn-on, I reclaimed power over my own pleasure. No longer did I rely on my husband (or anyone else) to create a pleasurable life for me. I had everything I needed to not just satisfy myself, but also make myself come alive.

In this pursuit of pleasure, magical things started to happen. I discovered desires I never knew I had. I started to fall in love not just with life, but also with myself. The many moments of pleasure filled me with a joy, positive energy, and satisfaction I hadn’t felt in years.

Reclaiming power over my pleasure is, like so many things I discuss here, a practice of self-defense. (For those who are new here, I use a more expansive definition of self-defense to include “everything we do to honor and protect ourselves.”)

When I reclaim power over my pleasure, I honor the desires and needs of my body. I fill myself with positive energy and build a foundation of trust with my body. Knowing I can source my own pleasure, I set higher standards in relationships. I feel more confident setting boundaries or even walking away. When I discover my own pleasure, I know better what I want in relationships and in life. I become more comfortable taking up space with my true desires.

When my body decided to finally break its sex fast and seduce my husband again, it was not from a place of lack, desperation, or scarcity. It was from a place of joy, play, and pleasure. And, though our sex was already great, this new version was better than ever.

If you could invite a little more pleasure into your life today, what would it be? I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment or send me a DM.

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To the power of pleasure and orgasms,

Carolyn

Powers Play

When I practice play, I’m filled with positive energy. That positive energy empowers me to show up not only for myself, but also for my community. It gives me a strategic advantage in life… like a power play.

In each of my posts, I include this Powers Play section to share my latest moments of play and pleasure, an essential part of how I reclaim power. Here’s the latest:

• Hosting a creative retreat for myself and some fellow writers at Lake Chautauqua. Walks by the lake, late night conversations over sweet potato tacos, drool-soaked naps, (and some writing) were exactly what I needed going into the summer.

• Receiving a painting of me from a fan!

• Finishing Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. (My Sci-Fi-obsessed husband made this required reading before watching the movie with me.) We finally watched Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace last weekend. Not gonna lie, I’m a big fan of Rocky. I kind of want an alien friend of my own.

• Spring cleaning my email inbox and reducing “unread” emails from over 10,000 down to 8. Been unsubscribing with abandon ever since.

• Taking walks through the glorious Frick Park under blue skies

• Attending The Sneaker Ball for Kingsley Association, a fantastic community center in our neighborhood. All fundraising events should require sneakers!

• Having lunch at Bloom Cafe, picking out plants from Quality Gardens, and cleaning up our back porch for the summer. Let the summer porch hang out sessions begin!

• Listening to “Beg For You” by Charli xcx and Rina Sawayama and deciding that I will forever be loyal to the lyrics of “Cry For You” by September.

• Reading Love by the Book by Jessica George. This novel is a delightful read about female friendship: the risks, loss, and love it involves. Great read!

• Cuddling with our poochon, whom my husband has taken to calling Pooper, Poochon Peach, or Cuteness Pupperdine,

Where are you finding play and positive energy? Leave a comment or send me a DM, and I’ll add it to the POWERS Play section of my next newsletter!

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If this post would be helpful for someone you know, consider sharing it:

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You can listen to me read this post here…

It happened as I ran my fingers through my hair in the shower. As the hot water rinsed conditioner from my head, strands clung to my hands. I pulled the hair in clumps and stuck it to the shower’s white walls, creating abstract art from fallen follicles. A futile attempt to avoid clogging the drain.

Then, I saw it. A single strand so purely white it nearly sparkled silver.

As steam rose around me, I froze.

Suspended in time, I felt the weight of this moment, a major milestone toward aging. I also heard a distant chorus of critical, disgusted voices growing louder in my head:

“Ugh, you’re getting old.”

“Your body is failing.”

“A couple more of those and you’ll no longer be attractive. If you ever were attractive.”

“You’re past your prime.”

“Not long before you’ll need to start dying your hair.”

“I wonder how many people saw that gray hair before it fell out. How embarrassing.”

These voices are familiar to me. They are deeply ingrained. They vibrate in high-pitched, whiny, up-speak. They have accumulated in my psyche over thirty-six years of living in a female body and existing in a misogynistic society that consciously or subconsciously hates women.

They are the same voices that gagged at my darkening leg hair during puberty, pinched their nose at my first period, and urged me to excavate every blackhead on my face.

They are the same voices that said, “What the fuck?” at the first stretch mark, told me to pinch and poke my cellulite, and encouraged me to submit to laser hair removal and bikini waxes.

They are the same voices that have compared the shape and size of my body to those of other women, who have berated me for not fitting into old jeans, and have told me, “Put your hand on your hip or your arm will look huge.”

They are the same voices that convinced me to purchase a weird red light wand for my face (still in its original packaging), anti-aging creams that smell like chemistry labs, and a torture-device that promised to magically eliminate cellulite.

They are also the voices that fuel a $350 billion cosmetics industry, a $21 billion medical spa industry, and $5 billion Botox industry.

These voices are so prevalent and pervasive, it’s honestly hard to imagine what life as a woman would sound like without them.

And, because they are so prevalent and pervasive, it’s easy to forget: They are violent. They berate my basic existence as a human being with a body. They drive me to inflict physical harm on my body: poking, popping, plucking, waxing, injecting, dying, cutting, chemically treating it. At the core, these voices erode my safety within.

In my world of self-defense, safety starts within. Because, if I cannot find safety within myself, I won’t find safety anywhere else.

So, as I examined the sparking silver strand caught between my fingers, I wondered, What would it look like to create safety within this moment?

Surrounded by swirling steam, I stuck the white hair to the white tile. The color matched so perfectly, it disappeared from view.

Then, I imagined turning down the volume of those violent voices, softening them to something below a whisper, and waited for what I’d hear instead.

I listened. I listened to my breathing. I listened to the gentle rush, pat, and splash of water around me. I listened to the whir of the bathroom fan.

And then I heard it. A different voice within.

This inner voice was also familiar because it was mine. It amplified the awe and admiration I felt for every women I had witnessed with gray hair: Both of my beautiful grandmothers, who created magic with water colors, at their sewing machines, in their kitchens, in their gardens. The widow who lives across the street and shares stories of traveling the world. The neighbor who hosted cocktails parties every Friday until I held her hand during hospice. Women I had met at demonstrations and protests who were fearless in their political activism. The woman who birthed me: my mother.

This inner voice filled my heart with love and gratitude.

This inner voice reminded me that this single strand of silver hair represented a beautiful legacy. It was a privilege to be alive long enough to grow gray hair and to become old. It was an honor to inherit the strength, courage, creativity, humor, beauty, and wisdom of the white-haired women before me.

And this, I remembered, is where my self-defense begins: Disentangling from the violence that never belonged to me and reclaiming safety within.

Are there violent voices echoing in your head? Where do they come from? If you find a moment to turn down their volume, what do you hear instead?

Take care out there,

Carolyn

POWERS Play

There’s power in pleasure. When I practice play, I’m filled with positive energy. That positive energy empowers me to show up not only for myself, but also for my community. It gives me a strategic advantage in life… like a power play.

In this corner of my newsletter, I share my latest moments of play and pleasure, an essential part of how I reclaim power:

• Savoring delicious bites at the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral’s food festival. My husband has Greek heritage, and it filled my heart to watch him feel so physically and emotionally nourished by familial flavors.

• Taking a break in the middle of the work day to walk to Millie’s for a scoop of chocolate ice cream. AND feeling no guilt about it!

• Wandering through Homewood Cemetery with a close friend, stopping at his family’s names, and hearing their stories.

• Watching Come See Me in the Good Light, a documentary about Andrea Gibson, and picking up their book of poems, You Better Be Lightning. Both gave me goosebumps.

• Recording my first two podcast episodes! (More soon!)

• Weeding and planting flowers with my mom in her garden on a rare, sunny day in Pittsburgh. With my hands in the dirt, I realized that afternoon will be one I remember for the rest of my life. After our day of digging, she gifted me a bouquet of springtime vintage peonies, irises, forget-me-nots, and rhododendron flowers from her garden.

• Reading How To Manifest by Lacy Phillips. Phillips’ manifestation practice is grounded in neuroscience, psychology, and EMDR techniques. It’s inviting me to dream big and get out of my own way. (Easier said than done, but I’m feeling inspired and hopeful!)

• Reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. This book is like listening to your nerdy high school science teacher talk about aliens. It’s plot-driven and hilarious. (My husband, who is a big SciFi reader, has also made it required reading before we watch the movie.)

Where are you finding play and positive energy? Leave a comment or send me a DM, and I’ll add it to the POWERS Play section of my next newsletter!

If this post resonates with you, consider clicking the heart below.

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For more content, you can also follow me on Instagram: @ carolynfallert