This week, in light of the recent school shooting and the abundance of pain, frustration, and horror that has cloaked our country like a gritty silt, I wanted to revisit one of my favorite topics: how to listen to one another. Think of this show like a “how to” for a basic building block of listening.

While I was in Hawaii, I paid a lot of attention to my boundaries, including where they were respected and where they were not. Which I do normally anyway. Learning to set and honor my boundaries is a big part of how I've been healing my history of trauma. From my travels, one particular incident stands out.

“Just moving on '' after the worst of the pandemic poses major risks to our quality of life and capacity to connect. When you have the courage to slow down and honor what you just went through, you can retrieve and re-integrate the parts of you that got “stuck” in the stressors of the last two years.

Since the mask mandate was lifted in Washington on March 11th, the world is slowly beginning to re-open. It would be tempting to put the stressors of the last two years behind us. Yet when we "forget" we do a great injustice to the health of our hearts and minds. How do we transition gently while honoring what just happened?

In this episode, I’m going to share with you two, simple practices I have been honing for years on how to start community in the hopes that you will join me in rolling up your sleeves, getting your hands dirty and getting to work filling some of those gaps.

Though I am not a fan of the commercial holiday, I like the idea of using February 14th as a loving kick in the pants to inspire us to take emotional risks. To try out saying what's true, to admit our vulnerabilities and to reveal our insides more to the outside world.

Pain without connection becomes like a death urge. An overwhelm for the heart and nervous system. A need to escape life and numb feeling. A panicked lockdown that knows, we were not designed to live like this.

I want words that aren’t the “doing” kind. Not the phrases that disorient you with some shiny distant maybe thing when underneath and right here and right now I’m dull and tarnished and wanting you to see. “It will work out”, “I’m really very lucky”, and “l’ll keep you posted”, I said How automatically I placated and hid, how easily you got distracted and how lonely I felt when you took my bait and smiled.

I’m going to give you some advice. I know you didn’t ask for it.If you are hurting, tell someone.You’re the one sitting at the holiday gathering putting on the smile that fools them all, laughing at the right moments and being witty to keep them sure, “This one’s got it together.”

I love my anger. I have been likened to a lioness several times in the last few weeks and I feel pride at the comparison. Pun intended.It’s taken me years to access this power. For most of my early adulthood, my lioness lay muzzled. With her on my side now, awake and roaring, I feel strong.

When the news broke about the recent shootings in Dallas last Thursday, my heart froze. I found out when my friend Saul messaged me on Facebook. “Turn on the news”, he wrote. “There have been attacks”.