Monthly Archives: May 2025

Let’s be real for a moment.

Let me be really honest with you.

This community conversation effort is one of the most fulfilling projects I’ve ever been involved with. I believe in the groups and find them cathartic. The support I’ve received and enthusiasm for the effort blows me away, and I’ve had amazing conversations with people in my network about how to build them. I’m excited about the possibility of adding additional activities and opportunities to connect with art and nature and even do retreats!

But I have one big, perpetual challenge in bringing them to fruition.

For whatever reason, people heartily cheer from the sidelines and then don’t register for the events. People don’t seem to believe that these sessions are for them.

Some people are intimidated by the weight of the subject. But they haven’t seen the lightness that people walk out of these rooms with. Ultimately, the events feel like a wellness activity that leaves people smiling, laughing, relaxed, connected and inspired. We’re countering the weight, not basking in it.

Some people don’t want to talk about what they’ve been through. I get that. But it’s not school. You’re welcome to come and listen!

Some people care a lot, but aren’t directly affected. To these people I say we still need problem solvers, workers, concern and support.

And what is there to gain from all of this?


1) First, wellness. Skill-building. As a caregiver, I work regularly with anxiety and grounding techniques that have been transformative. I want to share what I’ve learned, because we are continually dealt blows. I want us to be ready for them as they come.


2) Connection to community. Community is bigger than us. It spreads the load on our shoulders across multiple backs. It allows us to care and be cared for.


3) A sense of where we are and how we can survive and even thrive in this fast-changing environment. The occupational and political landscape today is unique, and we will need to find new ways to handle it. If we can dream it, we can build it!

I don’t know, ultimately, whether this idea will grow the way I dream. But I’d like to believe that we can build community networks to support each other, grow in innovative ways, stay ready, heal together, and be inspired together by our common passions for learning, for art, for a natural world that is bigger than us, and for a good common humanity that still exists beneath the surface of this plastic, unfeeling society.

I want to believe that we can build something beautiful together!

There are two upcoming events, one in-person and one online. We’re working on more, different types of events, focusing on individual topics, sharing about books, making art together, being in nature together and more.

In-person event:
Community Conversation: Finding our Footing in this Uncertain Time https://www.eventbrite.com/e/community-conversation-finding-our-footing-in-this-uncertain-time-tickets-1363624811519?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=wsa&aff=ebdsshwebmobile

Online event:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-community-conversation-finding-our-footing-in-this-uncertain-time-tickets-1382445414449?aff=oddtdtcreator

Mailing list:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfrIlrlCJzm5E4ahoR_JOh6E-KaB1nbGyJ2SmdQqKL99JHrOQ/viewform?usp=header


Please, come join us. You’re welcome! Come as you are. Bring your baggage. Lighten your load. Find connection and inspiration. Believe in us.

Navigating Career Changes from the Inside Out

Years ago on this blog, I wrote about approaching career changes from the inside out. I had accomplished the biggest career change of my life that way, by following my passions with my books, talks and extra research sessions and then blogging about them here.

Last week at the annual AAPOR conference in St Louis, an attendee in a session about Navigating Career Change asked about feeling unsatisfied with their work. This is a common motivation for switching jobs, but I chimed in from the audience as a voice of caution.

“I think about it like an unscratched itch,” I advised. “Maybe there is some part of you that your work life isn’t satisfying. But this is a horrible time to switch jobs so I advise you instead to find other ways to scratch that itch. You may still decide you’re ready for a change, but if, for example, you decide that you really do need your job to offer more space for creativity, you now have recent experiences to speak to as examples of you pursuing your creative endeavors.”

We expect our jobs to be our calling, our everything. And we give them everything. But we are so many things, and we need to exist beyond our work.

I’m at another point of career change. After nearly 30 years of working in my career- with the longest break being 3 weeks of maternity leave, I’ve lost my job as a government contractor as part of the deep federal cuts. I could look directly for another position, but I want to take my time with it. We only live once, and I want to take inventory of all of my itches before deciding how to scratch.

I want to build out this Community Conversations initiative, but I want to be thoughtful about it. I’m not trying to recreate what others have done, so much as build something new that fits our current needs. This requires intuition, reflection, patience, resilience, and determination. It means that some days are among the most fulfilling of my life, hosting cathartic community sessions or having really inspiring conversations with friends and colleagues, and some days I wonder why I’m adrift instead of staying on the career path.

This initiative was founded from the inside out, reflecting 

  1. my facilitation skills that I’ve learned through years of moderating, facilitating and community work, 
  2. my passion for building mental health that was cultivated through voices like Iyanla Vanzant, Pema Chodron, Rachel Cargle and the Nap Ministry,
  3. my profound interest in community based participatory research and the principles that guide it, and
  4. my love of strategic conversations, brainstorming and forming new ways to approach problems.

Forming an initiative from the inside out means that guiding our next steps is a continual process of self reflection. This means that a day spent at one of my favorite art galleries, taking pictures that I may able to use for an exhibit of my own one day, getting lost in the woods on its campus and finding new ways to engage with my surroundings is just as important as a day spent documenting the plan for the initiative, including the financial and communication aspects.

I always imagined my life in chapters, with a later chapter as a more wholeheartedly creative era. And I love the creativity I’m feeling now! But a change so dramatic as this requires some careful stewardship and navigation.

I’m not really sure where any of this is headed, but I’m confident that just as when I recreated my life before, these steps will lead me in the right direction. Because I’m scratching my itches!

Have you navigated big changes like this? Do you have unscratched itches? Do you have any advice or resources to offer? Please comment! Let’s continue the conversation.

Picture taken by me, in the grounds of the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, MD 5/22/2025