The Wild Intelligence of Trees (and What It Means for Your Healing)

The Wild Intelligence of Trees (and What It Means for Your Healing)

The Forest Remembers (and So Do We): What Trees Teach Us About Transformation

 Inspired by “Never Underestimate the Intelligence of Trees” by Brandon Keim

Moss-covered trees and vibrant ferns in the Hoh Rainforest, symbolizing natural networks, forest wisdom, and seasonal transformation

While others build empires, the forest mothers.

It listens. It remembers. It waits.

In a culture that celebrates speed, performance, and constant growth, we rarely pause to wonder how life sustains itself in the absence of those things. We rarely ask how true resilience is built.

But deep in the forest—beneath the moss, beneath the fallen leaves, beneath even the soil itself—there are networks. Fungal webs connecting root to root, tree to tree, in a vast, pulsing intelligence that defies our Western frameworks. An ancient internet of care.

Ecologist Suzanne Simard has spent decades studying this subterranean world. Her research on mycorrhizal networks—those threadlike fungal connections between trees—reveals something that Indigenous peoples have always known: the forest is not a collection of individuals, but a living community.

A mother tree will send nutrients to her kin. She can sense which seedlings are struggling. She’ll adjust her behavior based on their needs, even as she’s dying.
She remembers. She responds. She chooses.

This is not metaphor. This is biology.

And it echoes through everything I teach inside the Wildwoven Framework.

🍃 Transformation is not a solo journey.

It’s seasonal. Relational. Alive.

When I guide women through deep change, I don’t ask them to “push through.”
🌱 I ask them to root in.
               To listen to the signals beneath the surface.
                       To stop blooming in the middle of Winter just because the world tells them to.

Like the trees:

  • we carry memories in our rings—in our bodies, in our breath, in the chemistry of our nervous systems.
  • we know what it is to care for our kin, to conserve energy when resources are scarce, to sense when it’s time to grow and when it’s time to rest.
  • we feel what is needed long before we can explain it.

But too often, we forget.

Or we’re told those ways of knowing don’t count.

We’re taught that:

🍃 intuition isn’t intelligence.
🍃 grief is weakness.
🍃 stillness is laziness.

This is the lie of linearity.

And the forest knows better.

What if we stopped measuring intelligence by its proximity to human performance?

🌿 What if memory lived in tree rings and soil?
🌿 What if communication didn’t require a voice?
🌿 What if grief and generosity were not opposites—but dance partners in the web of life?

This is what we return to in the Wildwoven Way.

It’s not self-help.

🍂 It’s Earth-wisdom.
               It’s the sacred intelligence of cycles and bodies and networks and kin.
                      It’s permission to unhook from the empire long enough to remember your belonging.

The forest remembers.

And somewhere in you, so do you.

🌱 If you’re craving a rooted, seasonal map for your own transformation—one that honors where you are, not where the world says you should be—take the Wildwoven Assessment (link below).

You’ll uncover your current season and receive a guide with personalized insights into the lessons, medicine, and common traps of this phase of growth.

Discover the Rhythm of Your Becoming

The Wildwoven Seasonal Assessment isn’t just another personality quiz—it’s a guide to understanding where you are in your transformation. Whether you’re shedding an old identity, deep in the unknown, or stepping into something new, this framework helps you name your season, work with its energy, and move through change in a way that feels aligned, embodied, and true.

Take the assessment and find your season.

What Plants Can Teach Us About Healing, Growth, and Seasonal Transformation

What Plants Can Teach Us About Healing, Growth, and Seasonal Transformation

🌿 What the Plants Are Trying to Tell Us

On root wisdom, sacred boundaries, and remembering how to grow

I didn’t set out to propagate plants.

But somewhere in my early spring season, I started channeling my latent creative passion into my family’s short term rental setups, and discovered I had a knack for creating cozy, welcoming places. This led to a fetish with plants as living decorations, and then an obsession with tying knots into macrame plant hangers. And in order to have enough plants to go into the plant hangers –without going broke– I decided to try my hand at propagating.

When a small army of baby philodendrons and spider plants began to overtake my window sills –and, thanks to the macrame plant hangers– my walls, and ceiling, I noticed something:

The plants weren’t just surviving.
They were sensing. Adjusting. Remembering.
And in their quiet way, they were asking a question I had long forgotten how to ask myself:

What do I need in order to grow?

In our culture, we’re taught that intelligence lives in the head.
That logic is king. That healing is linear. That transformation is a 5-step checklist, and if you don’t transform “properly” you’re a failure.

But the Wildwoven Way—and, it turns out, a whole new wave of plant cognition research—whispers something different.

“Where there is life, there is already mind.”

That’s Paco Calvo, founder of the Minimal Intelligence Lab in Spain.

His research on plant behavior suggests that what we think of as “cognition” isn’t something that happens in the brain alone (or even at all), but something that happens in the relationship between an organism and its environment. 

In the sensing. The adapting. The timing. The flow.

Which sounds a lot like the Wildwoven Framework to me.

So what if we let plants remind us not just of who we are, but how we change?

Below are three plant-inspired metaphors—paired with the Wildwoven seasons they reflect—and a few gentle invitations for each one. They’re not steps. They’re not to-dos. They’re threads to follow if it feels right to you.

Split view of a seedling in snowy Olympic forest with detailed roots beneath the soil, representing the Winter season of quiet wisdom and inner transformation.

❄️ WINTER | Root Apex ↔ Root Medicine

Stillness. Deep sensing. Restoring the roots.

The root apex is the sensitive, subterranean tip of a plant’s root system. It’s where sensing and adaptation begin—detecting moisture, nutrients, gravity, and even kinship. It’s how the plant knows where to grow, even in the dark.

But here’s the thing: the root apex lives underground.
Unseen. Slow. Quiet.

Just like the Winter season of transformation.

This is the season our culture tells us to skip—when everything visible seems still, –and therefore, according to western culture, unimportant—but everything essential is happening beneath the surface.

It’s where gut-level clarity begins. 

Where the soul whispers instead of shouts. 

And we stop performing to start listening.

🌾 Winter Invitations:

  • Honor your need for quiet before clarity.
  • Notice what your roots are reaching for—and what they’re pulling away from.
  • Resist the urge to “make meaning” too soon. Just sense.
  • Trust that the dark is fertile, not empty.

What if your next chapter is already germinating… but just isn’t visible yet?

🌱 EARLY SPRING | Sensorimotor Intelligence ↔ Emergence

The first green shoots. Tender yeses. Gentle experiments.

In early spring, plants don’t explode into bloom—they explore.
They sense. Shift. Respond. Pause.

What plant cognition reveals is that plants aren’t passive or predictable. They don’t simply react—they interpret. They remember past threats. They anticipate the sun. They adapt their growth based on current and changing conditions.

This is the sacred intelligence of early spring:
Tiny movements with massive wisdom behind them.

When you’re in the early spring season of transformation, it’s easy to doubt yourself. You’re fragile but stirring. You may feel like you’re “not doing enough.” But emergence isn’t performance—it’s a series of conversations with the world.

🌾 Spring Invitations:

  • Let your growth be guided by sensation instead of pressure.
  • Try one small, brave thing—then pause and listen for feedback.  Not external feedback, internal feedback. How did it feel? What would you adjust?
  • Trust your ability to adapt in real time.
  • Begin before you feel 100% ready.

What if readiness is revealed through the doing, not before it?

🌼 LATE SPRING / EARLY SUMMER | Photosynthesis ↔ Creative Expression

Unfurling. Play. Wild bloom. Voice.

Photosynthesis is how plants turn light into nourishment.
Creative expression is how we do the same.

Your poems, your voice, your rewilded joy, your full-body laugh in the middle of a hard day—these are not “extras.”
They’re how your soul eats.
They’re how you metabolize aliveness.

And just like plants don’t photosynthesize in darkness, we can’t keep creating from a place of depletion, shame, or silence.

In the Late Spring and Summer seasons of transformation, expression isn’t just allowed—it’s essential.

🌾 Late Spring and Summer Invitations:

  • Let something bloom without apologizing for it.
  • Create from joy, not just urgency.
  • Let visibility be a form of nourishment—not a transaction.
  • Say what you actually want to say.

What if your creativity is how the light gets into the world?

🐦‍🔥 ROOTED SUMMER | Shade Avoidance ↔ Boundaries as Direction

Embodiment. Discernment. Deep aliveness.

Plants can sense when they’re entering crowded territory.
They absorb red light but reflect far-red light—so if the far-red increases, they know they’re surrounded and can choose to grow in a different direction.

This is called shade avoidance.

They’re not avoiding out of fear.
They’re discerning where they can thrive.

What a beautiful reframe for boundaries.

In the rooted Summer season of transformation, we don’t set boundaries to shut the world out—we set them to grow toward the light.
 

We’re not avoiding people—we’re attuning to where our energy is best invested.

🌾 Rooted Summer Invitations:

  • Let your boundaries be data, not drama.
  • Notice where you’re shrinking—and redirect.
  • Ask: “Where is the light now?”
  • Practice saying no with compassion and conviction.

What if your boundaries are the blueprint for your next evolution?

🌾 So… What season are you in?

If you’re reading this and nodding, maybe you’re already on the Wildwoven path.
Or maybe it’s been calling to you for a while now.

This isn’t about plants, really.

 It’s about remembering how to be a living thing in a world that treats us like machines.

Wldwoven separator a little off kilter

 

Hi. I’m Transformation Coach, Kristin Halberg.

My work is rooted in story, nervous system wisdom, and nature’s blueprint for transformation.

I don’t offer 10-step programs—I offer companionship, reflection, and a map made of seasons.

If you want to explore more:

🐦‍🔥 Book a Compass Call to explore options for working with me.

🌿 Take the Seasonal Assessment to find your current season

✨ Explore my other blog posts for more poetic rebellions like this one.

📖 Or sit with this post and let it work on you like good compost

Because you, too, are a living, sensing, wildly intelligent thing.
And it’s not your job to force the bloom.

It’s your birthright to grow in your own time.

Women’s History is Being Deleted—And It’s Not About Merit

Women’s History is Being Deleted—And It’s Not About Merit

History Doesn’t Vanish—It’s Erased

 

When the people erasing history are the least qualified to lead, we have to ask: What are they so afraid of?

Something is happening.

Quietly.

Systematically.

And most people don’t even know it’s underway.

You won’t hear about it on the nightly news. There won’t be a siren. No front-page headlines.

Just a quiet, digital deletion—
Of thousands of names.
Thousands of stories.
Entire legacies of service, risk, and sacrifice… gone.

As I watched Greta Gerwig’s Little Women with my mom and sister at Field Hall’s Women’s History Month celebration the other night, I was reminded that Jo March’s battle to have her voice heard is far from over—because even now, women’s stories are being erased. 

The struggle to be seen, to be heard, to have one’s work recognized as valuable—it’s not just a personal battle. 

It’s political. 

It’s historical.

 It almost happened to me in high school. 

And it’s happening right now.

The Power of a Community That Says No

I grew up in a small town. A town where fairness was valued.

A town where when the girls’ basketball team was the one dominating the playoffs, we were the ones who played in the prime 7 PM slot—because that’s when the community could show up for us.

We packed the stands.

We traded practice times with the boys’ team every other week.

Our coach even pulled some of the varsity boys into practice against us to push us to improve. (And we beat them sometimes.)

We were respected. Our skills and our success were recognized.

Crescent High School girls’ basketball team dressed in tuxedo-style uniforms for a themed event in 1983. The team, known for its success, fought for equal recognition in game schedules and practice times.

And then we got a new superintendent.

He came in with an agenda.

First? Move the girls’ team out of the gym entirely –to the cafetorium, which wasn’t even a full-sized basketball court. He also suggested we could practice before school –so the boys team would have full access to the gym in the afternoon and evening. 

The second thing he tried? Taking away our prime-time games and moving us to the 4:15 PM game slot.

His reasoning?

Well, he might not have said it outright.

But it was clear: He didn’t believe girls’ basketball deserved the spotlight.

But here’s the thing: The community pushed back.

And we won.

The girls’ team stayed in the gym. We continued trading gym times with the boys. We kept our 7 PM games. The superintendent had to back down.

Kristin Halberg, Crescent High School basketball player, takes a shot during a playoff game in 1984. The newspaper article highlights her 30-point performance that helped advance the team in the tri- district tournament.

This was not a fight about politics.

This was a fight about fairness. About values. About doing what’s right.

People in my town—regardless of party, background, or beliefs—stood up for the truth.

They saw what was happening and said, “No. That’s not how we do things here.”

And that’s what we need now … in our country.

This Isn’t Just My Story—It’s a Pattern

The latest example of the attempted erasure of women?

Women who served in the military.

The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were among the first women to fly military aircraft in WWII. Over 25,000 applied for this dangerous work. Only 1,074 were accepted. They ferried new planes, tested overhauled ones, and even flew as live target practice for training gunners.

Thirty-eight of them died serving a country that refused to drape a flag over their coffins.

Now, their photographs and records—along with tens of thousands of others documenting women and minorities in the military—are being deleted from government archives as part of Trump’s latest executive order under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The justification? A return to “merit.”

Which begs the question: Whose merit?

Hegseth himself, a Fox News loyalist with no experience managing anything close to the scale of the Defense Department, is hardly a beacon of qualification.

The very people who scream “merit” are the same ones whose own credentials wouldn’t survive scrutiny. And yet, they’re in power, wielding the delete key as if history itself is an inconvenience.

Women Shouldn’t Be Footnotes in History—Without Us There Wouldn’t BE History

We need to push back against the erasure of women’s history not because it’s a political issue, but because it’s the truth.

Because truth matters. Because fairness matters. Because recognizing real achievement matters.

When women’s history is deleted from military archives, it’s not just about the past.

It’s about the future.

It’s about what young girls see when they look back and look ahead.

Will they see a legacy of courage and contribution? Or will they see blank spaces where their stories should have been?

The most dangerous thing women can do is refuse to disappear.

So let’s do exactly that.

Let’s tell these stories. Let’s demand they be preserved.

Let’s remind those in power that women are not footnotes in history—we are the creators of it. The ones who birth every leader, every soldier, every man who’s ever tried to erase us.

The Metamorphosis of Identity: Why Major Life Transitions Need More Support

The Metamorphosis of Identity: Why Major Life Transitions Need More Support

When we talk about transformation, we rarely acknowledge how deeply it reshapes us.

Even during pregnancy, we focus on the physical changes—the expanding belly, the shifting weight.

But the transformation runs far deeper. Pregnancy rewires the brain, reshapes identity, and even leaves behind literal, cellular traces in the body forever.

What if we recognized that change isn’t just logistical—it’s biological, psychological, and deeply personal? That even the most chosen reinvention rattles the very foundation of who we thought we were?

Because here’s the thing: Change isn’t just about what’s next. It’s about what’s falling away.

The Five Pillars of Identity—And What Happens When They Collapse

Who we are is built on layers—some visible, some hidden.

Five core pillars shape our sense of self:

  • What we do (our roles and work).
  • Who we belong to (relationships and community).
  • What we understand (knowledge and confidence in how the world works).
  • How much control we have (our ability to shape our lives).
  • What gives life meaning (our belief systems—the thing that holds it all together).

When one of these shifts, we wobble. When they all collapse at once? We come undone.

When Everything Falls Apart at Once

In one calendar year, I lost every foundational piece of who I thought myself to be.

  • I was fired from the company I had grown up in—not because of performance, but because I stood up to a toxic boss.
  • All of my close friends were immersed in the early years of motherhood—while I was still single.
  • I was in grad school, drowning in the “conscious incompetence” phase of learning, no longer confident in what I knew.
  • And then—the earthquake I never saw coming—my large, tightly woven family fractured in a way that left deep cracks we still feel 18 years later.

If my job was my stability, my family was my gravity. We weren’t just close—we were woven together, each of us anchoring the others, for better or worse. Family wasn’t just a part of life; it was the bedrock of who I knew myself to be in the world. And then, suddenly, the foundation split.

So there I was, untethered. No job. No clear path. No steady relationships. No certainty about who I was becoming.

I’d faced big transitions before. I’d reinvented myself, changed careers, weathered breakups, and found my way back to solid ground.

But never all at once. Never like this.

This time, I had no job. No clear path. No steady relationships. No certainty about who I was becoming.

But I still had one thing left to trust.

When everything else in my life felt uncertain, I had nature.

It was my constant, my quiet refuge. I grew up listening to the rhythm of waves, tracing the seasons like a second heartbeat. If nothing else, I could trust this: Nature had a rhythm. It had a wisdom. It made sense.

So, in the middle of my unraveling, I did the only thing that had ever made me feel steady: I turned on a nature documentary.

“Ahhh. At least Nature still has my back. So soothing.”

I settled in, watching a mama horse nuzzle her baby. See? Beautiful. Predictable. Comforting.

And then—a stallion came racing over and kicked the baby horse to death.

I shot up, turned off the TV, and shook my fist at the sky.

“Even caterpillars get a stick!!”

The Myth of the Smooth Transition

The caterpillar goes into the chrysalis thinking it knows itself. It is a fuzzy little land creature, it munches leaves, it has a plan.

Then one day, everything inside of it turns to goo.

No legs. No body. Just a primordial soup of cells trying to remember what comes next. And here’s the kicker: even in its most melted-down, what-the-actual-hell-is-happening-to-me moment, the caterpillar still gets a stick. A tiny branch to hang from while it un-becomes itself.

Humans? We don’t get that.

Or at least, we don’t think we do—because modern culture treats transition like a self-improvement project instead of an existential reckoning.

Right now, we treat major life changes as isolated, intellectual events. We plan for them, but we don’t prepare for them. We expect people to just “figure it out.”

  • Leaders are given new roles but not the space to integrate their evolving identity.
  • Activists burn themselves out because our culture treats urgency as more valuable than sustainability.
  • We are given barely a moment to grieve before we’re expected to move on—before the loss even finishes echoing in our bones.
  • People walk away from entire versions of their lives—careers, relationships, belief systems, communities—and are told to “just be grateful” instead of being supported through the grief that naturally comes with it. (And to be clear: I don’t mean death or reincarnation—I mean the profound identity shifts that come with major life transitions, the kind that feel like leaving one version of yourself behind to become another.)

We don’t talk about how reinvention feels like losing your native language. We don’t acknowledge that you can want something deeply and still mourn what it’s replacing.

And so, instead of creating systems of care for transformation, we push through it alone—convincing ourselves that struggle is just part of the deal.

What If We Did It Differently?

What if we approached leadership growth, activism, and personal reinvention the way we approach matrescence?

What if we gave people sticks while they melted into something new?

What would change if we:

  • Treated career shifts like identity shifts, offering actual support instead of assuming competence will carry people through?
  • Built activism structures that sustained people beyond crisis moments?
  • Created rituals around transitions—so people felt witnessed, not just expected to adapt?

Because the truth is, transformation doesn’t work on a corporate timeline. It’s a Wildwoven process—seasonal, cyclical, deeply personal.

And here’s where I come in.

My work is about guiding people through these wild, uncharted shifts. Helping them navigate the messy middle and emerge on the other side, not just changed, but rooted in who they were meant to become.

If you’re in a season of reinvention—whether in leadership, activism, or your personal life—you don’t have to figure it out alone.

🌿 Navigating a Major Life Transition? Find Out Where You Are in the Cycle.

“Transformation doesn’t happen on a corporate timeline. It follows seasons, cycles, and deep internal shifts. If you’re in the middle of a big change—career shifts, leadership growth, activism, or reinvention—you don’t have to navigate it blindly.”

👉 Start Here: Take the Wildwoven Seasonal Assessment

Think of it as a compass for your comeback. The assessment helps place you in the season of transformation you’re in—so you can stop fighting where you are and start working with the natural rhythm of change.
🔹 What happens next?
You’ll receive a guide packed with a blend of science-backed, soul-centered strategies designed to fit the natural rhythm every transformation follows.
💡 Who it’s for: Women navigating identity-shaking transitions. Whether you’re shedding an old version of yourself, deep in the unknown, stepping into something new… or figuring out how to speak your truth inside the chaos of these times. 
👉 Take the Assessment & Start Your Journey

Rediscover Your Magick: How Transformation Coaching Can Help Women Reclaim Their Power

Rediscover Your Magick: How Transformation Coaching Can Help Women Reclaim Their Power

Have you ever felt like life pulled the rug out from under you, leaving you unsure of who you are or where to go next? Perhaps you’ve experienced heartbreak, faced a health crisis, navigated a major life transition, or found yourself questioning your identity after years of following the “rules.” If this resonates, you’re not alone—and transformation coaching might be exactly what you need.

What Is Transformation Coaching?

Transformation coaching is a holistic approach to personal growth that supports you during times of deep change. It’s not just about setting goals or creating action plans (though we’ll do that too). It’s about helping you reconnect with your true self, heal emotional wounds, and create a life aligned with your values and desires.

Unlike therapy, which often focuses on past trauma, or traditional life coaching, which emphasizes external achievements, transformation coaching addresses the emotional and energetic shifts needed to navigate identity-shaking transitions. It’s about empowering you to step into the most authentic version of yourself.

Common Challenges Women Face

Life’s challenges have a way of leaving us feeling stuck, lost, or unsure of who we are. Women often come to transformation coaching because they’re experiencing:

  • Shame or self-doubt after a major life event like infidelity, divorce, or a health diagnosis.
  • Loss of identity after becoming a mother, ending a long-term relationship, or experiencing a career change.
  • Emotional overwhelm from juggling the demands of single motherhood, caregiving, or personal healing.
  • A longing for more meaning, purpose, and fulfillment but not knowing where to start.

How I Help You Rediscover Your Magick

As a Transformation Coach, I specialize in guiding women through these identity-shaking changes to help them ditch shame, reclaim their unique magick, and cultivate deep self-love. My approach blends decades of leadership experience with powerful tools like:

  • Neuroscience-backed techniques: Rewire limiting beliefs and create lasting, positive change.
  • Shamanic healing practices: Release emotional blocks, tap into your intuition, and find inner peace.
  • Expressive arts and journaling: Explore your emotions and rediscover your creativity as a path to healing.
  • Nature rituals: Reconnect with the natural world to ground yourself and find clarity.

This work isn’t about “fixing” you. It’s about helping you remember your inherent worth and guiding you back to a place of self-love and steadfast confidence.

Real Stories of Transformation

One client, a single mother navigating several big changes in her life, came to me because she was stressed and overwhelmed with all the choices facing her. Through our work together, she learned to set healthy boundaries, make positive choices for herself and her son, and build a life that felt meaningful and joyful. Today, she’s got her own business, and feels more empowered than ever before.

Another client, recovering from infidelity, worked with me to heal her heartbreak and rebuild her confidence. By the end of our time together, she had not only found peace but had also uncovered a deeper sense of self-worth and resilience.

Is Transformation Coaching Right for You?

If you’re:

  • Tired of feeling stuck or overwhelmed,
  • Ready to heal from shame and self-doubt,
  • Longing to rediscover your purpose and passions, or
  • Craving a life that feels deeply aligned with your true self…

Then transformation coaching could be the catalyst you need. You don’t have to navigate this journey alone.

Take the First Step

Are you ready to ditch the shame, reclaim your power, and love yourself clear down to your bones?

Let’s talk. I invite you to schedule a free discovery call to explore how transformation coaching can support you on your journey.


Navigating Grief and Growth

Navigating Grief and Growth

Reflections on a Challenging Year: Finding Meaning Beyond the Struggle

I scoffed at the student motivational speaker at my nephew’s graduation.

Her speech was uplifting—full of big dreams and bold declarations about how she and her classmates were going to change the world. Normally, speeches like this get me teary-eyed, filling me with HOPE that the next generation might actually save us.

But it was 2019—the year my partner’s brother was killed in a crabbing accident—and I was having none of it.

The weight of grief clouded any sense of hope, and I couldn’t see past the pain to recognize the potential for growth.

“Yeah right,” I muttered internally. “Just wait thirty years. Half of you will be in active addiction, and the other half will be sucked right into the greedy capitalist dream.”

Navigating grief is a challenging journey. In the midst of our loss, my partner and I struggled, neither of us able to face clients, let alone ‘market’ our businesses.

While healing from grief, I binge-watched Jessica Jones episodes and wanted to BE her!

These weren’t our best moments. Justin spent his days deep in online political debates, while I spent the first half of the year binge-watching Marvel shows. I wanted to BE Jessica Jones—her brand of sarcasm and self-deprecation hit me right in the feels.

The Turning Point

A few weeks later, still horrified at my jaded thoughts during that graduation, I decided my depression had gone on long enough. So I did what I always do when I feel stuck—I researched my way out.

I found an online course that promised inspiration, and one of the first activities was to reflect and harvest my year.

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t need to do this. I already know—my year SUCKED.”

Still, I answered the first question: “Did you have a vision for the year?”

YES! I had big plans to grow my business, but then Josh WAS KILLED IN A F-ING CRAB ACCIDENT WHILE HELPING SOME ARROGANT CAPTAIN WHO THOUGHT HE WAS BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE.

I moved to the next question: “What occurred, evolved, or happened since you set this intention? How would you describe your results?”

The anger bubbled up again. SAME ANSWER. “DITTO,” I scrawled, jabbing my pen hard enough to rip the page.

But then came another set of questions: “What were the highlights of your year? What are you most proud of? What had the most positive impact on you and/or others?”

At first, this stumped me. The bitterness and disappointment I’d been clinging to blocked access to any positive memories. But then I remembered something small yet meaningful—

In the spring, I got to drive my niece to her club volleyball practice two hours away every week. Since she’s a teen, those alone moments are rare. But every single time, she’d say, “This was fun, Auntie Kristin. We should hang out more often.”

That memory softened something inside me. I moved on to the rest of the questions, slowly re-evaluating my year—not through the capitalistic lens of productivity and success, but from a human perspective.

Redefining Growth & Success

Looking back, this shift—choosing to move through my jaded year and see what else was there—became a pivotal moment of growth for me.

One of the reasons I was so jaded was because I was filled with self-loathing. I couldn’t “fix” Josh’s wife’s grief, or Justin’s, or even my own. But leaning into my pain and feelings of failure ultimately made me a better practitioner.

It forced me to learn that it’s not my job to fix.

It’s my job to hold sacred space.

To BE there.

To allow what is.

“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. … However, we are, in fact, in the process of change…”
Alice Walker

Those long periods—when something inside us seems to be clawing its way out of our skin… when we’re frozen with uncertainty about our next step… when we feel completely untethered… when we’re angry at the world because deep down, we’re grieving something big

Those times are HARD.

And you shouldn’t have to go through them alone.

(If you’re looking for deeper, personalized support, I’m here to help.)

A Different Way to Measure Your Year

Personal growth is challenging enough without the added weight of grief and loss. And when we measure success the way the world expects us to—by external achievements, productivity, and met goals—it can leave us feeling like we’ve failed.

Especially when navigating grief and transformation, we should admire the strength of climbing out of the pit of despair.

But what if there was another way?

I created a guide called Measure Your Year—a reflection tool designed to help you assess your growth through a lens of self-compassion and personal transformation, rather than capitalist productivity.

If you’re looking for a new way to measure your year—one that honors your inner journey as much as your external accomplishments—download Measure Your Year Guide + Bonus Meditation and start your reflection today.

Because even the hardest years have lessons worth harvesting. And you deserve to recognize just how far you’ve come.