Our Diary

What made you want to start a blog? 

I have things I want to share from my nearly 30 years of experience. The world is changing so much, and people are getting more interested in personal growth and becoming more psychologically aware. I believe that self-awareness makes for a better world, and that the more self aware we are, the kinder we’re able to be to other people.

That said, there are a lot of buzzwords out there right now like gaslighting or narcissism that I’m not sure people fully grasp the meaning of. I see so many creators misusing those terms on the internet. There’s just so much noise right now, and you don’t have to have credentials or the background to post online in this space. 

I didn’t want to get swept up in that desire for growth being what drove my content. I want more meat in my blogs than is possible in a quippy viral video, but I also want to avoid the information dumps that I see a lot of too; social media is frenzied right now, and I don’t want to do anything that adds to that feeling of overstimulation. What I do want is to share my knowledge with my community, and this felt like the best way. 

Thus far, has the blog scratched the itch of wanting an outlet for your thoughts?

Yes, I do enjoy it. When I was younger I was a much better writer, but then life got in the way. Getting back into writing now–getting to disseminate information I think will help people–feels really good. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily getting easier with each blog entry in terms of the writing, but I am enjoying it more as I go along. I felt a lot of pressure with the first ones, like I was baring my soul. But once I got my first comment, I realized that if what I have to share helps a single person, that’s enough for me. I think that sense of non-attachment has helped me feel really good about continuing to share. 

I also love when someone who reads my blog says they’ve forwarded it to someone else. A woman told me recently,  “Oh, I’m going to send this one to my daughters. I think this will really help them.” And that kind of organic sharing is the best case outcome, as far as I’m concerned. 

How do you decide on topics? And who do you consider to be your primary audience? 

The topics for my blogs sometimes come from trends or themes surfacing in my sessions with clients. And then sometimes the content comes from my own thoughts and experiences instead–things I’ve been through, and what I’ve learned that I think could be useful to others. 

Right now, my readers are largely my clients, and that client pool is primarily women in transition. I end up talking about relationships all day long. Relationships with a sister, with a mother, with a best friend, with a boss. When you’re in a relationship, you can’t see it clearly. That’s what my job is, to have a bird’s-eye view of the situation and share how I, as the outsider, see it. As in my sessions, the goal of these blogs is to contribute to that sense of clarity for people who are looking for that. 

How has working with Stuart helped bring this blog to life? 

From coming up with an idea to making sure it hasn’t been done a million times already to figuring out the right depth to go with the topic, it takes quite a while to write and edit each blog post. Stuart helps by breaking that work into stages. He’ll give me homework, like: “Okay, you’ve got this part. Now, go figure that out.” And it keeps me moving forward. 

I also think Stu really encourages authenticity. Sometimes I might feel embarrassed like, “Does anyone really care about this thing I have to say?” and then I might be tempted to hold back a bit. Stu will let you linger in a little bit of an uncomfortable space so that you can get to what it is you’re actually trying to say, and that’s because he doesn’t want you to write anything that’s not authentically you. But he’s also there to go, “This is good stuff. This has meaning.” And for both of those things, I’m grateful.