I came across this birdhouse tree on a walk not long ago and couldn’t help but take this photo. Each individual birdhouse makes up the whole birdhouse tree - each little house is decorated, unique, with it’s own style even though the shapes and sizes are the same, except for the top birdhouse which appears to be a bit larger, as if guiding or guarding the tree itself.

For those who know me and have read my posts about using metaphors (“Allow” is one of them), you’ll know that part of my training as an EFT, Heartstream Process Practitioner and Tap and Write facilitator, is to use metaphors as a way to reach parts of us that aren’t easily accessed just by thinking. As I looked at this birdhouse tree…

The first line in the Introduction to The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest, is

“I hope this is the year you change your life.”

“It is and I am”, I thought as I read it and realized that the last half of 2024 was the beginning of a pivotal year for me. I made a commitment to figure out how to lose and manage my weight in the next year and why that was important for me, and I stumbled onto what I now call Tap and Write and the Tap and Write Studio.

I’ve been posting videos on social media lately as a way to promote Tap and Write Circles. It’s been an interesting experiment for me because I’m not sure that enough people see or hear me to get to “know, like, and trust” me, let alone leap at the chance to Tap and Write.

I recently came away from a meeting with coaches who expressed frustration and concern about…

“The most recent prompt in the therapeutic and reflective writing class I’m taking invited us to use a metaphor to describe “When I am writing at my best I am like what?” I’d never stopped to consider what I’m like when I’m writing at my best, and in fact, I wasn’t even sure I had a best!

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes…And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

I began my final journey to lose weight this year by working with a dietitian and then joining Glean on September 1st, 2024. I’m learning a lot…

This feeling of butterflies in my belly today is welcome! I wasn’t sure when I decided to facilitate two sessions of what I called the “Tap and Write Circles”, or when I created the “Tap and Write Studio”, how they’d be received or whether they’d add value to the participants who joined me in my “experiment”.

Little did I know...

This place, where my heart felt still, calm.

It filled me with a certain ease, gently stirring emotions of longing.

I could...

This photo reminds me of my 2 year old grandson who comes over and immediately asks for my box of pencil crayons. He calls them “sticks”.

I have them stored away specially for him - along with paper he can color on.

What’s so interesting is...

The story of how wronged I felt at the age of 8 when my ballet teacher told me I was no longer welcome to return for second term was another defining moment in my young life. You can read the story HERE.

For decades I carried this story with me, angry at my mom for not advocating enough for me, angry that she couldn’t convince my teacher to accept me back.

These two short stories took about 20 minutes to create. They aren’t perfectly written but they are a testament to how powerful the written word can be when offered as a way into one’s subconscious and creative mind.

I made a commitment to write at least one word per day in my journal at the beginning of June - I haven’t missed a day! It’s been an interesting exercise as I’ve notoriously been a fair-weather writer, writing only when I felt like it or I’ve needed to complain about something. Hence my journal entries have been mostly a sad tale to do with weight or disappointments or failed attempts to write regularly.

“When I think back to the start of W.I.S.E.R. Woman Coaching in 2016, I was anticipating retirement because I knew that it would take awhile to build a small one-woman coaching business, and I also knew that change and transition can be a challenge without a plan.”

Who was this woman standing before her in the long mirror? Her gaze fell on every part of her body. She sighed deeply, her breath stopping her tears from leaving her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. She was exhausted from wishing and hoping that this image in front of her would one day reflect who she felt she was inside. Her inside and outside had rarely matched – even the glimpses were fleeting and illusive.

She closed the car door quietly, steeling herself to focus on the next thing on her long list of “to-do’s. A sigh stopped her - it was one of those sighs that meant more than just needing to exhale.