Tag: Purpose

Alignment

I was accepted into the MPH program at University of Washington in 2017.

In March that year, though, I had a life-changing encounter with a medicine man. I asked him what he thought I should know about public health.

I was accepted into the MPH program at University of Washington in 2017.

In March that year, though, I had a life-changing encounter with a medicine man. I asked him what he thought I should know about public health.

In response, he realigned my energy—like a spiritual chiropractor—so severely that my words made no sense to anyone for the next two years. Western Medicine called it clinical psychosis.

I became mute for a full year, and homeless for three.

No one could help me out of the pit of confusion and despair I’d tumbled into. But the way forward was clear, if incomprehensible.

I got a CDL and started driving a semi truck in 2019.

I learned more in that truck than any university program could’ve taught me. I listened to audiobooks and podcasts. I rolled the windows down and heard the wind whispering in the trees. I grew to appreciate silence.

I learned to be still.

I learned gratitude, and how to stop trying to control what I cannot change. I learned to discern, and better influence, what I can.

If I’d gone to grad school in 2017, I would’ve kept suppressing my happiness and basic emotional needs. I was already burnt out from social work and mostly-unpaid DEI consulting in public health before I even started.

“Just 2 more years,” I told myself, already fantasizing about the “finish line” before I began.

I would’ve pushed through the pain because “this work is important.”

I would’ve graduated in 2019—just in time to get hit with the Covid pandemic at my new job. No rest or healing would’ve awaited me.

Today, I’d be unemployed, like virtually everyone in my former field, whose departments were just eliminated by the U.S. government.

I’d also be $60,000 deeper in debt for a degree I now can’t use—despite its necessity to our collective survival.

Thousands of hours I spent in that truck, feeling out of place, wondering why my life took this turn, what I’d done wrong, how to make it right. I lived in the truck full time—even on “days off.”

That realignment in March 2017 made me incapable of betraying myself anymore, and it spared me that harsher fate. Trucking allowed me to pay my bills, even while others panicked and struggled through 2020. It gave me insight, too.

It grew me into a more effective leader in real public health—not just the kind universities co-sign.

Whatever you’re going through, I won’t patronize you with “everything happens for a reason.”

But I will remind you:
You didn’t come this far to only come this far.

There is healing on the other side of whatever pit you’re in—if you choose to:

🌱 sit with yourself
🌱 listen to your heart
🌱 name your values and write them down
🌱 choose your integrity over fear

Water the seeds of thought in your mind like everything depends on their fruits.

And if you need guidance from someone who’s made it back from the pit of despair and learned to thrive, 🌐 www.realbelonging.org is where you can book time with me.

Spring Equinox 2025

Today is the Spring Equinox—a sacred time when the light and dark come into balance, and the Earth reminds us of what’s already in motion, whether we’re paying attention or not. It is a day for pausing, a day for listening, a day for noticing.

Stepping Into the Light

Today is the Spring Equinox—a sacred time when the light and dark come into balance, and the Earth reminds us of what’s already in motion, whether we’re paying attention or not. It is a day for pausing, a day for listening, a day for noticing.

For me, this season marks a shift—not just in sunlight and soil, but in people. The fruits are showing.

People are revealing who they are not by what they say, but by what they do. The clarity is striking. By their fruits, you shall know them.

There are those who are doing their work in the plain sight of God. They don’t fear examination. They welcome it. They invite questions, accountability, and dialogue, because they care more about truth than ego. They value what happens when diverse people and perspectives collaborate, refine, and co-create something better than any one of us could do alone.

These are people who bring their work into the light on purpose, not because they think it’s perfect, but because they believe in the power of illuminating the truth itself.

Then there are those who pull back when the light approaches and scurry, like cockroaches or mice, afraid of being seen. They report comments on social media for “discrimination” because they are asked—kindly yet plainly—for a citation to back up their claims about immigrants and gangs. When they finally provide a citation, it shows their claims about immigrants and gang violence had been factually untrue. So they silence the critic, instead of taking accountability for making up harmful stories.

Rather than own the error or adjust their thinking, they scurry away from the light, suppress the truth, and tighten their bodies and minds in a defensive posture that only ever separates them from the neighbors Jesus commanded them to love.

This is the fruit. It tells the truth.

The people who refuse to be questioned are not protecting truth—they are protecting shame. Or fear. Or some fragile structure inside themselves that can’t yet withstand being directly observed in the plain light of day.

Still, despite the swelling culture of fear and untruth, countless people are stepping forward with courage, too. I see you. I see people showing up to insist that decency, democracy, accountability, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and loving kindness are sacred values worth defending.

Not ideas. Not buzzwords. Sacred.

We exist in a time where each of us is being invited to make clear by our actions where we stand in the quest for justice and human dignity.

Not performatively. Not symbolically. But actually.

What do your daily choices protect?
What do they reveal?
What do the seeds of your decisions today bring to fruition for others to harvest after you’re gone?

Whatever your role, however small or large your scope of influence and opportunity, you have some power today.

Power to make life brighter, gentler, kinder for someone.
Power to speak up, to make space, to question the story, to name what’s broken, to build something brighter.

You probably even have some power to do that at a systemic level. If you don’t feel courageous enough to leverage that power, reach out and let’s talk about it?

If you’re in a position to defend your organization’s autonomy from an overreaching government or an increasingly rigid system, let’s connect. There are likely strategies you haven’t even considered yet, and you don’t have to figure them out alone.

The only way harmful systems keep hurting us is if someone who benefits from your isolation convinces you that you’re powerless—cut off from the whole. But you are not alone. You are fully interconnected with all of life itself, supported by a vast, quiet network of thoughtful, courageous, and caring human beings, trees, and critters who only ask to be met with that same care and respect in return.

Please, if you’re feeling anxious today, let the light in.

Make the choice that feels like warmth; not because you’re unafraid, but because the world needs the healthy, nurturing fruits from your spirit-tree—fruits that only grow when you let yourself stand in full, honest sunlight and become what you were made for.