Joy Letters
I am a recovering perfectionist, productivity chaser, and people pleaser, coaching women to disrupt old thought patterns, let go of behaviors that keep them stuck, and make their joy an everyday priority.
🦩 joy for joy 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, This morning, I brought my cup half full of now-cold coffee to my desk. I had one intention: push through. Do the damn thing. My brain was foggy from a sleepless night. Allergies and the shadows of a recently full moon had stolen rest and replaced it with a variety of thoughts that flourish on such nightly circumstances. The damn thing was the editing and scheduling of the joy letter celebrating my one-year social media sobriety birthday. The one I had solicited questions...
🦩 comfort-ist confessions 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, I am not a minimalist when it comes to packing. More of a comfort-ist. Which is why river floating suits me much better than backpacking — the river carries whatever you end up choosing to bring.* A finely tuned assortment of warming layers. Fabrics and cuts with designated purposes. Equally, shoes. For boating. Hiking. Swimming. Concrete-jungleing.** Ailments, past and present, demand extras: The proven pillow. The silicone cupping cups. The neck-stretching thing. And...
🦩 choosing pelicans 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, I don’t want to. ––But you have to. But I don’t want to. ––Well, you can’t always get what you want. But I really don’t want to. ––But your readers are looking forward to your letter. But I don’t WANT to. Time in Mexico is running out. The weather is amazing. I’ve already lost so many days to being sick. We’re going hiking tomorrow. To the beach on Saturday. ––Well, then write it TODAY. But I want to watch the pelicans while I still can! I don't know how I am supposed to...
🦩 wink of yellow 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, The sidewalks of La Paz are full of cracks, holes, drops, steps, twists, and turns. They keep you on your toes. Until they throw you off them. If you want to look around, you have to stop. So that’s what I did when a wink of yellow caught my eye against all the concrete. While the rest of my group walked ahead, I crouched down, greeting, meeting, this concrete-defiant purslane. Aliveness that defies restriction is always worth a pause to me. I am always open to receiving a...
🦩 almost missed it 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, We were stuck in traffic along the La Paz promenade, and it became increasingly obvious that we weren’t going to make it home in time for the sunset. In fact, I could see the blues, oranges, yellows, reds, and purples shapeshifting in my rearview mirror. People in every restaurant were interrupting their New Year’s Eve dinners to take photos because 2025 was not content with leaving on an ordinary sunset. This was a particular spectacle. Missing it made me feel sad,...
🦩 flotsam & permission slips 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, How are you? Today. Right Now. Really. Honestly. Deeply. I’ll go first. My emotions are like a rocky beach in a secluded cove. The actual cove that inspired this letter. Close to Todos Santos, BCS Generally calm. Undisturbed. Harmonious. Content with just being. Aligned with my inner tides and rhythms. Spending the holidays away from the holidays suits me well. Surprisingly well. On closer inspection, there is some flotsam strewn across the beach. Some feelings of grief for...
🦩 then. when? 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, You may have noticed that last week’s letter was out of rhythm. I didn’t until this morning when I woke up in a hotel room south of Provo, UT. For the last few weeks, I have felt fragmented—some parts of me already in La Paz, MX, some parts somewhere on the road, and the remaining parts struggling to keep things together in the present. Today’s letter will bring us back on schedule. How fitting that it is about living on your own timeline. Driving on I-15 South in Montana....
🦩 providing a moment 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, My yoga teacher snaps a photo and sends it to her partner. My friends use it to open the day as a family before they each head their own way. Another friend uses it as a connective thread to her sister back east. Each of those little stories from people using my Holiday Slowdown card deck warms my heart with joy and pride. It was my colleague, though, who used a phrase that I wrote down because I did not want to forget: You never know when you might need some scrap paper to...
🦩 the un-listables 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, My inbox simply exploded with gratitude newsletters this week. Better than exploding from capitalist pressure to buy another “greatest deal of the year” for stuff I didn’t even know I needed, I guess. Granted, while some gratitude expressions felt simply performative, others were heartfelt. Here is a soul-felt one from Robin Kimmerer that I can’t stop sharing. Listen, I love a good list. The piece I wrote for The Startup in 2019 is still one of my most-read ones on Medium....
🦩 ripples of delight 🦩
Guten Tag, Reader, “You are a delight,” someone said to me as I left a networking thing last week.* “I know,” I answered, “and adding delight to the world is an important part of my mission.” This is not an exchange that would have occurred during my successful (measured by numbers and titles) corporate career. I did not see myself as a delight, nor was any part of my mission to spread delight. It usually had something to do with KPIs, ROIs, CTRs, or whatever acronym was the measure of...
I am a recovering perfectionist, productivity chaser, and people pleaser, coaching women to disrupt old thought patterns, let go of behaviors that keep them stuck, and make their joy an everyday priority.