Trust and Rest: Coming Home to Yourself in Uncertain Times

What do we trust? Who do we trust?

These questions feel more alive than ever. We are being bombarded with untruths, manipulation, and harmful speech, and in the midst of all that noise, the most important question becomes: how do we trust ourselves?

When we are not living in alignment with our own integrity, we feel it. It shows up in subtle ways: working too much, staying up too late, skipping the practices that resource us. These are not character flaws. They are survival patterns. The nervous system doing what it knows how to do when it doesn't feel safe.

Some of us stay busy, vigilant, and "on." Others check out entirely, numbing through excessive sleep, isolation, and withdrawal. Both are the nervous system's way of searching for safety.

One of the most common ways we do this is by reaching for our phones. Scrolling through news, reels, and social media can feel like staying informed or simply unwinding, but for a sensitive nervous system it often does the opposite. The constant stream of stimulation, outrage, and uncertainty keeps the brain in a state of low-grade activation, making it harder to settle, soften, and eventually sleep.

We think we are resting. We are actually re-alarming.

This is where mindfulness and somatic awareness become medicine. The practice is about developing the capacity to be a wise witness to our own inner landscape, observing sensations, emotions, and patterns with patience and skill. Not being taken over by our experience, and not abandoning it either.

Being present for what is.

When the pull to distract arises, the invitation is to pause. Notice where your feet are. Feel your breath. Soften the tension in the body. Turn toward the heart and recognize:

I choose to stay present. I choose to check in rather than check out.

Rather than unconsciously collecting evidence for why life is unsafe, which keeps the nervous system chronically over-activated, we can deliberately build a case for trust. We can ask:

What is going well, or well enough? How do I belong, or belong enough? How am I safe, or safe enough?

This is not toxic positivity or bypassing real challenges. It is training the mind and nervous system to hold a more complete picture, one that includes both the difficulty and the evidence of our own resilience. When we ruminate and catastrophize consistently, we burn ourselves out and make it harder to rest, receive, and trust.

We are also not meant to do this alone. Remembering our interconnection, that we are part of something larger than our individual struggle, can itself be a source of deep comfort and safety. When we feel our belonging to each other, to our communities, to the living world around us, the nervous system begins to relax its grip. We are wired for connection. And connection, in all its forms, is one of the most powerful antidotes to fear which helps us to let go of the habit of worry.

Sleep is an intentional act of surrender.

Letting go. Releasing control. Building a new level of self-trust.

It is the body's nightly reset, restoring homeostasis and replenishing everything we give during the day. For those who are highly empathic and sensitive, surrender can feel dangerous. There is a part that wants to stay alert, keep watch, remain "on." But chronic high alert does not protect us. Rest does. It RESTores us.

We build self-trust through small, consistent acts of self-care that tell our nervous system: you are safe, you are held, you can let go in this moment.

Mindfulness and embodied awareness are the bridge. When we learn to turn inward with curiosity rather than judgment, we begin to notice what our body is asking for before it has to shout. A tight chest. A restless mind. The urge to scroll. These are not weaknesses. They are messages. And when we learn to listen, we can respond with care rather than react from habit.

A simple embodied practice before sleep can begin to shift everything. Placing a hand on the heart. Feeling the weight of the body on the bed. Taking three slow, conscious breaths and letting the exhale be longer than the inhale. Scanning the body not to fix anything, but simply to acknowledge what is there. Saying inwardly: I have done enough today. There is enough today. I am enough today. It is safe to rest.

This is how we rebuild trust with ourselves. Not through grand declarations, but through these quiet, consistent moments of showing up for our own inner life.

Choosing rest is one of the most loving things we can do for ourselves. It is a quiet declaration: I trust myself enough to let go. And in that letting go, we find our way back to wholeness, back to each other, to the deep knowing that we are not alone, we are interconnected, we belong, and we are held in loving awareness.

On this Memorial Day, we honor the heroes who gave everything, and the men and women who continue to serve, so that we may have the safety and freedom to heal, to rest, and to live fully. May we hold them in our hearts, may they be remembered, and may they be safe and protected.

With Love & Connection, Laurie

A Call To Remember Our Shared Humanity

I write this today not from a political position, but from a human one, one that takes in all life.

What I see around us is fear-based messaging that divides, destabilizes, and dehumanizes. This isn’t leadership. It is an erosion of trust, dignity, and our shared sense of belonging.

For me, this is about human rights, animal rights, and the rights of our Earth.

It is about coexistence.

It is about basic care, respect, and maturity, and not causing harm for the benefit of a few self-serving interests in positions of power.

We are not separate beings. We are a collective, shaped by thousands of years of evolution, capable of wisdom, perspective, compassion and collaboration. We have prefrontal cortices for a reason: to pause, reflect, and recognize that we are far more alike than we are different, and to remember that we carry responsibility to ourselves, to one another, to all beings, and to this planet.

Difference does not have to be a threat. It can be an invitation to understand, and to shape and build new systems and new ways of relating that are rooted in ethics, integrity, mutual respect, and the wellbeing of us all.

I stand for compassionate connection.

For belonging.

For nonviolence.

For leadership that is impeccable, trustworthy, heart-centered, responsible, and accountable to the whole, not driven by greed, blame, othering, or insatiable self-interest.

My wish is to live this life in a way that I can live with myself, where I recognize my impact on others of all kinds, and where I leave this world having served the greater good rather than have taken from it.

I don’t claim to have all the answers. I don’t know every lived experience. But I choose humility. I choose to stay teachable. I choose to remember my interconnectedness and my responsibility for the impact I have on others, especially those whose voices are marginalized or unheard. I choose accountability. I choose ethical living. This is a messy path, and one I commit to walking to the best of my ability.

May this be a time for us to recognize our shared responsibility to one another and to our planet, and to rise in nonviolent ways against corruption, harm, fear-mongering, hypocrisy, gaslighting, and oppressive acts that dishonor who we are capable of being, both as individuals and as a people.

May we rise into leadership rooted in wisdom, truth, compassion, and democracy.

May we remember that how we treat one another matters, and that coexistence is not optional if we want a future worth living in.

May all beings have enough.

May all being be free from fear and suffering.

May all beings feel safe, protected, and loved.

I share this to speak my truth. I share this as a call from my heart that we come together and say no more to dishonest, harmful, violent, demeaning, and dehumanizing acts. We are better than this.

I wish all beings, especially those I do not yet understand, and myself, the capacity to face ourselves honestly and bravely, to live from inner knowing, and from a heart that is fiercely compassionate, humble, and oriented toward unity.

May we heal the unmet pain that causes so much suffering.

May we forgive ourselves and one another.

May we create peace, belonging, and purposeful, ethical living.

Finding Certainty in Uncertain Times

“When we turn our attention toward what feels steady, even if it’s as subtle as the sensation of our feet on the floor, we begin to grow that steadiness. What we pay attention to grows!”

As we enter November, the month of gratitude, we’re invited to pause and remember what we can truly count on. In a world that often feels unstable and unpredictable—where news cycles, relationships, and even our own emotions can shift in an instant—there is still something steady beneath it all. That steadiness lives within us. It’s the quiet knowing that doesn’t depend on outcomes, politics, bank accounts, or other people’s behavior. It’s the certainty found in presence, embodiment, and compassion for this moment, exactly as it is.

The Certainty Beneath the Change

When we bring mindfulness to what is, we reconnect with small, steady certainties: the rise and fall of the breath, the warmth of sunlight on the skin, the sound of birds outside the window. Science tells us that birdsong calms the nervous system because our ancient wiring remembers—if the birds are singing, the world is safe (enough). Nature teaches us that change isn’t chaos; it’s rhythm. Each wave that touches the shore is new, yet belongs to the same ocean.

Leaning Into Gratitude

Finding certainty in uncertain times doesn’t mean clinging or controlling. It means remembering what we’ve already walked through—the wisdom earned, the healing integrated, the inner strength that carried us here. When we slow down enough to feel what is stable—our body’s intelligence, our heart’s capacity for gratitude, our ability to pause and breathe—we begin to nurture those roots of steadiness. What we pay attention to grows. So rather than feeding the “what-ifs,” we turn our awareness to what’s already here: the support, the beauty, the love that still remains. Gratitude becomes the soil for grounded faith—not in a fixed future, but in our capacity to meet life as it unfolds.

The Sacred Ground of Now

This November, may we honor the certainty of impermanence itself—the way life continually renews, breath by breath. May we trust the flow of transformation, the rhythm of nature, and the wisdom of our own bodies. May we find refuge not in knowing what comes next, but in remembering what is always here: this moment, this breath, this awareness. Because certainty has never been about predicting the future—it’s about remembering what a gift it is to be alive now in this moment.

Reflection Invitation

Take a few minutes today to pause and place your hand on your heart. Notice your breath. Ask yourself:

• What feels certain within me right now?

• What am I grateful for in this moment, exactly as it is?

Let your answer be simple. Let it be enough. It's not easy when times are tender and tumultuous. That is why we call it a practice that can ground and guide us from inner strength and knowing. 

Finding My Voice

My Beloved Mia…

How has it been one year today since you transitioned from this earth? I haven’t been able to find the words and actually grasp the deep loss of one of the most incredible beings, friends, and teachers I had the honor to know. I will try now. I am blessed that Mia continues to share this journey with me, even though I still ache for her presence in the form I knew.

Knowing and loving Mia has been a sacred blessing in my life. I will never forget the day when she was being introduced to her first group of us women volunteers and staff at the Wolf Connection. Even though she had been with us for a short while, it was the first time I truly saw her. It was magical. I felt my body light up inside. I was incredibly curious and touched by her presence. I took in every moment. The way she lowered her body to the ground and her eyes became so focused and intent as she took all of us women in. Although Mia was cautious, her courage and inquisitiveness propelled her to continue. She didn’t let fear stop her from taking life in.

After that day, I felt this pull to connect with Mia and get to know her more deeply. I started to sit with her every time I came. To be in the presence of this fierce and sensitive animal that embodies her wild wolf nature automatically challenged me to feel and know my own nature even more. This was one of her teachings that truly changed me. Mia knew her worth and boundaries; building a bond with her took time. It required being grounded, embodied, patient, and completely present. Not in my head or the story about her. Over time our bond grew deeper. We loved our time together, especially our long solo hikes along the creek. Being with her filled my heart and eased my body, mind, and spirit. I loved how Mia had this little bounce in her step and how her long, lush tail would happily swing as she enjoyed savoring the scents along the numerous trails we walked. And how she was a bit of a flirt with only a few other male wolves she would allow to join her on hikes.

Gratefully, Mia, along with her two incredible pack members, Theo and Buddy, were surrendered to us by their previous caretaker in 2019. He was trying to hide them in a residential neighborhood in Los Angeles County from Animal Control, being that it is illegal to own these majestic animals. But one thing he couldn’t hide with these high content wolf-dogs was their howl. He claimed to love them so much that fearing confiscation, he had Mia and Theo’s vocal cords removed. Buddy didn’t howl as much so his were left intact. The day they arrived, we were informed of this shocking trauma and we all gasped. “How could someone try and silence a wolf…to remove a wolf’s howl?” This was the first teaching, no one can! Remarkably, both Theo and Mia found a way to howl in their own unique ways.

Mia howled with her pack in this very soft sound that resembled a whisper in the wind. I witnessed her several times leading the entire pack with her howl, too. Sitting with Mia as she lifted her head back and passionately called out in this primal and ancient act, always filled my heart and touched my soul. What a fiery force of nature! She howled because it was an expression of who she was, a call to her pack, her boundary - no, yes! And it was seemingly taken from her. But being a wolf, so powerful and resilient, Mia could not be stopped by this type of injury or trauma. This is where she teaches us: “What if our trauma reveals our strength and wholeness rather than our brokenness and illuminates the truth of who we are?”

This beautiful teacher taught me that I am not my trauma. It is only part of my story. Being with Mia over the years, I got in touch with the parts that didn't have access to my voice and the parts of myself that I hid out of survival. Unconsciously, shoving down my words and trying to silence the essence of who I was as a child to fit in because of the complexity and pain of untreated trauma within and outside the home. In adolescence, I learned to scream, howl, and rage, trying to find my voice, to be heard and challenge the adults who were not present or speaking the truth. I pushed and provoked to get my needs met. But most people didn’t know how to hear or know me, so I became the “problem”. My feelings and sensitivity were too much. So, as young people tend to do to cope, I internalized that I was too much. Now, I can understand and own that my rage or fierceness was part of my wild, fighting for truth, self-protection, and authentic connection. Fortunately, over time, with a lot of work from all involved, my family and I did find a healing path together and had a deep connection. Over the last 6 and 1/2 years, I consider Wolf Connection and our 2, 3, and 4 legged pack to be another family to me and have helped me be the woman I am today.

But it was Mia who took me to an untouched place and taught me to face my fear and own my fierceness without apology. How to be fully present and in my body when leashing and leading her on our hikes. She taught me how to work with the other wolves who had trauma and were fierce like her, and to listen to my inner wild and intuitive heart. My connection with Mia helped heal my trust in opening my heart more deeply, speaking my truth and truly knowing our ancient connection with one another. Now, through her medicine, I continue to speak up, sometimes softly or boldly, and instead of communicating from my wounds, I speak from my wisdom. Thank you for blessing me with the honor of being with you when you peacefully and gracefully laid down after our final joyful walk and transitioned onto the other side. Thank you, Mia, for being the force of nature that can never be silenced, for changing my life to the core, and for sharing a love that I will treasure forever. I love you, my Mia girl.

Leap with Love

Let 2024 be the year we lead with love!

What is love? 

Love is vulnerable, warm, compassionate, fierce, tender, caring, joyful, harmonious and courageous. Love is a state of being, choice, and action. If we can open ourselves up and even take a leap, love can lead us through anything, especially seemingly dark and fearful experiences, with innate wisdom, equanimity, and grace. 

Love is not defensive but reciprocal. 

Love is energy that needs to flow, move, and expand. It is not meant to be compressed, compartmentalized, or cut off. The flow is in giving and receiving love in all that we experience - the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. 

When faced with uncertainty, scarcity, cruelty, loneliness, overwhelm, and other big challenges both personally and with the collective, we can default to old survival, coping mechanisms that can be restrictive and reactive and can cause more harm than good. This instinctual attempt to protect ourselves can actually inhibit an ancient intuitive flow by reactively pushing, clinging, people-pleasing, fighting, fleeing, or freezing up. 

With patience, humility, and practice, we can learn to lean into a loving awareness and leap into the magic of this mysterious life with love as our guide. 

What if we lived by the notion that there is no separation from one another or our ancestors? What if we lived this life as if everything is connected? Everything! How would we meet life on life’s terms from this place of connection? The older I get the more lived experiences I have that make it evident how connected we are and not alone. But it is how we relate to life, whatever we are experiencing, that determines if we are disconnecting from or connecting to this incredible gift of being present, alive, and having a sense of belonging. 

Fearful beliefs and thoughts give us the illusion of being disconnected from anything, including our whole selves. Healthy fear is helpful when it alerts us to protect and defend ourselves in times of immediate threat. But excessive fearfulness is misleading when it divides, diminishes, demonizes, catastrophizes, and separates us from one another, ourselves, and beyond. 

What if we took a vulnerable risk and let love lead the way by facing everything with compassionate curiosity instead of criticizing or condemning what we are experiencing? By seeing life through a kind and caring lens of loving awareness, our perceptions can begin to shift out of a distorted view of separation and excessive threat no matter what the experience may be. Coming from this stance of awareness, we can choose how to respond to our experiences and see with spaciousness and clarity while living from an intuitive place that connects and empowers. This can allow us to feel safer and steadier and live in a graceful flow with life regardless of conditions and circumstances that we feel we can't control or want. 

This isn't necessarily an easy process nor is it supposed to be. There will be times that we will come across obstacles where we will feel frozen with fear or hot to fight or flee. This doesn't mean we are doing something wrong or there is something "wrong" with us. Collectively, we all have early historical experiences that were overwhelming enough on some level that we went into reactive coping strategies to simply survive because we didn't have the resources, support, or maturity to do it differently. This is part of being human. We also inherit ancestral conditioning that is meant to be protective and is passed down through generations whether we signed up for it or not. This is part of our humanity. 

The good news is we don't have to stay in these habitual, defensive and reactive patterns. We can see them as signals that we need to go deeper, open up, reach out, and love more. With awareness and practice, we can take contrary action to old defensive mechanisms when feeling anxious, stuck, or overwhelmed and learn to blindly leap into more of an unknown way of being with a courageous heart. We can learn to intuitively draw on the wisdom and resiliency that we carry within us by acknowledging our ancestors who walked through so much that allowed us to be here now. We can develop healthier strategies and boundaries that honor our true values and essence. And we are not meant to do this alone. We are social creatures and beings that are meant to connect and resiliently flow in and out of solitude and togetherness. Our unresolved past pain can prime us to get stuck in isolation or be enmeshed in relationships out of self-preservation and protection. Healing these patterns requires bravery and support, even if it is reaching out to only one person we feel can have our back and heart or reaching in and having times of quiet and introspection. 

When feeling challenged, we can learn to pause, breathe, soften tension, and let our generous hearts respond naturally to life with daring compassion. We can take small steps and actions with love as our guide and as an anchor, especially in times that are unsteady, unclear, and burdened with unhealed pain. 

By facing and embracing our experiences with compassionate curiosity, we can alchemize pain, grief, sorrow, and fear of the future into equanimity, fortitude, and feel the cradling care of unconditional love.

Here are a few tips to help Leap with Love:

• Pause - many times throughout the day take time to stop, slow down, and check in with where your body is. Start to move the body by breathing deeply, stretching, and/or shaking out your limbs. This will help connect with our bodies which are always in the present moment, unlike our busy minds. 

• Presence - get present by tuning in from a place of compassionate curiosity and notice what you are feeling, thinking, and sensing. See if you can breathe into the places that feel tight and tense and begin to soften into what you are experiencing with loving awareness as your guide. 

• Phrases  - choose an empowering phrase to help redirect and ground your attention as many times as you are challenged or feel yourself slipping back into old survival patterns. Here are some to choose from and see if you can create your own! 

• "May I choose to meet this moment with loving awareness" 

• "May I meet this moment with warmth and friendliness"

• "May I trust that my daring heart can guide me in this experience"

• "May I receive the loving care that I need to support me during this time of challenge" 

• "May I leap blindly with a loving, courageous heart into the unknown and uncertainty of this time" 

For those like myself who can be complicated thinkers and have to manage both personal and collective trauma, facing and leading a life with loving awareness may seem too simplistic or even foolish. I would challenge this and say that both professional and personal experience has shown otherwise. Leading with fear tends to tighten, complicate, and even corrupt. Whereas leading with wise love can soften, simplify, and strengthen our integrity. 

We know that what we pay attention to grows, so what do we want to grow in 2024? How about hope, trust, strength, joy, and togetherness? Letting love lead is how we can shift our personal and collective experience and live in harmony, balance, safety, wholeness, connection, and passionately with a fulfilling purpose. 

Let’s leap with love into this new leap year and in every area of our lives.

Love More, Fear Less

“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” — James Baldwin

February is a special time for me, it is a time of heartful reflection. I became a mother to my beautiful daughter, Sequoia, who is 20 years old this month. Astonishing. When I first found out I was pregnant I was thrilled and when I found out I was having a little girl I was terrified. I didn't want my mother's curse to come true. In a fit of anger during my teenage years, my mother was exasperated and said, "I hope you have a daughter just like you!" Well, I am glad to say that even though there were some bumpy rides, Sequoia is very much her own person and did not react or behave the way I did when I was her age. She even has learned to set boundaries with me when I get in her lane and project my experience or story onto her. I know I am not alone in hearing that kind of statement from a parent and at times I too wanted to say it to my teenage daughter.

My mother and I were able to repair those younger years but on some level, those words did haunt me. Mainly because of the deep self-loathing, fear, and unprocessed trauma that I was uncovering within me. Facing ourselves and really taking an honest look is a heroic and loving act. Taking off the masks of pushing, pretending, people pleasing and hiding, and finding stillness to just be our real selves takes a lot of courage. It is worth the effort because what is revealed underneath in all of us is worth loving.

In mindfulness, we refer to our Buddha Nature as we are what we already seek. Our true nature is whole and innocent. I didn't want to have a little "me" because I was still trying to heal that inner child in me that I shamed and lost connection with. My daughter and son are teachers for me in many ways especially in befriending that little one in me with unconditional love, as I do for them. Core relationships humbly or annoyingly mirror to us who we are and where we are in our lives. Having a sense of humor is key in this human life.

Instead of being cursed, I am truly blessed to have my beautiful daughter, Sequoia. I couldn’t love you more and happy birthday!

Be Free in 2023

No More Pressure to Self-Improve

"Joy is a decision, a really brave one, about how you are going to respond to life." - Wess Stafford

2022 was quite a year for so many of us and for me, it has been a time of continued healing and recovery from the grief of my Father's passing. Elizabeth Gilbert says, "Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love." I find these words comforting because it resonates with my experience. The gift of grief is knowing that we truly opened our hearts, cared and loved and that is why it hurts and turns things upside down. It takes time to adjust and healing is a nonlinear, messy process.

Then there is the annual pressure of needing to be different, better, improved, or we should be farther along by now, which comes with the New Year. Upon critical reflection, we usually come up short so we better pick the perfect resolutions to make up for it - this time we really need to get our act together! More pressure and for what?

This year I invite you to be playful and silly and create a new tradition. How about approaching this time of old endings and new beginnings in a new way by letting Mindfulness & Joy be your guides? How do you want to live and feel more in 2023? It's not about doing everything right, perfectly, and then we can be happy or finally be happy with who we are. If it is, sadly, this day doesn't really exist. The ego or comparing mind will always find something that doesn't quite measure up. Instead, what if we connect to the truth of who we are already? Joyfully owning our true nature that is whole and not broken. When we come from an intention to cultivate gratitude it connects us to our clarity and wisdom and can set us FREE!

We can use this time of year to reflect from a place of gratitude for all the ways we showed up, walked through adversities, and surprised ourselves with what we discovered, learned, handled, and faced. Also, from this place of loving awareness and wise perspective, we can envision what we would like to experience more of in our lives that actually gives us JOY!

Reflecting on 2022 we can ask ourselves:

- In what ways did I surprise myself and others?

- In what ways did I risk and challenge myself and others?

- In what ways did I learn something new about myself?

- In what ways did I have fun, was silly or playful?

- In what ways am I grateful for 2022?

Envisioning 2023 we can ask ourselves:

- In what ways can I allow myself to play more?

- In what ways can I allow myself to rest more?

- In what ways can I give myself permission to own more of who I am?

- In what ways can I be more curious and compassionate with myself and others?

- In what ways can I let go of the "shoulds or supposed to" and feel joyful and free?

Wishing you a practice or a way of living that inspires, supports, and leads with a playful and loving heart. May 2023 be a year of finding the gift of the present moment and may you spoil yourself with more self-love and share it with others!