Beautiful Culture – Balance and Rise

Why You Can’t Run From Yourself (And What It Means to Truly Move On)

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:59:22 GMT

A personal reflection on change, mental health, and why healing doesn’t come from starting over somewhere new.

What does it really mean to “move on”?

For a long time, I thought it meant change—new places, new environments, a fresh start. But after living in 15 different homes over 30 years, I’ve learned something the hard way: you can’t outrun your own mind.

No matter where you go, you go with you.

I recently had to look up my addresses back to when I was 17 for a project I’m working on. I knew I had lived in many places (all in Nebraska except for two small stints in France) but I had never “done the math.”

What I learned, I’ve lived in 15 places in 30 years. I don’t have any family in the military, it was all here in the same state and two cities.

Most of these moves were simply because of me — searching.

You Can’t Outrun Your Mind

And while looking back wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it might be (there were many bright spot memories) doing the math made me sad for my younger self.

I remember so clearly with each move thinking “This is the one.” THIS is the place where I’m going to feel better, start a life I can be proud of, feel safe.

And when that inevitability didn’t happen, because turns out you can’t move away from your brain, I’d find some reason I simply had to move. I’d go searching for the next place. Searching for the next solution to find peace.

In 9 out of the 15 places, I lived alone. And as I’ve said before when we’re really suffering, I now understand alone isn’t an ideal place to be. Thoughts go darker, and solutions become skewed.

How I survived some of those years is a mystery to me. But I think sharing things like this might just be why I made it through.

So what’s the lesson? For me, the fact that the first thing I felt about this was empathy for “baby Katie” and not shame or avoidance is huge growth for me.

The Difference Between Escaping and Healing

I’m proud I now understand that while sometimes change and achievement is a great thing, sometimes it’s just another way to numb. To avoid the pain and grit that comes with deep inner work.

My current work is finding appreciation that lessons like this are being brought to me. I’m trying to appreciate that big inner storms bring more learning, more growth, and more empathy. That is such a TOUGH lesson when every bone in your body is aching as you are processing. But the only way out is through, so here we go…

Face the ache friends, find empathy over shame, learn the lesson and move on.

Not to another address �� but to another stage of life. That’s where balance lives, and that’s where life opens up.

Do me a favor? If you’re enjoying this journey towards a balanced life please subscribe , share it, and follow my Instagram for smaller bites.

Soup Sundays: A Simple Ritual for Balanced Eating and a Balanced Life

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 16:52:09 GMT

I posted on social media this week about Soup Sundays at the Warren house. It is a near sacred practice here, and very much a part of living a balanced life.

I am a no restrictions eater. There is nothing on my “never” list, except jello. Man, I just can’t wrap my brain around jello. I feel like it’s not a food. ��

Seriously though, as I’ve written about before, a big piece of building my balanced life was starting to look at my eating and diet as a bank account. If I enjoy a meal that doesn’t nourish me as much or make me feel great, I try to balance that out with one that does. It’s a version of the 80/20 rule you could say.

If I have cake for breakfast one day, I’ll try to have veggies and protein for lunch. If I have a bowl of cereal, I’ll try to eat more protein and fewer carbohydrates in my next meal. If I have a glass of wine while I cook dinner, I try to have a few pieces of chocolate for dessert instead of a big bowl of ice cream.

But if dinner isn’t overly filling and didn’t include wine, you bet there will be a bowl of Kemp’s frozen yogurt on the couch with me later that night. (My new favorite topping is raw honey and a few sprinkles, try it and thank me later. :)) I back off the salt if I’m starting to feel dehydrated (or enjoyed one of my all-time favorite foods for dinner, fried chicken – while we’re on that topic, please try this fried chicken recipe). I’ll eat more food on a week where I’m feeling depleted mentally or physically, etc., etc.

I can not stress enough how much this approach skyrocketed my journey toward more balance in my physical wellness.

Sure I lost weight, a lot of it in fact, but my blood tests say a lot else changed too. My annual wellness checks usually come back pretty great, and I credit that 110% to this way of eating and thinking about food.

The midwestern me wants to downplay this fact or hide it to not make others feel bad or discouraged. But damn it, I work super hard to maintain this balance, and one of my new goals is to not shy away from this fact or dim my light. Instead, I HOPE this light inspires others to balance in whatever way works best for them.

Friendly reminder, I’m not here to tell you to do this or that, I’m here to teach you how to find what works best for you, to listen to the whispers , the internal cues in your body to find out. How do you do that? Mindfulness. Boom, full circle.

Back to Soup Sundays already Katherine…

Soup Sundays are a big part of my balanced eating. Weekends are typically larger portions and richer foods; meals outside of the house that are as much about warming the heart and enjoying time with my people as they are about the food.

Eating out is truly my husband and I’s most preferred form of entertainment. And let’s be honest, sometimes you just want to go out and have the biggest, boldest most wonderful plate of whatever you’re craving. I love those meals too. (A sheet pan full of nachos from Tank’s instantly came to mind for me.)

But Soup Sundays are a sacred part of my achieving a balanced life.

Here are 4 Reasons why Soup Sundays Work:

I LOVE soup, I could eat it almost every day. For me, it’s as much about my craving as it is about balance. Trust me when I say the more you eat soup, the more you crave it. Try it for a few weeks and see if you agree.
No matter how you make it, soup tends to be on the lighter side and has some veggies, that helps create balance after a big weekend of eating. (Not to mention, I’ll eat a creamy soup, but it’s not my preference, so that makes most of our soup Sunday selections even healthier and lighter.)
Soup, even when paired with something else, is an excellent way to front-load veggies into your meal. For us, we typically pair soup with an Ezekiel English muffin with a little olive oil and cheese on top – our version of cheese bread – plus pickles and crackers on the side. I don’t know why pickles are the perfect side for soup, but they just are. Again, try it (with the caveat that I’m a runner, crave salt, and don’t drink sports drinks, so part of me thinks that might be why I enjoy them so much).
Soup doesn’t take long to make. Cooking is a stress reliever for me, an act of mindfulness. On Sundays I don’t need that relief as much as I do on other days of the week, so I find myself not really wanting to cook big on Sundays. The opposite of most everyone else in the world I recognize, but here we are.

If you’re trying to create more consistency with balanced eating or routines, one of the simplest ways to start is with a weekly ritual like this.

Want to try your own version of Soup Sunday? I make standard veggie soup about 70% of our Sundays without a recipe.

How to Create Your Own Weekly Soup Recipe:

Start with whatever veggies are about to go bad in the fridge. I’m not kidding, throw whatever you have in the fridge in a pot and as long as you cook them well, it will be delicious.
I sautee the veggies almost to fully cooked before I add broth and brown them aggressively. Because as the great Anne Burell (RIP) put it, “brown food tastes good.”
Protein. For us that’s usually beans of some kind, for you that might be leftover chicken or ground meat. Sausage or tofu are also lovely choices.
GOOD BROTH. This is key, especially if you don’t use a lot of other ingredients. This is my go-to store-bought brand , yes it costs more but it is worth it. And I always get low sodium so I can control the salt and use delicious kosher salt instead. We have recently started the adventure of making our own broth , it’s a little more work, and I’m not sure it tastes any better. But I’ll tell you I got 12 cups of broth from leftover veggie scraps and water, so if you’re looking for a money saver, that’s a big one.
Seasonings, I usually use garlic powder and paprika, sometimes I add cumin and chili powder for a little Mexican flare or an Italian seasoning for more, well, Italian flavor, or sage or marjoram with a little soy sauce for more savory notes. Just make sure you add something with a good amount of savory, something with some acid in it, and maybe a touch of spice and it will turn out great. Then add a ton of kosher salt and it will be even better (kosher salt is BEST salt, hands down, I will not be taking any comments on that at this time).
Taste it and adjust, do you taste savory, acid, spice, and do you taste all the flavors of the soup? If not add more spice, something acidic (sometimes I throw a little bottled citrus or vinegar in for fun) or try a bit of Frank’s Red Hot sauce for a bonus bit of acid AND spice all in one!
Add the broth, bring to a boil, then simmer.

Then sit down and make your belly warm and happy, so much so it might even warm up your heart. And then before you know it, you might be rejecting all other Sunday dinner options like me and going all in on soup.

Here are a few of my other favorite go-to recipes for inspiration:

Crockpot lentil soup
Fresh tomato soup
Minestrone
Immunity boosting soup
Hot and Sour soup (I add way more veggies to this one, try it with daikon radish, celery, peppers and carrots!)

Wishing you a soul-satisfying Sunday this week and every week, and thanks for keeping up with me on this journey towards a balanced life. ��

Do me a favor? If you’re enjoying this journey towards a balanced life please subscribe , share it, and follow my Instagram for smaller bites.

A simple, sustainable way to build healthy habits without overcomplicating your routine.

A Real-Life Approach to Balanced Eating (Why 80/20 Works)

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:31:04 GMT

A realistic approach to healthy eating, balance, and enjoying food without restriction

You don’t need to overhaul your whole life to find balance with food.

If you’ve ever struggled with all-or-nothing thinking around eating, or felt like you’re either “on track” or completely off, you’re not alone. Real life doesn’t work that way, and your approach to food doesn’t have to either.

A more sustainable way to think about it is balanced eating. Not perfect, not rigid, but flexible enough to fit your actual life.

That’s where the 80/20 approach comes in.

Here's how (PS this is an excerpt from my e-book ).

Before I share, an important note: there is no requirement to be a certain shape or size to find balance . If you feel healthy, present, and comfortable in your skin, that's balance. If you feel strong, focused, and grounded, that's balance. And what that looks like physically will differ greatly for everyone.

I am a no-restrictions eater, but I balance my diet by trying to eat "healthy" and/or whole foods 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time, I eat whatever my heart desires and fully enjoy whatever social situation I'm in.

This week, that 20% will consist of slice(s) of pecan pie, my brother-in-law's out-of-this-world stuffing, rock star turkey, and wine. I will feel "Thanksgiving full" for my 20% this week, and will enjoy every minute of it.

Then I'll get back to that 80% healthy on the days I'm not gathering. I define “healthy” as things that make my body feel good, period. The 20% types of food tend not to fill me up like a plate full of veggies; they make me feel dehydrated and sluggish.

(One side note, I swear I can taste the love in food, call me cliche all you want. I'll 100% enjoy a greasy burger for my 20%, but I want it to be from a mom and pop shop that poured all their heart into that meal.)

Along with the 80/20 rule, I consider my diet like a bank account. I eat everything and anything I want, but I balance it out throughout the day :

If I have a sugary baked good for breakfast, I try for more veggies at lunch and more protein for dinner.
If I start my day with an omelet, I grab that ice cream bowl after dinner.
The same goes for portion sizes: more at one meal, less at the next.
I do pay attention to labels—calories, fat and sugar content, ingredient count, etc. Why? Because healthier food makes me feel better. Not because I am ruminating over the numbers.

This same approach can be used for more than just diet in your journey towards balance, here’s a blog on that .

Cheers to the start of your holiday week, friends! I hope it brings you a little bit more of whatever you most need. ❤️

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What Balanced Eating Looks Like on a Real Weeknight (Easy, Healthy Dinner Idea)

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:34:58 GMT

A real-life dinner that balances nutrition, ease, and enjoyment

I came home hot and salty. You know that feeling, exhausted from a hard day, ready to numb on the couch. But, sh*t, still have to do something for dinner.

As much as you all know the kitchen is my haven, these days are still a struggle for me to convince myself that getting in there is going to help me. My body screams at me to renegotiate all my dinner plans and grab takeout. (And TBH I mostly hate takeout, it's never as good as you want it to be after it sits in its takeout container for a while. And that makes me more grumpy than I already am. NOTE exceptions to this rule are foods designed for takeout - pizza, Chinese, etc. - those are delightful.)

9 times out of 10, once I'm cooking with a little loud music, a glass of wine in hand, and in a full-on venting session with my husband, I feel better. But it's still tough to convince myself when I'm making the drive home.

What does balanced eating look like on a night like this? For me, it looks like something that I can cook fast, a little angrily, and it will still comes out soul-satisfyingly good. It needs freshness to make me feel good (both mentally and physically) but it also needs something a little more on the "naughty" side to make my brain feel better.

Enter taco salad with chips and salsa on the side.

The perfect mix of all the aforementioned things.

And IF I can muster up the energy for a five-minute quiet sit after dinner (and yes, this is harder than anyone gives it credit for) and not fall asleep or get more heated in the process, the odds of better sleep that night and a bit more balance in my brain skyrocket.

Here's my back pocket approach to taco salad, in case you're having one of those days/weeks/months:

(PS, we are in that time in Nebraska where sadly good produce is scarce, and we are anxiously awaiting the good summer stuff. This recipe would change if I had some of my husband's (aka Farmer Kirk's) veggies to add in the mix.)

Salad

Spinach

Cabbage

Black olives

Peperoncino

Tomatoes

Bell pepper
Low sodium red kidney beans

The GOAT Tillamook shredded cheese

Dressing

Bolthouse Farms ranch (so much less fat and calories than other bottled ranches; this is a staple in our house)

Frank's Hot Sauce (I don't have to tell you this is the best hot sauce - outside of local options of course, everyone knows that :))

Red wine vinegar

Side

Chips and salsa from Target, don’t sleep on their Restaurant Style salsa, it is 10/10

A Simple 7-Minute Mindfulness Practice to Reset Your Day

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 17:04:57 GMT

A simple 7-minute mindfulness practice you can use to reset your day, even when life feels busy.

It is January 15th, it is 20 degrees outside, it is 6 AM and YES I still just came inside from my 7-minute sit.

Granted, I am wrapped in a very warm robe and a blanket (I can get away with this, I live in the country in pitch darkness), and my menopausal body is always really hot first thing in the morning so I probably don’t feel the elements like others might.

Still, my mind barked at me, it was too cold, I was tired, did I really need to go out today?

But then I felt that oh so familiar ping in my nervous system. You know that feeling? When your brain might be telling you one thing, but your body tells you the truth. I CRAVE that 7-minute sit and for me, going outside, no matter the weather, brings me an instant rush of peace.

That peace might not last, but that moment is relief enough that I physically crave it. No matter what my barking brain has to say.

I sit, I listen to the stillness, I sip coffee. Sometimes I connect fully and enjoy pure presence, sometimes, many times, I don’t. I start to make mental to-do lists. This morning, I actually started thinking about a better process for PLAY next year. PLAY DOESN’T HAPPEN UNTIL NEXT SEPTEMBER. That mind, friends, she can be so tricky sometimes.

But I still got a tiny bit of stillness, a moment, however fleeting, to connect. That’s the magic friends, that’s the part that will carry you through your day with a few more opportunities to find some sweet presence.

You’ve given yourself a microdose of muscle memory so that the next time your brain kicks up today, your body might just come in and say, “nope, come back, stay in the moment, find stillness.” And then that annoying meeting, that nagging to-do, that argument with yourself or with someone else might just pass a little quicker this time without as much hurt or reaction.

Sound good to you? Got 7 minutes at some point in your day? Your brain might have just screamed, “NO!” But ask again, ask your heart and your belly and your body. Did your nervous system just whisper “yes,” I thought it might.

Here’s your simplest and sweetest guide to the 7-minute sit. The easiest way to add mindfulness into your day-to-day.

Find a time in your day where 7 minutes makes sense. Could be the morning, could be right before lunch or bed, or maybe in your car before you leave work or walk in the house for the evening.
Set a timer for 7 minutes. (Yes, really do this part. It’s important to keep the promise to yourself that this is “only 7 minutes, you can do this.” And if you do it enough and have an iPhone, Siri will start to remind you to do this. :))
Take a moment just to look around and practice simple awareness. See anything and everything around you with soft focus eyes. Sip on something warm if that speaks to you.
For every thought that arises, acknowledge it, then allow it to pass by sinking back into your simple awareness.
Start to tune into how it feels to breathe. I often lay a hand on my belly to help.
Stay soft focus or close your eyes, focus on the breath and/or a word that feels right to you. I often use the word “connect.”
When that 7-minute timer beeps, say a quick thank you to yourself and move on.

It’s that simple, it’s that hard. It’s a practice that gives you all the benefits of mindfulness in a sustainable way. It’s kinda pure magic. I hope you love it.

I would adore hearing about your 7-minute practice. Please share if you already have one or let me know how this goes for you.

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Resolution? Put your Brain Health First

katherine@balanceandrise.com (Katherine Warren) — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 16:45:09 GMT

I am living proof that people can, in fact, change.

I have dramatically changed the health of my brain, the wellness of my body, my habits and routines. I have changed my path, my people in life, and yes, even my size.

So if you tell me you think people "can't change," I will argue that. Even at a soul level, I believe change, growth and awareness is not only possible, but a key piece of growth and evolution.

Notice I did not say you can change others, which I 100% agree with. Unless/until someone wants change, it simply will not happen for them.

If you're craving a change in your life as we welcome this New Year, if you're a resolution-making type, I'd like to share a little reminder.

Regardless of the change you are seeking, whether it's lifestyle, wellness, finances, or anything else, I implore you to focus on your brain health first.

If your brain is still hurting, if it's cutting you off at the knees with negative talk every time you try for that change, you are setting yourself up for a near-impossible feat.

People do not sabotage the growth in their lives because they want to, or don't have "enough willpower."

No one would willingly choose to stay in a place that doesn't feel healthy or safe, but your brain is very good at convincing you otherwise. When your brain isn't well, the whole world feels like it's conspiring against you.

Can you achieve some success towards change when your brain is hurting? Absolutely. But the battle will be 10x harder fought than it would be with a healthy brain, and the sustainability of that change will be akin to forever climbing a mountain.

So please, approach any goal on your wish list with this in mind. What steps can you take towards a healthier brain that can help you find a place to reach those other goals from a more solid, sustainable, and enjoyable space?

For me this year, I'm going to double down on being more present. I deeply want to accept and cherish all that I have. I want to embrace the power of the AND, that I can, in fact, have this level of gratitude and peace with what is, while still knowing there is more out there for my soul to accomplish.

I know, this goal may sound rich for a meditation teacher, but I am still learning every day and, believe it or not, I've been learning more about presence than I've ever known before.

So, how will you work on your brain health first? There are a million ways to do it of course. When I first started working on mine, I bought a simple workbook about dealing with depression.

So maybe reading is also a good step for you, or maybe it's a meditation app, therapy, movement, talking with a friend, whatever it is. Even if it's the babiest of things that you only do 5 minutes per day, or per week, or even per month. Tiny bits of time focused on your brain health can make a mountainous difference.

Prioritizing brain health will most likely push back progress on your other goal, but when you get there, the experience will be far more sustainable and beautiful than you might have ever thought possible.

And there will come a time when you can work on both simultaneously. But it will take patience, and it will take time and a whole lot of self-love for the million times you are likely to have a setback.

Here's wishing you, my dearest reader, a beautiful start to or continuation of your brain health journey. Happy New Year, my friends, my heart is warm, happy, and full of gratitude for all of you.

Do me a favor? If you’re enjoying this journey towards a balanced life, please subscribe , and share it with a freind who might need it.

Grief and Movement

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 21:06:36 GMT

My mom took seven days to die.

She was in hospice, in a state they call "active dying" for seven days. My sisters and I would meet at her room and sit and talk and sit and work a little and sit and watch reality TV; all day, every day, as if it were our jobs.

Then this saint of a hospice nurse would come in, tell us how she spent the last night with mom brushing her hair and telling her how pretty she was, and encourage us to go home and go to bed. "She's not going to die tonight," she'd say, "go home and get some rest." We'd give a collective sigh and head home.

In the morning, before I'd head back to mom's room, I'd do a 60-minute bootcamp workout. 6o minutes every day, no matter how poorly I'd slept or how run down I felt.

My normal workout routine includes exercise most days, but not a 60-minute boot camp; those are once per week at most because they are a beast. Shout out to Peloton's Jess Sims (IYKYK).

I was sore, spent, kind of numb, but MAN did I need that morning routine every day.

I needed the sense of accomplishment. I needed the rush of adrenaline, of pure presence and feeling.

And I needed to take care of my body, because I'm on a mission not to have to suffer like my mom did. Not in hospice, but as she did in the last few years of her life, battling diabetes and cirrhosis.

I recognize that I don't have full control over what happens to me. I have a slew of chronic diseases in my genes. But I'm going to try. My daily movement is a major piece of that fight. The rest is all this balance work.

This is deeply personal to me, friends, deeply.

October always picks at my grief wounds; my dad died at age 56 in late October, my mom died at 72 on the Day of the Dead, November 1st.

They were both too young. And they both had suffered from some serious health issues, for basically as long as I can remember.

After my dad died, that's what kicked my own wellness journey into high gear.

I vowed to do everything I could to not let genetics win.

I fight like hell so that I can be as active and alive and as vibrant as possible as long as I can. To be there for my family, my nieces, and my friends (so close they are family) as the healthiest, most balanced me.

So in case you're wondering why I chose exercise over just about anything else. Why I will prioritize it over well, just about everything. Now you know.

Movement not only helps my brain. It helps me feel like I'm in this fight.

That I'm trying as hard as I possibly can to beat this bs. To be the very balanced and best version of me I can be—for them, for me, and to prove I can do this.

And you know what? YOU can do this.

Find your "why" and attach it to how you choose to balance your body (whether that's a run, a walk, or nutritious food).

Make it personal.

And then hit play on your version of that bootcamp whenever you need it.

Spelt Pumpkin Scones

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 11:34:10 GMT

The Benefits of Baking with Spelt Flour (and Why It’s My Fall Go-To)

September’s #bucketlistbake might be landing in October (who’s counting?), but this one’s worth the wait — pumpkin scones made with spelt flour.

If you’ve followed along for a while, you know scones are my favorite bake of all time. But these? These are something special. Light, buttery, perfectly tender — and made with nutty, nutrient-rich spelt flour that gives them a wholesome edge.

What Is Spelt Flour and Why Bake with It?

Spelt flour is an ancient grain that’s been around for thousands of years. It’s related to modern wheat but less processed, giving it a naturally nutty, slightly sweet flavor and a beautiful, rustic texture.

Beyond the flavor, there are some real benefits to baking with spelt flour :

Easier to digest than traditional wheat for many people, especially those with mild gluten sensitivities (like my husband).
Higher in fiber and nutrients , I always feel full for a long time after eating a spelt bake.
Bakes beautifully — it adds structure and flavor without making your recipes dense or heavy.

If you’ve ever felt like whole wheat flour makes baked goods too hearty or dry, spelt is the happy middle ground. It’s wholesome and delicious.

How Spelt Flour Elevates Fall Baking

Spelt pairs especially well with pumpkin, cinnamon, and warm fall spices — all the cozy flavors we crave this time of year. In these pumpkin scones, the flour’s nutty undertones bring out the sweetness of the pumpkin and the depth of the spice blend.

I topped mine with a simple cinnamon glaze (instead of the maple glaze in the recipe), they’re soft, buttery, and less cakey than most pumpkin scones I’ve made — in other words, everything a scone should be.

I baked this batch to celebrate the final Yoga in the Park of the season, and they felt like the perfect send-off: comforting, nourishing, and deeply satisfying.

Where to Find Spelt Flour

If you’re wondering where to buy spelt flour, it’s easier than you might think. Many grocery stores carry it in the baking aisle or the natural foods section, and there are affordable options online (I usually grab mine on Amazon ).

Finding Balance at the Table

For me, baking with spelt flour is about more than ingredients. It’s about slowing down, reconnecting with the process, and creating something that feels nourishing — body and soul.

If you’re curious about how food can support your balance, this is a beautiful place to start.

Try The Pumpkin Spelt Scone Recipe →

Fresh Tomato Soup

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 18:48:21 GMT

Fresh Tomato Soup

Got some spare tomatoes to deal with? Here's my favorite fresh tomato soup from Ina (with my edits, of course ��).

Note this picture also shows my favorite, super-easy spelt bread that also contains a whole lot of "good for menopause" ingredients. I'll share that recipe soon.

Here's a link to her recipe , which includes step-by-step instructions.

Here are the ingredients and my edits:

3 tablespoons good olive oil

1 1/2 cups chopped red onions - EDIT: I don't ever use onions because I don't ever seem to have them when I want them.

2 carrots, unpeeled and chopped

1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves) - EDIT: I don't love garlic, so I only use 1 clove (and don't tell anyone, but I use the pre-crushed frozen kind because I don't love it and I don't want my hands to smell like it for a day).

4 pounds vine-ripened tomatoes, coarsely chopped (5 large)

1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1/4 cup packed chopped fresh basil leaves, plus julienned basil leaves, for garnish

3 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade - EDIT: I've never used any stock in this, as the tomatoes cook down, they make enough liquid for my desired soup consistency.

1 tablespoon kosher salt - YES, you need one whole tablespoon and you know my feelings on kosher salt, always the ONLY choice for cooking, way more flavor in less salt.

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

3/4 cup heavy cream - EDIT: I use almond milk and only enough to reach a nice creamy finish

Croutons, for garnish - EDIT: All soup in the Warren house is served with cheese bread, so I skip this part.

The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

katherine@balanceandrise.com (Katherine Warren) — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 11:06:08 GMT

The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

What do baked goods have to do with balancing your body? A lot actually.

As you know, baking and cooking are my preferred forms of mindfulness. There is simply nothing that plants me more quickly in the present and brings me focus and joy.

To me, balanced eating is no restrictions eating. Saying "never" to a certain food group, in my opinion, is the opposite of balance. Instead, I follow the 80/20 rule .

I used to have a love/hate relationship with cookies. I could never get them just right. But I never let a baked good beat me, and then the pandemic hit (and I got a convection oven) and I finally cracked the code.

Now I am somewhat known for these cookies and have requests to make them so much I can pretty much do it in my sleep.

Spoiler alert, the recipe is an infamous one, Betty Crocker's that is, with a few very important tweaks.

Here's a link to her recipe including steps.

Here are the ingredients and my edits:

2 1/4 cups Gold Medal™ All Purpose Flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened - EDIT I cut the butter to 3/4 cups to make a less flat, more fluffy cookie. I use one stick salted and a half stick of unsalted to up the salty sweet factor.

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar - EDIT I ONLY use dark brown sugar, never light.

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla - EDIT use imitation vanilla, I said what I said ��, imitation has a different, stronger flavor, and it is better for chocolate chip cookies.

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips - EDIT I add in as many chocolate chips as my heart desires and it is usually less than this. I don't want my cookies reading like a candy bar, but you do you here. Please just use good chocolate, we saved a lot on the vanilla, spend on the chocolate. I typically use Ghirardelli .

1 cup coarsely chopped nuts, if desired - EDIT I never add nuts, too many known and unknown allergies in the worlds where I take my cookies. But I'm sure they'd be delicious.

Edits to the steps:

I only have two.

I cream the butter and sugar, then add the egg and vanilla before I add the dry ingredients. Betty's recipe just adds it all in at once.
If you have a convection oven, please use it. You'll get a little more lift and a crispier outside with a soft inside.

Midlife Mind

katherine@balanceandrise.com (Katherine Warren) — Fri, 30 May 2025 20:29:08 GMT

I’ve read about it, I’ve heard about it, and still nothing quite prepares you for the whirlwind of midlife madness.

I remember seeing a trailer for an Oprah show about it where she says you can not outsmart this life phase, you can’t out exercise it, out earn it, or in my case out “balance” it. I’ve been in menopause since November of this year and let me tell you, Oprah is spot on with this one.

If you’ve been following along on my journey, you know that insomnia was a major symptom of my depression growing up. I’d go days without sleep, taking a larger and larger toll on both my mental and physical health.

Finding sleep after developing a mindfulness practice was my first climb out of the hole. Mindfulness helped me slow down and not react to my thoughts, which in turn brought sleep. Sleep brought a whole other slew of balanced wellness practices, which you can read about here.

But damn it this menopause is disrupting my sleep. I get woken up 2 to 3 times per night right now experiencing hot flashes. Then those hot flashes soak my sheets, and sometimes I’ll wake up a few more times freezing cold because of that. I have an emergency blanket at my bedside that goes on and off throughout the night to help with my complete lack of body temperature regulation.

Woof.

No I haven’t done anything medically yet. I’ve tried adding as many hormone-producing foods into my diet as possible (see Balanced Body below) but because there is zero consistency to my symptoms, I have a few good nights and that convinces me I will be over this phase soon, then they come raging back.

The only consistent symptom sparker seems to be wine…seriously menopause?!? You cause me all this drama AND take away wine?!?

Couple that with some trauma around all things medical (another blog for another day) and well, I just haven’t made the leap to hormone therapy yet.

So what am I doing to try to stay as balanced as possible during this phase?

ROUTINE.

I am buckling down on my routine no matter how much my brain tries to convince me “I’m too tired.”

That’s a 7-minute sit, a quick gratitude list and exercise in the morning. Stretching, 3 minutes of focusing on my breath, and outlining 3 wins for today and what I hope will be 3 wins for tomorrow in the evening.

All in all a pretty tiny amount of my day, but boy does my tired somewhat foggy brain want to fight that.

No matter what night of sleep I get however, my routine makes me feel miles better.

REST.

I’m sneaking in a 15-minute lunch nap any day that I can. I am not a natural napper and if I go longer than that I get groggy. But that tiny pause in my day has really worked wonders when I’ve had an especially bad night of sleep.

I’m also trying to go to bed a half hour earlier (which in my day-to-day world means serious senior citizen time, and I’m owning that) just to catch up on some sleep on the front end.

Finally, I’m honoring a new wake-up time that’s about a half hour to an hour later than I would like. Yes, I still get up pretty early but not as early as I prefer. However losing 1 to 2 hours of sleep per night, I know this is a more balanced approach.

This new wake time also means when it fits in my schedule, I’ll split my workout in half (half in the morning and half after work) to fit it all in.

Annnd let’s be honest, COFFEE, lots of coffee. ��

The silver lining?

There is one. This life stage has actually helped me loosen my grip on a lifestyle that at times can become a little too rigid.

When something threatens to buck my routine, I can get a little too worried and strict about getting back to it. It’s my brain’s way of surviving the little voice in my head that says, “I can’t go back, I can never go back” to that darker place.

BUT, you want me to spend a later evening with you now? Welp, I’m not gonna sleep great whether I blow past my bedtime or not, so let’s go for it.

You want me to have a large lunch full of things that are going to make me tired and bloated for the rest of the day? Sure. I’m gonna be tired and bloated anyway, so yeah I’ll have seconds at that summer picnic.

...all within my 80/20 rule of course...

So this midlife has opened the door to me saying yes to more things than I normally would.

And that’s kinda great.

I’ve had some awesome moments with people I care about. And met some super cool people I wouldn’t have otherwise.

I’ll take it.

And I’ll keep you posted on how this goes.

PS Happy belated Mother’s Day to anyone who cares for others. I bow to you and recognize everything I say is 1,000 times harder for you to implement some days. And mad respect to those of you mamas (and I personally know a ton of you) that DO manage to keep up as much of this balance as makes sense for you. You are our SHEros.

An Ode to Silken Tofu

katherine@balanceandrise.com (Katherine Warren) — Fri, 30 May 2025 20:10:34 GMT

A big part of this middle age thing is balancing hormones. One step I’ve been taking is adding more hormone-producing foods into my diet--enter tofu (and flax, and pumpkin seeds, etc, but this blog is about tofu.)

Now, everyone will have a different take on tofu, and if you’ve been following along, you know I believe you should find foods that make you feel your best and brightest. Might be tofu, might not.

For me, a sip of creamy soy milk in my coffee or a solid tofu stir fry makes my heart sing. It is also high protein, low fat, and sometimes low sugar and calories, depending on its form. So when I learned soy creates more estrogen in the body, I went all in. Enter silken tofu. :)

Dreaming of a creamy dip for your veggies or meat? Silken tofu.

Need a decent dairy-free alternative to yogurt without the added sugar of the store brands? Silken tofu.

You want a rich and creamy pasta sauce you’d swear was chock-full of cheese? Silken tofu

You want a cross between a gnocchi and a dumpling true treat of a “pasta” dish? You guessed it, scissor-cut tofu pasta has become a regular rotation at the Warren house.

Convinced yet? Let’s get to the details:

Creamy Veggie/Meat Dip

Blend in a food processor:

1 block of silken tofu

1 tbsp light mayo or Greek yogurt for thickness (or if you want to go all in on tofu add a scoop or two of water-packed firm tofu to get your desired consistency)

A handful of herbs of your choice (try dill and parsley for a Greek vibe)

Lots of Kosher salt (the only salt for cooking) and cracked black pepper

A splash of lemon or lime juice plus a little vinegar (I usually use cider or rice wine)

Blend until smooth, taste, adjust your seasonings and viola! Creamy dip magic. I love to pair ours with these Greek potatoes .

And here are the recipes I follow (kind of) for:

Tofu Yogurt

(Recipe edits: I mix silken and firm tofu to get a better texture and I use frozen mango and cherry - a delightful combo. NOTE: This yogurt is only good for a couple of days, and then the consistency goes off.)

Tofu Alfredo

(Recipe edits: I blended in a bunch of fresh herbs to lift up the sauce and it was YUM. That nutritional yeast is a game changer for a cheesy taste without cheese and is really easy to find in most grocery stores.)

Scissor Cut Tofu

(Recipe edits: I use King Arthur’s Gluten Free Flour for the hubs. For the sauce, I go Italian with some Rao’s pasta sauce mixed with a little of the leftover blended silken tofu and some basil (if I have it) to make it a creamy red sauce. Look, I make a lot of things from scratch, but when I find something that tastes better than I can make it, I use it. And Rao’s is one of those things!)

Enjoy!

Balancing a Brain that’s Fighting Back

katherine@balanceandrise.com (Katherine Warren) — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 17:35:12 GMT

Your brain will straight up lie to you. There’s no way to sugar coat that, friends, there just isn’t.

But your brain also creates beautiful ideas and inventions, and well, everything you see that surrounds us. It’s the power of the AND. Your brain is the king of the “and.”

The first step in finding balance is recognizing this.
The second step is discerning the beautiful part of your brain from the beast.
The third is not reacting to, judging or negotiating with the beastly part.

It’s tough, tough work. It’s lifelong work.

And even if your friends start calling you things like the “definition of balance” (a term so kindly bestowed on me by some friends recently). You’re still gonna have to work your a** off on this part for the rest of your life as you sway back and forth, in and out of balance.

Does it get easier? Yes and no. The beauty of understanding the feeling of balance is that you don’t have to rely on your brain so much. You know how it feels to be in a place of solid, grounded peace, no matter what your brain is shouting you “should” or “could” be doing.

The harder part is that the more you find balance, the more likely it is that you are upleveling your life. Your focus and pure presence have likely brought about more of whatever you define as a successful life--mentally, physically, or materially.

That uplevel can mean those brain lies cut a little deeper, make you question every decision you make to protect your peace. If you’ve learned to sit with that pain in your belly, it might fight a little harder to make you pay attention to it. It might put up a bigger fight to try to force you to listen to those untruths.

This is when you have to remind yourself, your brain will straight up lie to you.

Under no circumstances should you negotiate with these thoughts. That’s where spiraling lives, that’s where lack of balance lies.

Sometimes holding hard to your balanced routines will do the trick.

But sometimes you’re going to have to fight harder.

Sometimes you’ll have to get down on the floor for 3 to however many minutes it takes to fight back against those thoughts. Go deep into that breath, focus on the belly rising and falling off the floor.

Remind your brain that you simply will not accommodate or negotiate with those thoughts while remaining compassionate and loving.

Treat your brain as a child acting up. Firm yet loving, holding true to what you know is best. Because you know what balance feels like and you know these thoughts aren’t gonna serve that.

This is the practice, friends.

And a reminder, growth comes from this- the practice, not the outcome. Hold on. Keep fighting back with compassion and love, and that groundedness will come back around again.

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It's All In The Eyes

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 18:59:22 GMT

What you might see when you look at this picture is a physical transformation. My size, my shininess, the polish of my look. What I see, is the change in my eyes.

I see a young woman whose eyes reflect the numbness, the emptiness, the lack of feeling she chose to use to protect herself from a tough upbringing. One where she never could trust that anyone or anything she loved would stick around. One where it was far safer to bury your emotions and needs than to have them.

Depression helped me numb. Depression is what I see in those eyes.

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The physical stuff I do helps bring me back to that balance, maintain it, and fight like hell sometimes not to have those blank eyes creep back into the picture:

I exercise far more for my brain than my body. Nothing sets me up better for my day than a workout, it gives me a sense of accomplishment like nothing else can. It proves to my brain every day, I can, in fact, overcome tough stuff, and I can actually enjoy the struggle.
The physical benefits of exercise for me are more driven by a fear that I’m still working on. I don’t ever want to end up with the slew of health trauma and drama that my parents dealt with. I don’t want to end up needing as much help as my mom did before she passed, and I don’t want to die at 56 like my dad did.
I eat whole food 80% of the time because my mindfulness practice has made me so aware of my body that I can feel foods that don’t serve it, and I don’t like that feeling. (But I always have something sweet, and not “whole” every day. :))
I swear I can taste the love in food, and that drives a lot of my choices. I’ll gobble up chips and salsa or delicious, greasy takeout from a local place, where the owners are likely a part of the everyday operation, and feel great about it. Not every day, but usually once per week. And I have zero interest in getting this food from a chain.

After mindfulness helped me get to a place where I wanted to focus more on the physical I used to say, “I don’t want to let genetics win.” Now, I know there is only so much of that under my control. It’s far more accurate for me to say that maintaining physical health is a HUGE piece of the puzzle to maintaining my mental health. And that I believe mental health drives a lot of the choices that make us healthier or feel sick.

The sense of accomplishment from the workout, the overcoming a literal hill on a run or the adrenaline of lying sweaty on the floor after a Jess Sims BootCamp helps me push past the need to go numb that still lives in me. The feeling of content fullness after a meal of foods that buzz happily in my body, from my own love-soaked kitchen or that of another, helps me ward off that emptiness in my eyes.

As always, I will leave you with this. What helps keep your eyes alive and bright might be very different than what sparks mine. And it has so very little to do with shape or size.

As long as you feel fully present and full of life in that home in your body, that’s what matters. THAT’s what true balance feels like. And that is what I wish for all of you. ��

I used to be ashamed of this girl, I used to hide her from my current circle, but I’ve done a lot of work on myself to instead have nothing but immense empathy for her. And to share her beauty with all of you.

Now, when I look at pictures of myself, I check in with those eyes to gauge how I’m really doing. It helps me see if that brain fog is starting to set in. Here’s a picture from another time when I hit a rough patch. And while physically I look more like I do now, those eyes tell a different story. Those eyes are warning me that it’s time to work a bit harder on coming back to balance.

Why a Balanced Life Blogger and Culture First Leader Cringes When I Hear “Work/Life Balance”

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 17:37:14 GMT

It never fails, when I try to explain the beautiful, balanced culture we are building at KidGlov (focused on finding joy in our work), someone inevitably says, “Oh, you mean good work/life balance?”

No, I emphatically do not mean that.

Whether we are at the office, at the grocery store, working out, eating out, vacationing or at a kids event, it’s ALL LIFE, my friend.

And every single one of these things is bound to creep into the other no matter how hard we try to keep things separate—a work email on vacation, a family call at the office, a text you simply have to respond to between your sets of burpees.

The way I see it, we have two options in the never-ending pursuit of achieving a balanced life:

Option A

Keep fighting to compartmentalize every bit of life to force it to fall in the perfect hours of the day and days of the week to maintain “work/life balance.”
Get mad at ourselves when inevitably this attempt fails.
Blame ourselves, instead of acknowledging that life is going to happen when life happens no matter how hard we push back.
Spiral into misery caused by barking thoughts and “shoulding” in our head.
Either run ourselves ragged continuing the spiral and attempting to find the fix.
Or fall into a puddle on the ground exhausted, participating in very little of the “life” we were trying so hard to maintain.

Option B

Recognize every bit of our life is just that, our life.
Practice finding and maintaining balance in the WHOLE DARN THING—work, family, friends, wellness, rest, and fun.
Using mindfulness as our guide (that helps us tune into the whispers our body is trying to tell us) we can sense when we are experiencing too little or too much of ANY of these pieces of life.
Then do our best to maintain routines, practices, and boundaries that put these pieces back into balance.
Tip the scales in one life direction or the other once again, tune into the whispers, and come back to our routines and practices, over and over and over again.
Rinse and repeat.

You’ve seen these people; the ones that have chosen Option B. They seem to have this beautiful flow happening between the things that pay the mortgage and the ones that feed the soul (and while I’m on my soapbox, it’s OK for these things to be different, that’s another blog for another day).

Some Option Ber’s seem to maintain this beautiful dance, bouncing from one part of life to another, taking time when they need it, finding focus when required, and gracefully navigating all the in between. Sometimes it appears as if they have all the time in the world for everything. And when you sit with them, you get that same sense, that they have all the time for YOU (some call it Einstein time ).

Do these Option Ber’s have something we don’t? No. Do they ever falter? Absolutely (please see steps 5 and 6 in Option B). But in general, maybe 60 to 80 percent of the time, they have tuned in to the sweetness of balance and the subtle cues that help keep us there. They live life as one all-encompassing scale and respect the ebbs and flows, the positive and negative, the wins and the punches.

Of course there are a million external and internal factors that play into one’s ability to live in Option B AND everyone can choose to tune in to the burnout cues or numb out . We can do our damndest with the resources we have to head back towards Option B.

And there are certainly seasons of our life and situations where one piece of life will take precedence, where that feels safe and ok.

There are also jobs that push for more work than the other stuff, as I’ve said in every single blog on balance, Know Thyself . Does that work for you or not? For some it does (it might even give energy more than it takes it away). For some it doesn’t (and burn out creeps on to the horizon). Only you know for sure if it works for you.

If you have no choice but to stick with something that’s pushing you out of balance, are there things you can do to find even a glimmer of Option B living, maybe even just for 5 minutes in your day?

Focusing on the physical sensations of a few deep breaths at your computer.
Sitting in your car for a 2-minute meditation before heading into a house full of responsibilities.
Taking a quick block walk during an overwhelming amount of family holiday time.

It’s ALL life my friend, here’s to seeking more balance in all of it.

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The Art of Vulnerability at Work

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 17:42:19 GMT

There’s an art to vulnerability, especially at work. Being real is what connects us as humans, but that doesn’t mean you need to share every nitty, gritty detail for someone to relate.

Just like everything else, there’s balance (almost an art) in being vulnerable. Share enough of your story so people see the real YOU, but no need to wallow there for long, or share every bit of the story. You don’t have to rip your whole heart open all the time to connect. And no one really wants or needs to hear an hour-long story. Especially not in the world we live in today.

People just need to see and hear about the real YOU, and then you can move on. No need to sit in trauma, or relive things that don’t feel good. This vulnerability work is about connecting, not causing more hurt on your path to healing.

I think this can be especially challenging at work; knowing how much to share, how not to overshare, and what lies in between.

Here are a few ways I try to show up as a leader while balancing the art of vulnerability:

I show who I am. I try to be the same person once I step in my office or on a Zoom call that I am if you go out to coffee with me or grab a cocktail. I don’t shift who I am based on who I’m around, but I do manage my behavior based on my environment.

Here’s an example, at home, my happy place is blasting music in the kitchen, singing my very best karaoke version of whatever is playing, and dancing around while I cook (quite possibly with a glass of wine and a playful pup at my side). At work, I don’t go bouncing around singing, but I share that piece of me with my coworkers through stories. I love to tell people about my uncanny ability to know every song lyric and how I swear I could be a genius if I didn’t have all those lyrics taking up space in my brain.
I share stories that help. If I went through something hard that I think would help someone else learn or relate more to me, I share it. Again, I don’t have to share all the nitty, gritty details, just enough to help that person get where they need to go or at least understand they aren’t alone in the journey.

An easy example of this is if you screwed up at work, and now someone you’re leading made a similar mistake, tell them you’ve been there. Empathize instead of reprimand and watch that person bloom. Feeling supported instead of scolded creates happy, healthier, (= more productive and accountable) team members 95% of the time.
I “use my words.” People that work with me are probably sick of this phrase, but I don’t know of a better way to say if I feel something is important (good, bad or slightly crazy) I say things out loud. I never, ever expect people to read my mind. This takes courage sometimes, but I always remember another gem from my yoga teacher training that helps me do it, “if the intention behind what you are saying is love (not defensiveness or hurt), it is always the right thing to say.”

And if you think my team at work might be slightly over this phrase, just imagine my poor husband. If we have words we need to say, I’ve been known to follow him around the house until we have them.
I try to admit when I’m wrong. This one was hard for perfectionist, cardboard Katherine, but it’s been key to me opening myself up to life. This one addition to my arsenal helps me be a better leader, team member, wife, sister, and pretty much a better everything.

What’s the most beautiful part of all this vulnerability and balance? You don’t have to be great at it all the time for it to work.

These tools are ones I try very hard to follow, but I don’t all the time. I still shut down sometimes when I should open up. I still opt for cardboard Katherine sometimes when I don’t feel safe.

But using these tools even 80% of the time can uplevel your leadership skills like never before, and move mountains in your quest for real balance.

Do me a favor? If you’re enjoying this journey towards a balanced life please subscribe , share it, and follow my Instagram for smaller bites.

INSPIRE

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:27:59 GMT

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to inspire someone.

I was floored to be recognized earlier in the year with an Inspire award for women in small business. The women nominated this year (and every year) were outstanding. I genuinely thought I had zero chance of receiving the award. I was fully prepared to go to the event, enjoy my salad, and smile politely when the name in my category was announced. I think it took me a full minute to stand up when they called my name. I simply didn’t believe it.\

And you know what, I have a sneaking suspicion most women nominated felt the same way. That they aren’t in “the league” of the other nominees. That damn imposter syndrome soaks in every ounce of our female beings.

And then, a few months later I got nominated for an Impact Award through Vistage , and barely told anyone about it because it was “too soon” after my last recognition.

That makes me sad.

Even after all the work we’ve done to build each other up, to tout our worth, to lean into our power, at the end of the day too many women still feel like me. That they aren’t deserving of recognition.

I want so deeply for there to be real change here. What will it take? I wish I knew. I wish this blog was about the top 3 tips to get out of your “I’m undeserving” head and into your space of “I am more than f’ing deserving” light. But I’m still working on that.

What I did instead was take this gift and reflect on what it means to be inspiring.

How do you most meaningfully uplift others and encourage them along on their journey? How do you best use your words and actions to inspire?

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

Deeply Listen . At the end of the day, I think what most people want is to be heard. Really heard and then acknowledged. Whether you agree with what is being said or not, you can still listen and acknowledge it.
Be Curious . One of the best things a coach has ever said to me is, “your job as a leader is to get curious.” Ask questions, and seek to truly understand. The next time you want to react to something, get curious about it instead. The world is in need of more lifelong learners.
Be Open . As Jessica Zweig so beautifully puts it, Share Your Shit. Listen to the other person’s shit, get curious about it, then be open to sharing real, raw stories about your experiences that might help guide or empathize.
Be Available (ish). We are all too wrapped up in life to constantly check in. I think this “requirement” to stay connected as often as possible is too much pressure. You can’t be of service to another human if you are showing up burnt out. Instead, I think we should all stay available without that pressure. If someone reaches out and needs a recommendation, an ear to discuss life, your two cents on a solution, THAT’s when you become available. You show up when the need to show up is truly there, not just when your calendar says you haven’t talked to that person in a while.
Lead By Example . Is this cliche? Maybe. Is it true? Absolutely. Are people who know me professionally sick of hearing this? Probably. �� If you say you prioritize something in your work, company or life, then people need to see you living it. Not inauthentically ALL of the time, but 80% of the time, we need to see in you what you say you believe.

So that’s what I have so far. My next goal on this inspiration journey is to get nominated for something and feel deserving, right out of the gate, so that every young lady that comes after me (whom I’ve had the fortune of knowing) feels the same. I can’t think of any life work more important, more inspirational to keep going, than that.

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My Take on Wellness and Volunteer Programs

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 19:27:59 GMT

What does wellness mean to you?

What does it look like, feel like to fill your bucket? I bet you can come up with some pretty specific examples of this. Now, ask the person next to you. What do you do to stay well? What makes you feel “of service?” Chances are, that person’s answers will vary greatly from yours.

Herein lies the problem, in my opinion, with specific company wellness and volunteer programs. They are 100% a valiant effort for an organization to do better for their team, I don’t want to discredit this. But I would like to ask, does every member of your team find benefit in these programs? Does Sally from accounting appreciate that free gym membership as much as Jim from IT? Does Rebecca from marketing feel fulfilled from that annual trip to the Food Bank?

Is there a better solution to ensure every member of your organization feels valued?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned along my wellness journey, what defines this term is extremely personal and oftentimes even emotional. A gym can be a huge motivator for some, it can create a great community. For others, the gym is an intimidating, sometimes even trauma-triggering place that sounds about as wellness-inducing as a stick in the eye.

Same goes for community involvement, giving back is incredibly personal and there are a ton of feelings around what that looks like—financially, emotionally and spiritually. You might think your company is backing an organization that everyone can feel great about, but do know that, really? There’s a lot that goes in to someone supporting (or not supporting) an organization and there’s no way your company can or should know that for every member of your team.

Case in point, my company once backed a nonprofit that laid off my mom. Did I say anything to anyone on my team? Absolutely not. Did it feel great doing all I did to support that organization? No. But I did it anyway, and that could be the case for many more on your team than you might think.

So what does your team truly value and how do you figure that out? I would argue most people value one thing more than anything else—TIME.

What if we just gave more time?

What if we let our team figure out what to do with that time that is the most fulfilling to them? Whether that’s taking a long lunch to go to the gym, taking a few hours off to volunteer at a place most meaningful to them, or making every single one of their kids’ soccer games. Wouldn’t THAT make a person feel truly valued?

Time, flexibility during the golden hours, maybe even a wellness stipend that could be spent on personal improvement however each person defines it.

That is what I propose should replace the sanctioned wellness and volunteer programs (and for some organizations it already does). That, to me, feels like the most balanced approach to creating a culture where your team feels the most cared for and the most authentically seen.

Giving time says to your team, “I SEE you, you do you, and we’ll back you.” You’ve got time.

Do me a favor? If you’re enjoying this journey towards a balanced life please subscribe , share it, and follow my Instagram for smaller bites.

Life As A Bank Account

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

One of the most impactful physical wellness lessons I have learned came from a Real Housewife.

Yes, you read that right.

Love them, hate them, or simply watch them out of sheer fascination, there are the few like Bethenny Frankel that have become wildly successful entrepreneurs.

One of Bethenny’s many forays into entrepreneurism was writing a book called Naturally Thin. Admittedly, not everything in this book was solid advice on wellness, however, it was the first book that got me thinking about balance more holistically.

The main idea was to stop thinking about diets or restrictions and start taking cues from people who naturally look and feel like you want to. You might notice they order the burger, not the salad, but leave a little on the plate. Or they order the salad but ask for extra blue cheese.

The advice that stuck with me the most: consider your diet a bank account.

Eat everything and anything you want, but balance it out throughout the day. If you have a scrumptious, sugary baked good for breakfast, try for more veggies at lunch and more protein for dinner. If you start your day with a protein-packed omelet, go ahead and grab that ice cream bowl after dinner. The same goes for portion sizes, more at one meal, less at the next.

This bank account approach has since shown up in many other areas of my life. I learned a similar philosophy in my yoga training called Ayurveda that takes this concept beyond food. Based on the earth’s elements, this practice suggests that you constantly seek balance in your daily activities . If you do something fiery: run 7 miles, have an argument, eat jalapeños; try to balance it with something cooling: a day off, quiet time in a dark room, eating cold grapes.

While I’m by no means a strong practitioner of Ayurveda, I do try to maintain this balance-seeking approach in most areas of my life.

Along with diet, this shows up in how I prioritize life activities.

If I have a crazy few days of meetings or social events, I try to prioritize slowing down and resting the next few evenings. If I miss some extremely valuable sleep (a blog post for another day), you better believe I’m hitting that 9pm bedtime the next day. I try to balance big exercise days with small ones or days off (although I’ll admit, this is the toughest one for me to stick to).

Discovering life as a bank account was a critical turning point in my wellness journey. It takes the pressure off restrictive practices that often fail yet still keeps you thinking throughout the day about what’s the best next move for your overall well-being.

The trick is to keep yourself protected from that destructive “all or nothing” thinking and to always remind yourself that your goal is to continually seek ways to get BACK to balance.

No one can remain in balance all the time, no one. Give it a try for a day or a week, try to keep judgment out of the outcome, and see where it takes you.

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The Beginning of a Balanced Life

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Here's how my journey towards achieving balance started.

I was recently fortunate enough to get to share my story towards living a balanced life on a local podcast. And it made me realize, I haven’t yet shared how it all started on this blog. I’m excited to share this with you because what I hope it helps you realize is that the “thing” that moves the needle for you, the something that you find or learn that helps you take the first step, could be just around the corner. And when it happens, you likely won’t realize it. In fact, you might not realize it for quite some time.

I’ve shared the story before about fully acknowledging my depression and how a random book from Amazon was my first real step toward doing something about it. But I haven’t shared my first step towards mindfulness. And while the book brought me some simple tools and awareness, it was mindfulness that really started to help me start to achieve a more balanced life.

I was volunteering at the time for a local arts council, doing the marketing for the arts festival, and I met up with the council’s executive director one day. She had this look about her, she looked happy and bright and shiny, almost glowing. I thought, “Man, I want to look like that.” Mind you, this was during a pretty major dark spot of my depression.

I asked the executive director, “What are you doing?” And she simply said, “I’m meditating.” Well, I thought, I can try that. And she invited me to join her at a small mindfulness meditation group that was meeting weekly at the Unitarian church.

The group was welcoming and thoughtful and gracious, all the things you needed a small group of strangers to be. Especially when you were in a place of opening up to your life to no one. Each meeting started with a reading, then a formal meditation, then some tea and conversation at the end. It’s in this group where I learned more about my thoughts.

Here’s what I learned about my thoughts through mindfulness that helped my find more balance:

That my thoughts did not dictate my worth or my emotions.
That my depressive thoughts were not normal, I genuinely thought everyone experienced the same thoughts I did.
While there are many thoughts that are serving (nothing in this world would exist without a thought to create it), there were just as many thoughts that were not serving. Those thoughts should be acknowledged and then allowed to pass with compassion and grace.
That you could slow down your thoughts and quiet the chatter in your mind.

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All of this learning helped tame my insomnia. It slowed down my thoughts enough so I could finally experience the joy of sweet sleep.

Sleeping allowed me the energy to start exercising (I’d always enjoyed it, just never stuck with it), and exercising made me want to eat a little better. And this subtle shift towards balance made my world open up. It made me want to live healthier, including how I was spending my time, who I was spending it with, and how I was giving back to my community.

This balance felt GOOD. And for a gal who used to chase a similar feeling through negative attention, this shift towards the positive was a game changer.

As with everything I decide I like in life, I started consuming any and all information about it I could get my hands on. I read all the mindfulness books, found different meditation forms and groups, found moving meditation (a.k.a. yoga), and I was off to begin to build a life and feel a way I didn’t know was possible.

But when I first peaked my head in that small room, at the sweet little church, with the kindest people, I had no clue where this would take me. And I still struggled for a very long time before the most significant change came.

In a future blog I’ll fill you in on how my mindfulness has since shifted from a more formal meditation and yoga practice to my far less formal (and more balanced, in my opinion) way of living mindfully in my day-to-day life.

But for now...

My message to you is this, keep going. Keep trying to find that thing that speaks to you. You have no idea when that thing will arrive and when it does, you still won’t know for a very long time. It is out there for you, it is out there for every single one of us.

Don’t give up, and make sure you stay as kind and compassionate towards yourself as possible while you keep looking.

It is worth the wait. ��

Bad Brain Days:Real Ways to Get Through a Bad Mental Health Day

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:57:29 GMT

Simple, grounding tools for getting through anxious, overwhelming, or mentally heavy days—without trying to fix everything.

I wanted to share some of the thoughts that show up on these days when it feels more challenging to achieve balance, so if you have the same thoughts you’ll know you’re not alone:

“Who are YOU to help people?” Shame around my past is a big one for me. I was a kid who made harmful choices as a way to cope with trauma and depression, on these days my brain likes to try to convince me I don’t belong in this life I’ve made.
“Run!” Run away from your responsibilities, your relationships, just go. Leaving it all behind feels like the best solution to make that nagging in my stomach and my heart go away.
“STOP” Please stop doing, trying, pushing to be more. I’m exhausted. Don’t you just want to relax on your couch and not speak to anyone? Isn’t that where you’ll find the “comfortable, content” life you seek?

On days like this I have to shift focus from maintaining balance to working to get through the day, or however many days my brain decides to act up.

I focus on my breath as much as I can, on the physical act of my belly rising and falling as I breathe.
I try to empathize with instead of scold that little girl who endured so much just to try to numb the chaos, and feel a little love.
I treat myself to a little more salt, sugar and caffeine, but try to steer clear of the wine.
I try to fit one purely “feel good” thing into my day (other than exercise, for some reason, I can always exercise). This week that was buying a pair of shoes I normally wouldn’t have.
I try to push myself into some sense of community, whether that be a yoga class at a studio or some texts between my husband or a friend. This week my husband got the “my brain hurts” message and a few vents after that.
I shift focus to my job, break for a few minutes for one of the tools above, and go right back to tasks. If I can get in that work focus zone, I can enjoy a sense of accomplishment, and the clock toward healing can move.

Then I sit and wait it out while I fight, focus, soothe…empathize (if I can)…fight, focus, soothe; again and again.

The worst thing I can do on bad brain days is try to fix something or “figure it out.” And the worse thing people around me can do is ask “what broke?” Because there simply isn’t an answer to that.

If you’re having a bad brain day, or week, or month, I see you. This blog is my attempt to sit with you, and alongside you, as you surf through the suffering.

We’ll work on fixes when we’re feeling better. For now, let’s just try to focus on our breath and get through this together.

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As hard as I work to maintain the flow of a balanced life, there are days that still remind me I suffer from an incurable disease. There are days like I had this week where my mental health takes a turn and my brain simply won’t shut up. I call these bad brain days.

Why I'm Here

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 19:24:04 GMT

I’m here because I’ve done a lot of work on myself, mentally and physically.

I’m here because I strive everyday (and some days fight) to maintain this balance that eluded me for 20+ years. I’m here because I climbed my way out of depression, insomnia and trauma first with mindfulness meditation and then with a full arsenal of tools that help me live the life I have today. A life, when in the depths of depression, I’m not quite sure I even knew existed, let alone imagined I could obtain.

My tools include maintaining my physical wellness through balanced eating, sleeping and exercise (no "all-or-nothing" restrictions), and still practicing mindfulness but in more day-to-day ways. My favorite mindfulness practice is baking up a storm at dawn: music playing, coffee on, sun still waiting to rise.

I’ve carried this battle for balance into my career, leading culture initiatives that tout the mantra: stop focusing on “putting in the hours” and start focusing on creating an environment for balanced, healthy, excited minds to thrive. People who are at their best, bring their best.

So this blog is here to share a bit more about what I’ve learned, what helps me stay on my relentless pursuit and why such an endeavor makes life so much sweeter.

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Kitchen Karma

balanceandrise@gmail.com (Katherine Warren) — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Steps to planting Katherine firmly in her happy place:

Wake up before dawn
Get dressed in a tank top, messy bun, glasses and pj pants
Turn on coffee and a great playlist
Spend all morning baking up a storm
Note: Equally effective can be changing #1 to after work, #3 to wine (keep the playlist, add my hubs and my pup nearby), #4 to prepare a no recipe dinner fueled by inspiration and farm share veggies.

My kitchen is my haven, my safe space, the place that can relax me far more than any other form of “rest.” You may notice if you’d been to my place that I spend a whole lot of time in there, and now you know why.

By nature I am an introvert, and while I adore hosting events, being social drains my energy. Stepping into the kitchen for a minute and busying myself with something brings me back to center. It gives me a quick recharge to be fully present.

Baking for me is meditation. It brings me focus, lightness, even clarity sometimes. I show affection through my food and baking.

I’m not the best at showing or sharing emotion to some, so if I bring you a baked good, just trust me, I care about you.

Weeks after my mom passed away I dropped on the floor in my kitchen and let out a much-needed, much-overdo, loooong cry.

When we built our house I poured all of my energy and thought into creating the space, every inch of it has a purpose for the way I dance from cabinet, to oven, to countertop.

I had a life coach once tell me I should sit on the floor and journal in there. I haven’t yet, but I picture it often and that alone brings me peace.

Brain Nonsense

And yet even with this massive heartbeat of a place that brings me such energy, focus and joy, there are days that my brain tells me “you are too tired to go in there.” “You’re gonna hate it in there.” “Don’t you want to sit on the couch, pretend to watch TV and stress out instead??” (I believe they call that stresslaxing.)

If I can fight through that brain nonsense and get my butt in the kitchen, 95% of the time I will feel better within 15 minutes. That other not-so-great 5% typically happens when I’m trying to push past real, physical exhaustion.

Your brain can be a wonderful, beautiful, magical space that helps you find and create your happy place. But it can also be a huge jerk, trying to avoid your happy from every angle.

Sometimes you need meditation, therapy or other tools to help you through. And sometimes, when it’s not as bad, you may just need to tell your brain to zip it, and fight back a bit.

A great trick to fight past that thought is to give your task a time limit, “I’m just going to run in the kitchen for 10 minutes and make something quick.” A lot of times, that will help get you in a space where you feel at least capable of doing that thing. Then, that little glimmer of joy will kick in, that subtle reminder of why you love this place. And before you know it, you’re knee deep in flour and frosting spending way more time than you intended and rediscovering that ever elusive feeling of being grounded and centered.

Try this trick the next time your brain says you simply can’t take that walk, sit down and be quiet, clean the basement, go see a friend. Shorten the timeframe. Tell your brain you’re just going to take a 5 minute walk, set a timer to clean for 10 minutes, or set one for 2 minutes to sit in silence. Sometimes that can be enough to get you going, get your brain out of your way, and find your own version of kitchen karma.

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AND as it relates to culture

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 19:27:59 GMT

AND is a powerful word.

I’m learning more every day about including this word in both my vernacular and my mind. All-or-nothing thinking is tempting (and very much a part of our society) but at its tamest, it isn’t realistic, at its most detrimental it can be downright paralyzing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about AND as it relates to company culture lately. As you might know by now from a variety of my other blogs on the topic , I’m a strong believer that taking care of people is paramount to a great culture. Happier, healthier humans produce better work, period.

However, I’ve recently been leaning into the AND in culture and learning that caring for your people simply isn’t enough. There has to be another reason they love coming to work every day. According to the Harvard Business Review , this second reason can vary greatly between companies, but most healthy cultures have an AND.

Care for people + innovation

Care for people + learning

Care for people + safety

Etc.

People need more than flexibility and care to get excited to hop out of bed and get to work. It’s the power of the AND and one we need to work on finding, maintaining and reassessing often.

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Top 5 Lessons I’ve Learned In My Career

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 19:27:59 GMT

This list started as a speech I was sharing with a local marketing association.

One of my biggest bucket fillers is helping guide those early in their career, and these top 5 lessons are ones I share often (and wish I would’ve known way back when).

1. Know Your Worth .

Personally and professionally; for women; for those just starting out; for marketing products, services and for helping clients. Understand and acknowledge your value, and then never, ever ask for anything less.

2. Ask for what you want, or take what you get.

Trying to create a movement with your marketing? Ask for it. Trying to have a crucial conversation for your career? Use your words. Never leave anyone to assume. Communication is the light that guides the marketing industry and really, any career.

3. Words matter.

As marketers it is our job (our honor really) to create connections, build relationships and incite action through words. No matter your role, your words make a serious impact. And PS please refrain from using the word “just,” “can you just move this logo, just change this color, just proof this quick?” it does not belong in the marketing lexicon. Thanks for that.

4. Joyfully Connect.

Make the very most of every opportunity to connect with those that lift you up, inspire you, and that you can learn from. I can not express enough the importance of my network in up-leveling both my career and the richness of my personal life, as many of those connections became cherished friends. And finally, most importantly,

5. DO GOOD.

Steve Forbes said, “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” How cool is that, how inspiring that our work makes the single largest impact on business everyday. With this kind of power in our craft, find ways to use it for GOOD.

Whether it’s through the work you do at your 9 to 5 or gifting your knowledge to a nonprofit board, student group or through mentoring, let’s use our gifts to create greater communities.

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Culture: It’s Not What I Thought, It’s Probably Not What You Think Either

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 19:27:59 GMT

I’ll likely never forget this meeting for the rest of my career as a “culture keeper.”

My intentions were good, trying to come up with new and creative ways for our offices to spend more time together with coworkers and with our awesome clients, bonding, just having “fun.” I presented my idea to the leadership team, a Summer Culture Scavenger Hunt – run around, do fun things with coworkers and clients, take pictures, win prizes.

Boom.

The response from the leadership team? Crickets. I finally broke the ice, “clearly this is not as good of an idea as I thought it was.” That opened the door. The group agreed, “we don’t need more ‘things’ to do together, we need more time to do what we LOVE.” Lesson learned. We moved on and I continued to ponder this thing called culture.

“Ok, so that’s the leadership team’s opinion,” I thought. “But what about those not on the leadership team? Don’t they want more fun things to do together? Isn’t that what 9 out of 10 culture blogs tout daily?”

Those that know me know, I think through things left, right and sideways. Oftentimes the only way I come to a conclusion is to ask brilliant brains around me. And so I did, in the form of a culture survey to our entire team. I compiled a list of 19 “culture considerations” and asked the group to rank them from “not at all important” to “extremely important.”

Out of NINETEEN options that ranged from a 401(k) to working remotely to having coworkers honor your preferred method of communication, guess what came out on top? The number one most extremely important culture consideration for our team is…” Getting to work on projects that are meaningful/exciting to me.” And what came dead last, number 19? “Fun office activities at my location.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

So here are my top three learnings from that survey, for now. We’re still working with this data, and it’s still fresh, so I’m certain I’ll have more learnings to come. (Fair warning: be prepared for more blogs.)

Know thyself.

There are likely as many office setups in this world as there are stars in the sky. To think culture blogs and experts are the key to getting it right in your office, in your environment simply doesn’t cut it anymore. You must gain a feel for your people and what they truly want. The best way to do that, in my humble opinion, is to ask them—and keep asking them. In fact, ask them again and again, in a variety of ways, with a variety of questions. I did a culture survey last year, and the results did not lead me here. I must not have asked the right questions. And I had a different team at that time with a variety of hires and transitions. So I had to keep asking, and I’ll ask again.

The WORK is fun.

I have my coworker to thank for this great quote: “The beautiful thing about the advertising industry is that our work is fun.” We may not need as many perks beyond giving people the time and space they need to do great work for people they want to work for. We are very fortunate in that respect; every single person on our team can completely geek out about marketing, advertising, creative, etc. That I can assure you. For them, doing the work in a meaningful, collaborative, respected and respectful way, there is simply no better feeling than that—not even the feeling after a great KidGlov yoga class.

Balance is everything.

The next three culture considerations that ranked “extremely important” in the survey might seem a bit contradictory at first:

Having enough work for each day
Having time to mingle and chat with my coworkers
Ability to work remotely

So, people want to be busy, but have time to chat, but have flexibility to work alone? Aren’t those three things diametrically opposed? At first glance, yes, but thinking a bit deeper, absolutely not.

Life, work, everything, is about balance baby. And there is nothing more balanced than a healthy, full plate, a little time for community and a little time for focus and reflection. That is the lesson I’m learning from these considerations and that I hope to find more and more ways to give to my team—the gift of balance, the space to do what they love with projects and people they love. All with the comfort and support in knowing that we hear them. And when the time comes, we’ll ask and we’ll listen, again and again.

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You Can’t Fix What’s Broken with Something Broken

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

I remember it like it was yesterday, in my mid 20’s, post college, working in one of my first “grown up jobs,” my sister and I talking about my life in a sleepless shamble.

We’re talking days going by with zero hours of sleep, crushing my mental and physical health. My sister said, “you are depressed and you need to start dealing with it. You won’t take medication (it hadn’t gone well for me in the past) so you need to find another way to manage it.”

I don’t know why, but that hit me, hard.

It certainly wasn’t my first experience acknowledging my depression, my parents and I attempted a slew of treatments for me in high school, but those caused more harm than good and we eventually just kind of gave up.

I must’ve needed to hear it a different way, because this one stuck.

One to always try to solve my own issues, I hopped on Amazon (a fairly new website still at the time) and bought a workbook called something like Dealing With Depression Without Medication. It was pretty elementary, very straightforward, and exactly what I needed at the time.

The book gave me my first real understanding that these broken thoughts I was having day in and day out, robbing me of sleep and of health, were not healthy and not real. I can’t tell you how many times that book floored me with typical depressive thoughts and I would react, “what, not everyone thinks that way??”

That was the start of the game changer – recognizing my thoughts were not healthy and could be healed.

Fast forward to my introduction to mindfulness meditation (more on that in this blog ) where it was further engrained in me that thoughts are just that, thoughts. Some are helpful, some are highly detrimental and NONE of them are something that you have to react to or feel bad about.

But here’s the tricky thing about thoughts, you can’t fix what’s broken with something that’s broken.

Those broken, harmful thoughts can not be fixed by something that is also experiencing a brake when you are hurting – your brain. It’s like trying to fix a broken leg using a broken arm. When your brain is struggling, you simply can’t logic yourself out of those thoughts. You can’t recognize them as harmful. It’s a loosing battle that is far more likely to cause you to spiral further into illness than accomplish anything else.

THAT’s when, for me, the breath became the key to help heal.

Focusing on my breath through mindfulness meditation allowed me to slow down those harmful thoughts, recognize them as “just thinking,” and try my damndest to move on.

Did it always work? No. Do I still have to fight like hell somedays? Yes. Did it work enough to get me on this path to balance and wellness? Absolutely.

A healthier brain (healed through something that was not my brain) helped me sleep a little better; which in turn gave me energy to exercise a little more; which made me want to eat a little better; do a little more good for myself and my community; build better, healthier relationships; and on, and on, and on…

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Your People

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

I want to take time to address not you or I, but the people that surround you.

If you suffer from poor mental health, your people go through a lot. It takes a lot to understand mental illness if you don’t experience it, it takes a lot not to take things personally when someone is in the thick of depression, it takes a lot of love and listening and support.

If you’re the one suffering, when you feel a little better, take time to thank those people who are there for you no matter what. Show appreciation to those that make you feel safe (no small feat for those who have trauma around trust), allow you to use your words, and just keep coming back to you time and time again offering unconditional support.

For you amazingly gracious supporters I offer a few pieces of advice:

Try not to take it personally. If someone suffering is uncommunicative, avoiding you or canceling your plans, please try to remember these actions have nothing to do with their love for you. When depression is at its darkest, simply getting off the couch can feel like an absolutely terrible task, getting out the door can feel impossible.
Just listen. I think the most dangerous depression occurs when someone is alone with their thoughts and doesn’t feel they have an outlet to share them. If you can be the person they feel safe to talk to, tell you all those rough thoughts just as they are in their brain, without fear of judgement, that’s when transformation can happen and feeling better can be just around the corner.
Acknowledge but avoid solving. When someone who is suffering shares thoughts, it is helpful for them to hear from you, “that sounds like depression,” or “I don’t think that’s true, you may not be feeling well.” That can be far more healing for a person than any attempt to solve the issue they are describing.

I’d compare it to trying to fix a physical illness for a person when you’re not a doctor. An attempt at resolution might only make those thoughts worse, or make the person feel worse for not being able to accomplish the “fix.” Acknowledging the thought as unhealthy however, can be extremely helpful. Just like physical illness, you can see it and call it out, then you tell your person to find a professional to help fix it.

On my life bucket list is to find a way to create more support groups for these incredible souls who are selflessly helping us thrive. For now, I’ll just say thank you. If you have a loved one who is suffering and you are following these oftentimes very challenging steps, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say you may have saved a life a time or two.

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Sleep

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Throughout my life, my battle with depression showed up in different ways.

During high school, college and a bit into my early career, I numbed the pain through too much drinking and partying. I sought negative attention, unhealthy relationships, and had days where cleaning the kitchen, leaving the house, pretty much “doing life,” felt next to impossible.

Simultaneously I somehow managed to get good grades in school, keep up on work and get that next job or promotion. I even worked in Europe on my own for a year.

If you only knew me on paper, I was doing pretty great.

Sure, there were many people in my life that knew I, in fact, wasn’t doing great (especially those that knew me in my party days). But for the most part, I’d say I was a silent sufferer. And much of that suffering occurred in the wee hours of the night.

I was a raging insomniac. Those depressive thoughts became relentless when I lay down to sleep. Soon I would find myself giving in, watching TV or writing all night, making breakfast as soon as the sun rose and heading to work. Sometimes this would happen a day or two a week, and sometimes it would stretch on for several days of zero sleep.

A lot of times I would convince myself that if I stayed up just one more night, surely I’d be able to sleep the next. Not so much.

Those insomnia stretches were the absolute worst. Lack of sleep made my thoughts worse, my diet atrocious, my activity little to none, and only encouraged more late-night antics. What’s the point in going home if you know you’ll just sit and stew in your thoughts?

Mindfulness meditation was key in getting through this stage of my depression. Slowing down those thoughts, understanding they had little to no value, allowed me to find sleep faster and for longer.

Once I could sleep, it is not an understatement to say it felt like my whole world opened up.

Sleep allowed me to be more active, to simply enjoy my daily life more. Sleep lead to my ability to start exercising, which in turn made me want to eat a little better, and started to spark my desire for a more balanced life. That life included healthier relationships, a slightly more balanced approach to my nightlife, and baby steps, year over year, to how I live now.

Sleep is KEY to balance.

I could sit here and spout study after study on the importance of sleep to every bit of your well-being. But there are hundreds of books out there that do that far better than I ever could. And if you’re a person who might have convinced yourself you can do with less sleep, there are studies that will tell you that’s only true for 3-5% of the entire world’s population .

So I’ll leave it at this, if sleep is elusive in your life, I would encourage you to keep fighting for it.

Keep seeking until you find your key weapon to combat sleeplessness. You may find yourself as shocked as I was at how significant of a change it can make on this crazy journey.

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It's Not Over

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Here’s a not-so-secret secret, there is never an end to your battle for balance.

There is no cure for mental health. Every day, every hour, every season is different, and will be for the rest of my days.

Am I in a better place than I used to be with my mental health? Absolutely. Are there phases of my life I never, ever plan to go back to? You bet. (Cue my insomnia stage.)

But I want to be absolutely clear about something, I work every single day of my life on maintaining my mental health. Every. single. day.

There are days when things flow easier, when all feels right with the world and you catch yourself breathing into those blissful brief moments of immense gratitude. And then there are days where the brain kicks up, where the cloud comes over your mind, and you fight like hell with everything in your toolkit to get back to good (or good enough).

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Here are a few of my go-to’s on what I refer to as “bad brain days”:

Recognize your feelings as feelings. This is mindfulness 101 – feelings are just that, they are nothing that you need to react to or feel bad about having, and they certainly don’t predict future outcomes. See if you can name your feeling and/or focus on the physical sensation behind it (do you feel it in your belly or your heart, is it a feeling of heat, cloudiness, etc.) to ease it a bit.
Go back to basics. I’ll admit my yoga and traditional meditation practices, even my baking, waiver when I’m feeling good, but I come running back to them when things go awry. Remember, this doesn’t have to be a deep or intense practice to do a lot of good, sometimes even a 2-minute sit and focus on breath will help (or a quick batch of cookies).
Ask for help. This is a TOUGH one for me, but in this last year I am really learning to lean into the benefits of asking a friend, family member, or therapist for help when I’m in the thick of things and can’t quite shake them. If I can get past the trauma I have around asking for help, the benefits of a quick venting text to a friend, a lay down on my husband’s chest, or an extra therapy session can make an absolute world of difference.
And when all else fails…sometimes as a last resort, I just have to sit with the suffering , breathe into it, clear my head for a few seconds when I can, and remind myself over and over again, “this will pass, this will pass, this will pass.”

Gifts of Mindfulness

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Mindfulness meditation was my first big step toward balance. It was the first tool that helped me understand my thoughts were not law over my life.

More people understand that now since mental health has finally become a bigger part of our lexicon (hooray!). But back in the day, I genuinely had never read, heard, or even thought that could be the case.

I started with a more traditional practice joining a sweet little group at the local Unitarian Church, and have since come to realize that seeking mindfulness in everything you do has a profound and lasting impact. Meditation is a tool that helps you practice mindfulness so that you can experience it more throughout your life.

One of the masters of mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn, defines it as, “The awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.”

I’ll share lots more about mindfulness as we go along on our blog journey together – what it is and ways to incorporate it into your everyday life, but first I want to share the gifts I found from it.

Caveat: Know Thyself comes into play here, mindfulness meditation may not give you the same gifts, or any gifts, or you may need a different kind of practice to find YOUR balance.

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My Gifts from Mindfulness:

Detachment. This was the key to my mental health journey, detaching from thoughts that didn’t serve me and understanding that was possible. This helped me sleep, and if you’ve been following along, Sleep was step one in finding more mental and physical wellness.

Presence. Truly being in the space that I occupy with friends, family, coworkers etc. allows me to form deeper relationships. Not being distracted by too many thoughts that pull me away from the connection brings so much more richness to my life.

Awareness. I feel in tune with my body and am able to better understand what it needs because I am present. “Listen to the whispers,” is a phrase I use often when I’m teaching yoga or meditation. Your body whispers about what it needs before it screams (injury, illness, etc.), mindfulness helps tap into that. (The trick then is to act on those whispers, there are some places I’m good at that, some where I’m still a work in progress.)

Joy. When you find something in your daily life where mindfulness comes easier, the joy that comes from it is immense. For me, that is baking, cooking, yoga, and exercise (that last one is where I struggle to listen to the whispers). When I can spend time doing these things in pure, blissful focus, the rest of my day is better for it.

The Messy Post

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

I was having coffee with a dear friend on a cold, rainy morning.

I have recently convinced her generous soul to be my accountability partner on this blogging journey because I read a book that said I needed one. We chatted a bit about life, work, home projects, you know, as friends do. I told her I was taking a little time away from the world (2 days to be exact) because I was struggling to maintain my balance and couldn’t quite find my way out.

After I shared my mini break with her, I quickly put back on my cheery voice and said, “so anyway, how are you doing with your goal for the month?” (I’m serving as her accountability partner for a wellness goal.) She stopped, looked me dead in the eye and said, “I see what you’re doing, and we’re not going to do that, back to YOU, how are YOU doing?” And that’s when I welled up, teary-eyed in the middle of Starbucks.

The queen of redirection from herself had just lost her crown. Thank God for real friends who see through you.

I told her I was actually in the middle of a really hard time, I told her I was desperately reaching for every tool in my tool kit and still coming up short. I was drowning in death anniversaries of both parents, on the brink of burnout from a lot of tough personal and professional obligations, and something (yet to be determined) is seriously triggering one of my main trauma responses – the fear of losing everything I’ve fought so hard for. I have to power through most days right now and end each evening and weekend completely spent, making any “fun” I have planned feel more like yet another obligation.

“I’m napping every weekend!” I told her. “Both days most weekends!” “Wow,” she said, “that is totally not you.” Again, bless her.

In an effort to keep me from completely losing my shit in Starbucks we continued on with our work. We reviewed my accountability assignment and I shared with her that I was struggling with what to write this week when I’m in this head space. Who am I to share advice on balance when I’m feeling as far as humanly possible from it??

“You need a messy post,” she said. “Write about this.”

So here it is, a reminder to you and to me that some seasons of your life are a downright struggle. And that it’s perfectly ok to be a melty mess AND still share what you know about the world, AND still have people learn from you, be led by you, etc. You can still show up and have a seat at the table when things are hard.

In fact, I think choosing to still show up, even when it’s messy, might be a huge opportunity for me to continue to heal and grow.

So what else am I doing to try to navigate my way through the mess? More yoga, a few more 2-minute meditations, but I’m also trying to prioritize time for the things I used to like to do when I had more energy and more time. And reminding myself that even though I’m tired, these things will help, because I’m not physically exhausted, I’m mentally exhausted.

It took me a while to remember the things that used to bring me joy.

Here’s my list so far: driving long distances with music blaring, taking a slow tour around Whole Foods looking at all the new holiday food, taking longer walks in different locations and taking some mornings back for ME (not work or chores).

So that’s it, the messy post. I will report back on how all of this is going. In the meantime, I wish you a little sliver of peace from your mess, more time to do the things you love, and the wisdom to know it’s worth it.

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Seasonal Snap Backs (and pie)

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

I started this week feeling better after my mini break and, still feeling big moments of messiness as described in my last post .

But then the wind picked up, the cold weather set in, the fall colors started falling all around me.

And then this morning, it sprinkled snow…

It’s in these moments of seasonal shifts that I find it easier to snap back to mindfulness. To get out of my thoughts and into the brisk bites of wind on my face, crunching leaves under my feet, watching the colors float around me and bits of snowflake on my nose.

I’ve thought a lot lately about what it is I want out of life. When I dig through all my offenses, defenses, triggers and traumas, at the end of the day, what is it I really want?

What keeps coming up for me is pretty simple: I want to enjoy my life, and I want to share that joy with others.

So to keep cultivating that during the mess, I’m actively seeking more moments to be joyful, even if it’s just for a couple minutes.

Today I soaked in the joy while my husband Kirk and I went to a little morning pie tasting, then drove home on our country roads that are always healing for me. We watched the golden wheat wave in the wind and bits of snow fill the skyline, while he graciously accepted my need to turn on the Christmas music.

At the same time, I’m nursing a hip injury. This happens to me more often than I would like when I’m in a low. I rely so heavily on exercise to help my brain that when things are tough, I push too hard, too often and hurt myself. (I know, I know, this is one place I struggle to practice what I preach and listen to those darn whispers.)

But even with a limp and a bite of the hip, those flakes of snow snapped me right back to the joy in the present moment. Sitting on the window sill at the sweet little bakery, nibbling on pie with my person, pushed me past my nagging thoughts and aching back. Joy surrounded me for a full hour. And right now, I’ll take that.

I’d encourage anyone reading this post, struggling or not, to take full advantage of the gifts nature gives us with seasons. Say what you will about the “weather,” every seasonal shift is an opportunity to pay more attention, to be in awe of what’s happening around us and to be snapped back to the present, maybe even a few moments of joy, regardless of the storm that surrounds us.

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A Week of Thanks

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Holiday weeks are a mix of so many deep feelings, activities, memories, and prime opportunities to completely debunk your routine.

It’s a roller coaster of more opportunities to practice gratitude; coupled with time with family and friends you want so badly to be that magical, picturesque scene you see on TV; mixed with missing those who aren’t around; served with a side of being mad at this holiday for what it represents in the world.

It’s a lot, both positively and negatively, and all that grey area in between.

I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving this year, to spending time with family and if I’m being honest, eating with reckless abandon. I’m looking forward to a little more time off, more baking, and maybe a few more minutes of “me” activities between the events.

And at the same time, I am deeply missing my mom right now. I feel it so much it stings. And of course, holidays exacerbate this.

I’m also in a place where my routine is already disturbed and I’m worrying about it falling off a cliff. Routine is a huge tool in maintaining my mental health, so this is a big deal for me.

So what balance tool do we reach for this time of year in the ups, downs and sideways of the season? Everyday mindfulness.

Everyday mindfulness is the times outside of (or instead of) a formal seated practice where you tune into the moment to help clear up or clear out those thoughts that aren’t serving you.

It’s time to take in the richness of a moment and be fully enveloped in it. It’s a way to breathe with the suffering or the joy or whatever is showing up in you this holiday season.

Here are a few ways to practice it:

If you’re spending time in the kitchen, slow down and focus on every act of your preparation. The slow peel of an orange, the sweetness and soft texture as you sample it. The smell of the kitchen, the feel of the warm oven, the sounds of tinkering and life that surround you.
Practice deep listening. When you’re with your people, whether you like what is being said or not, can you tune into every word, every facial reaction, every bit of energy shared between you? I find it helpful to physically turn my ear toward the person talking and then get deeply curious about every word.
Find moments to stop and check in. Take a deep, mindful breath when you step outside. Smell the air and listen to the sounds of nature. Stop for one minute before you get out of the car and just breathe. Turn off the radio on your drive to your celebration, take in the sounds of the car and the road and world around you.
And when you are in the presence of something that makes you thankful, see if you can soak it in a bit deeper. Pause, breathe, and see if you can cultivate so much gratitude that you feel it physically – a deep warmth in your chest, that pull in your heart, a lightness in your shoulders or your belly.

I hope this helps you find a little more peace and presence in your week. I am thankful for each and every one of YOU that take your very precious, valuable time to share in my words. I am beyond thankful to take this journey towards balance with you.

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A Beautiful Brain

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

I’m sitting here watching the New Years resolution weight loss ads roll in and I’m thinking, “I wish I could show off a picture of my healthy brain instead of my healthy body.”

In my opinion, if you don’t work on your brain, the rest of your health efforts have about a 10% chance of making it and then sticking around for the long haul.

Consistently unhealthy choices are typically made when the brain needs to soothe, numb, or shut up something.

And let me be clear, I’m not talking about a choice now and again that doesn’t feel great, balance is just as much about making those choices as it is about making ones that feel good.

I’m talking about those choices that consistently gnaw at your body and soul—not sleeping, eating foods that don’t feel good, overindulging in alcohol, drugs, or unhealthy relationships.

It is so easy for the brain when it’s not feeling good to watch all those videos, ads, posts, etc., and grip to one piece of advice, one glimmer of hope that speaks to them. It’s typically an “all or nothing” approach because that’s what the brain is used to, “cut carbs; ban sugar; do only this workout; never, EVER, do that thing again.”

And you know what, some people have gotten pretty darn far that way. But I would argue true, balanced, lasting health (not skinny, not “ripped,” not whatever the internet says in healthy) is next to impossible if you don’t work on the reason you’re doing the things you’re doing in the first place. Or at least work on the why behind your habits in tandem with whatever else you are trying.

There are a million different successful approaches to health, and I believe all of them work for SOME, and NONE of them work for all. You have to find what works best for you by tuning in and being honest about how you feel while you’re doing it.

But it is next to impossible to truly dial in and understand what’s healthy for YOU unless your brain is fully on board with that plan. That’s where it all goes awry and you either find yourself falling “off the wagon” or becoming obsessive about your new plan and overdoing it to the point of injury or illness. And both of these things happen because the brain is still begging for your attention, and it hasn’t been given what it needs to heal.

Focus on your brain health first, and the rest will come.

Then focus on your brain health again, again, and then again. Because nothing stays forever in balance, but it does become easier to recognize when your brain needs more love and attention. And you can give it what it needs sooner so that you don’t find yourself in as many unhealthy situations as you once did.

And that’s where real growth happens.

It’s not easy, it’s not quick, it’s certainly not sexy, and it’s a lifelong endeavor.

But it’s true balance. Now, how can we show off more photos and videos of that?

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Winter Break

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

I love the messages I’m seeing so much more than I used to this time of year: encouragement to slow down, start the year soft instead of strong, and thoroughly enjoy the downtime.

I even saw one message suggesting people turn into a couch this holiday week. I love that, I’m working on that, and I did better this year than I ever have before.

In fact, this is the first year I’ve ever fully taken off of work the week between Christmas and New Year. I thought I’d go crazy by Thursday to be honest. I thought I’d need to pop into the office for a bit or get out and do more “productive” things. But I didn’t, and I fully credit the work I’ve been doing on understanding what it truly means for me, Katherine, to relax.

Because here’s that “no one size fits all” thing again, what relaxes me is likely very different than what relaxes you.

Do I have immaculately organized drawers throughout my house now? Yes. Did I finally get around to putting the lawn furniture away for the winter? You bet. So I did some things, but you know what else I did? I relaxed for hours at a time, fully, deeply and unapologetically. I watched more movies than I have maybe, ever; I read and read some more; and even enjoyed some elongated TiK Tok time.

My workout and stretch sessions lingered longer. I took the pup on walks around town instead of just in our neighborhood. I started reorganizing the 1,600 recipes I’ve collected over the years (no, I haven’t cooked them all, I have a bit of a recipe-collecting habit :)). I just simply lived my life without defining what that life “should” or “could” be.

Am I ready to go back to work? More than ready. I think I’m starting to hit my limit. But I genuinely hope to carry some of this new understanding into the new year :

Life doesn’t have to be constant progress. We can take big, long, lovely breaks and still feel good about ourselves.

“The world is hibernating over winter, you should give yourself permission to also.” That’s a phrase I use a lot teaching yoga as the winter weeks get long. I’m going to attempt to live this as best I can, while welcoming back fuller calendars, more obligations, and stronger agendas. I’m going to try love and respect both sides of my life AND make room for both. Often.

Here’s wishing you whatever it is you truly need this year. And the time, peace and privilege to take some slow, still moments to listen to what that really is.

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Self Compassion

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Usually what I’m working on shows up in my yoga teaching and this month was no different.

I’ve been reading a lot about the power of being kind and understanding toward yourself and how much of an instant shift that can make not only for yourself but for those in your life.

In my yoga class this month, that showed up in a big way. The whole theme of the class was centered around this idea. I asked the class to conjure up an image of something they love, that brings that kind of warmth and buzz of gratitude I hope we are all familiar with in some aspect of our life.

Then I asked them to shift that same feeling to themselves, that warmth, love and kindness. I asked them to direct that inward.

We moved and breathed, and then I asked them to do a tree pose. I do a lot of balance work in classes because you HAVE to be present and in the moment to be upright. However, this pose can cause a lot of the opposite of loving thoughts to come up as you bend and wave and fall out of the pose. That damn, “I’m not doing this right,” or “I SHOULD be doing this better,” can creep in.

So I just had them do the pose once, and then I had them repeat it and I encouraged them to find that self-kindness, compassion, and love again. I asked them to go easy on themselves no matter how much their tree wobbled in the wind.

And you know what, the visual, physical shift in that class was immense. Anyone watching that class would have seen it and it was beyond cool to watch. Postures softened, shoulders dropped, and every. single. tree pose. out of 16 in the room got taller, prouder, and lighter. Wow.

I left that class reeling from what I had seen, with a renewed commitment to this work in my own life. If you deal with depressive thoughts this is a tough one, because a lot of times it’s easier to just tell those negative thoughts to shut up, to discount them and get mad at them rather than be kind and compassionate towards them.

But I’m telling you if you saw what I saw you’d understand (or be reminded of) instantly what kindness and compassion can do for you. If you are struggling with your feelings or thoughts, can you acknowledge them instead of fighting them? Can you say to yourself, “I totally get why you’d feel that way and I’m here for you?” Can you sit with those thoughts like you would with someone else who is grieving or suffering?

Kindness and compassion over everything. That’s my new work.

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What's Love Got to Do With It?

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

What’s love got to do with it? Everything.

In my opinion, balance needs love, connection and vulnerability to thrive.

In the depths prior to healing, I was the girl who never committed to anything, and was proud of it. People, places, apartments, jobs, and of course, relationships, I kept absolutely everyone and everything at arm’s length. I didn’t even want to commit to a cell phone contract.

By the time I came around, my parents were out of love but “stayed together for the kids.” I never once in my life saw them kiss, say I love you, or sleep in the same bed. There were situations surrounding my youth that resulted in never knowing if friends and some family were going to stick around, so it was easier to just not get attached.

And I stayed pretty much “not attached” for 20 some years. I shut down those feelings of loneliness through my depression and all of its manifestations.

When I started healing, love became an inevitable part of the process. I started to (and continue to) build mini “friend families” everywhere I went—in college, when I worked in France for a year, and in every job and volunteer gig after that. I found my people, my role models, gurus, and I ended up with lots of “moms” along the way.

Their love and unconditional support opened my eyes to the beauty and necessity of connection.

I believe that growth requires connection.

It requires you to push that fear of being let down out of the way, and cracks your heart open to vulnerability. And of course the more healed you become, the better your selection of people tends to fit your life. And before you know it, you’re counting the years of those connections in decades. And you’re falling more in love and forgiveness with those that have been there since day one.

After all that work, I felt ready, finally, for a partner in crime. I tried traditional dating and soon came to find at my age that set up’s weren’t necessarily as thoughtful as my strategy-focused brain would’ve liked. They were oftentimes the one single girl someone knew, paired up with the one single guy they knew. No thanks, time to do what I do best and take the reins.

I signed on to a dating app back when there were only two, I chose the one where you had to pay and be matched before you’d see a profile assuming that would mean people were more serious.

I coupled this with LOTS of yoga nidra . Nidra almost every night in fact, and ending every session asking to find my true love. I’ll never forget one of those last sessions before it happened, in front of my little tree, in my little house, everything felt so right after that I had to snap this very picture. The painting above the tree says “love.”

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And about a year later, I found my lobster. Just when I was about to take a break from the exhaustion of dating.

I can’t say for sure that this love is solely responsible for the next phase of up-leveling my life (and my balance). But what I will say is the life I have now is not one I knew was possible for me. And it didn’t happen until I met my Kirk and had someone to fully lean on, and use ALL my words with, as I navigate the highs, lows, and sideways of this life.

Whether it’s romantic, platonic, or just a whole lot of LOVE for yourself, I wish the very same for you today and every day.

Vulnerability

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Someone asked me a great question the other day, “what’s the one gift you’ve gotten from mindfulness/yoga that surprised you?”

I was taken aback by how quickly the answer came to me.

My answer: that being vulnerable is key in just about everything in life.

Allow me to elaborate.

Yoga teacher training was a huge turning point in my pursuit of balance, and not because of the physical practice. In our very first class, the teachers explained that if we were on day one of more traditional, eastern yoga training, we’d be asked to try to roll a boulder up a hill. No matter our age or physical ability, we’d be asked to try, knowing full well most of us wouldn’t be able to get to the top.

Why? Because what they wanted from the boulder exercise is for the class to bond with one another by going through something hard, sweaty, near impossible, and possibly traumatic. They’d want us to share the very raw, real, struggle-ridden side of us right out of the gate to create an instant deeper connection with one another.

Our studio was a very zen space, but that space was surrounded by a Lincoln, Nebraska strip mall. No hills or boulders anywhere to be found. So instead, they recreated this experience by asking us to share with this group of strangers something we haven’t told our closest friends, family or possibly anyone. They asked us to get raw, real, (and probably sweaty) right there on day one of class.

Boy did this group understand the assignment.

I was floored by what people were sharing, stories of the deepest, darkest depths of human experience and the triumphs and trials that followed.

Before class, I was not one to share like this with anyone. If you didn’t know me while I was in the full depths of struggle, the odds of you knowing much of the stories of that time were slim to none. One of the largest traumas I went through early in life was something not a single one of my current-day, closest friends knew at the time. That’s the story I shared with this group—and it was beyond liberating.

It may sound like a no-brainer to those that know more about mental health than I did at the time, but for me, this was truly one of the first times I realized that it was ok to share this type of stuff about yourself and that people would love you anyway.

In fact, people would feel more deeply connected to you, and you to them. Respect would grow. Love could grow. WOW. This was cool stuff.

After I started being more vulnerable:
Deeper, cherished friendships came into my life.
Relationships with those that knew me all along grew deeper and richer.
Some connections healed, and some got out of my way.
Love showed up.
So did my success in being a business leader.
And my passion for building big, beautiful, authentic cultures and communities.

People found it easier to connect with me once I stopped feeling the need to live like cardboard.

While I’m not quite ready to share that yoga teacher training story with the public. I’ve shared it so far with a lot more people than I thought I ever would. And I hope one day to be brave enough to share it with all of you.

This blog is another big step on the path of sharing my sh*t in hopes that it helps motivate others to be the very best version of who they are. Who they’ve always been. Vulnerability helps that real YOU shine, with all its beautiful, real, raw, sweaty, stumbling, and steady wonderfulness.

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How My Mental Health Messes Up How Often I Blog

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

There’s a whisper in my brain that has kept me from posting since April 8.

That whisper reminds me that I don’t want to “bug” people too often. That people are going to get sick of me.

That people don’t really want me to succeed, and that I frankly don’t deserve to.

I’ve set a goal lately to gain more subscribers to my blog, that whisper told me not to post a “bad blog” so that if/when people visit the site one of the “good ones” is on the top.

That whisper tried to convince me I just shared an article I was fortunate enough to be a part of on social media, so people have heard enough of me lately.

“You missed the ideal time of day/day of week to post, you might as well forget about it now,” that whisper snares. “And by the way, there is ZERO SEO in your blog title. What kind of marketer are you?”

I’m working a lot on shame from my past in therapy right now, and bringing all of that to the surface allows that whisper to speak a little louder.

So here’s my post to stand up against that whisper, to just keep going.

This blog is full of things that I have to take a deep, brave breath about before I hit publish. And the part of me that wants so deeply to share with the world so that others can possibly benefit wants this blog to go even further down that path of vulnerability.

But it’s not easy, it probably never will be, and that’s ok.

Just like it’s ok if this isn’t your favorite blog I’ve ever posted, or you think you’ve heard from me a little more than you would like, or this blog doesn’t “perform” as well as the others.

I’m standing up to that whisper, to that paralyzation of perfection, and I hope it might inspire a few of you to stand up to your whispers too.

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Therapy

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

A lot of people ask me how/if therapy fits in this balanced life.

And if you’ve been following along, you’ll know my answer. It depends on how it feels for YOU .

Are you in a place where this type of treatment toward growth feels good? Sure, therapy is hard, its outcome is growth, and growth is hard. But there are challenges that feel good, necessary, and refreshing and ones that feel terrible, unsafe, and draining. Only YOU can know which is which in your bones. (Hint, it is much easier to decipher that if you’re tuned in—cue mindfulness in your everyday life .)

In high school, my depression got bad enough that my parents sent me to a counselor (and this is back in the day when it had to be pretty bad for anyone to act on it). Again I want to reiterate this was an extremely different time for mental health, the public was not nearly as educated and treatments were more intense.

My memory is fuzzy from this time in my life (a common trauma response) but what I do recall is hating it. I remember coming home one day and saying to my parents, “Well, if you want me to hate you I should keep going, because that’s all she is teaching me is that everything is your fault.” That ended that.

(Again caveat here, this lady could’ve been the best counselor in the world, but I was young, in the depths of depression and I can’t remember much else about it.)

The counselor referred me to a psychologist she thought might be a better fit and because he could prescribe medication. I have no idea what he prescribed me (and again medication has come so so far since this time) but all I know is that too was not for me. I remember feeling far more angry when taking it, more clouded and confused. Then one day I was so dizzy from it, I couldn’t get out of bed. And that ended that.

The final attempt was a 5-day stint at an outpatient mental health center, my mom drove me there each day instead of going to high school. The days were filled with crafts, cards, and counseling, not much school work or learning. It was absolutely what some kids there needed, it was too severe of a treatment for me. I told my parents, “I don’t know what I have, but I’m not at this point, I don’t have what they have and I shouldn’t be here.”

My parents were trying their best to find a solution but had zero understanding or education. And the treatments of today just simply weren’t available.

“Are you depressed today?” my dad would ask. As anyone with depression will tell you, that’s about the worst question you can ask.

So we all just kind of gave up on fixing this thing, and I went back to my best attempt at navigating life with this untreated disease.

From that point on, I considered this therapy portion of my life a part of my trauma. I didn’t have much interest or trust in trying again, I didn’t even think of it often honestly.

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Fast forward to post-college, early career, when I was finally ready to face this thing again. That’s when I found a book on depression that started the path towards understanding and healing (remember this blog? ), then cue mindfulness that skyrocketed that journey.

It was not until just last year, that therapy made its way back into my healing journey. How that came to be is another story I’ll save for another blog. But for now I’ll say this, my friend introduced me back to it and this time, wow oh wow would I one million times over recommend THIS.

The therapist my friend recommended specializes in trauma and achievers, a perfect fit for me. And what therapy helps me with now is:

Better understanding my feelings and reactions and where they come from
Acknowledging and validating my feelings (still a big struggle for me but absolutely key to self-compassion)
Processing my past, and inching toward accepting it
Learning to like myself and understand my worth no matter what is happening externally

I can truly see a continued shift in my growth from therapy. And the really cool thing is those that I know that are also in therapy, I can see their growth too. And I can’t express how awesome that is, for this little empath heart to enjoy the growth in others.

And while the benefits I’m finding from therapy now are truly life-changing and balance-enhancing, this is HARD work. On many post-therapy nights, I lose my super precious sleep while I’m in the thick of processing. And there are times when that challenge in my heart and in my mind carries on through the week.

But the benefits on the other side of it far outweigh these bumps in the road, and that’s saying a lot (especially losing sleep which can be a huge trigger for me, a fear that I might be slipping back to that dark place of insomnia).

And my words at the start of this blog hold true. Know thyself. If the growth feels powerful, necessary and worth it, then get yourself a therapist and get ready to sprout into the next level of you. If you’re not quite there yet , or your nervous system simply can’t stomach this path toward balance, then try something else. Keep trying things, again and again, and again until you find the one that fits.

Then go easy on yourself friend, this might be your time, this might not be. Forcing a solution will not stick and can often cause more damage than good. You’ll find it, I promise. And I’m here to walk with you until you do.

Take a Seat

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

I’m being reminded a lot lately that one of the most powerful practices of mindfulness is sitting with whatever is.

Trying not to react or judge, without the need to fix or do or be, sitting is strong medicine.

Sit with someone who is grieving a loss, soak in the sadness and the suffering. No words, just be there.
Sit with your emotions without reprimand, even if your logical self is screaming those feelings aren’t facts.
Sit with the trees, sit with the wind, soak in the heat of the summer without seeking a quick fix to cool off.
Sit with the version of you that you don’t talk about much or don’t like to see, hold her hand, and support her just by sitting.

I subbed a meditation class recently where “only” one person showed up. It’s a new class, it’s common for that to happen when there is a new offering.

I had to sprint to make it on time from my full-time job to teach that class. I was still on a conference call on my drive there. I didn’t have time to eat and in my rush forgot to bring a snack with me. (And for those that follow Ayurveda, I’m a Pitta , I do NOT forget to eat, ever.)

My hormones were also on fire that day, when I drove to the studio everything in my body was screaming, “You are the flipping COO of a company, you don’t have time to sub things, why did you agree to do this?!?”

My student showed up early, I hadn’t set up or had time to scrounge up something to eat. She told me she was new to meditation, has been trying hard to be “good at it,” and how much she hoped it could help her ease the anxiety of life.

My mind shifted as I smiled at the reason I was here, my absolute favorite type of student, a newbie. My anxiety about getting to the studio and the “should be’s and could be’s,” faded away as I started to share my greatest hits of incorporating mindfulness into day-to-day life .

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My student apologized at least three times before we started that she was the “only” one there. I assured her there was no place I’d rather be, and together we sat.

I taught my portion of the guided meditation, and then moved on to the prescribed format of this class, 20 minutes of silence and rest. My immediate thought in my anxious mind was to grab a book or my phone to pass the time, but something in me resisted. I instead held the space for my student, I just…sat.

I sat with that energy drain that was my day up until that point, I sat with my firey hormones, I sat with my growling stomach and my panicky desire to avoid nondoing. I sat there because my student deserved the energy of someone honoring her journey to learn what this meditation thing is all about. I sat because it was an internal battle worth fighting, I sat there and soaked in the medicine of a near-empty space.

When practice was complete I saw the shift in my student I delight in so much—the dropped shoulders, the sigh of a softer voice, the eyes of someone who has just experienced true presence. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever really meditated, I really learned something today,” my student said, “thank you for being here just for me.”

A phrase from a fabulous book I just finished, (George Mumford’s Unlocked) came ringing in my head, “the only true way to learn, is to teach.” I needed all the reminders the world sent me during that 45-minute class. I needed to remember that helping one soul experience a bit of the miracle of mindfulness is worth every second of everything it took to get there.

I needed the reminder that sitting and holding space is just as healing for me as it is for anyone I teach. That the energy we both took out of the studio that day will impact everyone and everything that surrounds us. That sitting is indeed, some of the most powerful medicine.

One Year In – My Top 5 Learnings from this Balanced Life Blogging

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

June 21st marked my 45th birthday which just happens to also be my 1 year blog anniversary.

I think what I am liking most about this blogging thing is it pushes me to continue to learn and grow. And now I have a lovely little corner of the internet to share what I learn with all of you.

We’ve been working a lot with Working Genius at my company. And I’m really starting to believe my purpose on this planet, my genius if you will, is learning a whole lot and then sharing, recommending, and helping people see things I wish I had a long time ago.

Looking back at this first year, here are my top five lessons, and the ancillary gifts and opportunities this blog has provided:

Sharing your shit creates connections and, even more importantly, deeper connections than I ever imagined. The queen of this “share your shit” motto was a big reason I started this, here’s her book .
If something stops you from doing what you feel called to do, it’s time to do some deeper work on what’s holding you back. But first, you have to make sure it’s really a calling and not an “I should want to do this.” Might I recommend this book , and this book , for that journey.
I’m still not sold on this idea that we have to be constantly scared or “out of our comfort zone” in order to progress on our path. It feels like the opposite of balance to me if practiced too often. I believe the true beauty lies when you are asked to do something that aligns with your gift, you’re scared to do it, you do it anyway, and you realize mid-“doing the thing” that it isn’t nearly as scary as you thought it would be. Ease comes when you are simply speaking your truth, and sharing what you’ve known all along. I felt every one of those feelings when I did this podcast , and it felt pretty magical.
Hope is necessary to keep going, but expectations are not. There are countless times since I’ve been doing this that things did not go as I had expected. Those are the times I have to repeat over and over in my head, “just. keep. going.”
Self-compassion and love trump everything else, always and forever. Acknowledging your feelings, finding empathy for yourself every single day, loving yourself and your past self and your future self, and all the twists and turns your self endures every day. THAT will progress you farther, further, and faster than anything else. THAT will make you the best version of YOU so that you can be the best boss, sibling, spouse, parent, person on this planet. Here’s a great book about that.

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So that’s it for now.

If you’ve hung on this long with me and learned something along the way, I would be more than grateful if you shared it with our little community in the comments.

Cheers to another year of sharing, connecting, hoping and loving ourselves up.

Big Lessons in Shoulding

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Just when you think you’ve got something figured out, someone sticks a mirror in your face and you realize you’ve still got a lot of work to do.

That happened to me this week in therapy.

If you’ve been following along, you know my number one thing to recommend right now is self-compassion. Validating your emotions, feelings, and needs will lead you toward the best version of YOU. And that YOU can show up for everyone else who needs you in a healthy, vibrant way.

While I thought I was doing better at this, especially since reading this book, I came to realize I still struggle greatly to value and empathize with my needs.

To put it another way, I still kind of suck at boundaries.

I push my social and professional interactions to burnout status more often than I would like to admit. I am beyond fortunate to have a lot of really wonderful, smart, fun people in my life. And if they ask me to do something, I want to do it regardless of how close to E my tank has become. I know almost everyone who is reading this can likely relate. But here’s the tricky part…

The reason I do this is because I don’t respect my needs.

I discount them as needing too much time for rest and self-care. I think I should be able to do all those things. I think people who are way busier than I am do all those things and survive them just fine. I think that because I don’t have the same obligations as some others, I should have plenty of time to do all the things and to still be a ball of energy and light every day.

Here’s the truth I’m still learning, it doesn’t matter what I think I should or shouldn’t be able to do.

It doesn’t magically change my energy levels to think, “I shouldn’t be too tired to do this,” no matter how desperately I want to be the gracious person that shows up for everyone. The should’s sound great and logical…and make absolutely no difference to reality.

Your needs are your needs whether you choose to accept them or not.

Your energy is your energy whether you choose to tax it or not.

The amount of time YOU need to recover from social interactions, late nights, long meetings, or nerve-inducing interactions is what you need. Whether you think you should or not.

“Check the facts,” my therapist likes to say. And if the fact is that I’m exhausted and starting to lose this balance I love so dearly, then I simply must step back. Not only step back but get super real about what’s causing the exhaustion in the first place.

That was the mirror that got turned on me this week.

I wasn’t recognizing 50% of my day as taxing my energy when it absolutely still is.

Example: When floating in my pool, what am I thinking about? What am I talking to my husband about? Am I with him in that pool relaxing? Or am I strategizing about work, planning our next social gathering, stressing about how much I have to bake for people this week. Am I recharging or am I adding to the load? No matter what it should feel like floating in that pool, the reality can be a whole lot different. I could still be climbing a mental mountain in that pool.

This is a season of energy, of lots of daylight, of going and being and doing before the hibernating time hits again. So be sure to take a look in that mirror friends. Be sure to stop, shake off the should’s, and take care of yourself so that you can care for others. Let’s both take a leap toward genuine validation this week, towards the deeper truths of self-compassion.

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I Almost Missed It

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

The ache of up-leveling has been strong in me this summer.

The push to do more, be more, have more has caused me many a grumpy nights, frustrated I can’t quite figure out the how.

I’d sit outside to try to enjoy my absolute favorite time of year or go outside on a sweaty, humid run (my favorite – and yes I know, unpopular opinion) and just stress, fighting back anger and overwhelm and frustration.

My tricky little brain started to blame everyone else for my suffering. And I coupled that with the exhaustion of doing ALL the things (remember my last blog ?). Not a great combination.

I’ve spent a good two months in this state, wrapped up in seeking answers. Making sure I didn’t miss an opportunity to find what I was looking for.

Then sheer exhaustion hit. I simply couldn’t keep the pace. THEN I listened to a podcast on allowing, and that was the final push I needed to get my butt back in the present and slow the suffering.

I waved the white flag, gave up on the anger, and had a day full of tears that were hiding behind all of it the whole time.

I slowed down my overachieving (a symptom of depression, not genuine drive) by giving myself a timeline for letting go. I said to myself (and now to others), “I’m going on summer break.”

I’m giving myself the month of August to allow, to slow down the drive that convinces me I am never enough. I’m slowing down the thoughts that question the second scoop of ice cream, the lingering at the pool when I should be writing a blog, the glass of wine while I cook (even though I had one last night), the need to figure out my next step towards “success.”

The timeline helps because it eases my brain in thinking this isn’t forever.

And this break isn’t a vacation, it’s just allowing my brain to enjoy what I have.

Will I still do my best at my job? Yes. Will I still strive to be fully present at social and family situations? Yes. Will I still give what I feel is necessary to my people, my team, my obligations? Yes. But this is different than what I was doing. I was pushing in every moment that wasn’t one of those things, and overdoing it when it was one of these things, even though no one but me was keeping score. No one but me was shoulding all over myself.

Every time a thought to start pushing creeps in, I remind myself I’m on summer break, and that helps. If the thought keeps barking at me I simply respond back with “allowing,” Allowing, allowing, allowing. That slows the brain spin.

This weekend I did a great job of being on summer break, and man was it soul-satisfying. Yesterday, I thought while on a walk, I am so grateful I got here…because I almost missed it.

I almost missed my very favorite time of year.

I almost missed soaking in that summer morning breeze I love so much. A slight coolness through the thickness in the air.

I almost missed the sigh in my body every time it encounters direct sun and warmth and yes, that beautiful humidity my skin drinks up. (I know, strange but true.)

I almost missed the song of a rainstorm, how my body quiets down on a cloudy day, and how it perks up at the joyful chatter and clinks of full glasses on a great pool day.

I almost missed it…but I woke up, and I spent this weekend beyond grateful that I did.

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Summer Break ✅

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

So if you remember from my last blog, I put myself on summer break .

I tried to back off my drive to achieve and just enjoy my very favorite season—the sigh of my body as it hits the warmth, the sun, the humidity; the song of the cicadas on my evening puppy walks; and the rustle of the trees with all their leaves intact. Oh, and sweaty runs and floating…a lot of floating.

The first week was absolute bliss, I burned through some books, enjoyed soaking up every ounce of sun, and felt that wonderful warmth of gratitude in my belly every time Mollie and I took a walk.

Then, I got a little anxious. Then, I got a lot anxious. Then, I got mad at myself for not being able to get the “feeling” back. Then, I went on an awesome vacation that served as a beautiful distraction. Then my cleared calendar when I got home started to feel lonely instead of life-giving. Ugh.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that right now, even after a beautiful holiday weekend full of family, friends, and magical yoga in the park, I’m still sitting here with a pit in my stomach. There is still something barking at me, and my belly keeps shifting from that prickly pain of anxiety to that warmth of gratitude and back again.

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So here are the lessons I have so far:

BALANCE is the name of the game, not all-or-nothing. Going from extreme doing to extreme non-doing is still pushing too hard to one side instead of seeking the middle. Balance is just as much about healthy full plates as about taking time to rest. I think I pushed too hard towards rest instead of tuning into the whispers and understanding when I really needed rest and when I could take on a little more.
I still need to fall in love with me again. When I’m at my healthiest place mentally, I really enjoy doing things alone, listening to the birds on a great run, going to yoga, or pittering around a grocery store or a park (I love food, and shopping for food, especially when holiday food hits shelves :)).

But I’m not quite enjoying my own company as much as I used to. I think this has a lot to do with stirring up the past me in therapy. I’m ashamed of her deep down, even though logically I understand everything she was doing was trying to stay safe and numb from debilitating depression caused by trauma. I’m still working on accepting her and understanding her worth regardless of any achievement, accomplishment, or social invitation. This free time on summer break made me face myself more head-on. I really started to question my value as a friend, wife, and professional—no fun.
Chaos can be comforting. Just when I think I’ve done so much learning about trauma, another “ah ha” comes up almost every time I read (or listen to) another book. Right now that book is What Happened to You and the ah-ha was that people who lived in chaos as children oftentimes feel more comfortable in that environment than in peace and calm. Sometimes that shows up as an attempt to create some sort of chaos in your life simply to feel more comfort, and/or to confirm a belief that still haunts you.

My comfort in chaos shows up in trying to create change, my heart aches for change when I’m in this not-so-healthy head place. And my belief is “no one really cares about me,” so of course an empty calendar triggers that “seeeee…I toooold you” in my brain. I could write a whole blog just on this, and I may.

I so wish I had a better update.

But I am also immensely grateful to continue to learn and to be in a place where I can acknowledge this work, honor it, and have the space, time, and resources to continue to work on it.

So if you’re where I’m at I see you.

It’s a common place to be this time of year believe it or not. The shift in seasons can be hard on achiever brains…and any brains for that matter.

Let’s keep working together.

It's Been a Minute

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

It’s been a minute, but I’m back.

And I’m thrilled to share with you what I’ve been working on.

If I were to describe the reason for my hiatus from blogging visually, it would be that spinny circle that comes up when something is trying to load. I’ve been doing a ton of work on myself, and a ton of processing.

It all started with that pesky ego, mine built a wall around this blog. It combined frustration of not getting enough “reach,” coupled with fear around what to share next. What pieces of my depression-filled past were ok, what parts would be “too far?” And am I really doing anyone any good if the numbers aren’t ticking up quickly?

Ego pushed my “should” meter to the max, it was almost like I was trying to force myself to confess things, my anxious mind was telling me that was the only way to make this blog great. That I had to share more to be more, to hit that magical number of subscribers. I lost sight of why I was doing this in the first damn place.

And I lost sight of my very real belief that if I move the needle towards balance for one person, that is a lifetime of enough. (I even wrote a blog about that.)

I got lost in our society’s pressure on performance and likes, and it made me angry. For a while, I was angry at every part of my life. Every bit of my existence started to feel like not enough, and the harder I pushed to change it, the harder the universe pushed back, “Not now, Katherine.” Zero change came, zero new achievements, and my anger grew.

Then I went to therapy, and my therapist said something that has been a game changer for me. It’s simple, but for me, was incredibly impactful, “you know, some achievements are outstanding, and sometimes constant achievement is just a way to continue to numb, to continue to avoid the work on that painful part of you that still needs focus and healing.”

It is not an understatement to say that simple statement almost instantly changed the game for me, and my mind skyrocketed back to balance. The next few therapy sessions we dug deeper than we ever had, we worked on the super hard, super tucked away stuff, and practiced some EMDR . I was ready.

The shift from there my friends has almost been inconceivable to me. This last month and a half, I have felt more balanced, more present, more at ease with life than I maybe ever have. I feel solid, focused and strong in my belief that yes, there is absolutely more out there for me (and for everyone), AND what I have now is absolutely enough, AND the way I was going about getting more was doing me no favors.

And let me tell you, what a wonderful time of year to get this gift. To be in full presence during the joyful moments of this season. To sit and savor the Christmas tree lights and a warm fire with my pup, to take in the crisp winter air, a good book, a warm cup of coffee. Of course that’s not to say life is perfect and that there isn’t stuff popping in now and again that brings back my angry. But man, it sure is sweet to be fully here for the joyful moments.

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Then I heard Eckhart Tolle say (something like) this, “True success is the act of doing small things, every day, extremely well, and with great care.” The pushing, the “future,” the big light at the end of the tunnel, it doesn’t exist, all that TRULY exists is this moment. So anytime that need to question how things are going creeps in, its the perfect time to remind yourself of this, snap yourself back to the present, and do the very thing you are doing at that moment with pure presence, pure grace.

This approach creates so much more joyful focus in my work, a reminder that what I’m doing every day is striving to help everyone around me become the very best versions of themselves —through all the “little” things. That focus carries me through the bumps and hurdles of everyday company life and gets me back to laser in on what matters, my people.

This shift is now making its way back to this blog, and the real, raw reason I’m writing—to serve. To share with others things that have helped me find peace in the chaos of the mind, or at least find a tiny bit of relief for a minute, an hour, a week. To help you know that you, my cherished reader, are not alone in this. And it feels more than magical to be back in this space, to be back here with you—just YOU.

Even writing that, I start to feel a tingle of excitement in my fingers. Aliveness, if you will. Now…back to work on how to not focus on “the numbers” once I hit publish. I think presence coupled with my purpose will be key. And I hope I will be talking to you again soon. ❤️

Listen to the Whispers

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

Your body whispers before it screams.

What?

When something is off with your body (physically or mentally) your body will whisper before it screams. In fact, most of the time your body will whisper for as long as it can before it gives up and just plain yells at you.

Winter can bring a lot of seasonal illnesses (again both in your body and mind) and it’s our job to pay attention before things get haywire.

It’s also easy (especially right after a big holiday of excess) to become numb to those cues, those whispers. You know that feeling, when you’re living a bit healthier and you do something that’s not so healthy, how much more do you feel that? How much more does that food choice, activity choice, or lack of sleep choice affect you when it isn’t your day-to-day?

It’s like drinking alcohol after time away from it, it hits you harder (and different) than when you’re drinking more often. Or if you haven’t eaten out in a while and then you do, the way the salt sits on your tongue (maybe even dehydrates you), your belly feels more full, you feel more tired from the processed food. Same goes for your brain, same goes for sleep patterns, same goes for too much or too little exercise—you get the point.

Your body and your brain will tell you what you need, but first, it will whisper. And if you can help yourself before your body/brain has to scream, the far easier and quicker that fix tends to be.

Here’s an example, when my brain is hurting, it will start with little things—more annoyances at daily tasks, a cloudy feeling behind my eyes, and a little bit more of a challenge falling asleep. If I can catch these cues at a whisper, I can add in a little more meditation, a little more routine bedtime, more movement, or a chat with my husband or therapist. If I miss those whispers, things start to spiral and before I know it, my brain is screaming something like, “Everything is ruined,” “You aren’t good enough, smart enough, successful enough or a good person.” For those who suffer, you know the drill.

It’s interesting when I look back at pictures during a spiral, I can always see it in my eyes. Of course, it’s tough to do in the moment, but when I look back, there is always, always a blankness in my eyes that isn’t normally there. More tired eyes, less life.

Same with the body, that little pinch in my hip from running too much starts as a whimper, if I don’t start icing, stretching more and foam rolling, sciatica can creep in. One time I didn’t listen for so long that I spent several months unable to sit for long periods. I had to makeshift standing options for everything I could, and on road trips I had to stop every hour because the only thing that would help the pain was standing. I took one of the worst work trips of my life during that time on a nonstop flight from Nebraska to Florida, head down between my knees, deep breathing, my only option to try to slow the pain when I couldn’t stand.

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So how do we tune into the whispers? Surprise! Mindfulness really helps. ��

Mindfulness creates awareness, awareness creates more alignment with what’s going on with those whispers, and it helps you tune in quicker to the need for a course correction. It doesn’t stop the need from entering your life (and I don’t think anything would permanently of course) but it helps tune into the needs sooner before your body or your brain has to scream at you.

Mindfulness meditation that uses a body scan can really help. It helps train you how to focus on the whispers, it helps you check in with every part of your body and every corner of your mind in a safe, quiet space. That’s why if you attend one of my yoga or meditation classes in winter, we’re going to do a body scan.

Once mindfulness becomes a larger part of your daily life, you might be surprised by the outcome.

Food that doesn’t serve your body may not taste as good; you might really recognize how that lack of sleep is showing up in your work, your relationships, or your physical tasks; you might be able to feel that brain cloud on the horizon and works towards a solution before the storm of depression hits.

You might just learn how it feels to be the very best version of you.

The Me'est of Me

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

After a bit of a rough July mentally (and physically for my poor hubs and his vertigo, and me and my back), I’ve been doing a lot of work on honoring my true self and what I really need to get through months like that.

Even with all my reading, teaching, and work on this journey towards a balanced life, that stupid, snarly voice wants to tell me,

1) This work is selfish,

2) I don’t have it “as hard” as others so for some reason,

3) that makes me undeserving of the work. Gah, that tricky brain…

Now through all of this work, I know logically that honoring what I need makes me the BEST me for others. It allows me to give more to everyone in my fullest, most present, most peace-driven self. I know logically the true me is kind and gentle and wants to share the world with those she cares about. And I know the work I do allows me the space, time and creativity to give at my best.

But I also know that when you’re in the space of a hurt brain, logic does you no favors. Remember, you can’t fix what’s broken with the thing that’s broken , no matter how much your brain would like to convince you otherwise.

So this is where we need to double down on those simple awareness practices, we need to fight a little harder to find our peace, and then we need to honor every little genuine whisper that tells us what we really need to heal. No matter if your brain barks, “selfish,” “not enough” or that you “should not” have to honor your boundaries. Smile at that brain, laugh at that thought, and get back to tuning in to your true self, and what she needs.

Here’s a picture of the me’est of me, sitting on my most favorite stoop in the deep humidity of summer (which I adore…I know, not for everyone). I spend every morning I can working out here, soaking in the summer, hair messy and curly from the heat, an easy, comfy t-shirt, a laptop on my lap, coffee by my side and a dog at my feet. No makeup, a workout and a shower to come later. THIS is the me’est of me, and the one I’m choosing to honor as much as I can.

Want to join me? Dig into who you are at your core. Use your mindfulness (or just a few breaths throughout the day) to help find it. Don’t focus on the work you or the mom you or the sibling you, focus on the you that is in your soul — and then ask her what she needs. You might come to find by giving her what she asks for, a whole new level of focus, inspiration and true presence for the people who respectfully benefit from what you have to offer, will open up.

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Want What You Want, Need What You Need

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

If I said to you, “you are allowed to want what you want and need what you need.”

How would that hit you? When someone said this to me, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I don’t know if it’s just because we are midwesterners, because I don’t know anything else, or if the whole world does this, but I’m noticing there are so many of us that spend so much time convincing ourselves of what we “should” be like, what we “should” be able to do/tolerate/get through, etc. that its easy forget what you actually like, what lifts you up, and what is actually healthy for your brain and your body.

This is my work right now, so I’m sharing with you because let me tell you, on the days that I am fully respecting my true self, the world is opening up in the coolest of ways, here’s what I’m working on…

Respecting my innate need for space and quiet. I am no longer calling myself “introverted” or making any other excuse for the fact that I simply feel better when I don’t expose myself to as many people or places every day. I am honoring that a couple nights per week of activity is about all I can do and still show up fully, graciously and truly enjoy my time out in the world. Does that mean I have to prioritize and likely piss a few people off? Yes. But the amount of energy I wake up with each day when I’m able to adhere to this is amazing. And the gifts I do give to the world in this state are well above and beyond what I can when I’m burnt out.
Listening to myself. I am doing a lot less negotiating with that inner voice that tells me what to do (or not do) each day. I am a discerner by nature, I have a great gut feel and intuition. I am listening to her more and arguing with her less. Again the end result is the same, by gifting myself the same respect for my opinion and needs that I give others, I am able to give more authentically and richly to those that surround me.
Saying out loud what I want and need. Sometimes I need to eat a whole piece of cake and not share it with you. Sometimes I need to not talk for a while if it’s been a noisy day. Sometimes I need to use my words with something that’s been bothering me in order to move on. And sometimes I need to work out again (yes, again). I’m ALLOWED to have wants and needs, and I am fighting that midwestern(?) desire to keep quiet and smile through it with every ounce of my being. This is a really tough one, but every time I win a battle to speak up, I’m one step further towards growth.
Prioritizing joy. Necessities aside (you know, adulting stuff – doctor appointments, earning income, etc.), if what I’m doing is not bringing me joy, is it worth it? And to further that question, if that something is with others, is it worth it for them? If I’m painfully slogging through a social engagement, activity, or any of the other million things our minds tell us we “should” do because others can, or others enjoy it, or others (insert something here), is it REALLY benefiting the people I’m with if I’m miserable? I’m starting to think no, and honoring this thought more often.

This is tough work friends, but let me tell you, the shifts I’ve experienced in my energy alone have been pretty major. I wake up ready to do things, I drink half of my beloved coffee and don’t finish the rest, I have opportunities arising from a lot of angles because, I believe, I’ve given myself the time and space to dream about them more. And all this is happening while accomplishing this amazingly beautiful end result of being a better support for others. Feels like it’s gonna pay off, I hope if some of this resonates with you it does for you too. We can do this, fight hard this week not to dim your light for the “should’s” in your mind or from others.

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Zoom Out

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

The last time I wrote, I showed you a “before I worked on my brain photo.”

The message of that blog was to check in with those eyes, they tell a stronger story than almost anything when you’re suffering.

When I went to my basement box to find that picture, because yes it pre-dates digital pics :),

I found myself in a sea of photos from my time living in France.

I moved there just after college to teach English. The program was for a year but I was fairly certain (in my fog of a brain at the time) that THIS was going to be it for me, that I’d love reinventing myself and finding a new life in France. And that I might even decide to live there.

I moved to France a week before my program started when I would be introduced to other teachers. I moved there alone, I booked a zero-star hotel to stay in while I searched for a more permanent home. The only person I’d been in contact with was a teacher at one of the schools I was to teach at. She was my liaison and had promised to pick me up from the airport and help get me settled. The night before I left for France (that just happened to be 4 days after 9/11, the first day international flights were allowed again) I got an email from my liaison saying she wouldn’t be able pick me up and that I should take a taxi. “Ok,” I thought, “I can do this.”

The flights went ok from what I can remember, I got a taxi, and the taxi proceeded to take me to the wrong hotel. (A much fancier place than I could afford to stay in.) So I stood there with my luggage, a meager hold on the French language, and still enough enthusiasm and energy to ask around to find and then proceed to WALK with one year’s worth of luggage to my actual hotel. I got there, was greeted warmly, and pointed to the stairs – no elevator. “Ok,” I thought, “I can do this,” as I climbed several flights of stairs with that aforementioned luggage.

The first week in France my liaison emailed me with some recommendations on where to go to find housing and to get groceries, and that was it, I didn’t hear from her again. I went to housing assistance and quickly learned there was no way in “H E double hockey sticks” I was going to afford living on my own in Nice, France (the equivalent to living in California in the States).

I was working 12 hours a week on a teaching assistant salary and not able to get another job on my Visa. I was making even less than I thought I would because as chance would have it, this was also the time when France was transitioning from the Franc to the Euro, and my meager salary sounded like a whole lot more in Francs. I got some financial help from my parents, but nowhere near enough to live in an apartment alone. So, I had to just wait out my time until I met the other teaching assistants and could hopefully find a roommate or two. “Ok,” I thought, “I can do this.”

I spent the next few days literally wandering around aimlessly in Nice. I would get up every morning, force myself to leave the hotel, and just walk. I walked for miles and miles, saw all I could see, visited grocery stores alone, shops alone, and ate every meal alone. I forced myself to eat out as much as I could handle alone.

My brain had always told me the key to happiness would be found here. All this alone time, reinventing myself, becoming whoever it was I was certain I was meant to be.

Then…I had some unfortunate run-ins with some shady characters, those meals became lonelier and lonelier, I got more and more tired of encountering the daily cockroaches in my hotel bathroom. Not everyone in Nice was sympathetic of 9/11, so much so that there was one day it was suggested Americans don’t go outside.

And then I realized, no one back home even knew the name of the hotel I was staying at, if I disappeared, it would be a long time before anyone would’ve even noticed. “Ok,” I thought, “I CAN’T do this.”

I called my mom bawling, certain I would disappear at any moment and that would be that. “Could you at least write down the name of the hotel I’m staying at?” I pleaded tearfully. My mom talked me down from the ledge as she so often did to soften my hyper-achieving, painfully perfectionist mind (common symptoms of depression), and I got through that first week.

I met the other teaching assistants who were mostly British. And after a bit of time convincing them that I was a normal person and not like the Americans they see on Married with Children and Baywatch, I found a roommate and a bunch of other wonderful teaching assistant friends.

My dad used to always ask me if I missed my family when I went somewhere (I had gone abroad during school a couple times before) and I’d sheepishly say “yes.” He would say, “No you don’t, (which was half true) because you quickly build another family wherever you go.” THAT was very much true. Even through some of the darkest, deepest depression periods of my life (of which this France trip was one), I always found my people, and oftentimes would find a mother figure to go along with them. I found fierce love for my makeshift families all throughout college, my times abroad, and at pretty much every stage of my life.

Did those families travel with me on this journey toward a balanced life? Some did, most didn’t. Many ended up in very different life stages or on very different paths than me. And that’s ok, they were still an immense and supportive part of my life (and I hope I was in theirs too).

So let’s zoom out on that picture I shared last time. You’ll quickly see, that although I might have been suffering through some of the worst depression of my life, I was still surrounded by a truly wonderful, beautiful group of ragtag 20-something teaching assistants that became my fiercely supportive family.

I had many beautiful, richly satisfying experiences abroad with this family as we learned how to navigate living in a foreign country and traveling as much as we could on our teacher salaries.

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I had so many family and friends visit me also, and we too had so many amazing, enriching experiences that only a trip abroad can offer.

(Not to mention the food, oh the food we enjoyed as I happily took advantage of being able to eat big beautiful prix fixe restaurant meals every time someone would come visit…and pay for them. :)) There was so much good that came from my trip to France, so many memories created not only for myself but for those I loved both from home and abroad. I wouldn’t change my experience there for anything. I have an entire box full of pictures to prove it.

AND I was deeply suffering through some really dark depression during that time (which being alone only exacerbated).

I drank to black out more than I ever have in my life. I dealt with some really dark situations and some really scary nights. There were some situations I am proud I came out of alive.

So this story is a very long-winded lesson in the power of the AND.

You can be deep in your suffering through your mental health journey AND you can still accomplish some pretty amazing, beautiful and brave things.

You can be in the thick of suffering, and still cherish many moments where your heart sings. You can feel deeply alone, and still build a community of people who you care about more than anything, and they can care about you too. The AND makes it possible for people like me to live with high-functioning depression. The AND reminds you, that you CAN come out on the other side of this.

So when you are in the throws of suffering, see if you can zoom out for a minute.

There may be times when this is too challenging or feels next to impossible. I get that, and I see you. But the times when it does feel ok, zoom out of the dark for a moment.

Become the observer of the life that’s happening around you, the life that is happening for you, and the life you have built, co-created. You will likely find some glorious beauty there as you sit with the knowledge that both light and dark can and do exist simultaneously.

Zoom out, my darling reader, always zoom out. And you may just find, while there is work left to do, it is surrounded by so, so much to be grateful for. ��

The Routine

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 18:06:24 GMT

I heard this great quote the other day on protecting your routine and scoured the internet to find it again, for a week, keeping me from writing this blog.

Bah, the paralyzation of perfection strikes again.

Well guess what, I can’t find it and I’m still going to write this.

Basically, the quote said,

Routine is what creates not only balance but expertise in life. So, for someone to give up that routine, for them to rock the boat for a week trying to climb back up onto their routine, it better be damn well worth it.

(Cue all athletes, masters at their craft, etc.)

Routine has proven key to maintaining my mental health. A consistent bedtime, rise time and what I do those first few hours of every day has become crucial to keeping my energy high and my negative thoughts at bay. Many people reading this who know me will be rolling their eyes right about now. I am a fierce keeper of my routine and sometimes that doesn’t make me the most popular person at the party.

But you know what? A lot of this journey to balance may cause nay-sayers along the way. Have you ever tried to quit drinking? Avoid certain foods? Value sleep over a late-night soiree? I’m sure you’ve heard the sighs and experienced the pressure to give in “just this once.”

Here’s the reality for me: if I give up on my routine for more than a day or two, I have to fight ten times as hard to get it back.

That fight creates more negative thoughts that spiral into less sleep, more internal condemning and makes everything I do to create this balance suddenly feel like a chore. It can be a short-lived struggle, or it can last weeks. That’s the price of pushing past my routine.

From what I understand, most people who maintain a balanced routine are in some version of this same boat. People who work out in the morning don’t typically pop out of bed ready to take on that next squat. They have a mini negotiation with themselves while warm and cozy in their slumber and have to remind themselves of the WHY behind that workout. I’ve read countless stories of amazing writers who still have to talk themselves into one or two of those scheduled writing times each day. I’m sure there are people who buck this trend, but for most, routine isn’t easy. It is the payoff that makes the temporary battle worth it.

Are there times I give in to bending the routine? 100%.

Those times where I’m sitting with friends or family in warmth, camaraderie, joy and probably a few too many glasses of wine. Where all feels right with the world and the conversation is on fire, you bet I’m not going to bed quite yet. But if I’m sitting in a room watching the clock roll by and wondering how late I can get up and still fit that work out in, those times, as I lean more and more into the value of this routine as KEY to my balance, are becoming fewer. And I’m feeling less and less sorry for it.

The topic of routine is fresh in my mind. As I’m writing this, I’m lying on my couch recuperating from a bit of a back and neck injury caused by, you guessed it, messing with my routine for several days over a holiday weekend. Less sleep caused me to work out half-exhausted, which led to poor lifting, injury, and an attempt to push past that injury by getting back on my routine and working out too soon. Voilà.

What’s your routine?

That’s the other trick to this, what works wonderfully for one might be awful for another.

The key is to figure out a routine that works best for YOU and that could look wholeheartedly different than the person sitting next to you.

Know thyself . I encourage you to find routines that bring you energy and focus, that allow you to sit and breathe for just a minute or two at the end of the day, feeling a hint of accomplishment, gratitude and lightness.

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Appreciation Breeds Balance

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 17:54:23 GMT

I define balance as a feeling – solid, grounded, energized, focused, at peace in mind and body. A living, breathing mountain.

As we move into a week where you might be asked more than once what you are thankful for, a reminder that appreciation (gratitude, if you will) helps breed this feeling of balance.

I like the word appreciation because it feels like something you can stop and do more often during the day.

I try to start most days by writing three specific things I’m grateful for from the day prior (after my 7-minute sit and asking for guidance for the day – more on this later) but it’s the moments throughout the day where I stop and appreciate that really bring the meter back to the feeling of balance.

So anytime you can stop yourself this week and develop appreciation for whatever is around you, try it.

As I type this I’m in a cozy house on a cold, windy day with a sleeping pup to my right and good coffee to my left. If I’m still for a moment, I appreciate this.
Later as Mollie my pup and I go for a walk, at some point those trees and the nature that surrounds me will catch me, my body will sigh and fill with appreciation. It might just be for a precious second before Mollie pulls my arm or another dog barks at us, but that second is all it takes.
Tonight I might drop my shoulders as I stare out the window at Christmas lights, or take in the joy of an evening cooking session with my family or simply smile at the crinkle in my husband’s eye.

And no matter what the day has held, what annoyances or brain noise bubbled up, if I can take a minute or two to appreciate the things I deeply love, that balance meter will creep back towards center. I used to have a hard time with the concept of gratitude. As an achiever, I was concerned that getting too comfortable with what I had would hinder my drive to achieve more. And as most of you I assume already know, it’s the opposite.

Appreciation breeds balance, balance creates space in your mind and your body, this space is what allows you to create more and more and more. And the beauty of this type of creation is it comes from a balanced brain, not from ego or fear or the need to numb another feeling.

And that’s the kind of creation that skyrockets you towards living a more balanced life, full of more of what you want, more of what you need, more you can appreciate. That is my wish for all of you. ��

–

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The Yogi, The Baker, The...

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 17:53:33 GMT

My Facebook memory from today was from 2012, when the New York Times wrote a less than favorable article on yoga, warning the public of the risks of too rigorous of a practice, including details of some pretty gnarly injuries.

I remember friends, coworkers and colleagues continually forwarding me the article, “did you hear about this?” “Is this true?” As is very often the case when news about yoga breaks and you are a known yogi. ��

A few days later, the owner of the Yoga Studio that was my home at the time came out with the most beautiful response, and that was my Facebook memory today, “When we practice anything with ego and obsession, we will cause problems. We get out of balance. Call me crazy, but I still eat some non-organic food; I still like riding my bike with no helmet; I still get in my car and drive 65 miles per hour, and wouldn’t you know, I still do yoga and love it and grow from it every day.”

The moral of the story here? Balance. Plain and simple. Anything done in excess, even the healthiest, most healing of things, can cause issues. Sleep is so healing, but too much sleep can be damaging and depressive. Whole foods are fantastic, but constantly denying yourself something you love damages the soul far more than an indulgence now and again.

I’m a yogi; I eat organic, partake in a farm share for my veggies and try to stay away from fast food. BUT I’m a baker; I bake with straight up sugar, lots of butter and a massive amount of love. Baking for me is meditation, eating baked goods for me is luxurious. And yes, many times I’ll go back for that second slice of cake.

Balance is enjoying the journey of yin and yang, not too much of one thing, not too little of another. We live in such an all-or-nothing society that this practice, this journey, can be one of the most difficult. I’m sure there are many that question my choice to spout wholeheartedly about yoga and wellness in one sentence, and then gush about the next three-layer goodie I’m making in the next. But that’s my truth, that’s where I feel whole and so that is where I will remain.

Meditation and mindfulness help me be at peace with where I find my joy, regardless of my internal second guessing or external judgement. It helps me “tune in” to the cues of my natural bank account, “lots of sugar last night Katherine, maybe today, a salad.” “Two hours of exercise yesterday Katherine, maybe today a walk and a cuddle with Kirk.”

I’m not perfect at it; in fact I find that perfection can be the opposite of balance, and oftentimes quite paralyzing. I still overdo a lot of things and still have to work to find balance every single day. But with meditation and mindfulness on my side, I am equipped and ready to take on this practice. To confidently find wellness and peace in my yoga, my organic veggies and my butter soaked, frosting covered kitchen.

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PLAY On

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 18:59:22 GMT

I’ll never forget that dinner at a burger place in Omaha.

I was knee-deep in yoga teacher training, which for those of you who haven’t experienced it, is a labor of love. It pretty much consumes every free moment outside of your 9 to 5 either in weekend-long training, studying, reading or trying to squeeze in more practice.

When I started teacher training I thought I simply wanted to deepen my own practice, I wanted to learn more about this moving meditation that had brought so many immense gifts to my life.

What was it about this thing called yoga that can move emotional mountains?

I’ve written already about how pivotal and life-changing that training was for me—it skyrocketed my journey towards a more balanced and authentic life. I will forever be grateful to my teachers at what we affectionately referred to as YBB (Yoga Body & Balance), there simply are no words big enough for their impact on me.

My YBB teachers teaching at PLAY. ��

Part of yoga teacher training requirements is performing a community service act, the yogis call it Seva. I went back and forth about what my Seva should be. I really wanted to share this mindfulness/yoga practice with those who may not seek it out. I wanted to reach the people who for a million different reasons aren’t drawn to yoga studios or gyms.

I also wanted to share the kind of yoga that I had experienced at YBB. Not all yoga is the same, which is a great thing because it reaches more people that way. There are certainly more physical, and less emotional practices that many teach and even more enjoy.

But the yoga I wanted to share is the kind that is equally if not more so about the mental than the physical. I took a friend to a class at YBB once and I will never forget the slightly buzzed look on her face when we were done, a look and a feeling many of us yogis have grown to love.

“That’s not yoga,” she said, “that’s therapy.” Exactly. That’s what I wanted to share with the world.

I thought about a lot of ideas for my Seva, from simply teaching my family yoga (who would fall in the category of people I wanted to share this gift with) to teaching some busy, professional, bad a** friends. But this little voice kept ringing in the back of my head about an outdoor yoga event I had attended in Omaha. Every time I went to this event I thought, why doesn’t Lincoln have this?!? It was a huge production, hundreds of people came and it felt like absolute magic—not to mention we always ended with a boozy brunch. Gah, pure bliss.

Ok, I thought, maybe I can do a Lincoln version of that. I started to think more about what that would look like. I adored the Omaha event but it appealed to more seasoned yogis than newbies. So for Lincoln, I removed the fancier production, the entry fee and the more advanced teaching. I kept the community vibe and the outdoors—a park in central Lincoln quite literally would level the playing field for those that were new to the practice.

“This is a chance to live my mission,” kept popping in my head.

So back to that burger place, I was there with this guy I was newly dating. We were serious enough to have taken down our E-harmony profiles, so I figured he was enough “in my circle” to ask for advice. I told him my idea, and this mildly reserved, buttoned-up accountant said, “Yeah, I definitely think you should do that.” Ok, if HE thinks I should do it, I definitely should! (Good thing I married that sage a few years later. :))

Fast forward through the logistics, I have very little tolerance for tenacity and to-do lists, so this part was particularly hard for me. I struggled to get funding for a bit, and that almost ended my pursuit. Thank goodness Coach Kirk (as I affectionately refer to my hubs) was in the background pushing me to keep going.

I finally got funding from the amazingly supportive Executive Director of the Parks and Rec Foundation at the time and off we went. I gave the event a name, PLAY (Parks. Lincoln. and Yoga.), and set up a Facebook page (really the only option at the time). I remember distinctly saying to myself, “if I can just get 108 likes, I’ll be happy.”

At our first PLAY, I was beyond nervous. I put crudely written “free yoga” yard signs out surrounding the park. My first “sound system” was an iHome with a mic next to it, sitting on an empty “organic peaches” box.

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I figured attendees would pretty much be my friends and “stfs” (yoga teacher training speak for your other classmates—”students, teachers, friends”)…and then they started coming….

From every angle, every bit of the park and parking lot, people emerged with a rainbow of mats making their way to the band shell. The march of the mats, it’s to this day my absolute most favorite part of every PLAY. And this year marked our 12th year. That gives me goosebumps as I type it.

We had almost 100 people at the first event! I simply couldn’t believe it. But you know what, when you are fully living out your mission, that’s the kind of magic that can happen.

Our very first PLAY.

Magic did happen and continues to, season after season, year after year, if you’ve been to the park for one of these events, I hope you have felt that same energy. That same immense impact of a community immersed in wellness.

So why is PLAY such a perfect fit for my mission to share the gifts of balance and mindfulness with those that might not otherwise seek it out? And why am I so damn passionate about it?

I want people to understand that yoga (in this context) isn’t about “working out” or “flexibility” or if you’re “doing it right.”

It’s about creating focus and giving those thoughts that don’t serve you a break for a few minutes. This moving meditation allows you to tune in to both your brain and your body—getting to know them better by creating space.

I so deeply want people to find even a minute or two of that quiet focus during PLAY. That kind of focus that really allows you to tune in to your life and just listen.

Making this a free, public, city-supported event, I hope, gives people an easier introduction.

I want people to understand this practice does not have to be rigid or hard or “woo woo.”

You can come to the park, you can sit 20 feet away from anyone else, you don’t even need a mat, and experience a teeny tiny piece of this PEACE. You can bring your kid who will climb all over you; you can fall in the soft grass; you can bring a dog who barks every so often and STILL benefit from even 5 minutes of pure practice.

I hand-select teachers who get this.

I was thrilled when the Parks and Rec department took PLAY on as an official program to keep it going after our grant funding had ended, and to reach even more of a diverse audience my circle doesn’t reach.

I get a lot of wonderful suggestions to add this or that to the event and politely keep it as simple as possible.

I want people to walk away from this understanding that even a few minutes of tuning in to your mind and body and tuning out of whatever chaos is around you can move mountains in your journey towards balance.

It really is that simple.

And it really is that hard.

PLAY is fully living my mission. I am absolutely touched by the 100’s of people that come to the park each year. I so desperately hope that even .0001% of them get to experience the joy of presence, feel a tiny bit lighter or more empowered when they leave, or have a chance to process a feeling that was stuck.

I get choked up every year, every practice, every time I see those yoga mats marching towards the band shell…

AND running any event has its annoyances.

Logistics get messy, some attendees get grumpy, and sometimes Mother Nature acts up. Sometimes I get a little salty when we have 5 Sundays in September instead of 4. Sometimes I’m simply not in the mood for all the adrenaline that comes with event planning and I have to talk myself into walking out that door and off to PLAY.

And THAT is another key message in all of this. Balance is both beautiful and hard and annoying at times and wonderful at others.

Sometimes you have to peel yourself off the couch to make it happen, and sometimes it flows beautifully and naturally. The goal is to appreciate and be present with both. That’s the practice.

Even when I have to talk myself into heading out that door, I will ALWAYS have a moment of fulfillment and joy at the park.

THAT is the yin and yang of balance. THAT is the push/pull of living your purpose. It’s knowing what’s in your heart is equally as beautiful as it is hard and doing it anyway. THAT is what it takes to PLAY at a level of living your mission.

One other very important piece to living your mission, you never go it alone.

The amount of supporters who have wrapped their arms around PLAY is truly humbling. From the stf who introduced me to the Parks Foundation ED, to the countless volunteers, to the two stellar organizers that took PLAY on for many of those years while I took a step back and just practiced. They added their own magic and mission to make an even more beautiful mix. The teachers, the parks and rec staff, those who donated printing, mics and shirts in the beginning. ALL of you, supporting this. That’s what makes a mission happen.

And I’ll take it. And I hope to see you in the park next year. ��

Lessons from Long(ish) Covid

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 18:59:22 GMT

I have so many topics in mind for this blog in 2024, but then something keeps happening in real time I need to write about, so here’s another one of those.

I’m dealing with long(ish) Covid. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before. I got Covid for the first time two days after Christmas, a gift from my husband who went down the Thursday before Christmas. ��

I had all the symptoms you read about, it was way more gnarly than I thought it would be. It was/is by far the sickest I’ve ever been. Although I am beyond blessed it was not serious enough to cause severe illness, and I want to acknowledge everyone who has had it impact their lives far greater than it has mine. My heart goes out to each one.

The major symptoms lasted about two weeks; I was prepared for that. What I was not prepared for is the lingering exhaustion and brain fog that has lasted over a month now. Exhaustion like I have never experienced. Exhaustion that literally stops me in my tracks and forces rest as the only option. If I push past it for a day, I pay for it for two. I’m certainly having better days now (I can now better empathize with the phrase, “I have good days and bad days.”) but then I have a humbling day that reminds me I’m not through this yet.

I’m weak even though I’m still exercising, my appearance has taken a toll — face sunken, eyes glassy, pale, and lower weight. The brain fog on top of this is something else, stopped in my tracks yet again by my brain not finding a word, or completely saying the wrong word, or doing the wrong task—again it’s an experience I’ve never had. Although some of this brain fog stuff (like when I tried to turn our Christmas tree lights off by turning on the fireplace) can be pretty funny. ��

I canceled almost every plan I had outside of work in January. I simply didn’t feel like I had an option. I can manage working from home well and capitalize on the times I have energy, but big meeting days and days that I’ve gone into the office have completely tanked me. Again I want to take a minute here to acknowledge those who don’t have the privilege to work from home, the fact that I can manage my day and add in rest when I need it made my morning gratitude list many times last month.

So first of all, I want to call this shit out!

I know there are articles and acknowledgments about this topic but not enough. It’s super easy to get in your head about it because, just like mental health, it is not a visible illness. It’s easy to try to deny yourself the need to heal.

It’s easy to worry about what others are thinking because you aren’t wearing your debilitating exhaustion on your sleeve. Just like depression, where some days a foot out the door feels like an absolutely impossible feat. But no one sees it.

I want you to know that some see it, some see you, I do.

Second, my new way of living and prioritizing energy has had its bright spots in learning even more lessons on the never-ending journey toward balance. I want to share those with you as well:

You get to define what a “full week” looks like.

This is a gift from my therapist (who I transferred to a Zoom meeting this month so I wouldn’t have to make the trip). If one extra something a week feels like all you can muster, it’s OK to say when others request your time, “Sorry I’m all booked up this week.” You get to define what a full week looks like for you, no one else does.

It is hard to overcome the conditioned guilt in this. But when the consequence is a day when you can barely function, it makes it a whole lot easier. And I’m going to try really hard to hang on to this way to prioritize when I feel better.

Protect what restores you the most.

We’ve talked about this before, there is simply nothing that gives me more joy and energy than my evenings that start with a walk with the hubs and the pup, followed by cooking dinner with that same audience, glass of wine in hand, and great muisc on. That, plus my preference for an early bedtime and a dawn wake-up call makes it extra hard for me to want to venture out in the evenings, even if the world tells me I should go out more at night.

Another gift from my therapist on this topic, she said, “Katherine, if this is the most regulating, restorative part of your day, I’d think extra hard about participating in too many things that take you away from it.” So don’t be surprised from now on if I ask you to coffee or an afternoon walk instead of an evening outing.

A new mantra.

I’m not sold on affirmations moving the needle in your life, but I figure they can’t hurt. I’ve tried on countless affirmations, repeating them for a few weeks, downloading pictures of the quotes on my phone, hoping I’d spend time flipping through them. Nothing has stuck. But I had a lot of time to think during this long Covid thing, I even had a few days where I felt too motion-sick to read, watch TV or use the computer or phone for long, so yeah, lots and lots of thinking time. I’ve come up with this affirmation, which I kind of love and am enjoying using, so I wanted to share that with you too:

“I look forward to finding joy and peace in today and helping others to do the same. My only job is to stay present. The universe has my back, and she knows what I want.”

Here’s wishing you joy and peace today, and honoring those things that maybe no one can see, but that are very real for you. I hope you can stand strong in what you need, and show yourself the same care and love I’m quite certain you show everyone else in your life. We’ve got this.

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Small Changes for a Balanced Life: A Not So Serious Approach to Mindfulness Meditation

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 19:44:28 GMT

Here’s a not-so-secret, secret: a lot of the world doesn’t want you to live a balanced life or seek moderation.

Why? Because if you figured out how to find balance in a busy life, you wouldn’t subscribe to as many “all or nothing” projects and products. You wouldn’t buy things that help you cut out this, that, or the other, nor would you sign up for those retreats or seminars aimed at fixing the burnout caused by overdoing and exhaustion.

The same goes for meditation. Traditional practice is wonderful and certainly has its place in our balanced lives. It’s often how many people (including myself) begin a meditation practice, allowing the benefits to soak into your bones and become habits.

But traditional practice isn’t the only way to learn how to find balance in a busy life. In fact, if you’re someone who struggles with meditation, traditional approaches might do more harm than good. You might convince yourself you’re “not good” at meditation and give up entirely. Or, like me, you may find that your practice comes and goes, never fully sticking.

What I’ve come to find is that 2 minutes of meditation can impact your life as much as 20—or even as much as a 2-day retreat. No incense, soft music, or meditation cushion required.

If this style of meditation helps it fit better into your life, I strongly encourage you to take the pressure off and try this more practical, daily approach. A friend once told me, “I’m trying to meditate for just 5 minutes a day and can’t even do that.” My answer? “Then try 2 minutes and see how it goes.”

Here are a few ways I find a couple of minutes each day to find balance in a busy life and stay grounded:

Sit in the car for 2 minutes before heading into work or going into your house for the evening. Tune into the sounds around you—the ticking engine, cars driving by, maybe even sounds of nature (and all the better if it’s raining).
Plop on the ground while your coffee brews. Focus on your belly rising and falling as you breathe, noticing the sounds and smells of the brew.
Set a timer for 3 minutes post-workout. Lie on your mat and enjoy the feeling of your nerves relaxing as you focus on your breath.
Take a mindful moment on your walk. Slow down and tune into everything around you. This is especially lovely when the seasons are changing, and you can appreciate the shifting beauty of nature.
Sit outside for a few minutes when you let your dog or yourself out for the last time in the evening, and think about three things you’re grateful for that day.

I sprinkle these daily practices in to stay consistent, while enjoying a more formal meditation session just about once a month. Lately, I’ve really been enjoying sound baths. I think there’s something soothing about the way the sounds activate both sides of the brain, easing anxiety—perfect for those moments when you’re learning how to find balance in a busy life.

But as with everything, what works for you may be different than what works for me. You’ll likely try a few different things before finding what sticks. “What’s real for you will stay,” one of my yoga teachers once said. “The rest will float away.”

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Know Thyself

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 17:29:57 GMT

Here was one of the toughest lessons during my wellness journey. There is absolutely 100% no such thing as a “one size fits all” approach to wellness. And the sooner you are able to accept that, the better off you’ll be.

This may be an unpopular opinion to some, but I believe genetics play a huge role in how you approach wellness. It’s why my friend can eat a fast food hamburger every day of her life, have tons of energy and never gain a pound. It’s the reason my other friend can cut carbs completely out of her life and still get up and be active in the morning. And it’s the reason that other guy can rarely exercise and still have great arms.

What works for others may not work for you. Let me say that again, and again, and again.

You have two choices to this, you can either get mad about the fact that every time you even look at a fast food burger you feel like junk (even though your friend can gobble them up), or you can accept the fact that it simply doesn’t work for you and move on.

You can push yourself past misery and injury to become a runner, or you can choose from a wealth of other cardio exercises you might enjoy more. You can approach the world bleary-eyed pushing yourself to “be a morning person,” or you can lean into the fact that evenings are your time to shine and adjust your routine accordingly.

It wasn’t until I got over the anger behind not being able to do what “they can do” that my wellness journey truly took off.

What does that look like for me? Well, it looks like another unpopular opinion; I eat the vast majority of my calories at dinnertime. From cooking with music and wine, to enjoying the meal with my tiny family, to the fresh food itself (and the Kemp’s frozen yogurt after), dinner is my time of joy, indulgence and relaxation.

A large dinner also sticks with me for my morning workout. If I eat a larger breakfast or lunch, I typically end up with an upset stomach, low energy and I still eat the same amount for dinner. So I just quit trying to do that, even though some experts say it’s the “right thing to do.”

You might try this big dinner approach, and it might be terrible for you. Again, get to know thyself.

What’s the right thing to do for you if you aren’t listening to all the “stop this,” “start this,” “absolutely never do this” cues in the world? First I would suggest tuning in, listening, and truly being honest about what works best for your body. (This is where mindfulness and yoga can be really helpful as they are designed to help you do just that.)

Try something, be honest about how it makes you feel, then try something else.

Keep trying until you find those things that light up your heart as much as they light up your body, your wellness, your balance. Then close your ears to all the “should’s” surrounding you and keep doing your thing.

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9 Days of Dinner

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 17:25:43 GMT

I’ve had a lot of people ask me more about food when it comes to a balanced life. I wrote a blog about my approach a while back, basically, I view each day as a bank account of food and try to balance what I eat throughout the week, not just a day:

If you have a scrumptious, sugary baked good for breakfast, try for more veggies at lunch and more protein for dinner. If you start your day with a protein-packed omelet, go ahead and grab that ice cream bowl after dinner. The same goes for portion sizes, more at one meal, less at the next.

Then of course, I use my cardinal rule which if you’ve been following along you’ve heard a lot, Know Thyself: There is absolutely 100% no such thing as a “one size fits all” approach to wellness.

To achieve balance, you absolutely HAVE to stop listening to what “they” do, and start listening to your own body. Just because one person drinks butter for breakfast and has a ton of energy from it, doesn’t mean you will (and it might, in fact, make you feel sick). Cutting carbs may give your friend endless results, but might make you tired and miserable. You simply have to tune in and get real about what YOUR body wants—using mindfulness helps a whole lot.

For me, that means I eat the vast majority of my daily food at dinner. My stomach doesn’t like large meals for breakfast and lunch and neither does my energy. I’m a pretty boring breakfast and lunch eater actually.

Breakfast: 90 percent of the time, breakfast is a protein bar or cereal. I prefer Aloha bars (low sugar, high protein, keeps me full). For cereal, I look for low-sugar, high fiber, options. I am currently loving Heritage Flakes with unsweetened almond milk, some sort of fruit and a splash of honey.

Lunch is typically a salad with some sort of nuts, cheese and fruit with balsamic vinegar and apple juice for a dressing (oil doesn’t work for me during the day). Second option is a slice of Ezekiel bread (I’m not gluten-free, I just like it :)), half an avocado and some sort of lettuce or shoots on top, plus a small bag of a crunchy snack (popcorn most of the time, sometimes Pop Chips, Veggie Straws, Pirates Booty, you get the idea :)).

Snacks: Most of the time I have a snack between all meals – an apple, chocolate dipped almonds (I adore chocolate peanut butter Skinny Dipped Almonds), or I’ll save the crunchy snack for my afternoon snack and eat a little more with my avocado toast like some cottage cheese, an egg, fruit or nuts. And always something sweet after lunch—a piece or two of Dove chocolate and/or what people make fun of me for calling “sucky candy” (aka hard candy).

Dinner! On to the main event! This is where I shine. A. I adore cooking ( see this blog ), it relaxes me and is very much a form of meditation for me. B. Eating a big dinner also relaxes me and almost feels like a mini celebration for making it through the day. C. I make damn good food—there I said it.

So here’s a picture of nine days of eating, I’ll outline what each one is below.

A few things to know first:

My husband and I went full veg when we eat at home at the beginning of the year. We started eating less and less meat and we just both really prefer vegetables. Is it healthy? Yes, of course. But our main driver was really food preference and if we end up lowering his genetically highish cholesterol in the process, that’s a bonus. We also get our veggies from the best farm share ever! So we get a TON of vegetables, and to use them all before they go bad you gotta cook a lot of them for one meal. We eat meat when we’re out for dinner or at other events, we aren’t vegetarians.
I adore cooking with a glass of wine, but I try to balance it by either having wine while I cook or dessert after dinner, not both. Dessert is pretty much always Kemps frozen yogurt (Moose Tracks to be exact). And if I have wine, I usually still nibble on a few more pieces of candy after dinner, my body definitely craves sweets after meals.
With dinner I drink Zevia and water 80 percent of the time, the other 20 percent, a splash more of wine. I drink a ton of water throughout the day, coffee only in the morning sadly or it will keep me awake—usually 2-3 cups with a little oat milk (or a Starbucks, I can’t help how much a coffee with soy from there warms my soul).
I fully recognize I don’t always eat the most affordable options, and my diet is not accessible to everyone. I believe most people choose a few things in life where they invest the most money, food is that for me. I value food so much, I spend a lot on it, and I buy my jeans at Old Navy. However, I am beyond blessed to have achieved the level of success that I have AND have fought (and continue to fight) my depression to get there and to stay there.

Here’s 9 days of dinner:

Day 1: Saturday, watching the football game. Homemade nachos with all of the fixings and tons of veggies (cabbage, garden tomatoes, radishes), homemade salsa leftover from another meal and homemade guacamole. This was more of a lunch meal since the game was early but my main meal for the day.

Day 2: Soup Sunday, most Sundays we have soup. I make a mean veggie soup if I do say so myself and usually raid our fridge for whatever veggies might go bad the quickest. I think this one had summer squash, peppers, corn off the cob, tomatoes, some almond milk to make it a little creamy and some fresh cilantro. Soup in our house always comes with cheesy bread and for some reason, I love to eat pickles with soup. I try to buy cheese that is lower in fat naturally so I usually buy an Italian blend.

Day 3: Whole wheat pasta with Trader Joe’s autumn pasta sauce (hooray, it’s back and I love it), with a side of sauteed kale, summer squash and eggplant.

Day 4: Jackfruit with barbeque sauce (I love this local bbq sauce ), on an Ezekiel English muffin with cheese, grilled potatoes and corn on the cob (we use Earth Balance for our day-to-day “butter”) and lots of salt of course.

Day 5: Veggie chili, veggies and ranch (we eat Bolthouse yogurt-based ranch), soup crackers.

Day 6: Tomato soup (Pacific brand); kale salad with strawberries, blueberries and blue cheese (someone a while ago turned me on to sesame oil, honey and vinegar as a kale salad dressing and I can’t get enough of it), and more cheesy bread (NOTE we don’t usually eat soup three times in one week but I wasn’t feeling great :)).

Day 7: Charcuterie and scones from Fariner Bakery in Ashland. Those scones…I’m still thinking about them, they were magnificent. This was more of a late lunchtime meal but was my main one that day.

Day 8: Deli fried chicken and deli bean salad, broccoli salad and pasta salad. Another Saturday game day meal, I was SO HUNGRY that day, I almost ate everything on this plate.

Day 9: Another soup Sunday, this time spicy eggplant stew with chickpeas, kale and tomatoes. A new recipe I will 100% be making again. (PS I don’t use a lot of recipes, but I’ve been using more than I normally would now that we’re all veg at home, trying to keep it a little creative).

So there it is, more than you probably wanted to know about how I eat in this balanced life. I really enjoyed taking these dinner photos, I might keep it up. ��

Here’s wishing you a week of wonderful, nourishing food, and whatever else your soul might be craving to keep enjoying your version of balance.

Do me a favor? If you’re enjoying this journey towards a balanced life please subscribe , share it, and follow my Instagram for smaller bites.

Baking for A Balanced Brain

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:06:03 GMT

When the world needed comfort during the pandemic, many people turned to baking. Turns out, I might have been on to something. ��

You might be surprised to hear I don’t formally meditate very often on this journey towards achieving a balanced life.

Yet this entire blog is about mindfulness right? Right.

And my message to you is that you can find mindfulness and balance in your day, throughout your day, in a million different ways. Here’s my blog about it.

And while I do try to take time for quiet presence each day, it’s usually in quick 3-10 minute sprints in the morning or evening. Then every few months a more formal sit at a yoga studio (I adore a good sound bath at Wild Root ) or an online guided practice with one of my favorites (right now I’m really digging Deepak Chopra ).

So the rest of the time my practice is cultivating mindfulness through my daily activities, and that shows up for me big time when I bake. As a matter of fact, I think it’s the reason I bake.

Baking is my most favorite form of mindfulness meditation, of finding balance.

You’ve heard this from me before, many times :), but you might be thinking, “So what’s so mindful about baking Katherine?” Easy.

The focus. Measuring ingredients, discerning instructions, even down to how you scoop or weigh the flour, every step of baking requires supreme focus for a successful bake. Baking gets me out of my head and away from those thoughts that don’t serve me. It plants both of my feet (and my brain) firmly in the kitchen.
The fun. Pumping up the baking music, enjoying my favorite time of day (dawn), getting messy (both in what I’m wearing and what I’m preparing), and drinking copious amounts of coffee creates a surge of joy in my bones that oftentimes sticks with me the rest of the day.
The service. Many mindfulness teachers will tell you that finding ways to be of service to the world will plant you more firmly in your journey towards living a balanced life. It will give you more peace and pride in your day. For me, baking is my way of showing love both for my people and sometimes for nonprofits (I’ve donated baked goods, done bake sale fundraisers, etc.). And for a gal whose trauma makes it pretty hard for her to open up and show emotion, discovering that sharing my baking can help me with that has been a major gift on my path toward wellness.
The presence. Trying baking distracted, inexact or messily rushing through a bake and the outcome of that will probably tell you all you need to know about why presence is so important in baking. A burnt cookie or a cup of forgotten flour in a flat cake can be as much of a guru as any great meditation teacher.
A continued reminder to trust my gut . A big part of mindfulness and living a balanced life is listening to and trusting the whispers that come when you have created space between your thoughts. I could give you example after example of a time I didn’t listen to my gut on a bake, and how that resulted in one baked good in the trash can and a “take two” in the oven. I’m grateful to have something that is not only a constant reminder to listen to my whisper, but also that if at first I don’t succeed, there can be a lot of joy in the trying (and trying :)) again.

So for me, baking is as much of a guru as Deepak is. And if this sounds absolutely crazy to you, then baking probably isn’t your teacher, and that’s when you have to remember there are zero one-size-fits-all approaches to this balance (or baking) thing.

Remember, know thyself .

Find those things in your sphere that give you this kind of peaceful presence, that continue to gently remind you what you already know, that allow you to be of service, and that bring you endless joy regardless of the outcome.

THAT’S where you’ll cultivate more mindfulness in your day. THAT my darling readers, is where the magic will happen. ��

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Balanced Eating and Exercise

katherine@balanceandrise.com (Katherine Warren) — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 21:17:46 GMT

What does it look like to seek balance in your eating and exercise? Here are five steps to get you started.

But before we begin...

There is zero requirement to be a certain shape or size to find balance. If you feel healthy, present and comfortable in your skin, that's balance. If you feel strong, focused, and grounded, that's balance. And physically that will look different for everyone.

1. Focus on Mental Health First

Regardless of what you're seeking—better health, physical changes, or something else—I firmly believe that the most balanced, healthy, and sustainable route to wellness starts with brain health. Here’s a blog about that.

2. Honor the 80/20 Rule:

Just like everything I share with you, your eating and exercise routine doesn’t need to be “all or nothing” or rigid or hard. Shooting for balanced eating and moving 80% of the time is what creates and maintains a solid routine. And trust me, you'll truly appreciate its benefits when you inevitably have to break it. Here's a blog about routine with lots more tips.

3. Tune in to the Whispers

If you're able to truly listen to (and be honest about) how your body feels after a certain kind of workout or after eating a meal, you'll be able to better understand what really works for you to feel balanced.

For movement, this is where you need to get honest with yourself about what is the most nourishing form for YOU. Is it a strenuous, sweaty workout or a refreshing walk? Are you a morning mover, a lunchtime warrior, or an evening maven? If you’re not a morning person, stop making yourself miserable trying to become one. If you hate running but think that you should like it, stop, and discover the hundreds of other ways to get your heart rate up.

Same goes for eating, tune into how your body feels after you eat certain foods. If you feel good after eating something, aim for that 80% of the time. If a meal leaves you feeling dehydrated or sluggish, save it for the 20%. Then try to balance out your day by looking at your diet as a bank account, shoot for the feel good stuff for 80% of your daily eating. Here's a full blog on the bank account concept.

4. Cultivate Daily Mindfulness

So how do we tune into the whispers? Surprise! Mindfulness.

Mindfulness creates awareness, awareness creates more alignment with what’s going on with those whispers, and it helps you tune in quicker to understanding what you truly need and when it is time for a course correction. Here’s more to learn on that.

5. Keep Learning

You may find, as I did, that once you enjoy some balance, you'll want to learn more and more about tools that help you find and maintain it. Here are some of my favorite resources to help you achieve each of these steps.

Mental Health - There are so many beautiful books and resources on mental health practices. Some of my more recent favorites were Danielle LaPorte's How to Be Loving , Brianna Wiest's The Mountain is You and if you want to go a lot deeper (proceed with loving caution please), Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry's book What Happened to You (this is great audio book because Oprah filters in some of her show interviews).

Eating - While I'm an "inspired by recipes" cook, not a use recipes cook, my go to's for healthy recipes are Eating Well and the Food Network . When I first started my wellness journey I cooked a lot from Ellie Krieger's The Food You Crave . As you know, I'm a baker, and when I indulge in my 20%, I turn to the most successful and beautiful recipes from King Arthur Flour and for gluten free bakes (for my husband and many of my friends) from Gluten Free on a Shoestring .

Moving - One big part of balance is ignoring what " they" say and listening to your balanced inner guide. Love what you love, and shout it from the rooftops! So I'm going to sing the praises of Peloton for that very reason. You don't need any of their equipment to enjoy their incredible, affordable app. With classes ranging from 5 minutes to 90 minutes, a focus on recovery classes (stretching, mobility, yoga, even meditation) as much as the tough stuff and the most positive instructors that will absolutely pack your brain with love and motivation, I simply can't say enough about their balanced, positive approach to wellness. (And no, they are not paying me to say this. :))

Mindfulness - The two teachers who truly helped me understand mindfulness and the expansive ways you can practice it are Jon Kabat-Zinn and Thich Nhat Hahn. I've read many of their books and content, but Wherever You Go There You Are and The Miracle of Mindfulness are remain my top two.

That's it! Balance really is that simple. And it really is that hard.

I'm here to help guide you every step of the way, be sure to subscribe to my e-newsletter so I can keep sharing more and more learnings that come my way. You've got this. We've got this. Thank you for including me on your journey.

Bring Balance To Work

katherine@balanceandrise.com (Katherine Warren) — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 16:40:36 GMT

And no I do not mean "work/life balance"...

Balance at work, in my opinion, starts with these 5 things:

Authenticity/vulnerability
Realistic routines
Focus
Trust
Finding joy in your work

It means a lot of other things too, being a balanced leader (you can download my ebook for more on that), implementing balanced policies and practices (here's a blog on that) but to keep it simple for this guide, these are my top five.

Authenticity at Work

There’s an art to vulnerability, especially at work. Being real connects us as humans, but that doesn’t mean you need to share every nitty, gritty detail for someone to relate. If you went through something hard that you think would help someone else learn or relate more to you, share it. Share just enough to help that person get where they need to go or at least understand they aren’t alone in the journey.

An easy example of this is if you screwed up at work, and now someone you’re leading made a similar mistake, tell them you’ve been there. Empathize instead of reprimand and watch that person bloom. Feeling supported instead of scolded creates happy, healthier, (= more productive and accountable) team members 95% of the time. Here's a blog with more on that.

Realistic Routines

If someone on my team is sitting at their computer, staring at it either spiraling about something or burnt out, are they doing good work? No. No, no, no. And please admit right now we've all been there. This takes some serious deprogramming if you've been in the corporate world your entire life but the reality is if you're sitting staring at your computer, you're not doing anyone (your company included) any favors.

I'm going to say it, screw the 8-5 mentality. Working when you feel most productive, taking breaks when you start to sit and spiral, and then come back and crush another couple hours of work—THAT my friends is balanced work. THAT will produce far higher quality work in less time. Not to mention your team will be so grateful (= accountable and loyal) to you for honoring their routines that put them at their best. I don't think I need to tell you what that means for your bottom line.

I am a morning maven. I work for at least an hour when I get up at the crack of dawn, then I take a big workout break, then I can focus, seriously focus, for a few good hours. A couple hours of focused work will run circles around 8 hours of just trying to get through. And of course I'm not the only one touting this model, here's a fantastic take from an industry expert, Dan Sullivan, on this same topic.

Speaking of Focus

Happy, healthy brains are focused brains. Brains need breaks, quiet space for focused breathing, and genuine rest. Mindfulness helps your team better understand: 1. What is truly a break for their brain (not what we try to convince ourselves is—and that's harder than it sounds, more on that in my ebook). 2. How to slow down an unproductive thought spiral by taking even a 2 minute break to focus on breath and 3. What kind of breaks work best for them. This is so, so, different for every person—some thrive with mini breaks, some need an hour or more—mindfulness helps us tune in to better understand what truly works for us, not just what we think should work.

Trust

In order to allow for the first 3 items on this list you absolutely have to trust your team. And they have to trust you right back. Hire people you trust enough to implement these first three practices, THEN live them yourself so that your team trusts you. Trust creates accountability, accountable people care about their work, work that is cared for will show in every inch of product you produce. And don't just take my word for it, check out the hundreds of tales of successful business people that share their story on Masterclass . Quality work wins in the long run in every, single story they share.

Finding Joy in your Work

If you successfully live the 4 practices above you will find joy in your work. I don't care what your work is; focus, pride, and accountability in the outcome of whatever you're doing is bound to create a little joy. Not the fake kind—the authentic kind that is joyful yet raw, real, and full of ups and downs. Then you get to experience life as an Option B'er (here's my blog on that) and then beautiful balance becomes more of your day-to-day. And productivity, profitability and all the wonderful outcomes in business life are bound to follow.

Here are a few more of my favorite books on balanced work:

10x is Easier than 2x

It Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work

Herding Tigers

Mindset

The 6 Types of Working Genius

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

Let's keep learning together. Be sure to subscribe for updated guides, resource-packed newsletters, blogs, and more.

Mindfulness Meditation 101

katherine@balanceandrise.com (Katherine Warren) — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 22:41:03 GMT

"Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally...in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.” Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness means being present with whatever is; good, bad or otherwise. The reason mindfulness is so beneficial on this journey towards a balanced life is because planting yourself in the present allows you to have a richer daily life experience.

Mindfulness allows you to be fully present with anyone in your company (family, friends, coworkers), it allows you to pay attention to the beautiful trees on your next walk, and enjoy every bite of that cake with pure bliss.

Mindfulness also allows you to process those harder thoughts and emotions without the need to react to them, or judge them, or convince yourself you are good, bad or otherwise for having them. It allows you to differentiate between the thoughts that serve you and the ones that don't. That pesky brain of ours is almost childlike in how it throws out randomn thoughts, mindfulness helps us discern the ones we can use, and smile at the ones we can't with the same gentle understanding we would a young troublemaker.

Mindfulness helps you be more "tuned in" to your mind and your body. It allows to you better understand how you truly feel after you go for a big run or indulge in a big burger and adjust your practices based on what feels best, what feels the most balanced.

Just like everything in the world you want to "get good at," we have to practice mindfulness, and one of the most common ways to do that is meditation.

There are about as many ways to meditate as there are words in this guide. A lot of them are more formal practices with longer sit times, meditation cushions, incense and tea.

Traditional practice is wonderful and certainly has its place in our balanced lives. It’s often how many people (including myself) begin a meditation practice, allowing the benefits to soak into your bones and become a habit.

You might convince yourself you’re “not good” at meditation and give up entirely. Or, like me, you may find that your practice comes and goes, never fully sticking.

What I’ve come to find is that 2 minutes of meditation can impact your life as much as 20—or even as much as a 2-day retreat. No soft music or candles required.

If you'd like to try a bit more of this mini-mindfulness approach. Here are some simple and sustainable Mindfulness 101 practices to help you do that.

Try each one with a timer set for 3-7 minutes, and if that doesn't work try 2. The growth is in the practice, not the outcome so go easy on yourself at first.

All of these options start with finding a comfortable spot, one where you aren't overly distracted by the position of your body (for example, if you have a bad back barking at you, don't sit in a position that makes it act up, lay on the floor instead). Close your eyes or find a nice soft gaze (like you're looking at something blurry) and try one of these:

Breath Count

Tune into your breath and count your inhales and exhales. Inhale 1, exhale 2, count all the way up to ten and back down again. That's it, congratulations you're meditating!

Breath Feeling

Focus on what it feels like to breathe in your body. Can you feel a rise and fall of your chest, does your belly expand and then sink back towards your spine? Do your collar bones expand and your shoulders drop? How does the air feel as it leaves your nose?

Word Focus

Focus on a word that has some meaning to you. Breathe in and repeat the word in your mind, breathe out and let it go.

Body Scan

Bring your attention and breath to your toes. Then work your way up the body with your attention and breath, stopping at each major point like your ankles, knees, belly, chest, throat, etc. Do this all the way up to the top of your head. If you have an extra 5 minutes, do the same thing back down the body again. Give extra love and breath to any sticky spots (mentally or physically).

Sound Meditation

Focus on any and all sounds around you as if you've never heard them before. No reaction, no judgement, just listen to the sounds. This is a great one to try in your car (eyes open, please :)). Turn off the radio and simply tune in to the sounds of the engine, blinker, etc. and any bonus sounds like rain.

Walking Meditation

Take a slower walk than you're used to. Focus on every step. Pay attention to the nature around you. Try to see it as if you've never seen it before. Slow down your walk even more, feel every bit of bone in your feet as you they touch the ground. You might add to this practice the words, "just this" in your mind as you walk. Just this tree, just this step, just this...

Take 5 Transition

One of my all time faves, take 5 minutes during a significant transition time in your day (morning, after the kids are off to school, in your car before or after work) and practice one of the above meditations for 5 minutes before you move into the next part of your day.

Huge disclaimer, even if you only practice for 3 minutes, it is inevitable thoughts that aren't part of what you're practicing will arise. Acknowledge that thought, smile at it, and allow it to pass without judgement or reaction.

Ready to take your mindfulness practice to the next level?

Here are my two most favorite mindfulness books:

Wherever You Go There You Are - Jon Kabat-Zinn

The Miracle of Mindfulness - Thich Nhat Hanh

There you have it! You've officially learned Mindfulness Meditation 101. Easier than you thought? Yes. But equally as hard to put in to practice? Also yes.

That's why we're here to support each other. Come back to any of my Balanced Mind blogs when you need to be reminded of the absolutely immense benefits of even a short practice. You've got this, we've got this. I am honored to share this endless journey with you, to find joy and growth in the pure and simple practice.

Beautiful Culture – Balance and Rise

Why You Can’t Run From Yourself (And What It Means to Truly Move On)

A personal reflection on change, mental health, and why healing doesn’t come from starting over somewhere new.

You Can’t Outrun Your Mind

The Difference Between Escaping and Healing

Soup Sundays: A Simple Ritual for Balanced Eating and a Balanced Life

Here are 4 Reasons why Soup Sundays Work:

How to Create Your Own Weekly Soup Recipe:

A simple, sustainable way to build healthy habits without overcomplicating your routine.

A Real-Life Approach to Balanced Eating (Why 80/20 Works)

A realistic approach to healthy eating, balance, and enjoying food without restriction

What Balanced Eating Looks Like on a Real Weeknight (Easy, Healthy Dinner Idea)

A real-life dinner that balances nutrition, ease, and enjoyment

A Simple 7-Minute Mindfulness Practice to Reset Your Day

A simple 7-minute mindfulness practice you can use to reset your day, even when life feels busy.

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Resolution? Put your Brain Health First

I am living proof that people can, in fact, change.

Regardless of the change you are seeking, whether it's lifestyle, wellness, finances, or anything else, I implore you to focus on your brain health first.

So please, approach any goal on your wish list with this in mind. What steps can you take towards a healthier brain that can help you find a place to reach those other goals from a more solid, sustainable, and enjoyable space?

Prioritizing brain health will most likely push back progress on your other goal, but when you get there, the experience will be far more sustainable and beautiful than you might have ever thought possible.

Grief and Movement

My mom took seven days to die.

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I needed the sense of accomplishment. I needed the rush of adrenaline, of pure presence and feeling.

This is deeply personal to me, friends, deeply.

I vowed to do everything I could to not let genetics win.

Find your "why" and attach it to how you choose to balance your body (whether that's a run, a walk, or nutritious food).

Make it personal.

Spelt Pumpkin Scones

The Benefits of Baking with Spelt Flour (and Why It’s My Fall Go-To)

What Is Spelt Flour and Why Bake with It?

How Spelt Flour Elevates Fall Baking

Where to Find Spelt Flour

Finding Balance at the Table

Fresh Tomato Soup

Fresh Tomato Soup

The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

Spoiler alert, the recipe is an infamous one, Betty Crocker's that is, with a few very important tweaks.

Midlife Mind

I’ve read about it, I’ve heard about it, and still nothing quite prepares you for the whirlwind of midlife madness.

So what am I doing to try to stay as balanced as possible during this phase?

ROUTINE.

REST.

Annnd let’s be honest, COFFEE, lots of coffee. ��

The silver lining?

So this midlife has opened the door to me saying yes to more things than I normally would.

An Ode to Silken Tofu

A big part of this middle age thing is balancing hormones. One step I’ve been taking is adding more hormone-producing foods into my diet--enter tofu (and flax, and pumpkin seeds, etc, but this blog is about tofu.)

Convinced yet? Let’s get to the details:

And here are the recipes I follow (kind of) for:

Balancing a Brain that’s Fighting Back

Your brain will straight up lie to you. There’s no way to sugar coat that, friends, there just isn’t.

It’s tough, tough work. It’s lifelong work.

Under no circumstances should you negotiate with these thoughts. That’s where spiraling lives, that’s where lack of balance lies.

Treat your brain as a child acting up. Firm yet loving, holding true to what you know is best. Because you know what balance feels like and you know these thoughts aren’t gonna serve that.

It's All In The Eyes

What you might see when you look at this picture is a physical transformation. My size, my shininess, the polish of my look. What I see, is the change in my eyes. ﻿

As always, I will leave you with this. What helps keep your eyes alive and bright might be very different than what sparks mine. And it has so very little to do with shape or size.

I used to be ashamed of this girl, I used to hide her from my current circle, but I’ve done a lot of work on myself to instead have nothing but immense empathy for her. And to share her beauty with all of you.

Why a Balanced Life Blogger and Culture First Leader Cringes When I Hear “Work/Life Balance”

It never fails, when I try to explain the beautiful, balanced culture we are building at KidGlov (focused on finding joy in our work), someone inevitably says, “Oh, you mean good work/life balance?”

The way I see it, we have two options in the never-ending pursuit of achieving a balanced life:

If you have no choice but to stick with something that’s pushing you out of balance, are there things you can do to find even a glimmer of Option B living, maybe even just for 5 minutes in your day?

The Art of Vulnerability at Work

There’s an art to vulnerability, especially at work. Being real is what connects us as humans, but that doesn’t mean you need to share every nitty, gritty detail for someone to relate.

Here are a few ways I try to show up as a leader while balancing the art of vulnerability:

What’s the most beautiful part of all this vulnerability and balance? You don’t have to be great at it all the time for it to work.

INSPIRE

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to inspire someone.

My Take on Wellness and Volunteer Programs

What does wellness mean to you?

Is there a better solution to ensure every member of your organization feels valued?

What if we just gave more time?

Time, flexibility during the golden hours, maybe even a wellness stipend that could be spent on personal improvement however each person defines it.

Life As A Bank Account

One of the most impactful physical wellness lessons I have learned came from a Real Housewife.

The advice that stuck with me the most: consider your diet a bank account.

Along with diet, this shows up in how I prioritize life activities.

What you might see when you look at this picture is a physical transformation. My size, my shininess, the polish of my look. What I see, is the change in my eyes.