Strengths are our innate patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. These character traits and skills are often easily recognizable to who we are and how we operate.

Humans weren't designed to function like machines. The industrial revolution fueled this misconception, pushing for maximum efficiency at any cost. But the hard reality is that each person has limits and pushing beyond them leads to eventual burnout.

This season full of wonder, gratitude, and hope often tends to get overshadowed by the loss of someone very important who I loved deeply. I lost my dad unexpectedly 7 years ago around this time. Every time we reach the point in the year where Michael Buble’s Christmas album starts playing on the radio, it leaves me with the question: can gratitude and pain coexist?

Remember the days when someone asked a question and you actually had to use your brain to find the answer? Now we just Google it. It’s a privilege to have access to the information we have today. I can look up Premier League stats on the fly. I can figure out how to change my own oil.

Every experience with grief is unique and nuanced. These are some things I’ve learned as I’ve walked my journey. I hope they encourage you as you travel yours.

Anyone else ever feel like life would be easier if it weren’t for difficult people? Friends, family, coworkers? Even under the best circumstances, some people just get under my skin. Our differences create conflict.

Reflection has become an important practice for me over the years. I understand if some might not want to think back on a year that wreaked utter havoc on society. But I’ve learned sometimes when circumstances breed pain, the only way through is through.

Huddles. Stand up meetings. Daily Scrum. If used intentionally, these meetings can have an effective impact on team communication and accountability. I’ve often wondered why we don’t implement similar best practices in our homes because home management is rather similar to business management.

My husband, MJ, and I recently decided to focus on a word at the beginning of each month. We’ve never done that, but we wanted to preserve our ability to pause and focus on something during a season of toddler life that affords neither pausing nor focusing. He chose the word “personhood.”

Motherhood, for me, is like a coin with two sides. One side exposes me, the other refines me. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know how to navigate either well. But motherhood is a journey of learning to embrace both because one side on its own loses the weight and beauty and joy that make up the whole.

Few experiences have altered my life more than that of losing my father. The sting of his death wrecked me. It did for many reasons but especially because his death felt like a fluke in the system.

Sometimes our actions don’t effectively align with intent. We try to prevent worry but brush over important details, eliciting more concern. We want to avoid burdening family members with personal needs, but when they don’t show up for us, we foster resentment.

There’s something both beautiful and powerful about musical underscore. Its purpose is to creatively support a storyline in order to incite the observer to feel something and react to the events being observed. It serves as a lens through which we interpret and react to each scene.