“May I receive more than I give so that I may sustain change with grace.”

I came up with this intention almost 20 years ago after attending a week-long intensive entitled Sustaining Change. At the time, I was involved in learning a new healing modality. I couldn’t keep up with all the changes in me, the work, the culture, and with technology. Change was happening at warp speed and I was overwhelmed.

I’ve found observationally from having cancer that everything has to slow down.  I’ve narrowed my work hours down...because otherwise, I literally can’t live. Slowing down personally has made me realize that our collective pace is unsustainable. 

I have always been fascinated by the capacity of the human mind, body, and spirit to both endure and perform. I believe humans are brilliantly engineered to withstand, survive, and flourish amidst great uncertainty, against great odds. We have so much more than we think.

Just as I had made a list of my goals so many years before, I made another list of ten. A list of the ten things that open the heart. I sat with it. I read it over and over, and then I suddenly saw it as a mnemonic, CDEFGHIJKL. It was a way to remember each aspect of what I had learned. The alphabet of the heart.

A recurring story in my life is one of metamorphosis.  I start out as a caterpillar, small, green, and insatiably hungry. I cannot leave the ground. I squirm around, eating everything in sight. Then I give myself over to a process I don't understand.

My commute each day takes me across the Huguenot Bridge. In the winter, when the sun sets early, one sees some spectacular sunsets looking west up the river as you cross the bridge… carefully. That is, if one takes the time to notice and appreciate the sunset.

Endings have always been a challenge for me. Saying goodbye at the airport. The last day of school. Children leaving for college. You know the feelings - a lump in the throat, an emptiness in the gut, a yearning heart. Perhaps such grieving at departures is just intrinsic to the human condition.

We’ve been talking about INNER WORK a lot these days, and what I mean by inner work is the deep introspection that gives you clarity about what matters most to you. I think the reason this definition is so appealing to me is that before I engaged in my own inner work, I used to try to do ALL. THE. THINGS.

Finding myself in the second half of life, I am more deeply aware of the fragility of life, the sacredness of life, and the mystery of life. I’m breathing a little slower and allowing for an ever-deepening listening to myself and others. In that listening to self, my intention is to hear more completely the guidance from my mind, my body, and my soul.

Chrysalis was founded twenty-five years ago in Nancy Millner’s living room with her husband B and a small group of close friends. Celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary allows the opportunity to reflect on the gifts that Chrysalis has given me…and perhaps it does the same for you.

As a species, we humans have evolved along two paths: surviving and thriving. In any given moment, when a threat is present, surviving overwhelms thriving. In contemporary life, busyness, distractions, and demands are perceived as threats. This activates our nervous systems…

Like many people, I have a new year ritual that began when I was young. As far back as I can remember, I have spent part of New Year’s Day reflecting on the prior year and setting personal goals for the new year.

I’ve worked in the financial services sector for most of my career. For big and small companies, from Wall Street to London to Richmond. The same theme emerges over and over again: Money is not about money – it’s about desire.

American culture seems perpetually obsessed with the destination. We thrive upon the voracious frenzy for the presumed prize at the end of our efforts. Emerson suggests a different orientation. A recent experience within Chrysalis accentuated a paradigm shift in my perception of what matters most in a collaborative community…

Pain froze you, for years—and fear—leaving scars. But now, as though miraculously, it seems, here you are walking easily across the ground, and into town as though you were floating on air. Which in part you are.

My wish is to slow my Clock Dance down before I’m gone with a pouf! I want to observe and experience my life. But how? Left to myself, I never think I do. Like Willa, I’m all awhirl, running, spinning. When I pause for meditation, at least my body is still.

Occasionally, I feel isolated and alone. I feel my “otherness” - that I am not like everyone else. I am different. I don’t belong. I’ve never thought of myself as a lonely person, but guess what? That’s the definition of loneliness.

Some of us live in an almost perpetual state of stress and anxiety, which wreaks havoc on our bodies and souls. How do we find calm and ease, and know that we can return to these states when necessary?

In Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn shares seven pillars of a mindfulness practice: Non-judging, Patience, Beginners Mind, Trust, Non-striving, Acceptance, and Letting Go. Each of these pillars supported me throughout pregnancy and prepared me for the unexpected traumas of childbirth.

I turned 74 years old last month. How did that happen? 

I recall a time someone asked me, “If you could be any age, what would it be?” I don't remember my answer but am relatively certain it was not 74. I remember wanting to be a different age....16 so I could get a driver’s license, 18 so I could graduate from high school, 22 so I could graduate from college and get on with life, and then 65 so I could retire…