Tag: problem solving

October 13, 2026

Be Present (without participating)

Photo by Izabel 🏳️‍🌈 on Unsplash

How can I be present without participating?

During yoga class, my teacher stated, “Be present without participating.” At this moment, I was trying to keep my balance during a tree pose. I wondered what this phrase could mean. How can I be both present and not participate? Isn’t being present a way of participating? As I pressed my right foot into my left leg and tried to keep from falling, I thought that maybe this is what he means. Be present and do not engage with the wobble of every moment. If I remained present in my own core stability and calm, I could better maintain the pose. If I participated in the wobble, I might fall out. I needed to focus my eyes on one steady point.

Parenting and Wobbling

As a parent, I see this fine balance as a constant dance. Be present without participating.

September 29, 2026

Strong (not rigid) Leadership

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Can you be a strong leader and leave the rigid mindset behind?

Can you be a strong leader and simultaneously leave the rigid mindset behind? Do strength and rigidity have to coexist? I believe that with practice and mindful reflection, you can achieve strong leadership without rigidity. To me, rigidity is the shadow side of a strong leader. If you lean too much into your power, you may become set in your behaviors and mindset. 

This is something I had to work on early on in my leadership journey. As a new educator and then as a new manager, I found comfort in systems and structures, especially those that seemed to be effective. Some of my top Clifton strengths are in the executing domain and, if overused, can lead to a rigid and overly structured mindset and behaviors. When these strengths are over-leveraged, I am less open to alternative options and opinions.

August 6, 2025

Are You Postponing Joy?

How are you getting in the way of feeling joy?

Photo by Rhendi Rukmana on Unsplash

Are you postponing joy? I had not thought of this concept until a recent group meditation session with my meditation teacher, Gayathri Narayanan. Gayathri introduced me to the idea that I could be postponing joy. I could be putting obstacles or barriers between myself and joyful moments.  So, if I am putting those barriers in, I could also remove them to create less distance between joy and myself. 

Thoughts as Barriers to Joy

I reflected on how I might be delaying joy in my own life. I recently found out I am likely moving again in a year’s time. Of course, I instantly started having thoughts: planning logistics, wondering, worrying. These thoughts led to sleepless nights and bad dreams. This is just what my mind does when I know change is afoot. It’s my routine.

May 14, 2025

How are you making room for failure?

How do you make room for failure in your leadership practice?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

How do you make room for failure in your leadership practice? When I was new to my career and leadership, I often painstakingly tried to avoid failure. I would spend enormous amounts of time thinking, planning, creating structures, and backup plans just in case something went wrong. When something inevitably went wrong, I blamed myself and tried to prepare even more! I soon realized that this process was not effective. I was not growing and learning about myself as a leader with this method. I needed to try something different.

Try not to control everything.

Try not to control everything, especially the things that are not in your control. I try to spend time thinking about what parts of each situation are actually within my control, not in my control or maybe within my field of influence.

April 24, 2025

Are You Getting in Your Own Way?

Are you standing on the hose and wondering why the water is not coming out?

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

How are you getting in your own way and maybe not even realizing it? My yoga teacher mentioned this image of standing on the hose and looking around wondering why the water isn’t coming out. This was a good visual for me. I often do this! I wonder what’s going wrong, who is making things go wrong, and I forget to take into consideration that I might be impacting the situation. I remind myself to pause and think about where I had impact in the situation. It’s not about blame necessarily. Rather, it is about noticing where I can create a different impact. Pausing and reflecting helps me realize where I can possibly change or do something different next time. I raise my awareness of my role and actions. After all, I can’t change what others do but I can manage my own choices.

February 20, 2025

Antoni Gaudi and Strategic Leadership

“Antoni Gaudí, one of the most universal figures of Catalan culture and international architecture, devoted more than 40 years to the Temple of the Sagrada Família.”

Strategic work in phases is more effective and intentional. I have learned this lesson throughout my career, and more recently, when I visited La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. We had the good fortune to see our daughter during her semester abroad in Barcelona, and of course, we visited the famous Antoni Gaudi Basilica, La Sagrada Familia. 

Ahead of his time, unique. A man of faith, observer of nature and genius architect, Antoni Gaudí has become a universal figure in modern architecture.

La Sagrada Familia

One of the plaques stated that Gaudi intentionally engineered his construction of the Basilisca to be done over many years in phases because he thought people would be less likely to give up on the project, and would be more invested for a longer time.

November 6, 2024

Sitting at the Water Hole

Photo by ActionVance on Unsplash

I sit at the water hole and let my thoughts come to me.

Sometimes, I feel like my thoughts are chasing me and they keep finding me. Gayathri Narayanan, my meditation teacher, encouraged us to ‘sit at the water hole’ and wait for our thoughts to come to us. She said that her teacher, Gil Fronsdal, talked about it in terms of being a wildlife photographer. You could either follow the footprints and chase the wildlife around their territory or you could simply sit at the water hole knowing all animals will eventually need to drink. The first helpful step for me is to stop chasing my thoughts and stop letting them chase me. I sit at the water hole and let them come to me.

As my thoughts come to me, I label them. Is it useful? Is it pleasant? Unpleasant? Neutral? These questions have been helpful to me as I navigate times in my life that consume my thoughts.

September 5, 2024

Balancing is a Series of Falls

What would it look like to view falling as a part of balancing, mistakes as a part of learning and growing, and a necessary means to an end?

Photo by Caique Nascimento on Unsplash

Balancing is a series of falls. My yoga teacher said something about how balancing is just the process of falling in and out over and over again. While I wobbled slowly in tree pose, I had a light bulb moment. Balancing is just a series of falling in and out. Someone rarely balances right into a tree pose. You need to ground yourself, ready your limbs, fall in and out of balance, practice a lot, and reflect! 

When I taught at an independent school in Marin County California, there was a class called Energy Time, a sort of combo of meditation and Aikido. At that time, an experienced and skilled teacher taught us to fall and get back up.

July 29, 2024

Leveraging Your Strengths

Leverage your strengths to discover your full potential.

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash

Leverage your strengths to discover your full potential. When I was new to teaching, I used to think of strengths and weaknesses as two different things on opposite sides and disconnected from one another. Your strengths were in one silo and your weaknesses in another. As I gained more experience in life and as a teacher, I realized that our strengths can be used to leverage our areas of growth. Strengths and areas of growth are connected. This helped me immensely as a teacher of young children. Working with a student’s strengths builds confidence,  a clear understanding of how they learn best, and a way to influence their areas of growth.

As a student this summer these ideas were reinforced when I completed my training as a Clifton Strengths Finder Coach. Before the course, I took the Clifton Strengths Assessment and learned about my top 10 strengths in depth.

April 11, 2024

Slow Down and Do More

Slow down and do more.

Photo by LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR on Unsplash

Slow down and do more. You might think these two things don’t belong together. How do you work slower and do more? Would that work? I think so! 

As a younger parent working full time, I felt like I had to be rushing around all the time. I was often trying to do more than one thing at a time. Of course, now we all know there is no such thing as multitasking. Rather, you are just switching from one task to another and ultimately not doing any of it very well or faster. 

The first time I practiced mindfulness, I was trying to focus on one task with all my senses. I decided to focus on scrambling my eggs in the morning before work. I used all my senses and scrambled the eggs. Normally, I would try to check emails, make lunch, or something else on my to-do list while I made breakfast.