You sit down to make a plan for something you want. At the top of the page, the goal is clear. Underneath it, you begin writing what you’ll need to do. Then the questions multiply. What comes first? How much time should you give it before expecting a result? You leave the page unfinished because answering one question has raised several more. In this week’s newsletter, I shared how I wish I knew the exact steps toward the life I picture through my apothecary and graduate scho

In this week’s newsletter, I wrote about how we treat ourselves when we’re new. Here, I want to explore what happens next: how that treatment affects whether we ask for help or try to hide the things we haven’t learned. Beginning something as an adult brings us into situations where we have experience and still need guidance. A question comes up, and before we ask it, we’re considering how it will sound. We want to understand what to do. We also care about how we’re seen. Why

Adjusting to change can feel surprisingly uncomfortable when it’s a change you wanted. You’ve put thought into the decision, and there are reasons you’re glad you made it. Then you find yourself struggling with parts of the experience you were excited to begin. In this week’s newsletter, I shared how this is showing up as I begin practicum and take on new commitments. What interests me is how quickly the discomfort of being new can turn into a question about whether we’re cap

The end of a season gives us a natural chance to look at what has changed. Some of that is obvious. The weather shifts, schedules change, and the pace of life starts to feel different. Other changes are harder to see because they have happened gradually. A practice that once felt important may no longer be doing much for us. Something we started during a difficult period may have quietly become part of our routine even though the original need has passed. That is what I have

Flower essences are often introduced through indications. Olive is associated with depletion. Oak speaks to persistence that has become overextension. Wild Rose belongs to periods of flatness and disengagement. Self-Heal brings our participation in healing into focus. Indications give us an entry point, but I’m increasingly interested in what happens after we know them. A flower can begin to shape the way we interpret our own experience. Oak becomes part of how we recognize o

The first time we work with a flower essence, we usually meet it through description. We read what it is associated with, notice where that seems to match our experience, and begin from there. That gives us an introduction. What comes later is different. When we return to the same flower across different moments in our lives, we start learning what that flower means to us specifically. We see which parts of its teaching keep showing up, which situations make us think of it, a

Understanding ourselves changes a great deal. Once a pattern has language, we recognize it more easily. We understand why certain situations affect us so strongly, why we keep reaching for the same response, or why something we’ve already decided to change still keeps showing up. Insight gives us a clearer view of what’s happening. Then life gives us another opportunity to respond. That gap between understanding something and living differently because of it is where practice

This week’s newsletter asked how we can care deeply about a dream without allowing it to become the measure of the life around it. The question underneath that is one I keep returning to: what separates devotion from obsession? Both can involve effort, repetition, sacrifice, and a willingness to keep going long after the original excitement has worn off. From the outside, they may even look similar. The difference becomes easier to see when we pay attention to what our pursui

Visibility changes something that private preparation can’t. An idea can feel clear while it still belongs only to us, whether it’s a product on the worktable, a piece of writing in a document, an offer we’re developing, or a desire we haven’t shared. Once another person encounters it, they bring their own questions, assumptions, needs, and ways of understanding to what we’ve created. That exchange gives the work a life beyond our original intentions. Someone may notice a det

In this week’s newsletter, I wrote about slow blooming and the importance of moving at the speed of your nervous system. Underneath that reflection is a larger question about how we experience the years between wanting something and having it. Many of us describe that period as waiting. The word can make the middle sound empty, as though life is paused until the relationship begins, business grows, degree is complete, or the home finally becomes possible. Yet the years before

In this week’s newsletter, I wrote about the long game and the expectation that one season might finally deliver the relationship, health, work, or financial change I had been waiting for. The larger question underneath that story is why meaningful growth becomes so difficult to recognize while we are living inside it. A familiar line captures part of the problem: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” John Lennon used the line in “Beautiful Boy”

If you read this week's newsletter, you know I've been reflecting on a question that has stayed with me all month. What kind of life am I building if recovery is always the goal? The newsletter shared the personal side of that question. This post explores the idea behind it. If you're new to Field & Flowers, welcome. Each week I share a personal reflection through the newsletter, then use the blog to explore one idea more deeply through the lenses of psychology, seasonal livi

In this week’s newsletter, I shared a story about a spring autoimmune flare and the unexpected way it showed up in my life. The physical symptoms got my attention, but what stayed with me was something else entirely. As my energy declined, my home became more difficult to maintain. Dishes lingered in the sink, paperwork accumulated on surfaces, and tasks that normally felt manageable began requiring more effort. What surprised me wasn’t the clutter itself. What surprised me w

Last week I wrote about how easy it can be to miss the signs of depletion. This week I want to introduce you to a flower that has been very much on my mind: Olive. The timing feels appropriate because this spring reminded me that even after fifteen years of living with lupus, I can still overlook the obvious. I can still spend time searching for explanations, trying to understand what’s wrong, and looking for something to solve when my body is asking for something surprisingl

One of the things I’ve been reflecting on this spring is how easy it is to miss depletion when it’s happening. And that realization surprised me. I’ve been living with Lupus - Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) since 2011. You’d think that after fifteen years I’d be able to recognize the signs immediately. Instead, I found myself doing what I’ve done many times before: looking for explanations and solutions, and trying to figure out what I needed to fix. It took me longer tha

Hello and welcome. It feels fitting that the first piece I write in here in almost 3 years is inspired by an end. Specifically, the end of a relationship. Since writing here in 2023, my writing has focused on healing, dating, and relationships. The blog never had a name. When I wrote this I was convinced the new name would be Evolution Artistry. The name came as a no-brainer because it reflects the one thing I know for certain about being alive: the only thing I am truly mea

Happy New Years Eve to you! I'm curious how you're feeling the day before we usher in a whole new year? As I survey myself on NYE 2022, I’m reminded of three emotional states/modes I’ve tended to be in on any given NYE. #1: Party Mode #2: Reflection/Gratitude Mode #3: F*ck It Mode 1. Party Mode: This the mode I recall before I started my recovery, healing and embodiment journey. My primary goals on NYE in this mode was to get as decked out as possible, take as many pict

Towards the end of 2021, I started visioning out 2022... I had such wonderful plans. I had such lofty goals. The Truth? 2022 was a bust for me (at least when it came to my plans). After Christmas 2021 was basically canceled for me due to Covid, I proceeded (though I didn’t realize it at the time) to go way into hiding as I faced emotional struggle, after emotional struggle… after emotional struggle. And I struggled in just about all areas of my life: my relationship, m

This has been a long time coming. I've been struggling for what feels like years to dial in communicating in a way that felt authentic, in real time and devoid of the pressures and expectations to constantly be reaching out with something/anything (whether it was in alignment with me or not) lest you forget about me or worse hit the dreaded unsubscribe/unfollow button. So welcome. You can expect realness with GROWTH NOTES. I'll be sharing stories from my life about things

Today I wanted to give you a window into what I'm working on in my emotional growth and maturity. Today I'm present to being in a reality I've been anticipating for many months. A while back my partner told me he wanted to take a backpacking trip in June to Yosemite so the reality I was contemplating for months was being apart for 8 days. If you've been around for a bit you already know I have an abandonment wound and struggle with separation anxiety when my partner and I are