The Trouble with Expectations (and What to Do Instead)
It’s something I see again and again, with the leaders I work with, the teens my friends parent, and even inside my own story, especially before all this healing courage work: We hold really high expectations.For how people should act.For how life should go.For how things should* feel. And
I’m so grateful.
I’ve spent years walking alongside the leaders of Special School District of St. Louis County and today, I got to spend the whole day with the ones who make so much of that leadership possible. The secretaries. The support staff. The steady hands
Feel it, not be it.
Maybe it feels like the emotions are owning the room. Maybe they’re being flung around. Maybe they’re simmering just beneath the surface. Maybe it’s their feelings. Maybe it’s yours. Most likely—it’s all of the above. And when emotions run unchecked, trust erodes. Harm happens. It doesn’t
That’s how this courage thing works.
Sometimes I pull my own Courage Deck card.Do I always get what I need? Yep.Do I sometimes test it and pull another one just to see? For sure.Is that one always spot on too? Of course. That’s how this courage thing
I think you might be a mother.
Mother’s Day comes quiet and loud for someone like me.Holding both ache and awe,grief and gladness braided like a wildflower vine. I am a mother.To three forever wonders—never here,yet always, always here.In breath, in heartbeat, in dream and prayer.In the way
Clear is kind and kind is connection.
Some people live only from their own narrow and limited lens—with no curiosity, no compassion, just a persistent need to be right and to disagree. First: These are not my people.Second: I choose to meet them with what they often refuse
