Fall Check-in

Let’s check in for the fall season. As nature goes into low power mode, I find that this season offers space for reflection. Here are some questions that you can use to check in with yourself.

• How are you doing? Like, really doing?

• What have you learned about yourself in this past season?

• Have you made time to spend with loved ones recently?

• What is one thing in your life that seems to be ending? How do you feel about it?

• How are your goals looking now that we are in the last few months of the year?

• Who have you been thinking about more than usual recently? What keeps bringing them to mind?

• Where have you been finding space to rest these days?

You can use these questions as journal prompts, or starting points for reflection.

The Advantage of Following Up

I've been thinking recently about following up, and how powerful it can be, in many of our relationships and also in our careers.

Following up is the thing to really take our relationships to another level.

November Reading List

The vibe is…let’s go on an adventure!

• The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard

• Clean Getaway by Nic Stone

• Life of Pi by Yann Martel

• Wild by Cheryl Strayed

• The Catch Me If You Can by Jessica Nabongo

• Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple

• From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

Find the complete list at Bookshop.

This month’s reading list is inspired by my recent adventures! In my month away from here, I’ve done so many awesome things, and I want you to feel inspired by these books which are all about adventure in some way. If you’re looking for a young person on a road trip Clean Getaway’s story of a boy and his grandmother, or Ladee Hubbard’s entertaining romp with the Ribkins family will not disappoint. Journey with them across America to see what they’re running from…or running towards.

Or, read about Cheryl Strayed’s life-changing hike on the Pacific Crest trail…also maybe running from something. Actually, so is the eponymous Bernadette in Maria Semple’s epistolary novel, but if you read about her suburban mom life, you might run too.

Ironically, The Catch Me If You Can is not be someone who’s running, but a memoir meets travel book by the first Black woman to visit all 195 countries. This is a stunning coffee table style book that recounts many of the countries that she visited. Caitlin Doughty also takes us across the world, looking at how people view death in different cultures. If you’re looking for less realistic world travel, try Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I’m still unclear about whether the contents of the book actually happened to the main character or not.

Happy reading!

Curate Your Life

Here’s your reminder that a good life, a wonderful life, rarely happens by accident. Go ahead and curate your life to create a life that you love and enjoy. Sometimes we think that we have to achieve all of our goals, or “make it” to a certain phase in life in order for life to be enjoyable. In some ways, this is true. But what’s more true is that you can love the life you have even while you’re working towards the life you want. I have some things that you can consider as you work on curating a life that you love.

Fill your life with delights. Maybe you paint your bedroom in a color that you love. Maybe you have a garden that grows beautiful things you enjoy. Or you delight in your daily extra special coffee ritual. Perhaps you watch the sunset out the back window. Delightful things don’t have to be big or expensive, but having many of them will keep your mood up, and help you love your life as it is.

Prioritize your well-being. If it’s in your budget, this can be a spa day or biweekly facial, but these aren’t the only ways to prioritize your wellbeing. Getting consistent rest, and staying hydrated, and feeding yourself good food are also things you can do to take good care of yourself. The key here is to remember to pay as much attention to your own needs as you do to those of other people, or to your work. And this isn’t just your physical body either. Maybe there’s a relationship of some kind that is sucking the life out of you, and you need some boundaries. Maybe you need to find some time for silence or solitude away from the hectic day-to-day.

Find the beauty in the ordinary. Chances are, when you’re feeling at your lowest, you’re not noticing the beauty of life around you. Here’s your reminder to do that. Notice the smell as you walk into your favorite bakery or coffee shop, or the beauty of the flowers in your neighbor’s yard. Maybe it’s feeling the sun on your face, or noticing the pattern of the light through the trees. Sometimes we forget that the brightness of a baby’s smile is the reminder that you need of ordinary beauty.

Life Transformations Through Reading

I think sometimes we think there’s one book that just changes your entire life, and you can point to that exact moment that your life shifted. While I think that can be true, what is more likely that reading brings a series of small epiphanies to you, which alter the course of your life by one degree: a seemingly small shift with an enormous long-term impact. I’m sharing here some books and what they brought to me.

This is not so much a reading list, as it is examples of how reading changes us if we continue to ruminate on ideas that we read. This can be true of our lifestyle, or our finances, or our relationships, or how we see ourselves. Moments like this in my life really remind me of the power of reading and what a blessing it has been throughout my life.

In my late twenties I read Rising Strong by Brene Brown, and one of the most memorable things from that book was this phrase, “the story I’m telling myself.” It spoke to something our brain does when we lack information — it makes up a story to fill the gap. What was transformative about this is that it taught me that I don’t have to believe every thought that I have, and it also allowed me to recognize when I’m telling myself a story, and think of other stories that could be equally likely with the information that I actually had. This allowed me to be much more generous with other people, because instead of thinking of the worst story and reacting as if it were true, I learned to pause, and not react until I had more information. It also encouraged me to get curious about the story patterns that I had. Why did those patterns exist? Were they helpful? Could I change them?

I read Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett in my early thirties, when I had a little more money, and thus more freedom in my life to feel like I could design it. One of the takeaways from that book is that the best choice for me might not be the objectively best choice in the situation. So now when I face a difficult decision about my life writ large, I consider what is the best (most rational) choice, vs what is actually the best choice for the life that I want to have. Does the most rational choice also reflect what I value? How do I choose based on those values instead?

Chances are the you also have subtle life transformations that you’ve experienced through reading, even if the last one you had was during your formative years in school. Take a moment to think about the small nudges you’ve experienced throughout your life that have changed things for you.

Planner Hacks for the Modern Girlie*

It’s back-to-school season so for some folks, that means a new planner! If that’s you, I’ve got some planner ideas for you. If it’s not, save this for later! I’m here with the planner hacks for the gworls*.

Get the planner that you will use. This seems obvious, but sometimes it’s not. If you have a physical planner, what do you want it to do? Manage your calendar? Keep track of your notes? Get the planner that’s designed for that. If you take a lot of notes, get a planner with space for that. If you don’t write a lot but you’re on your tablet or ipad or laptop more, get a digital planner! (You could also cobble together stuff using multiple apps, but having things in one dedicated space is likely easier.)

Make it yours. There’s no rule that says you can’t draw or color or use stickers in your planner. If it makes you happy to open your planner when it’s filled with color, then do that! The goal here is to keep your life together, not have random people think that you’re “so mature.” Make that planner look like a thing that is meaningful to you. Use the space in it for what you need. If it says appointments but you use it for your schedule, who’s gonna check you?! Exactly. That’s what I thought.

Make time to plan out your day/week/month. While using your planner to keep track of things on the fly is great, the real hack is to take 5-15 minutes to do some more intentional planning.

• Make sure your appointments are in order.

• Create a task list for the next day/week. Brain dump.

• Write our your thoughts or plans about a specific project.

  One way I use my planner is on Sunday evenings to plan out my week. I set 1-2 goals for the week, and take a look at my upcoming meetings and priorities. That way, on Monday mornings, I don’t feel overwhelmed by the start of the week.

Mutual backups are your friend. By mutual backups I mean things that are duplicated. So putting something in a physical planner and a digital calendar. Physically writing it down can help you remember that something is happening, and the digital backup can reel you in if you’re distracted and lose track of time. Physically writing it down means that you remember to look up the address in advance, while the digital reminder makes it easy to plug directions into your GPS. You don’t always have to choose to be either a physical or digital planner person. Porque no los dos?

If you’re not a planner person, that’s also totally fine! Do the thing that works for you and helps you feel like your life is together.

Wishing you all the best on your planner journey!

*girlie and gworls are gender neutral in this usage.

September Reading List

The Vibe is… Reading Just for Fun

• My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

• Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston

• Clean Getaway by Nic Stone

• Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper

• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

• Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

• Tallulah the Tooth Fairy CEO by Tamara Pizzoli

Lists available on Bookshop.

We’re reading just for fun this month! No theme or anything, just books that were good reads, for a variety of reasons.

Summer Check-in

As we settle into the last few weeks of summer, let’s do a quick check-in! Here are some questions that you can use to check in with yourself.

• How are you doing? Like, really?

• What has been a surprising thing about this season of your life?

• When was the last time you asked someone for help?

• Have you looked at your annual goals recently? How are they going?

• Have you spent time with loved ones over the past few months?

• What have you learned about yourself recently?

• Where has your life felt dry? Can you do anything to alleviate this?

You can use these questions as journal prompts, or starting points for reflection.

Some Podcast Recommendations!

I’ve been listening to podcasts for a long time, and they have been such a value add to my life! I learn new things, hear people’s stories, get book recommendations and more. This week I’m recommending a few podcasts that I’ve enjoyed for you to check out.

Here are my criteria:

• There must be more than ten episodes, or it’s a series with a defined number of episodes.

• The podcast is currently releasing new episodes.

• I feel comfortable recommending this podcast to others.

If you’re taking steps towards getting your mental health together:

• Therapy for Black Girls

• Mind Ya Mental

If you just want to laugh and have a good time:

• Here’s the Thing

• Normal Gossip

If you want to hear about people behaving badly (but not in a violent crime kinda way):

• Scam Goddess

• Corporate Gossip

If you want to learn about a variety of things:

• Ologies - mostly science

• This Podcast Will Kill You - mostly public health/infectious disease

• Planet Money - mostly economics

If you want thoughtful conversation for your overall personal/professional growth:

• Lead Stories

• justUS

• Brown Ambition

Goals Check-in!

We’re nearing the end of the year, and at the beginning of the academic year, which is a great time to check in on your goals! Here are some things to think about to reflect on how your goals are going.

How are you feeling about your goals? I think I set way too many goals this year, and I can’t even keep track of them, especially once the year got going. Lesson learned for future years!

Do you feel like you’re the same person who set those goals at the beginning of the year? I love the goals that I set, and I’m proud of the version of me that set them. However the version of me that set those goals did not expect the amount of energy it would take to live my life and achieve some of the goals. I just do not have the time for some of these goals and being a functional adult.

Is there a goal (or goals) you’d like to remove from your list? One of the goals I set for this year is to take a swim class refresher. I’m not a strong swimmer, but I think it’s a form of exercise that I’d really enjoy if I were better at it.

Is there something that you’ve done or achieved that isn’t on your goals list for the year? I’ve taken steps to become a library girlie again this year! I’m so excited to spend more time in the library for the rest of this year.

What have your goals taught you so far this year?

August Reading List

The Vibe is…Summertime Reading

• Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

• Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel Moniz

• Airplane Mode by Shahnaz Habib

• America the Beautiful? by Blythe Roberson

• Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

• Lady Susan by Jane Austen

• How Far You Have Come by Morgan Harper Nichols

Find the complete list at Bookshop.

This month we’re talking about summer reading! Here are some reads to give you different vibes for your summer booklist. If you’d love a family drama, check out Black Cake, which spans two times periods and geographic regions and will keep you turning the pages. Speaking of page-turners, Seven Days in June is a blazing hot romantic novel that you’ll devour and be left wanting more.

Maybe you’d like something that you can read in short bursts as your summer fun allows. Dantiel Moniz’ debut collection of short stores, and Morgan Harper Nichols’ art-filled writing will be perfect for you! If you’re looking for some non-fiction about travel, Airplane Mode and America the Beautiful take on travel on two different scales: adventuring through the United States’ national parks, and traveling across the world.

And finally, if you want to read a quick classic about a very chaotic lady, pick up Jane Austen’s novella about a truly and hilariously unlikeable Lady Susan.

Happy reading!

Showing Up for Your Friends

I’ve been thinking about friendship quite a bit recently, and more specifically, different ways that we can show up for our friends. So many portrayals of friendship can make us think that showing up for friends means something that’s unrealistic for our actual lives. How do we show up for our the friends we actually have in the lives we are currently living? I have some ideas!

Ask your friends what they want or need. You won’t always “just know” what’s the best way to show up for a friend, so ask them. If they’re having surgery, they might want you to visit them in the hospital, or they might prefer you to organize meals for them, or they might need you to pick up their children so that it’s one less thingto coordinate. By asking, you give your friends a chance to express what they want or need, instead of you guessing or assuming.

Keep a list. It might be nice to keep a running list of small things about your friends. Like if they mention something they would like to do, or a small treat they enjoy, or even details about something that they don’t like. This can be really helpful when coming up with ideas for gifts, or ways to celebrate your friends.

Don’t keep score. Here’s the thing, you can’t keep score with your friends. It will hurt your friendships if you keep track of who is doing what all of the time. As long as things are roughly even, and generally reciprocal, go with it. On the other hand

Small things matter. I think media teaches us that the grand gestures are what makes relationships meaningful, but it’s really the small things. Calling people just to say hello, remembering small milestones, spending quality time together can be small things that really matter in sustaining friendships. Things like presence, consistency, and support are the bedrock of solid friendships and they are unquantifiable.

How do you show up for your friends? What are ways that people have shown up for you that have been the most meaningful?

Some Lessons from my Thirties - so far

Today is my half-birthday, and at this point, I’m heading hard toward my late thirties. This decade has been transformational so far, but it a different way from my twenties, so I’d like to share some lessons that I’ve learned so far in this season of my life.

You will continue to blossom, even in this decade. I used to think that after you get through the first blush of adulthood, that was it. In my thirties I’ve continued to grow and blossom in new ways. If my early life was the tree planted and starting to bloom, my thirties have brought me both fruit and new branches.

Throw the script out the window. Whatever plan you had for your life as a child or teen, let it go. Life will bring you things that you could never have imagined, and you may miss them if you’re holding on too tightly to your idea of what you think life should be like.

Your relationships will require intentionality and effort. Life gets so much more complicated in your thirties, for you and your friends and loved ones. Careers vary drastically; people get partnered, or married, or divorced; their parents age and need more care; they have children at very different times. In order to maintain your friendships (especially!) during all of this, it will need more effort. Plan things and schedule things. It will not be helpful to keep score within the relationship to see who is making the most effort. If you are both making effort, that’s enough.

The Truth about Feedback

Feedback should be helpful. Sometimes we’re blind to our own patterns and the effect that they have on people, so getting feedback can help us see ourselves better. But here’s the thing: not all feedback is good feedback, and sometimes you’ll have to parse if there’s any good in the message. To do this, you will probably need some time to sit with the feedback before responding to it, addressing it, or changing your behavior.

Feedback can say more about the person giving it, than the person receiving it. It’s always interesting to get feedback from someone, because it can give you a clear idea of the way they see you, and how their own point of view plays into their perception about you. Next time you get random feedback, think about the person giving it: do they know you? Are they well-intentioned? What assumptions have they made about you in giving this feedback?

Even bad feedback can be helpful. There’s a range of things that can be bad about feedback. It could be that the perspective is simply untrue, or there’s no way for you to respond, or it’s just not helpful. But chew on it for a bit, to see if there’s a hidden gem. Sometimes the gem is: I need to share less about this area of my life with this person.

Feedback is always an opportunity to reflect. Even if the feedback isn’t good or well-intentioned, it can be useful. It could show that you might need to adjust your communication style, or to spend more time with the person giving the feedback. It could be that the message and messenger aren’t great, but there is some truth in there. What can you do about that? If the feedback is good, you could think about how to incorporate it into your life moving forward.

Next time you get some feedback, pause for a minute. Is it true? Is it helpful? Is there anything you can do with it? If it’s none of these things, maybe you can let it go. You can also think about the person giving the feedback. What have you learned about them?

Accommodate Yourself

I read a post on social media recently that talked about doing things to make your life easier, and I want to talk about that for a bit. It’s fine to accommodate yourself, in all the ways that you can. I think sometimes we think that being an adult means we have to do things a certain way because that’s the way other adults in our lives have done them. Or that accommodations are only for people with disabilities. (Don’t get me wrong, these accommodations are necessary and extremely important.) But being your own person means that you can make your own rules for life, and that you don’t have to leave solely to please others.

Here’s what I mean:

• If you don’t have the capacity to go out on Saturday and Sunday, there’s no reason why you can’t stay home one or both days. Being out and miserable is likely feels worse than missing out on good times.

• There’s no rule that says you have to clean your home every Saturday morning because that’s what your family did when you were growing up. Maybe what works best for you is cleaning for thirty minutes in the morning each weekday so that your weekends are entirely your own. Or maybe it’s paying someone else to do it.

• Maybe you realize that you function better as an entrepreneur if you work from 4pm to midnight, because waking up at 5am makes you angry at the world and entirely unproductive. Or you break up your works into two blocks of time instead of one long one.

• Or, you realize that you need twenty minutes of alone time as soon as you get home from work, so you talk it out with your partner and children to make sure that that can happen. It could be an explicit need that you state to your loved ones, or a practice that you institute and allow them to adjust to. (They might not even notice!)

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I think the thing that we often miss is cultivating awareness of our own needs when they differ from what we consider to be “normal.” Additionally, sometimes we need to tell people what we need, because they don’t know if we don’t say.

The truth is, the best version of you can come about in different ways from what society appears to promote. Normal is a range, not a specific person, which means that you have to figure out what your own baseline is for being the best version of yourself.

July Reading List

The Vibe is…Let’s Start Over

• The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson

• I Almost Forgot about You by Terry McMillan

• The Missing American by Kwei Quartey

• A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel

• Less by Andrew Sean Greer

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

• America is not the Heart by Elaine Castillo

This reading list is available on Bookshop.org

This month’s reading list is all about the ways that we start over. Please note that these are not necessarily meant to be inspirational picks, but more about the difficulties that come with having to make a new start. Sometimes we start over to escape an awkward situation, like the protagonist in Less. Sometimes we are forced into starting over, like the characters in Homegoing, and in a very different way, the women in A History of What Comes Next.

Sometimes your life gets shaken up, like in Terry McMillan’s novel, or in America is Not the Heart. And sometimes a new beginning is because of a new phase of life like baby girl in The Day You Begin, or Emma in The Missing American. These books all explore the ways that life throws fresh starts at us.

Happy reading!

Spring Check-in

We’re nearing the end of the Spring season, so it’s time for a check-in! Here are some questions to reflect on at your leisure as we enter a time of bright sunny days…and also allergies. You can use as many of them as you like as journal prompts or starting points for a reflection.

• How are you really doing?

• Have you set any goals this year? How are they going so far?

• What is one thing that has surprised you so far this year?

• What are you looking forward to in this next season?

• How have you been showing up for yourself recently?

• What’s a new talent or interest you’ve discovered in the past few months?

• Have you gotten enough human contact over the past few months? If not, how can you change that?

A Possibility Model can Transform Your Life

As the name implies, a possibility model is a person whose life and existence show you what is possible. They are the people that we learn about and make us stop and say, “You can do that?” Sometimes it helps if the person is someone that we know, even if it’s because they grew up in our neighborhood, but possibility models can be anyone that you see living a life that you didn’t previously think was possible. They are the answer to the conundrum “You can’t be what you can’t see.”

So how does just knowing that a person exists potentially transform your life?

Possibility models show us that we have more options than we previously thought. When I was a teenager, I chose to major in science in college. But I didn’t know what people did with biological science majors if they weren’t interested in careers in healthcare. In my first semester of college I learned from the professors in my department, and from senior undergrads that there was a thing called research that people do as entire careers! It opened up more options for my career than I thought I’d had. Sometimes we need people to show us that there are more paths available to us than the ones we know.

Possibility models teach us that the world is both bigger and smaller than we think. We learn that there are people doing things that we didn’t know existed, and those people look like us, and come from where we come from, and started out in the same schools as we did. We learn that we can go further than we ever thought, not just to the local community college for an associate’s degree in accounting, but to a four-year accounting degree and opening a business of our own. Not just to dancing in our cramped bedroom, but to dancing as a professional in a theatre or on tour rwith our favorite artist. There is more for us, and it is all possible.

Possibility models give us bigger dreams. If we know that there are people out there who are doing things that we hadn’t thought were possible, it encourages us to think outside the box and imagine what else could potentially exist in this infinite universe. Our dreams grow larger and more elaborate once we know there’s more to life than we thought. We learn that there are women out there who are defining their own lives and traveling all over the world, and our imagination might tell us, not just what if I visited another continent?, but instead, what if I visit all of the continents?

It’s so important for us to know that more is possible. To know that those dreams we had as young children of going to the moon, or performing on a stage, or having a bug named after us could happen. Possibility models are so integral to showing up life beyond our current struggles and limitations, and I’m so grateful that those people exist for me to look to. Where have you been limiting yourself? Can you find someone to show you that something different is possible?

May Reading List

The Vibe is…Feeling Inspired

• Just as I am by Cicely Tyson

• I am a Promise by Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce

• Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

• Heart Talk by Cleo Wade

• Finding Me by Viola Davis

• Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins

• Lift as You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell

This reading list is available on Bookshop.org

We’re focusing on feeling inspired with this month’s reading list. There’s a lot of memoir here this time, because I think hearing about the real stories of real people can be more inspiring than fictional events. Cicely Tyson’s incredible eight decade career and here life and chronicled in Just as I am, which was released just before her death in 2021. The foreword for this book is written by Viola Davis, whose memoir Finding Me also is on our list. Both women have incredible stories of their sojourn into life as professional actors, and are true examples of determination and destiny, which is also the theme of Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce’s I am a Promise, a children’s book about her life, focusing on her childhood and sporting career. Powell’s Lift as You Climb is our other children’s book about the life and the work of Civil Rights activist Ella Baker.

If you’re looking for more inspiration as a creative, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic might be a good place to start. More self-helpy than memoir, this book is about harnessing your creativity to create your art (in her case, writing). If instead you’re looking to be inspired in your relationships with others, Cleo Wade’s book of essays, poets and ephemera is a delight.

Our only fiction book this month inspires us to make the absolute best of some of the worst moments in our lives. The first book in Beverly Jenkins Blessings series introduces us to Bernadine, a woman scorned and done wrong, but who manages to birth something incredible from the ashes of her life.

Happy Reading!

Next Level Adulting Part Three: Advance Directives

This one is about advance directives (and powers of attorney) to give you another introduction to this topic. We will talk about what this all means, and why this should be the part of estate planning that you should put in place soon!

Okay, so what is this exactly? Advance directives are a set of instructions for who is allowed to do what if you become incapacitated in some way, such as being in a coma, suffering brain damage, or experiencing dementia. Most often, this refers to the ability to make medical decisions on your behalf. For the purposes of this blog post, I’m including here powers of attorney, since these also give people the ability to act on your behalf if you become unable to for any reason.

In this post, we’ll talk about all of the various forms of this kind of designation. More specifically, we’ll discuss what is a (financial) power of attorney, and advance healthcare directive, which includes a living will and medical power of attorney.

Financial Power of Attorney is a legal document that allows someone to make financial decisions on your behalf. This could be as simple as doing transactions at the bank or as complex as managing all of your finances. You don’t have to be incapacitated to set one up, these kinds of documents can be helpful if you are abroad, or just need an additional person to be able to make financial decisions for you. Having this kind of power of attorney does not include the ability to make any medical or health decisions on your behalf. The type of financial POA that stays in effect if you become incapacitated is called a durable power of attorney, but that person still cannot make medical decisions for you.

Advance Healthcare Directives comprise two different things. The first is a living will which specifies your preferences for medical decisions. For example, do you want to be put on life support? Are you okay with transfusions or transplants? Do you want to donate your body to science? A very simple form of your living will is signing up to be an organ donor, which in the United States, you can do when you get a driver’s license. The second part is the medical power of attorney, which allows someone that you choose to make medical decisions on your behalf if you should become incapacitated in any way.

I saved this topic for the end, because I think it’s one of the hardest to think about. It’s not just what happens if you die, it also includes what happens if you have permanent brain damage, or if you have a psychotic break, or if you are in a coma. Those are tough things to think about because they can feel like a kind of limbo between life and death, where you are alive, but not living in the sense of the word that you are used to.

You made it to the end of this post, and the end of the series! Congratulations to you, and I hope this helps you make great decisions in your life as you consider your options.