Giant Dump from Facebook Posts (last updated Feb. 8, 2025)

A story about being who you are in a supposed-to-be-world…

I remember when my mother first lost her home. She’d been working at this giant consignment warehouse, which kind of looked like an enormous indoor junkyard.

To keep my mother off the streets, the owner of the warehouse allowed her to move in. And for several months, that’s where she lived, in a spare room at this warehouse, with nothing but a bed, toilet and sink.

It was a difficult time.

But my mother learned a lot there.

Part of my mother’s journey was not only parting ways with the supposed-to-be’s that her family had tried to impose on her, but parting with her own supposed-to-be’s that she had unconsciously imposed onto other people.

Living at the warehouse, she met many people who’d also fallen through the cracks. People who‘d found work there after their families and communities had given them that ultimate ultimatum: either be who you’re supposed-to-be or you won’t be accepted here.

The people my mother met were similar to her in that they not only believed in who they were inside themselves, they knew themselves too well to be able to stomach pretending to be anyone different.

And what’s more, they preferred themselves over all those others who hadn’t accepted them.

But they couldn’t find a place in the world to thrive. And their lives became near impossible to live bc of this.

These were people who were healing. Not only healing who they were. But healing their relationship with the supposed-to-be’s.

They’d come to terms that it was ok to separate from the ways they’d been told they needed to be and to do something radically different—to accept themselves just as they were and believe in themselves regardless of who else didn’t.

My mother became friends with a young man named Alex who also worked at the consignment warehouse. Alex was gay and had HIV.

He and my mother bonded over secondhand designer merchandise and Barbara Streisand.

They sang together and immensely enjoyed perusing the donation bins for discarded clothing ‘to die for.’

One day, Alex was opening a box and sliced his thumb with a box cutter.

And as blood began flowing, he stood in the middle of the warehouse and screamed at my mother and the others to stay back, that he was a loaded weapon, to just bring him some rags and bandages and drop them at a safe distance.

At the time, my mother was THE biggest germophobe I’d ever met. A woman who scoured her nostrils with hydrogen peroxide at the end of each day to protect herself from other people’s awfulness.

But that day, she told me her heart was so broken hearing this boy, it took every ounce of strength not to cry.

“Alex, honey,” she said. "You are not a loaded weapon, you are a beautiful human being."

And my mother walked right over, helped clean and bandage him up, and gave him a big hug.

My mother saw herself in this person. She saw someone who had been banished by their family of origin for having the courage to be true to what felt natural. She wasn’t gay. But who she was hadn’t been accepted either.

Alex’s family of origin had tried to convince him that who he was, was unnatural. And that bc of his unnatural ways, God had punished him with HIV.

And my mother explained to him that sometimes people confuse the word ‘natural’ with what they’ve been told is the way things are supposed-to-be. But that there was nothing unnatural about who he was. That what *would* have been unnatural, is if he’d pretended to be someone he wasn’t.

“You think Jesus got nailed to that cross bc he should have just gone with the program and did what he was supposed to do?” she asked him.

No.

“You think I lost my home bc I’m being punished for not doing things the way I was supposed to?”

No.

“That’s right. What’s real is that this system here in our society works best for people who are willing to go along with the program and be who they’re supposed to be and do what they’re supposed to do.

And that’s just fine and well for all the people who this works for. But if doing what you’re supposed to do suffocates your soul and your values, then guess what? You are going to have to be courageous enough to do something different—and be yourself.

And yes, the world will push you out like the splinter they see you as, but that’s ok. You just keep being you and believing in who you are. No matter what. And you’ll see—people will begin to understand you and even be inspired by who you are, because who you are is brilliant and beautiful and courageous and kind. And you will realize that there IS a place for you. And that place is wherever you happen to be.”

Bc of my mother, I will always be on the side of people who have fallen through the cracks. People who have so much to contribute, but who aren’t always allowed access into the world bc they’re not the way they’re ‘supposed-to-be.’

And I find it disappointing when people use God as a literal ruler to measure people’s behavior in terms of how far they’ve strayed from who they’re ‘supposed-to-be.’

I believe that the most sacred thing I can do when I cross paths with someone is listen when they tell me who they are, and not only believe them, but understand them and care for who they are, until they’ve got a place in my heart.

—JLK

(In other news, I have a new memoir coming out! It’s called Leaving Cleveland, and for those who are interested, it’s available to pre-order through the link in the comments.)

I used to think it was a sign of weakness to get support. Until I realized I had created the identity of ‘being strong’ to survive the fact that no one ever showed up for me when I needed it.

It was a badge I bestowed upon myself to honor the fact that I had summoned the strength to survive on my own, regardless of who wasn’t there.

But then I burned out and really needed support.

Support from others is not a substitute for my own support, but it reminds me that other people have resources I don’t have access to. Ways of thinking that expand my perspective so that my blind spots aren’t keeping me from seeing the full story of what’s happening within me and around me.

And when I allow other people to support me, it inspires me to want to use my own resources to support others.

That’s how we spread support through the world, so we don’t create new generations that need to muscle through and tell themselves they don’t need anyone, just to survive the fact that no one’s there.

-JLK

People get so upset about the word politics. I think some people imagine that the word means “something that’s about to get me upset.”

But really, politics is just another word for figuring out how to get everyone’s needs met at the same time.

It’s the mass collaboration of people communicating what’s most meaningful to them based on their lived experience, and electing politicians who are willing and able to listen and understand and represent their needs, and make sure that policies are put in place to protect them, not harm them.

This country was founded on the idea that all people are created equal and have fundamental rights.

So when people talk about wanting rights, about being entitled to having rights, about being welcomed into conversations and spaces where their lived experiences are heard and understood and honored, where they can make valuable contributions that our communities will benefit from—it’s the most American conversation there is.

-JLK

If you grew up under the microscope of criticism you might still get nervous to press send, to post, to speak, to write, to spell correctly, to make sure everyone’s feelings are managed, to make sure there’s no mess that anyone can see, that your elbow grease has been properly utilized, that your thoughts are easily digestible without room for misinterpretation, lest you be subjected to punishment or violence—physical or emotional.

My god!

No wonder those of us who grew up like this live in isolation, hidden from any chance of crossing paths with these sorts of self-appointed authority figures, these masters of what’s best and right and proper.

The good news is that we do not have to abide by their rules and regulations anymore.

And one way to find the door out, is to understand the origins of these rigid critics of behavior. It’s a coping mechanism. They were stressed the fuck out and trying to put hospital corners on the whole damn world to help them feel safe and in control. But guess what—people aren’t meant to be hospital cornered. Putting hospital corners on a person is putting them in a straitjacket.

I had two stepmothers back-to-back who were both like this.

My mother was out of the picture by this time, coping with the chaos of life in her own way, the kind of way where she ripped out her own heart instead of ripping the hearts out of innocent bystanders.

And I remember years later, when we started to reconnect and spend more time together. I was still so cautious in life, still so nervous to make any kind of mess—literally or figuratively.

And one day we came home from St. Vincent de Paul’s and I accidentally broke this piece of pottery she'd found. I was so worried she’d be disappointed.

And I kept apologizing, until my mother looked at me and said, “Jesus Jessica. What did those people do to you? Who fucking cares about that stupid thing! Let's work on fixing the broken things that matter."

It was such a relief to hear.

And I realized that those taskmasters were not my role models. At all.

They were completely devoid of what it takes to create the kinds of connections that make life worth living.

They were so busy trying to control everything that they missed out on nuance and humor and grace and understanding.

So now, when I hear those old internalized critical voices picking apart what I’ve just done, I say to myself—“Who fucking cares if I made a mistake! I’m going to work on repairing the stuff that matters! And the glue that I’m going to use to put my pieces together is love and compassion and understanding and humor.”

-JLK

Communicating-To-Be-Understood

(A piece about understanding why we feel triggered by other people’s behavior and why they feel triggered by ours. And how we can still share who we are and create more fulfilling connections with the people in our lives.)

From what I’ve noticed, there are two kinds of communication: communicating-to-be-heard and communicating-to-be-understood.

Let me try and explain what I think’s the difference:

Have you ever been really upset? And you lash out?

Maybe you say shut up or you say f you or you push someone, or want to hurt them with your words?

Or maybe you lie because you don’t want to disappoint anyone by not meeting an expectation?

Or you brag because it seems no ever notices your accomplishments?

These are examples of communicating-to-be-heard.

From what I’ve noticed, we do this in moments when we feel threatened. Maybe because of a dangerous situation, but more often, I think it happens when we’re triggered by someone who’s done something that upset us. Or when we’re trying to avoid getting triggered by someone who might do something to upset us.

Most people are pretty familiar with communicating-to-be-heard, though I don’t know anyone who likes to be on the receiving end of it.

Communicating-to-be-understood, on the other hand, is less common. It might start out sounding something like:

“I’m upset that you’re accusing me of something. I hear you’re upset too. But I think we’re misunderstanding each other. Can we talk about what happened?

Or, “I see you want me to do that right now. But I’m right in the middle of something that’s really important to me. Can you give me 15 more minutes?”

Or, “I don’t have the energy to handle your concern and mine both at the same time right now. Can we gather our thoughts and talk about this after dinner?”

The trouble is, even though I think the majority of people really want to connect and be understood, many of us don’t have the skills to communicate-to-be-understood. And I think one reason for this is because very few people are role-modeling what it looks like to communicate-to-be-understood.

Probably because we’re all too busy communicating-to-be-heard.

Communicating-to-be-heard is very contagious. Because what do we want to do when someone lashes out at us? We want to lash back.

If someone says some variety of “shut up,” it’s very hard not to say some variety of, “No, you shut up.”

Or for those more mild-mannered people, if someone says some variety of, “I don’t like your behavior.” Then I might say, “Well, now you know how I felt three days ago, when you had that same behavior.”

It’s a game of offense/defense that only ends when someone develops the skills to shift out of going back and forth and steps forward into a new way of being with a completely different intention: to understand instead of win.

But how can anyone step forward when we don’t even know that direction exists?

Communicating-to-be-heard begins in childhood. Let’s say a little kid tries to express themselves to get their needs met and they don’t have the skills to communicate-to-be-understood. Which is always the case with little children. We all start out as balls of reactions, communicating-to-be-heard.

So the little kid screams, and the adult more than likely runs over to the little kid to meet their needs, and the little kid stops screaming.

But then what happens as we get older?

Well, in an ideal world, I’d imagine our parents would teach us the skill of communicating-to-be-understood. And I’d imagine our parents would teach us this skill by role-modeling it themselves, by being empathetic and curious about our upset behavior, and reflecting back to us what they think we might be feeling until we’re calm enough to communicate-to-be-understood and share more information about our experience.

Like, “I can tell that what happened made you really upset. I’m so sorry you’re suffering. What can I do? How can I support you?”

After children experience what it’s like to be reflected enough times, I’d imagine they would begin to practice the skill themselves, until it became second nature, and then, they’d carry this skill into their adulthood.

But what if we have parents who never learned how to communicate-to-be-understood? What if our parents never had role models who reflected their upsets?

From what I’ve noticed, when this is the case, what we wind up having in our homes is a bunch of people in bodies both big and small, filled to the brim with way too many unreflected upsets, still communicating-to-be-heard.

And once those people in small bodies get a little older and a little bigger, if they’re still communicating-to-be-heard, instead of the adults running towards them to meet their needs, the adults are much more likely to run in the opposite direction.

And the sad part about this, is when these unreflected kids become parents and communicate-to-be-heard with their own kids, it’s their own kids who wind up “running away” by shutting down.

As much as parents love their children, when parents don’t have access to the skills that would help reflect their kids’ feelings underneath their behavior, their kids’ problems don’t get solved. They get worse.

And the parents might still think they’re doing the right thing by continuing to communicate-to-be-heard. After all, they’re simply regurgitating what they learned from their own parents: that when someone is communicating-to-be-heard, it’s their responsibility, and their right, to stop the behavior by communicating-to-be-heard louder.

But the blind spot is that these parents have forgotten how traumatizing that experience was, and they’re unable to get that they are giving their kids this same awful experience.

One method some parents use to stop big behaviors is by deflecting. By saying to their child what their parents said to them.

Things like:

Calm down.

Or, If you don’t stop, I’ll take something away that you love.

Or, What are you so upset about? I was only kidding.

Or, Lighten up. You’re too emotional.

Or, There’s something wrong with you.

Or, You’re never going to amount to anything if you behave that way.

Or whatever they can think of to stop the kid from expressing their upset the only way they know how.

And, if the kid continues to communicate-to-be-heard, some adults might go from deflection to protection, and even yell at their kid or hurt their kid to get them to stop, because their kid’s communicating-to-be-heard is so difficult for them to be with.

But here’s what I’ve noticed with those old-fashioned strategies:

Deflecting instead of reflecting creates disconnection instead of connection.

And when people go from deflection into protection, it gets even worse.

When people disconnect from their feelings and from each other in protection mode, they tend to explode—by getting really loud and scary—or they implode, by shutting down and becoming completely unavailable.

And when kids and parents get stuck in the cycle of communicating-to-be-heard together, everyone winds up stressed out. Which in turn causes everyone to continue communicating-to-be-heard.

Can you see what a messy cycle this is?

And then the people in this stressful cycle go out into the world and what do you think they do when they cross paths with other upset people? Do you think they’re going to be available to reflect and connect?

My guess is not so much, because their brains are already wired to deflect and disconnect. So then, even more people get left feeling dismissed.

There’s a whole lot of people walking around with upset feelings they don’t know what to do with.

We so badly want to be understood and reflected, but so many of us don’t know how to get this to happen. And we’re left isolated, secretly traumatized and full of various amounts of shame.

Next, enter school.

So we’ve got a bunch of stressed-out kids and adults and we’ve also got all of these wonderful school buildings in every town so that kids can go inside and learn something to help them have a bright future.

But how much time do schools devote to teaching kids the skills to communicate-to-be-understood?

Thankfully, some of them devote at least some time for this. But more often than not, at least from what I’ve seen, kids are being taught to communicate-to-understand math or communicate-to-understand someone else’s perspective that may or may not have anything to do with their own.

And though there are plenty of kids who do fine meeting these expectations, these other kids, who are already so stressed out, can’t cope at all with meeting these expectations.

And when these stressed-out kids are sitting at their desks being asked to figure out math problems instead of getting help figuring out the problems that make it so uncomfortable to be inside their skin, they are likely going to start communicating-to-be-heard simply because they don’t know what else to do... and more trouble begins.

And why does more trouble begin? Because many teachers aren’t trained to reflect their students’ upsets underneath their behavior. For all we know, they’ve never even had their own feelings reflected.

So instead of reflecting the upset, and offering support to help make meeting expectations easier and more of an opportunity, some teachers, even the ones who care so much for their students, feel obligated to stop the behavior using that old-fashioned strategy called communicating-to-be-heard.

So maybe they label the kid as an interruption or they give the kid a bad grade or they send the kid to the principal’s office.

And what does this accomplish? Yet more shame and disconnection and more shutting down.

When kids fail to meet expectations at home and also at school, and aren’t taught what to do with all their unexpressed concerns, thoughts and ideas—over time, I’d say it’s likely they’re going to assume their concerns, thoughts, and ideas just don’t matter. And at some point they may even decide they don’t matter.

And if kids feel they don’t matter, what does anyone expect will happen?

These kids who have no one to turn to will begin turning to the only coping mechanisms available to them.

Maybe they find other stressed-out kids and avoid their pain together by engaging in reckless behavior that feels so much more free and stimulating than the endless cycle of being misunderstood and dismissed.

Maybe some stressed-out kids inflict pain onto themselves because at least it’s pain they know for sure they’re feeling, and no one can deflect it.

Maybe some stressed-out kids become bullies and pick on the most vulnerable kids because they can’t bear to see anyone showing emotions without making sure those emotions get dismissed.

Or maybe some stressed-out kids bully themselves into complying with expectations because they don’t want their difficulties to make them seem less-than.

So how do we stop this big mess? How do we learn to communicate-to-be-understood when next to no one is teaching these skills?

Well, you probably already figured out the answer. We, have to be the ones to teach ourselves how to communicate-to-be-understood.

We, have to choose to stop the volleying back and forth and step forward into a new direction, into a new way of being.

That means even if we have no one in our life who has the skills to reflect our upsets—the stuff underneath our behavior—then we are going to have to practice reflecting ourselves.

And that’s where writing comes in.

Writing, at least in my experience, is a wonderful way to reflect one’s own concerns. And I don’t mean handwriting, if that doesn’t work for you. Keyboarding, voice-to-text, a journal entry, a song, a poem... Anything to get your experience out of your body and into the room your body is in.

Don’t know where to begin?

Pick an upset.

Write about the specifics of what happened and why it upset you. Remember, you have a right to every one of your feelings.

Your upset doesn’t have to be huge. Many of us are taught that something has to be literally on fire to count as upsetting. But as far as I’m concerned, anytime you’re feeling dismissed or deflected or you feel like you don’t matter, it’s upsetting.

So write the scene of what happened according to how you experienced it.

Make sure to describe the behavior you had in the moment of your upset, behavior that was either out loud or in private, and then ask yourself what was underneath that behavior that you didn’t have the skills to communicate.

Was it something from the past that triggered you? Was it a concern in the moment that triggered you? Something about the environment you were in, that stressed you out?

Remember that underneath every communication-to-be-heard is the desire to be understood and connected with.

Continue for a few moments getting in touch with all of your thoughts and concerns, until you feel understood and connected to yourself.

You’ll know when this happens because you’ll feel love for yourself or at least care a whole lot about what you’ve been through. That’s what’s meant by reflection. Telling yourself, “That was an awful experience and I can understand why.”

Next, write what you wish would have happened.

How would you like people to treat you?

How would you like to connect with people?

How would you like them to connect with you?

How would you like to be known?

What’s important to you when it comes to connecting and communicating with other

people? What’s important to you in your life?

As you write, you‘ll be discovering your own perspective. Which really means—how you see and understand life through your eyeballs, through your experiences.

Next, think about the behavior of the person who upset you. Try to imagine what was underneath their behavior.

Remember, many of us come from generations of people who’ve been left disconnected instead of reflected.

What do you think the other person would want to communicate if they had the skills to communicate-to-be-understood?

What would you say to that person if they were able to share this kind of communication with you?

You might find a bit of empathy not only for yourself, but for all these other people who communicate-to-be-heard, because you’ll realize they’re coming from a place of feeling dismissed. And for all we know, maybe they’ve never been reflected by anyone in their entire life.

As you continue to practice communicating-to-be-understood with yourself, you may just discover that you’re actually proud of your perspective.

And once this happens, you can begin using your voice to practice sending your perspective further out of your room and into your world.

Because once you realize that you matter and your perspective matters, you will start to come up with a lot of wonderful ideas. And because you no longer need to invest so much of your energy into communicating-to-be-heard, you will be able to use your energy to turn your wonderful ideas into reality.

And as you begin to share what you’re creating, you will begin to realize that your ideas and your perspective make a big difference to the people in your community.

And that’s what’s meant by communicating-to-be-understood.

Communicating-to-be-understood is a very new kind of communication for many of us, so even as you share your perspective and create more fulfilling connections with the people in your life, don’t be disappointed if some people are less receptive and don’t yet speak your language.

Communicating-to-be-understood doesn’t mean other people won’t frustrate or trigger you, either. It just means that when someone isn’t able to or willing to connect with you the way you’d like them to, you can remind yourself that their behavior is absolutely not a reflection of who you are.

It’s a reflection of what might be in the way of the other person’s listening, even if it’s the people in your own family who aren’t understanding you the way you’d like them to.

But regardless of who is or isn’t receptive to your communication-to-be-understood, you have the ability and the privilege to connect with yourself. And knowing that you matter, connecting with yourself will never feel like a punishment.

When we give up the volley of offense/defense that is communicating-to-be-heard, we create the space to communicate-to-be-understood.

It takes practice to get used to communicating-to-be-understood. In fact, I still have to practice every time I share myself with the people in my life and every time I write one of these pieces.

But if we stay strong, and committed, and most of all, true to our values and our perspectives, we can step forward and into this new way of being together, knowing that even when we’re having a hard time connecting, the majority of us really are doing the best we can in the moments we’re in.

-JLK

(This piece is one of many in my illustrated book for adults, Once Upon an Upset. I'll post a link with more info in the comments in case anyone's interested.)

So I lose a lot of things. Today, I can’t find my earrings or my favorite bracelet. I can’t even remember the last time I wore them. Thanksgiving? Who the f knows. So I’m looking everywhere. And I go into my “special things” pouch. And I’m digging around. And I notice my spare keys are all white. And I’m wondering… how could my keys have corroded in here?! And then, as I’m digging around some more, I notice that everything’s covered in powder! And then… I see the miniature urn I got so that I can always have some of my mother’s ashes near me. And… the cork is out. And I realize I’ve just been sifting around in my mother’s ashes. I can just hear her laughter. Fun times.

When overwhelm rises up in your body, do you feel helpless? Uncomfortable? Like you want to escape your body? Cope destructively?

For myself, I’m learning that this subtle, private, but all encompassing feeling of overwhelm is actually the experience of a younger part of myself.

It shows up as soon as something upsetting or unexpected happens. Something I’m afraid I’m not ready for. And the feeling sweeps me away into near panic.

When I pay attention to this helplessness, though, I realize it’s actually her helplessness, that younger version of myself, from when she had literally no place to go when upsetting things happened. When she was all alone, terrified, let down, with lots of needs and no idea how to meet them.

Here’s what I’m learning: I can make the leap from the past to present time.

And I can do this by *noticing* that feeling of overwhelm, instead of only feeling it. I can ask, “Whose overwhelm is this?”

Just by noticing, I suddenly see things through a different perspective. I notice the overwhelm and my anxiety about it, but from the perspective of my current self.

And from this place, I can begin to soothe that younger person’s overwhelm and anxiety.

I can ask her to tell me what’s happening from her perspective, what she’s feeling and what she’s afraid of, and I can validate those feelings and let her know that she’s safe. That I’m here. That I’ll never let us be helpless in a dangerous, unsafe situation again. That she can count on me.

By doing this, I’m meeting the needs of that younger version of myself who is still inside my body, terrified, even after all these years, by showing up as the person I’ve become.

It takes some getting used to, to reparent ourselves, or whatever name you want to call it. It’s a very different feeling from waiting to be picked up and no one showing up, versus showing up and picking up myself.

It requires me to remember one important fact: I have skills now. I have experience. I am not helpless. I am unabandonable. I am un-neglect-able. My body is a punishment-free and shame-free zone. And I have what it takes to meet my needs, problem-solve and survive.

By doing this work, I begin to feel the weight of myself inside of myself, grounding me.

Instead of fleeing my body and orbiting out in no-man’s land, calling out helplessly for someone, anyone or anything to give me substance, I remember that I’m in here, in my body, and that my presence is my substance.

And in here, in my body, I know what’s most meaningful to me, and I can come up with a plan to problem-solve by getting support and by being in action in a way that serves what’s most meaningful to me.

The overwhelm may return, again and again, but I can keep noticing it, returning to present time, soothing myself from this space inside of myself, and by making one small choice at a time in the direction of where I’d like to go.

-JLK

(My new memoir, Leaving Cleveland, is now available to pre-order! I hope so much you’ll check it out. More info in the comments. )

Humoring myself on this cold winter’s day…

You would have made a great therapist.

Oh, but l am a therapist! I'm just so busy treating myself, I haven't had time to fit anyone else in my schedule.

One way that sometimes helps me get along better with people, if I have the energy to spend, is to ask: “What’s most meaningful to you?” And then validate what they’ve said.

This question is a good way, in my experience, to begin connecting through our actual lived experiences, instead of arguing about what our lived experiences should or should not be.

We can’t change who people are, but when we open the space to listen-to-understand and validate what’s most meaningful to each other, we build connections instead of divisions.

And I believe this is how we actually begin to care about each other, and care about each other’s freedom, by understanding each other’s lived experiences.

And, the more we care about each other, the less likely we’ll be manipulated by those who play parlor games with their power by creating divisions instead of connections, people who could care less about any of us unless it benefits their agendas.

This doesn’t always yield positive results, but every time I’ve tried, I leave the moment feeling a lot more comfortable in my body, knowing that I made the effort to align my choices with my values.

-JLK

In case anyone’s in the mood for a little story…

Triangle Time

One morning, in a classroom, the teacher announced it was circle time. “Everyone gather for circle time!”

But one little boy refused.

“Come on now, it’s circle time!” the teacher said again.

“No,” he said, arms folded, standing solidly across the room.

“What do you mean no?” the teacher asked, not in the mood for any obstacles.

“I will only join if it’s triangle time. I don’t like circles anymore. Circles are my nemesis.”

The teacher sighed. She’d been up till 2am, obsessing about a friend who recently let her down. The dishes were still in the sink, waiting for her to get home. And this, was hardly something she had energy for.

“Well, then you come join us for circle time when you’re ready,“ she said, leaving the kid alone.

“I won’t be ready,” said the boy, standing his ground.

“Well, you can either join circle time or miss out on recess.”

“Hey,” one of the other kids said. “You know what, we’ve never done triangle time before! Come on, Mrs. Barker, that’s a good idea!”

Mrs. Barker sighed. What kind of message would this send to her kids? They might think their ideas should run the show every day, and then what?They’d fall behind on their lessons and she’d have no way to catch them up.

Suddenly all the other kids started assembling themselves into a triangle all on their own. She’d never seen them work so well together as a group. And that boy, that troublemaker, he was the leader, encouraging them, letting them know what a good job they were all doing.

“You guys are geniuses,” he kept saying.

“No,” another boy replied. “You’re the genius! It was your idea!”

The teacher stood back, watching, and couldn’t help but smile.

“Well, what do you think, Mrs. Barker?”

“I think you kids are amazing. I’ve never seen a more perfect triangle.”

“So what should we do next?”

Mrs. Barker had no idea what to do next. “Well, you kids seem to be full of good ideas today. Anyone have any suggestions?”

Every kid raised their hand.

“How about we each pick an animal and make up a song about it?”

“Yes, yes!” the other kids cried out excitedly.

And so the kids went around the triangle and everyone made up their own song or story about their favorite animal. A few of the kids even pretended to be the animal and acted out the story in the middle of the triangle as it was being told. Every kid took part, and every kid had a smile on their face.

The kids are making up their own lessons, thought Mrs. Barker, and quite frankly, it’s better than anything I would have come up with.

For the rest of the day, the kids got along, much more than usual, and they accomplished what needed to be done without being asked. And they all looked content.

“Can we do square time tomorrow, Mrs Barker?” a girl asked at the end of the day.

“Why not!”

That night, after Mrs. Barker got home home and did all those dishes, she had an insight: Letting kids lead creates connection and community, and lets kids see that their ideas make a difference. It doesn’t create entitlement. It doesn’t violate rules. It creates leadership and creativity outside of the old box. Maybe she could benefit from letting things go a little. And so she made some tea and climbed into bed, feeling more at peace than she had in a long time.

-JLK

If you grew up with dysfunction, make sure that you're practicing communicating-to-be-understood in your relationships instead of communicating-not-to-be abandoned. There's a huge difference.

In your one precious life, you deserve to be fully expressed as the most authentic version of yourself.

Who you are matters. Your boundaries matter. Your needs matter. And you deserve a safe space where these things are cherished.

-JLK

When people with fixed lenses have the most resources and power, it’s very dangerous. Bc they will believe that controlling others and forcing others to see through their lens is actually saving the world. Not just their world. *The* world. And they will believe that they are heroes.

With a fixed lens in charge, peace is only rewarded to people who subscribe to the fixed lens. That’s why people in power with fixed lenses feel like authoritarian regimes.

And innocent people who don’t fit into these people’s fixed-lens narratives get treated as enemies of their agenda, and they, along with their needs and their perspectives and good ideas, get discarded, or worse.

But people with fixed lenses won’t stop there, they’ll make sure to siphon all the resources directly into what serves their fixed lenses. And bc their lens aperture is so narrow, the vast majority of people, even those who share their fixed-lens agendas, won’t be afforded any of these benefits.

People with fixed lenses are people who lead with their unhealed parts. How could they not? After all, they are uncomfortable in any space unless they have designed those spaces to be free of anyone who might criticize them. They run on saving face and revenge.

But democracy is not authoritarian. Democracy is never starring one person or one fixed lens.

And democracy is not a business.

Democracy is doing the work to give voice to every lens. And figuring out all together how to collaborate and cooperate and make this world work better for everyone.

Every day, we’re constantly being asked to see through other people’s lenses.

And those who see through a fixed lens want others to also see through that fixed lens. The more agreement, the more power and control.

And when people with fixed lenses send out their agenda, they’re sent to the unhealed, fear-based parts of people:

“If you don’t see through my lens you’ll be deluded. You’ll be a sucker. Good people see through my lens. Strong people. Successful people. Even god sees through my lens! Not those poor saps over there! Look what ‘they’ve’ done to our country! Look what ‘they’ve’ done to you! Look what ‘they’re’ gonna do to your children! It’s time to take back what’s yours!”

Whichever way the people with the fixed lenses can access other people’s insecurity and offer security.

But for peace to exist, I believe we have to examine our fixed lenses and figure out how to merge our narratives.

Bc to me, the most valuable narrative is the one that includes the most lenses. And that includes all people, no matter their differences—bc all people have the same right as everyone else to live with peace and dignity and safety, along with access to the same resources and opportunities to reach their full potential.

The best thing about this country is that it’s for the people, not for the fixed lenses of those who want the most power; those fixed lenses that are incapable of understanding a picture of reality unless they’re front and center.

I hope so much that the rest of us won’t be fooled into subscribing to these fixed lenses of revenge. But that we can open up our own fixed lenses and join forces with each other and take the country back from these billionaires who can’t even do a good job pretending they have anyone’s best interests in mind other than their own.

-JLK

The purpose of our body has nothing to do with other people's opinions about it. Our bodies are the containers that let us have this experience of being alive. Our bodies contain everything we've ever received and everything we've got to give. Our bodies are our refuge. No matter what your body looks like or where it's been, your body is a miracle and more than worthy of the space it takes up. Your body is beautiful.

Your body matters.

-JLK

Embracing diversity…

It’s foolish not to embrace diversity.

Diversity is strength. You can witness this across all of life. In ecosystems, in agriculture. Wherever there’s diversity, life is much more likely to thrive.

Fear of diversity on the other hand, always leads to weakness and instability and missed opportunities for growth and innovation.

Fear of diversity demands using valuable resources just to prevent diversity, bc diversity is always the natural state of life.

Fear of diversity encourages violence. Bc in order to prevent diversity, people with differences are intentionally kept out of spaces and kept away from resources that make peace and health and opportunity and prosperity possible.

People who fear diversity often want to appear the most strong. But being the most powerful and strong isn’t natural. It’s an old archaic survival mechanism that modern human beings need to ditch for good in favor of more civilized behavior where we help each other to advance and take care of each other.

Being the most strong and powerful may be useful when there is a life or death situation. Like in the case of a fire or some other disaster.

But the death of an inflated ego is not an emergency. It’s an opportunity for the person with the need for the most power and attention to look deep within themselves and discover something that has a lot more value.

People who fear diversity do themselves and everyone else a disservice. Because standing alone and trying to keep others out is devoid of all the values necessary for a robust society to flourish creatively with great ideas, equal opportunities, shared resources, shared connections, kind and caring communities, good health and good humor.

-JLK

If you're feeling overwhelmed with way too many tentacles of worry flailing all around you—sometimes it helps to take a break from internalizing all the madness and chaos and send out some different kinds of signals: like emanating love, emanating peace, emanating compassion and good health and good humor, for ourselves and for each other.

Whenever I remember to try this, I feel the shift completely change the chemistry of my moment.

This certainly isn't a way to solve problems.

Or a way to avoid problems. It's a momentary respite, within which we can remember the things that build us up, and build from there.

-JLK

I need this reminder sometimes…

Never underestimate the power of healing yourself-of replacing internalized shame and blame with understanding and compassion, one thought at a time.

-JLK

People seeking revenge don't belong in leadership positions because revenge indoctrinates others who are also seeking revenge, and together, they wind up destroying everything in their wake, including themselves, and then talk themselves into believing that they've got god on their side.

To me, people best suited for leadership positions aren't perfect but they know that the needs of all people weigh a lot more than their own, and they make the effort to learn about people from all walks of life and figure out together how to meet everyone's needs as fairly as possible.

-JLK

To me, there’s a difference between an anchor and a blindfold.

To me, an anchor grounds a person to their values to keep them from getting swept away.

And a blindfold keeps a person from even having to deal with the fact that they’ve already been swept away—from their values, their true intentions, their regrets, their unresolved upsets and what’s underneath their need to be right.

It takes a lot of self-honesty to know for sure if we’re anchored or blindfolded. Whether we’re committed to taking a deep look at our thoughts and actions or whether we’re just invested in saving face.

-JLK

Random thought of the day…

Something that’s been helping me with burnout is having talks with myself out-loud in the middle of the night.

These days, I often don’t get to bed until 4 or 5am, when the middle of the night vibe is quite surreal.

It’s always been easy for me to disassociate in these sorts of moments and let my thoughts go all over the place, maybe catch the tail end of a few thought-fragments here and there and wonder, “Where the hell did that come from?” followed by a very unsettling feeling that I don’t bother getting to the bottom of.

So I started whispering to myself, asking myself how I’m feeling, how the day went—having actual conversations where I formulate my words in complete sentences.

Doing this helps keep me in present time, in my own body, and provides the space for my healed parts to listen and understand and then speak to my hurt or exhausted or confused parts.

It felt a little strange at first, but now it feels strange not to converse with myself. After all, the relationship I have with myself is my most significant. Can’t really connect authentically with others if I’m not connecting authentically with myself.

So I ask myself questions—Was I patient with my son when the moments were really difficult? Was I patient with myself? And if not, why? What needs of mine aren’t being met?

Maybe some memories rise to surface and I can ask myself, What was it like when I was my son’s age? What needs did I have? Did I have anyone to talk with about my needs? Did I feel like my needs mattered?

I’ve also been allowing myself to grieve a bit, not only for my own past wounds, but to grieve for the unhealed wounds and unmet needs that my mother suffered from.

In these middle of the night talks I also make sure to go through my day and find the victories. It doesn’t matter if they’re big or tiny.

Yesterday, my son wanted to go on a walk. That felt really good. At another point in the day, I actually stopped the whirlwind of what I was doing to moisturize my face. Make a green juice.

I make sure to really listen to these victories—bc these are things that remind me I’m worth caring for and worth celebrating.

And then I talk about my difficult feelings. Things I’m scared of. Things that aren’t working. And I let myself responded honestly. Give myself some love for what I’m going through.

Maybe call on some deceased relatives I’ve internalized to help me find insights, and to help me sift through which of my upsets have to do to with unrealistic expectations I internalized from the unhealed people from my past, and which of my upsets are calling to me bc they’re places where I’m ready to grow.

I’ve been feeling a lot more settled inside myself after these conversations. And feeling settled is a pretty new experience for me.

-JLK

If we want to be safe from other people’s judgments and never make a mistake or embarrass ourselves, we’d have to stay home and keep our mouths closed. And I’ve tried this. It’s not very fun.

Healing for me, is letting myself out of myself a little more everyday, instead of keeping myself so safe, that my safety feels like a cage.

Sharing ourselves is so important. Even those parts we’re not sure people will approve of. The truth is, we don’t have to operate under the gaze of critical people. We don’t have to let their stop signs become ours. We can believe in ourselves and in the value of what we’re excited to share.

In fact, I don’t think we’re meant to stay in our bodies. Our ideas, what’s meaningful to us, and our perspective—these are the very things that fertilize each other’s hearts, so that we can grow together.

-JLK

I try to remeber that the more we know about each other's lived experience, the more we'll care about each other. And the more we care about each other, the more peace we'll have.

When people are treated unfairly based on what someone who doesn’t even know them believes is true about them, it leads to dangerous dehumanizing.

And this behavior is the exact opposite of everything I’ve been taught by those who have been my role models.

Everyone has a right to exist and exist in peace.

(This illustration is a reframe for revenge and retaliation, both of which I find problematic.)

My Body as a Hospital

I was at my first silent meditation retreat when I realized I needed healing.

My entire body was filled with pain I’d been avoiding. I wasn’t sure how I would get through the retreat. I had no one to talk to and no one to help me.

That’s when I realized I had to think of something. So I decided to appoint myself my own nurse, and to think of my body as a hospital.

Because I was the only nurse, I had to do triage. And so I listened for the cries for help within me, and I hurried to the bedsides of all those younger selves and listened until they felt heard and soothed by my attention.

It was heartwarming at times, even hilarious at others, but mostly I wanted to do what I’d always done: flee. But I couldn’t flee. And staying put was not easy work.

For years I carried a lot of secret guilt and shame, but by the end of the retreat, I began to feel some release. I began to feel like I was whole—like everyone inside of me was becoming friends, like we were now part of the same team—with my current self as the leader.

I believe we can transform pain into understanding.

By giving our pain our listening and compassion, it can lose its weight and gravity and turn into something else, something that’s no longer held hostage by all the meaning we’ve given it.

These days, I’m unable to do retreats, but I do my best to create mini-retreats for myself in the wee hours when there’s no place to run.

I’ve amassed new younger selves, so there’s always healing to be done. And so I listen to the calls of pain within myself and then run to the bedsides of everyone I’ve been with all the love I’ve got.

Here’s an exercise I use to get back in touch with my younger selves:

Lie on your back late at night when there are no distractions, and begin to feel your body using the attention of your mind.

Start at your toes. Breathe naturally while focusing your attention on your toes.

Maybe a memory pops up. Maybe you have a memory of an old pair of shoes you used to wear. Where were you going in those shoes? Ask the kid who wore those shoes. Listen to the answer.

Oh, you were going to the drugstore to buy candy with your friend Stacy? (That’s what came up for me.)

Ask your body to tell you the whole story of what comes up. And listen.

Maybe that’s enough. Maybe you only want to scan one body part tonight.

If not, you can slowly scan another body part. Wait for a memory to pop up. Then ask your body to tell you the whole story.

The experiences and feelings of our younger selves are still within us, and in my experience, those younger selves love storytelling. They still want to be heard.

When we take the time to be open to those parts of ourselves, those parts of ourselves will speak to us.

Have you ever asked your body to tell you its stories?

When’s the last time you spent time with your knee? Or your calf?

Your body isn’t just a vehicle to get you from one place to another. It’s a library.

It’s got stories to tell.

-JLK

(Leaving Cleveland is my new memoir, now available to pre-order. "A brave and honest memoir." —The BookLife Prize

And Once Upon an Upset is my illustrated collection of stories, essays and reflections. "A Personal Bible on Authenticity... One of the most thoughtful, well-written, beautifully illustrated books l've bought." —Amazon review)

So many of us have been healing from authoritarian upbringings, from having been raised by inflexible caretakers who were so sure they were doing the right thing by holding us to their standards, but who never took the time to connect with us and understand our contexts and our perspectives before seeing us through theirs.

The way I see it, everyone has a point, but what’s also true to me, is that the most valuable points have the widest apertures, bc they’re willing to make room for other people’s points too.

There are authoritarian politicians walking around with these same blindspots on, thinking they’re saving the world without asking the people who live in the world what they need saving from.

And if politics is just another word for figuring out how to meet everyone’s needs in this experiment of civil society, I think honoring the autonomy of every individual—honoring their voice and what’s important to them—should be the precursor for this to happen.

With that in mind, to me, a good politician would never govern through an authoritarian lens, and never espouse a narrative based on their perspective alone.

A good politician would be a master juggler—listening-to-understand and revering all people’s perspectives and getting together with all people to ask what having their needs met would look like instead of assuming they already know.

I’m very cautious when I hear politicians trying to control the narrative by making policies aligned with their personal perspectives, whether or not it represents the perspectives of those who these policies impact.

It reminds me of those toxic people I grew up with, people who wore their unwillingness to grow like a badge of honor, who cared more about their need to be right and their need to dominate spaces rather than making the effort to connect with other perspectives until those other perspectives widen their own.

So if I’m creating boundaries to protect myself and my home from those authoritarian people from my past who never had any interest in honoring my perspective or my autonomy, it makes sense to me that I’d also do my part to protect this larger home I live in, this country, from authoritarian people who also have no interest in honoring the perspectives or the autonomy of so many of us who live here.

-JLK

(Leaving Cleveland is my new memoir, now available to pre-order. “A brave and honest memoir.” —The BookLife Prize

And Once Upon an Upset is my illustrated collection of stories, essays and reflections. “A Personal Bible on Authenticity... One of the most thoughtful, well-written, beautifully illustrated books I’ve bought.” —Amazon review)

You never suck it up. You talk it out.

And talking it out can be done internally, with yourself, or by finding or hiring a someone in a position to be a good listener with skills to authentically reflect, relate and validate, not fix, shame or make wrong.

-JLK

If you grew up neglected, boundaries might be really difficult to create.

I think this might be bc neglect can feel like a boundary—not a chosen boundary, but one that keeps all connections away.

I put myself in harm's way so many times bc I couldn't wait to escape that boundary of neglect.

I wanted closeness and connection—anything outside that boundary I felt stuck inside.

Healing for me has been to recognize that true boundaries are not jail cells. They are fluid, like an energy shield. I can choose when and where to place my boundary and when to lift it.

And most importantly, I get to recognize that being alone is no longer a punishment. My own company inside my body is a refuge, not a cell.

And I no longer need to seek something extra outside of myself to feel whole and complete, bc I recognize that I am whole and complete within myself.

And from this safe space within myself, I can choose to connect with others, and from this safe space within myself, I can choose to protect and preserve myself whenever something feels not right.

Creating boundaries is an act of caring for ourselves. And this can be a huge shift if you grew up feeling like no one ever really cared for you.

-JLK

(My new memoir, Leaving Cleveland, is now available to pre-order. If you’re interested, links are in the comments.)

I’ve always been interested in the difference between the forest and the trees. I can remember being little and hearing this expression and trying it out on a field trip.

By the bus, I saw the woods. The woods looked kind of scary. They looked ‘over there.’ And yet as I got closer, the woods got closer, until I was inside them and they were suddenly nothing like the way they looked from the bus.

Once inside, the forest was no longer. I was among the trees—each one unique and full of its own life and surroundings.

There was bark and leaves and creatures and moss. It was a different world than ‘the woods.’ One I could only understand once I was in it.

Once in the woods, I didn’t have to be afraid bc there were no woods separate from me anymore— there was only this experience among this stuff inside the woods, and I was also among these things.

I realized once you enter the space of something, you become part of it.

There’s meaning in being part of things that you cannot discover by being on the outskirts looking in. And once you leave, you bring the experience with you and it expands your mind and your heart.

When I was little, my mother was a night club singer. Her piano player, Richard, was gay. He was my idol.

Richard used to share with me the wisdom from his heart. He used to tell me, “Never be afraid to share the things that inspire you, never be afraid to be who you feel you’re meant to be.”

He wasn’t telling me to be gay. He was telling me to have the courage to express myself completely. That I mattered enough to share who I was.

He and his partner John lived in this magnificent penthouse and they’d have these fancy parties from time to time where men would dance with men, or women. It didn’t matter.

I loved every minute of it.

My mother would dress me all up and I’d eat all these wonderful hors d'oeuvres and listen to the fabulous music and Richard would set me up with art supplies and I would be in charge of making art for people to enjoy. And people would stop by and tell me what a talent I was.

I didn’t have many positive experiences in my life back then, but I loved getting to be part of this incredible world. And I remember wanting so badly to share it with the people in my life, and so I did, at show and tell one afternoon, and then there was trouble.

Because my teacher had only seen gay people from the woods view, she imagined that my attending these parties wasn’t something safe for a kid to get close to, and certainly not a thing to share at school.

And so she called my parents and then my father called my mother to tell her she was using poor judgment bringing me to such places.

And when my mother told me what happened, I was so upset. And she said, “Honey, people don’t understand what they don’t know. And what’s worse is when they don’t want to understand what they don’t know. So sadly you’ll have to keep what you see at these parties to yourself.”

It’s impossible to make an accurate judgment about the woods if you’re not going to experience what it’s like to be among the trees.

People want to judge the woods and protect themselves from it. I get that. But they are missing out on the diversity of perspectives.

People who are gay or dress in drag or have gender identities that don’t neatly fit into the binary are not new inventions. They are like everyone else, part of the diversity of life.

There are always going to be groups or people ‘over there’ but if you get a little closer, what you’ll discover once you’re among them, is that they are not what you thought they were. They are simply people like you trying to make the most of their time here as best and as authentically as they can.

-JLK

When I was 8 or 9, my mother was really struggling. She had no money, no job and no support, and she was paranoid about the reasons why this was so.

She wasn’t functioning well and at some point, she refused to leave her bedroom.

One night, I’d had enough. I was lonely and scared and I called my father to ask if I could move in with him. And he said ok.

When my mother found out, she was so hurt. Back then, all I could see was her anger. I remember she was crying and yelling, saying how I was abandoning her just so I could have more Chinese food and other things that my father could afford.

And I remember feeling so ashamed of myself.

What I didn’t realize back then, was that figuring out how to have my needs met wasn’t selfish or greedy or something to be ashamed of.

It was my right to figure out the best way to get my needs met so that I could feel safe and not constantly in survival mode.

Eventually, my mother became addicted to pills and alcohol as a way to cope with her circumstances, many of which weren’t her fault. And I was there for her as much as I could be, whenever she needed a place to stay or needed to be found after she went missing.

But after my son was born, I’d had enough.

My mother wasn’t there for his birth. And thought I was more or less ok with this—she’d been in survival mode her entire life and I was used to not having a mother who showed up, unless she needed me.

I remember my son was still an infant when she called me in one of her desperate states. And I was holding him in my arms while she was asking in hysterics to move in with me.

And I remember looking at my son’s sweet innocent face and thinking of all the times my mother had been in my house and drank all the booze and blacked out and had to be rushed to the hospital. And I did something I’d never done before. I said no.

She didn’t like that I said no. And she continued begging. Telling me she’d die if I didn’t let her move in. But I still said no.

She went downhill fast after that.

And when my son was 4, she passed tragically in her apartment all alone after dialing 911, bc the dispatcher couldn’t locate her address in Florida on time, since her phone was on my account in New York.

Perhaps if I knew then what I know now, I could have supported her more. Perhaps I could have figured out another way to get her needs met while I was learning to meet mine and my son’s.

But as it was, I was a new mom, doing the best I could to care for my son, while learning to heal my own wounds that I never really knew existed.

Recently, I was agonizing about all this with my therapist. Wondering if I’d made the wrong choice. Wondering if I’d have let her move in, if I could have finally saved her.

And she said, “Jess. You chose yourself when you were 9 years old. And it was ok that you chose yourself. In fact it’s amazing that you chose yourself at such a young age when people kept inadvertently giving you the message that you didn’t matter. And it was ok to choose yourself and your son. This was not being selfish or greedy. It was you making the only choice that worked for you bc you knew in your heart that you and your son deserved a safe space to live, without so much drama.”

“It’s ok to choose yourself.”

This felt so profound for me to hear.

Yes. It’s ok to choose yourself.

If you were neglected throughout your developmental years, choosing yourself may feel very selfish and greedy, bc maybe being a good kid meant being there for your caregivers and letting them know that you chose them over yourself.

Sometimes parents who are still wounded kids in adult bodies can imagine that their own kids are the ones who will finally save them or give them the experience that they matter and that their perspective matters.

But this isn’t ok. It’s not a kid’s job to save their parent or stick by their dysfunctional parent’s side.

Only when we choose ourselves can we care for ourselves, and realize that we matter enough, so that we can begin to feel whole and complete within ourselves, and be in a position to share ourselves, pursue our interests and be present enough to meet the needs of our own kids.

So if your needs and wants were constantly viewed as outrageous or selfish bc your caretakers wanted your focus on them instead, you might have learned to squash your needs bc you learned that having wants and needs is a sign of being a terrible person.

You might feel you have to sneak your wants and needs so that no one finds out you have any. Or just forgo your needs altogether and silently resent everyone.

Choosing yourself doesn’t mean to only choose yourself. But if we don’t choose ourselves first, we might be looking our whole lives for other people to choose us first.

And not only will this be a perpetually disappointing experience, we’ll also miss out on the experience of what life looks like when we choose to be here for ourselves.

-JLK

I remember when my mother became completely unhinged. She was in her 40s. And for years after, she wound up in behavior health units across the country.

I vividly recall listening as doctors and nurses from multiple hospitals would explain their diagnoses: schizophrenia, bipolar, borderline, depression, panic disorder, etc etc—no two doctors ever had the same diagnosis. And they’d prescribe some drug or another that they hoped would help ease her symptoms better than the drugs she’d been self-medicating with. And then she’d get discharged and the cycle would repeat.

I knew back then that the doctors and nurses seemed disconnected to some vital truth about what my mother and those like her were going through. I just didn’t have access yet to what this vital truth was.

But I do now.

You see, from what I’ve noticed, every human being is born with a vessel meant to safely contain the world’s bullshit. But some people wind up with way more bullshit than they can contain. And the symptoms of this bullshit overflowing from their vessel is often misdiagnosed as mental illness.

But what it is, in my opinion, is the body’s reaction to a societal illness, where day in and day out people are expected to be cogs in machines that just don’t work for them.

Whether they’re trying to operate inside the machine of their family of origin, or their school or workforce, whatever—these people are asked to labor, day in and day out, to support systems that have never supported them.

And so the cog begins to burn out from running and running but getting nowhere. And eventually, the cog runs out of fuel. And bc it has no other resources, the cog usually goes to those same systems for help, and what do those same systems suggest? They suggest a protocol which they believe will help the cog to function better inside these same systems.

And yes, many of these cogs, worn out and haggard, do get the bold idea to abandon these old machines, and try to find or create new ones. And though some may catch a break, many others, for varieties of reasons, find themselves rejected.

And cogs on their own don’t tend to work so well. Especially when they’re weighed down by so much bullshit. And so the cog begins to suffer. To feel lonely. Unproductive. And the cog begins to doubt itself. Doubt its purpose.

And the cog falls apart.

And maybe some other cog finds its pieces

all over their living room floor and calls 911 and they get rushed to the hospital where they get medicated with some variety of glue that’s supposed to help put themselves together so that they can try yet again to work better.

But sadly, these kind of cogs rarely work better inside machines that aren’t built to support them.

One day, we’ll have doctors who see people like my mother and instead of diagnosing her, they’ll ask a bunch of questions and diagnose her environment, diagnose her family of origin, diagnose her school and her workplace and then work together with the person to figure out why those old systems never worked and figure out what new systems might work better.

Systems where people can use their natural skills and talents to be a contribution. Bc that’s the thing about people who don’t operate well inside these old machines—they have different skills. Unique skills.

My mother was the most brilliant woman I ever met, with a heart of gold. If she’d been given an opportunity to be part of creating a new way of doing things, I can assure you, it would have been a system that everyone would have benefitted from.

-JLK

On The Side Of Survivors…

Once, when my mother was destitute, ashamed and miserable, a dollar away from homelessness, she called this wealthy man she’d once dated. A married man who’d once been madly in love with my beautiful mother, back in the day when she imagined she was on the path to all her hopes and dreams.

Though he looked like a distinguished businessman, this man was shadier than he seemed. He made his money in the pornography world—and not the sex-positive end of it—but through the objectification of people to serve his own means to an end.

And though my mother was never involved in any of his business, he sent her money when she needed it.

On this occasion, he’d been in Florida at some convention when my mother called, asking for help. But instead of wiring cash, he asked to take her to dinner.

My mother was in no position to be seated at a table in a restaurant. She was too hungry and too fragile, withdrawing from the alcohol she drank to protect herself from the panic and terror that had become her life.

But she needed the money, so she rigged herself as best she could to resemble the woman she’d been before the world squeezed her out of it, and she took a bus to the restaurant.

After they greeted and my mother began explaining her dire circumstances, he interrupted to insist that what he had to say was far more important.

And what was it?

That she try on something new he was making all sorts of money from—a pair of vibrating underwear.

And there she was, my poor, poor mother. Depleted. Harrowed. And yet still with a soul more intact than his, enough to realize the metaphor of life before her—the pyramid scheme of human devouring human under the guise of civility; these pictures of success, walking entitled through the world, smacking their lips, waiting to appreciate the cultivated flavor of someone’s last shred of dignity.

And my mother, not in any position to assert boundaries beyond her indomitable spirit, put those undies on and sat back at the table, knowing he had a remote that he could use as he pleased to amuse himself, while kindly offering her a ticket to laugh along with the spectacle at her own expense.

My mother’s body, enduring yet another person’s mistaking it for a prop, waiting till the show was over so she could leave with his pocket change, stop on the way home for a bottle of something strong enough to fuel the incentive to call and tell me the story of what happened, the story now told properly, so that she was the golden star and that fucker, the one who was destitute, completely devoid of all those treasures that one can only find in the nuance of a moment.

And we laughed together because we understood the perverse depravity of the functional world, and our laughter was our purification from the bits of it that had stained us.

Our shared understanding afforded us that larger perspective of life, where the costumes are blurred and everyone in all their various states of decay are just passing through.

But even so, that night, I cried.

I cried because it all seemed so damn unfair, who gets to survive and who gets to thrive.

And I promised myself, from that moment on, that I’d be on the side of the survivors.

That whenever I see someone who looks the way my mother so aptly described herself, like an empty old worn-out wallet, I will not discard them. Or reach in and see what might be there for me.

I’ll hold my agenda. Swallow my knock-knock jokes. And tend to the blazing soul before me that still wants to shine. That still yearns to be held in someone’s reverence.

Whenever you look hard enough, you will see it. It will stop you in your tracks.

-JLK

(This is a piece from my book, Once Upon an Upset. It came up in my memories today.)

Earlier I had a thought—that we’re all wounded, but that our wounds are different.

Some people’s wounds heal in their environments and through their routines that are a match for their skillsets and processing styles.

And some people actually get more wounded from their environments, bc their different skillsets and processing styles make functioning in these environments nearly impossible.

So to me, maybe the kind of support we need is not so much focusing on the person with the wounds, but focusing on which parts of the person’s environments are opening up their wounds. And figuring out how to adjust their environments so that they’re more conducive to support healing.

An example of this is the time my sweet boy finally wanted to go on a roadtrip.

He was so brave. And he handled the drive like a champ. Yes, we had to change rental

cars bc the first one had a scent through the vents that was unbearable, even to me, but we solved that problem and we were off.

From there, we had some good moments. All was calm. We even had some great laughs.

And then… we got to the hotel, and the environment immediately opened up my son’s wounds, big time.

First they gave us the wrong room key.

Then once we finally got in, we noticed a “subtle” alarm. Where it was coming from was hard to tell, but with the cement ceilings and walls, the incessant beeping was hell. Even for me.

So my son’s wounds were open and quickly becoming infected. He was holding his ears. He was expressing his pain in the only way he knew how: “I have to get the fuck out of here! Now! This place is murdering me!”

Now some families might say, “You get what you get and you don’t get upset.” Or worse.

But to me, these strategies are violations—a set-up for tolerating environments that open our wounds and lead to lifestyles that we have to survive instead of feel safe in and thrive.

So what I told my son was that right now, we’re in survival mode. But that I’m going to get us to a better place. I promised him we’d be out of there within the hour. And I let him know that while I was making phone calls, I needed him to temporarily cope as best as he could.

And bc he trusted my word, he was able to occupy himself.

I personally find it very difficult to stay focused in these situations. In the past, it was even worse. I’d have to wonder—will I also have to manage my husband’s wounds in this situation? Will I have to be everyone’s fucking bandaid here? Fuck this!

And the disappointment would open my wounds and sap my focus and energy.

But over the years, I have learned to use my voice as the leader of these situations. To trust that I know what’s best to get my son to an environment that will heal his wounds, not infect them.

And perhaps bc of this, my husband and I are now mostly a great team in difficult moments.

He knows how to soothe himself and he prefers, along with me, that I be the one to figure out how to problem solve in these kinds of situations.

And he takes on that role in different circumstances that his skills are better suited for.

So I got us a room at a hotel that my son was more familiar with. And when we arrived, the woman at the desk was an angel. I had already overshared my situation on our phone call, so she gave me a hug the moment we hobbled in.

And up in the room, my son was so happy.

In fact, the rest of the trip went so well, even I was surprised. He even thanked me for organizing it.

And I truly believe it’s bc I don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s a form of entitlement to have our needs met.

That, to me, comes right out of the Authoritarian Playbook—where people subject themselves to intolerable situations and muscle through day-after-day bc that’s what they’re supposed-to-do, and then call it grit.

On the contrary, when I know my needs matter, I can use the energy that might have gone towards suffering and resenting my predicament towards creating circumstances that are more aligned with what’s meaningful to me.

And by doing so, I notice I feel a sense of dignity and a sense that I’m honoring myself and what matters to me.

And bc of this, I care more about other people’s needs and I try to be a healing presence in our shared environments instead of someone who inadvertently opens wounds.

And this is what I want for my son.

It’s difficult to have the kinds of wounds that our environments only make worse.

It’s difficult as a parent to still be healing my own open wounds while simultaneously having to make effort I don’t often have to create environments that heal instead of harm my son’s wounds.

But I just give whatever “my all” happens to be on any given day. Sometimes that means just the bare minimum. And that’s ok. Whatever it takes to not make the wounds worse.

Much love,

JLK

Everyone has a right to live their most authentic life and not be bullied or restricted bc of it.

It is the height of arrogance for someone to assume that just bc a person lives or loves differently, that their experience is less normal or less legitimate or wrong.

-JLK

When I used to teach writing, I had a student who was always very quiet. My goal in my classes was to create a safe enough space for everyone to share themselves authentically.

It was supposed to be an academic writing class but I didn’t care about grammar or academics.

I knew I’d probably be fired if I didn’t teach what I was supposed to teach but I trusted my feeling that these kids needed a different kind of space, a space to share what no other space had room for.

So I invited them write about whatever they wanted to write about and I told them they were not allowed to concern themselves with spelling or punctuation.

I told them that anyone could learn those things. But only they could express their unique narrative.

It was a cathartic semester. Each class ended with the kind of hugs and smiles that come from the experience of being known and appreciated and connected with.

I heard stories that were beautiful, heartbreaking and tragic. But one of my greatest heartaches came from the girl who finally spoke up.

She told the story of her father, the best dad in the world. A man who helped her with homework, cooked all her favorite meals, worked overtime to make sure all her needs were met, told her every day what a remarkable person she was and to never forget that she deserved everything the world had to offer to make her dreams come true.

He had risked his life to get into this country and was working towards figuring out how to get citizenship. But then, in one moment, their whole world changed.

He had double parked to run inside a deli to pick up sandwiches for himself and his daughter and when he got back, the police were there, asking for his license and registration.

Once they realized he was undocumented, he was held in this country for awhile and then, he was deported.

His daughter never saw him again.

And she walked around with a broken heart and with the deepest of sadness that she lived in a world that cared more about rules than love.

Rules are rules, some people say. But rules mean nothing when they go against the values of nuance, compassion, love and understanding.

Rules will never hold meaning as much as people’s narratives, and our narratives can only be accessed by people with enough bandwidth to be willing to put aside their own to understand the narrative of another.

We all admire people who break the rules to honor values like love and compassion and connection. So many Americans wear the punishment of one of the holiest rule breakers right around their necks.

And it’s all fine and well to have role models who have died bc of their commitment to stand for and support the narratives of others, especially the most vulnerable among us, no matter the cost to their comfort.

But in my opinion, at least for me, it’s more important to embody this. To never subscribe to the kind of rules that violate the values of compassion and human dignity and family bonds. Rules that would celebrate sending that father to his country of origin instead of cry that it happened.

And quite frankly those in charge of the rules? I sometimes think they climb that ladder just so they can make sure the rules don’t apply to them.

I hear that this new administration will be rule-oriented. Not to uphold any constitution that has been evolving to include the narratives of people who now have voices that weren’t heard when it was created. But to invent rules that will uphold their own narrative at the expense of the narratives of the lives they intend to dismantle.

In these days of advertising agendas, they will put fluorescent lights around their narrative to give it the most attention, and to prevent room for nuance.

And a lot of people will follow the rules, maybe bc rules help them feel safe, like they belong, or maybe bc no one cared about their hopes and dreams so it’s time to return the favor. Who knows.

But what I value and what I teach my son to value is to never, ever overlook the sacredness of an individual’s narrative and blindly obey the rules of someone who only cares about their own.

-JLK

I’ve been trying to form words to represent how I feel today, but I’m still figuring it out. So in the meantime, I thought I’d share these words that I wrote last year, when I was feeling similarly...

Unhealed people don’t make great leaders bc they have a talent for bringing out the unhealed parts of others.

Unhealed people don’t make great leaders bc what they’ll always be fighting for underneath their agendas is their need to be right and to get the agreement of as many people as possible.

Unhealed people don’t make great leaders bc although their voices might sound confident, what they’re most confident about is believing that whoever isn’t on their side is their enemy.

Yes, we all have unhealed parts. But not all of us lead with them.

It’s the healed parts of people that make great leaders bc they bring out the healed parts in other people.

It’s the healed parts of people that make great leaders bc it’s their healed parts that understand that not only do they matter, but everyone else matters too, no matter if they agree with what they stand for or not.

And it’s the healed parts of people that are flexible enough to build bridges of understanding between their own ideas and the ideas of other people so that they can meet in the middle and discover solutions that work best for everyone.

It’s important to have great leaders who lead from the healed parts of themselves, bc only the healed parts of ourselves are creative enough to build a future that doesn’t look like a replica of the past.

-JLK

So many of us disassociate.

Long ago, we left the moments we were in bc they were so unpleasant.

We instead went inside ourselves and created scenarios for a better future that we’d one day have.

But when that future arrived, many of us were still so used to disassociating, we missed it.

And maybe we found a way to go back to the past and figure out what went wrong and reframe it and begin to heal.

But to heal, we have to be present.

We have to associate ourselves as real and as belonging inside the moment we’re in.

But to do that, we have to make the present moment safe and joyful enough so that we want to live in it instead of escape it.

And we need support from each other to make this possible.

I truly believe that the most important picture to honor is the littlest picture—meaning, whoever is in the room with us right now, virtual or literal.

And to heal this littlest picture, I think we need to be willing to understand each other’s lived experiences—the healed and unhealed parts of our personal narrative—until reverence for ourselves each other replaces judgment and suspicion.

Sometimes I think the world is traumatized in so many manifestations of the word, and so many of us aren’t even here bc we’re coping through disassociating. And those who crave control capitalize on that.

In my healing, I try to remember in every moment of every day, that people matter. Not what others say about people, but what people say about their own lived experience. And to believe them.

I believe when we make the effort to learn about what’s meaningful to each other instead of assuming we know, we’ll begin to care more about each other and feel safe enough to join the present moment together and build a shared lived experience that works better for us all.

-JLK

I no longer seek guidance or accept guidance from those who do not understand my lived experience.

My circumstances as a parent are unique, and therefore, to see my circumstances through the lens of someone who has never experienced my circumstances seems pretty ridiculous to me.

I could spend time to explain my lived experience so that someone else might actually get the world of it. And sometimes I do.

But I have learned to conserve my energy and invest it into myself and my family where it can make the most meaningful difference. And in the process, I can focus more on trusting myself and growing from where I am.

This doesn’t mean I’m rude in the face of guidance given to me by someone who doesn’t get the world of my lived experience.

It simply means I nod and say thank you and understand that most people’s intentions are to help and fix based on what they know to be true.

And then, on my way home, I chuck their out-of-context guidance right into the nearest recycle bin.

-JLK

I remember once being in the car with my mother. We hardly saw each other unless one of us was in a dire situation and needed the other’s help.

This was one of those times I was in the dire situation. We were in my car and I was feeling so caged inside myself. Instead of sharing myself, I’d begun to talk myself out of saying anything, which always made me feel even worse.

And my mother said to me, “Where are you Jessica?! Where’s my little firecracker who lived to dance and sing and exclaim and laugh and share insights. Where did you go?”

“I’m buried,” I said. “The world doesn’t seem to care what I say. So I guess I stopped caring too.”

“Well guess what, Jessica. I’m going to do some vocalizations with you so that we can heal this problem right here and now. This is what we’re going to do. I want you to say with all the gusto you’ve got:

‘I no longer give a flying fuck what anyone thinks of me. I’m going to express who I am loud and proud no matter what!’”

“Really mother?”

“Say it.”

“Fine. ‘I no longer give a flying fuck what anyone thinks of me. I’m going to express who I am loud and proud no matter what.’”

“That’s a start Jessica. But you can do better. Much better. Let’s take it from the top. And this time, I want to hear that voice coming from your depths. Reach down and bring out who you are!”

“Ok. ‘I no longer give a flying fuck what anyone thinks of me. I’m going to express who I am loud and proud no matter what.’”

“I don’t believe you! Again!”

Over and over, I said the line until I felt tired.

“I believe it now, I think.”

“No you don’t. Keep going.”

After l don’t know how many times, I finally started laughing and crying all at the same time. “It’s true,” I said. “My voice matters.”

“Thank fucking god,” my mother said. “You never turn down your self for anyone. You never do the world a favor by disappearing or being a watered down version of yourself. Do you understand me? You be you. After all, you’re the only one who can. So if you’re not going to be you, my dear, no one else will. And I can’t think of many things more sad than that.”

So if you’ve been hiding lately, maybe it’ll make a difference for you like it did for me, to exclaim:

“I will no longer give a flying fuck what anyone thinks of me! I’m going to express who I am loud and proud no matter what!”

-JLK

It can take so much effort to care for yourself in a world that sometimes doesn't seem to recognize that you even matter.

In case you need a reminder:

You are absolutely worth caring for yourself.

-JLK

I think when people get used to controlling the narrative, they forget that others also have a narrative.

Not only do they forget this, but they experience life through the notion that their own narrative is actually more in touch with reality than anyone else’s lived experience.

Many people live their whole lives like this and people adore their narrative bc it’s often eloquent and confident and charming and wise.

After all, these people spend a lot of time understanding the world through their narrative, so it’s well thought out.

And this works out very nicely.

Just until someone challenges their narrative and says: “Hey, wait a minute! You know, I was kind of convinced that your narrative was the only narrative, but I’ve realized now that it wasn’t. I realize now that my lived experience actually matters too! And through my lived experience, through my narrative, I realize that your actions caused a lot of harm!”

When another person’s lived experience challenges the ironclad narrative of a person who has never been challenged, all hell tends to breaks loose.

Bc the person with the ironclad narrative has never invited anyone to edit what they “know” to be true... and so they experience this new edit of their narrative as a violation, even if this new narrative is suggesting, with evidence, that their actions violated another and caused irreparable damage.

Still, the person with the ironclad narrative will cry: “Oh no no, they are deluded! They are mistaken! Please, you must believe that this new narrative couldn’t possibly be right! Oh no no no! What they are claiming is not what happened according to my lived experience, so therefore, their lived experience couldn’t be real!”

At this point, the ironclad person has a choice: To pry open their rigid narrative and make room for a new one, or hold on to the one they’ve cultivated and be buried under the weight of it and maybe get some oxygen from others who also refuse to let in another narrative than the one they’ve invested their agreement into.

People tend to trust what they believe is real.

And some people refuse to let go and consider that life is a web of a multitude of lived experiences and narratives, and yes, each one is valid to certain degrees. But the people who are willing to make room for these multitude of narratives have the most value, bc they inevitably care about more people than only themselves and those who agree with them. And bc of this, they make the world a safer, more creative space for more people to thrive.

Whether it’s a writer or a politician or a parent or an executive or a doctor or whoever. To me, whenever people refuse to let go of how things are according to their lived experience and refuse to consider the lived experience of another, they will never know the whole picture of what’s real. But they sure will believe they know what’s real.

“I wasn’t a rapist, that’s not how it happened! I swear!”

“I wasn’t an abuser! That’s not how it went down!”

“I’m a good guy! I’ve helped so many people!”

“I’m a good Christian! I pray every night! And Jesus loves me!”

“I’m a patriot and everything I have ever done is to serve my country!”

“I was a good parent! I was there the whole time!”

“I know exactly what you need to get better. I’m going to help you!”

“Oh come on. That’s not ADHD, you just need to make more of an effort!”

On and on.

People get so shocked when they learn that someone whose narrative they trusted turned out to be an unsavory person in the narrative of another.

But I truly believe that these ironclad people have no idea how they appear in anyone else’s narrative other than their own.

That’s the blindspot.

And yes, I guess that’s what makes it so dangerous—bc when someone holds on so tightly to their ideas of what’s real, even when someone else is clearly showing them another perspective of the same picture, people get hurt.

And even more so when these ironclad people are in positions of power that impact others.

Sure, the origin story of people’s ironclad narratives are probably born from some trauma or another, but that certainly doesn’t justify the traumatizing of others.

But I do believe healing is possible, when we’re willing to listen-to-understand each other’s lived experience and do whatever it takes to keep each other safe.

-JLK

One thing that took me so long to realize, and I still forget all the time, is that low-demand parenting isn’t just about our schedule. It’s about me. It’s about shifting my relationship from constantly thinking about what my son should be doing and/or constantly worrying about what my son should be doing to creating more pockets of stress-free space where connection and healing can begin. Which oddly begins with soothing myself. And giving myself my own time and love and understanding when I start catastrophizing. To find out what it is I’m afraid of and what needs of mine aren’t being met. And then to look around at where I currently am and notice something that I find meaningful instead of evidence that I’m a failure. And I remind myself: The future can’t be paved by skipping over where I am. I have to build on what’s meaningful right now. And sometimes my son reminds me. Like the other day when I overheard him talking to a friend online: “Bro, things can be good or bad, depending on what you’re looking for.”

-JLK

Just because you’ve never felt it doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Thinking about OCD, ADHD, PDA, depression, panic, sensory sensitivities, etc etc…

I have learned to trust people’s lived experience and be willing to learn more about who they are so that I can hopefully make their life less stressful instead of more stressful.

Like many parents raising kids who process uniquely and find standard environments too stressful to function in, I have discovered how often throughout my own life I squashed my own authentic experience bc I knew no one had enough compassion or time to take me seriously.

I was like an undercover agent—aware of my authentic experience that I actually felt grateful for, and then in standard environments that were stressful for me, I had my on-stage role, where I became skilled at playing every part that I knew would be welcome.

And I kept the rest, mostly the stuff that caused me pain, to myself.

And I never got support bc of this.

And now, even though my son resists all supports, I try as best as I can to stop everything when something causes him to suffer so that he gets to know that his experience matters, and he gets to know that I know it’s real. And that he never has to pretend for me. (Which of course is not easy and I’m not always successful at being calm and stress-free in these moments.)

Sure, I am teaching him the skills to function in these standard environments—bc to me, these are important skills that will keep him safe and empowered in the world—knowing which behavioral wardrobe to don in which different environments.

And I’m teaching him to be critical of these standard environments that often lack the kinds of flexibility, open-mindedness and encouragement that are necessary for creativity, collaboration and innovation to exist.

But most importantly, I want him to know that there is space in this world for his authentic self, to not only exist and blossom, but to make a valuable contribution and to also thrive in meaningful relationships.

And I also want him to know that it’s his right and everyone’s right to receive quality support for anything that’s not working for him, so that he can gain skills, healthy coping strategies, self-understanding and self-compassion instead of silently muscling through life in secret pain.

-JLK

Once, someone got so out of sorts bc I took awhile to get back to them. And we didn’t even know each other. At this stage, I see most people’s behavior as trauma responses, and so I just try to soothe the pain if I can, if I’m not in too much pain myself lol.

So I wrote her back and apologized and validated her feelings and she was so beyond grateful. It was as if no one had ever acknowledged her feelings before.

I don’t take things at face value anymore. I take them at heart value. And sometimes you’ve got to scoot away the stuff that’s in your face to get to the heart.

-JLK

This might sound really morbid and weird. But sometimes, when life is too much to handle and I can barely cope, I wait till everyone’s sleeping and I climb under my covers and pretend I’m dead. And then while I’m lying there “dead,” I imagine I’m visited by helpful spirits. Kind of like my own version of A Christmas Carol. Except each of these spirits validates what I’m going through and shares ideas and guidance and anecdotes for how to make my life work better. Sometimes they make me laugh, sometimes I cry. And at the end of our session, I get to remember that I’m not really dead. That I still have life left to live—a chance to make changes and a chance to also appreciate what’s already so.

-JLK

This idea that we're supposed-to-be a certain way creates shame, every time we imagine we're not living up.

But if you really take the time to look inside yourself and notice the incredible, dynamic, multifaceted person that you are right now, it would fill you with such appreciation for yourself, that there wouldn't be any room left for shame.

How could there be?

The only time it's possible to access shame, is when you forget to access yourself.

-JLK

I was thinking of turning this story into a picture book next year. Thought to share…

The Heart-Phone

a story about connecting with our loved ones who have passed

A little boy used to talk to his grand-mère on the phone every day.

She used to call him Mr. Octopus and he called her Mrs. Octopus.

But then one day she got sick and went to heaven.

They have phones in heaven. But you have to answer them in your heart, and it takes a little practice to get good reception.

But once he figured it out, the little boy could call whenever he wanted and his grand-mère was always right there.

One afternoon, in the car, the little boy felt really sad. Too sad to use his heart-phone.

His mama noticed his frown through the rear-view mirror.

“You ok, hon?” she asked.

“I miss Grand-mère,” he said softly.

“Aw, honey,” his mama said. “I hear you. Why don’t you call her on your heart-phone?”

“Can you call her on your heart-phone instead?” the little boy asked. “And tell me what she says?”

“Of course,” his mama said.

So his mama dialed the boy’s grand-mère on her heart-phone and relayed her words so that he could hear:

“Hello, Darling,” his grand-mère said. “It's your Grand-mère here. I'm so glad you asked your mother to call me. Because I have something I need to talk with you about. So I want you to listen to me very carefully. Can you do that?”

“Mm-hmm,” the boy said.

“Good. Because I am now your guardian angel, I happen to know a lot about you.”

“You do?” the boy asked.

“I do. And I know that you're upset because a lot of people in your life have died.”

The little boy looked down and nodded.

“And I have also noticed that a lot of times, as soon as you begin to enjoy things in your life, you stop, because you get scared that the people you love are one day going to be taken away. And so you get sad and you get involved with your screen instead of with things that are real.”

“How did you know that?”

“Like I told you, honey. I know a lot of things. And I know that you don't like when people die. Not very many people do. But do you know the worst thing you can do?”

“What?” the little boy asked.

“The worst thing you can do, is be afraid to live.”

“Ok,” sighed the boy.

“I know it's a lot to take in, that life doesn't last forever. But the purpose of life has never been to be here forever. We are here to blossom and to share our blossoms with our loved ones. And in this way, I will always be part of you, right here in your heart. And you can visit me whenever you’d like.”

The little boy nodded.

“But the most important thing I want you to be sure about, is that you are alive right now. And it's your job to celebrate that with the people who love you. And it’s your job to be nurtured by all the wonderful things that life has to offer so that you get to grow and blossom.

“We each have our time to blossom. But some of us are too scared to let it happen. Please don't be scared, my sweet grandson. We're all here in your heart rooting for you—me, along with all of your ancestors. Even the ones I'm not particularly fond of. But the more important point is that you only get to be you once. And I don't want you wasting too much time being sad.

“Ok,” said the little boy, wiping his tears.

“But whenever you do feel sad, you know what to do. You call me on your heart-phone. Or you tell your mother to call me on her heart-phone. Remember, I'm always just a heart-phone call away.”

“Ok. I love you Grand-mère.”

“Oh honey. I love you too. So much.”

After the boy’s mama hung up her heart-phone, the boy felt a lot better. “Life is sad sometimes,” he said to his mama after a minute or so.

“It is, honey.”

“But I think the reason it’s sad is bc there’s so much we love about life. And we don’t want those things to go away.”

“I think you’re right. You’re smart to have thought of that.”

“But I think Grand-mère is also right. We will always have what we love right here in our hearts. And we can keep visiting what’s in our hearts and sharing what’s in our hearts with the people we love.

“That’s very beautiful, honey,” the boy’s mother smiled, wiping tears from her eyes.

“Can we get ice cream now? Grand-mère just said on my heart-phone that ice cream would be a good idea. I think I’ll get her favorite flavor—butter pecan.”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

The End

-JLK

Some things I have learned so far:

Trying to control my son’s behavior does not create connection. And at the end of the day, connection means the most to me.

When my son’s method of coping with a moment is not aligned with my method of coping with a moment, it creates such a conflict of interests.

Sensory seeking meets sensory avoiding and damn if that doesn’t just spark the chemistry for a conflict.

But in these moments, I find that I must bite my tongue instead of trying to stop his behavior using those old survival tactics that were role-modeled to me, like making threats or shaming or using a loud voice—to try to make the environment less stressful for me.

What a lack of reasoning our survival selves use! Trying to create less stress by creating more?!

In such moments, I find it best to bite my tongue and survive with coping strategies that really do de-stress the moment.

I put in my ear plugs and I busy myself with my own interests. If it’s late and my son’s having a hard time and needs me, I soothe myself by reminding myself that life can be painful and it can cause worry and anxiety—and often, there’s nothing at our disposal that works to get rid of it.

So, since I’m the parent, to me, this means that in the face of these highly stressful moments, I need to role-model compassion and acceptance-right-now.

Maybe I say something like, “I get you’re having a hard time. I get that it’s not fun. If you’re not sure what you need, I’m not sure what I can do for you to ease the discomfort but I’m here with you. And I care.”

Honestly, in these agonizing, stressful moments, it’s often not even for him that I make an effort to be my more healed self.

It’s a gift for my tomorrow self.

Bc I know my tomorrow self really well. And she only feels peace when she knows her connection with her boy is strong. And she feels really, really awful when the self that she was in those stressful moments chose reactivity instead of acceptance.

My tomorrow self could care less about what people might say about my son’s behavior or our lifestyle choices or his neurology or their concerns for his future.

My tomorrow self knows that all of that out-of-context stuff comes from a playbook that’s not based on our reality.

It’s based on a reality that our society holds as the standard fare and inadvertently asks us every moment of every day to compare what we we’re doing in order to see if it lines up.

But the curriculum of our reality doesn’t resemble the curriculum of the standard fare. Right now, ours is learning about acceptance, about compassion, about our interests, and about the humor and brilliance that comes from expressing ourselves authenticity. And it’s about being willing to listen, support, validate and connect authentically with others.

It’s about pursuing our interests and contributing the best of what we’ve got, not putting the best of what we’ve got on the back burner and contributing what others insist we should be doing instead.

I ask myself a lot: What am I preparing my son for?

And my answer is: I’m preparing my son for a future where he gets to be himself and be proud of who he is.

Will it be easy?

It already isn’t.

Are there guarantees?

There already aren’t.

Would I rather have connection than strife as we navigate this unpredictable path?

Yes.

Do I think my son will be more likely to try things out and learn new skills and grow in his own time in an environment that’s as stress-free as possible and accepts him where he’s currently at?

Absolutely yes.

-JLK

In case anyone needs this reminder today…

If you’re exhausted but you don't think you did much, don't forget that many of us run obstacle courses in our minds all day long—dodging unpleasant memories, leaping towards opportunities, being held back by constrains from the past. Tripping over what someone said that triggered us so much it felt like we were allergic to their words. Running in circles trying to remember what the hell we're doing. Projecting ourselves into the past, projecting ourselves into the future. Trying to figure out how to feel ok, how to feel safe, how to feel beautiful and worthy and how to forge connections that feel authentic. Do you know how many miles all this stuff takes? It's an ultramarathon. No wonder you're exhausted!

-JLK

I like to imagine that I have an elevator in my body. It escalates and de-escalates.

It’s been my habit to let other people and circumstances press my buttons, but it’s not been my habit to notice what floor my elevator is on.

I feel the best when I’m on the center floor. I feel aware and calm and clear enough to make choices based on the healed parts of myself.

But when my needs aren’t being met, I tend to wind up in my basement, where I feel depleted and depressed and all alone.

If I feel panicked, I tend to escalate fast, and often wind up on my own roof. And if I stay up there long enough, I tend to blow my top. And blowing my top isn’t always something others can see. My top can also blow inward. Which isn’t very fun. When this happens, I often plummet very quickly in my elevator, all the back down to my basement.

The good news is, that just by noticing where my elevator is, I immediately wind up on my center floor.

And from there, I can ask myself what it is I need and make choices to help myself meet those needs or find support to help me meet those needs.

So if you tend to get exhausted by all the places you travel to in your body everyday, you might find some relief by noticing what floor you’re on, and noticing what it was that pressed your buttons.

And once that noticing takes you back to your center floor, you might also find it useful to discover that you also get to press your own buttons, and take yourself to where you’d like to go.

-JLK

My mother passed so unexpectedly that I had to do a lot of the healing of our relationship through her spirit. Whether or not it was actually her spirit or the actual spirit of her that I internalized didn’t seem to matter. It was profound for me.

Something l've been noticing is that hope is fueled by movement.

When we stop moving, hope is lost.

Bc there's nothing fueling it.

So keep moving. Even if it's just lifting up your arms to give yourself a small hug. That's enough to start with.

And from there, move a little more in whichever direction you think might meet your needs. And see what happens.

-JLK

An exchange with my son, the new teen:

Me: Did you hear what I said?

B: Yes, I have obtained this knowledge.

I remember once reading a story about a young man and his spiritual teacher. I can’t remember any of the details, so I’m going to really paraphrase here…

So one afternoon, this spiritual teacher gave his young student an assignment:

“Find the right spot for yourself in this room,” he instructed.

“Find the right spot? You mean, where I’m supposed to be? In this room?” the student asked.

“Yep.”

So, the young man began trying to find this right spot.

He sat in one spot in the room, but it didn’t feel right. Then another spot, but it didn’t feel right either.

Over and over he tried, but nothing felt right.

After awhile, he began to over-think and worry that he was going fail, and that he didn’t have what it takes to do the assignment the way it was supposed to be done.

Then after another while, he got so frazzled and tired, he decided he didn’t even give a flying fuck where his spot was.

At this point, his spiritual teacher stopped the lesson. And he said something like: “I am now going to tell you which spot was the right spot. Can you guess?”

“No,” the young man said, despondently.

“The right spot, is whichever spot you deliberately choose. And the reason this is the right spot right now, is simply bc you are making this choice right now.

“You see, whichever choice you make is the choice you make. And, by committing to this choice right now, you are committing to whatever consequences there may be.

“And bc of this commitment to your choice, you will find empowerment in your choice.

“Even if you have anxiety in the background, if you anchor to your commitment instead of to your anxiety, you will stay grounded instead of feeling flustered and unsure.

“So, if you pick the spot by the door, then you make that spot yours. And if the ceiling falls on your head, then it is what it is, and you have more information to make a more informed choice later.

“But, if you keep trying different spots, again and again, wandering around and around in your life like a deranged chicken, trying to figure out which is the “right” choice, you will never make any deliberate choice.

“You will be like a little leaf blown by circumstances—whooshing up into the air with every strong gust, and then settling back into stability once fair weather returns—always nervous of what’s to come and always wondering what you did wrong whenever the wind blows.”

The gist of this story really stuck with me. Of course, I’m still a deranged chicken from time to time. But it does give me a lot of relief to remember that the choice I make right now is the right choice for me right now, until I have more information or more experience or some new opportunity that gives me more options for new choices to make later.

-JLK

Reminder to myself and whoever else needs it…

Parents have bad days. Maybe none of your needs are being met and you're running on fumes and your kid comes lunging over, demanding that you meet their needs right now… and in that moment, you just can't believe the audacity of your circumstances.

When we’re depleted and stressed, it can be so hard to remember to be careful what we say to our kids.

It might only take a second or two to lash out with hurtful words we don’t even mean, but those words can reverberate long after they’ve been said.

But even if you do lash out, fear not. Set aside your regret, take a deep breath, and remember that you can repair the damage. Starting with yourself first.

Give yourself some love and appreciation and recognize how tough it is to be your most healed self all the time when there are still so many hurting parts within you.

Sit with yourself for a minute and remind yourself that you’re worth being proud of. That you’re doing a great job.

Then give some of that love and appreciation to your kid and let them know that they’re also doing a great job, and let them know how much they matter to you.

Because healing words can also reverberate long after they’ve been said.

-JLK

Affirmations aren’t always positive. They can be observations that we repeat over time:

I’m so alone.

Nothing ever works out for me.

I’m a magnet for unhealed, blindspotted people.

And though our observations may be valid, when we keep affirming these things, we may keep finding evidence that these things are the only things that are true for us.

Shifting our affirmations so they’re aligned with what we *want* to see can be a powerful thing:

I’m part of this world. I belong here.

Things are beginning to work out for me.

I’m becoming a magnet for compassionate people who enjoy communicating-to-be-understood and listening-to-understand.

It’s not magic. It’s adapting to a new perspective. It’s trying out making some different kinds of choices that are aligned with this perspective and seeing what different kinds of results begin to show up.

And we can support each other as we practice, and share with each other the new things we begin to notice.

-JLK

I used to think that if I healed, I'd no longer have these parts of myself that cause me shame, pain and embarrassment. I thought my awareness would disintegrate them all and I'd be free.

What I realize now is that the purpose of my awareness is not to disintegrate these parts of myself I'm not proud of, but to integrate them. And to give these parts of myself my love, understanding and compassion.

-JLK

Three awkward moments I thought about today:

Awkward moment #1:

A conversation with my mother from years ago, back when I moved out of the city due to panic attacks, and relocated to a less stressful place in a rural area:

My Mother: Tell me how your day was. Did you finally get out like I told you to?

Me: I did.

My Mother: And where did you go?

Me: I drove to Vermont, to this little health food store.

My Mother: Sickening.

Me: You’d have actually liked it there. They have all sorts of things.

My Mother: Well, that actually sounds like fun.

Me: It wasn’t fun though. It was mortifying.

My Mother: Oh no. What happened.

Me: Well, bc I’ve been so isolated for so long, I felt completely unaccustomed to being in a store. I was so overwhelmed, I couldn’t even remember why I was there.

My Mother: Oh, darling.

Me: I was so nervous and self conscious. And everything was so loud and bright. But I forced myself to get some things. And so I got a cart. And I start pushing it around the store, but it was so small, it was hurting my back to push it.

My Mother: What do you mean?

Me: Well it was a health food store so I figured they made the carts small so you wouldn’t fill them all the way. To conserve food or whatever. And so I’m wheeling it around bending over as best as I could and next thing I know, this guy who works there says to me, “Did we run out of adult carts? I’d be glad to find you one.”

My Mother: Oh you poor thing.

Me: Yes. There I was, out in public, pushing a kids’ cart through the health food store.

My Mother: (laughing) Oh Jess, what did you do?

Me: (laughing) I just about died. I was so embarrassed. But I muscled through. I paid for my things and then I sat in my car for a whole 30 minutes questioning my mental and cognitive well-being. And then I drove home and boiled beans.

My Mother: Oh Jess. I’m so sorry, honey. But I want you to be proud of yourself for getting out of the house.

Me: Ok.

My Mother: And I want you to give yourself a fucking break.

Me: Ok.

My Mother: You did nothing wrong. The only thing you did was give us something wonderful to laugh about. And laughter, as we both know, is the best medicine.

Me: I agree. I just hope there’s nothing wrong with me.

My Mother: There is only everything right with you. You just need to get out in the world more often, Jess. And you need to figure out how to enjoy the parts of the world that are enjoyable and how to avoid the parts that aren’t. You’ll see. You’ll get the hang of things again.

Me: Ok.

My Mother: Do you believe me?

Me: I do. Thank you.

My Mother: And please stop thanking me for being your mother. Jesus Christ.

Awkward moment # 2:

Once I hired a Foley artist to create special effects for a live performance of a radio play I wrote and directed. I picked him up from the airport and once he got into the car, he took a good long look at me and said: “You photograph well.”

I waited for him to say something more. Something that would give me another way to interpret what he’d said. But he said nothing more. And I had to be in the car with him for another hour. Longest drive of my life. He made pretty good footsteps for my radio play though.

Awkward moment #3

When I was about 10 years old, I was with my father—we’d just come out of a restaurant where we’d had breakfast. Outside the restaurant, my father stopped in his tracks and said, “Oh my god, look, those people are stealing our car!”

Immediately, I saw a woman and her child trying to open the door to my father’s blue Honda Prelude. And in a flash, I decided that I was going to save the day.

Without hesitating, I ran over to the car and I said, “You get out of my father’s car right now!” And the lady kind of stared at me in shock, shielded her kid so her kid didn’t see me, and then hurried into the car and drive away.

I was so confused. And when I looked back at my father he was covering his face, but I could see his mouth was wide-open, in shock. And that’s when I realized it wasn’t his car.

He felt so awful that I’d thought he was serious. And there I was—thinking I was gonna be a hero. And ever since, before I intervene, I make sure to double-check that I’m not going to make a fool of myself first.

-JLK

The morning of New Year’s Eve, I was thinking how I’d like to create more opportunities for adventure this year. And then, that very afternoon, my car broke down! And, one of the mechanics at the shop quit, so there’s only one mechanic left and he may not be able to fix it for weeks.

I am more present than I used to be of my role as the meaning-maker of my life. And yet, it’s such a finicky role, bc it’s based on *my* meaning, and there’s no proof for *my* meaning in anyone else’s meaning.

It’s based on what’s meaningful to me—things that I’ve developed through my awareness, my convictions and interests, after a lifetime of being told that things which originate from me aren’t really very meaningful at all—that true “meaning” is based on what other, more qualified people have decided is most meaningful. (Which was the belief system my caretakers used to get me to comply with their expectations, whether I found them meaningful or not.)

As for my car breaking down, I’ve grown to the point where I can see many boulevards of meaning I can make here:

The “nothing works out for me” boulevard. The “hmmm this is interesting timing” boulevard. The “I guess maybe this month should be for focusing on releasing my new memoir and also working on my next book” boulevard. The “well, my son will be happy to stay home instead of being bothered by my trying to enroll him in any of my so-called adventures” boulevard.

To me, though, the most important thing about being the meaning-maker of my life is being willing to step into that role, not as an authority figure or as a taskmaster, but as whoever I choose to be for myself in this role: as someone who’s flexible enough to see my circumstances in ways that honor who I am with compassion and understanding, as someone who’s willing to see my circumstances as potentials for opportunity, and maybe even as someone who can see my circumstances through a bit of humor and/or beauty.

As the meaning-maker of my life, I can also feel sad or angry or worried or anxious. Bc feeling my feelings about my circumstances, instead of dismissing them, helps me to understand what’s meaningful to me.

I can ask my feelings questions: What was I looking forward to doing with my car?

Maybe my sadness can join up with the problem-solving parts of myself and come up with a great plan for an outing once my car is fixed.

It’s empowering to remember that I can choose what kind of leader I want to be for myself in my life. And to me, the main job description as the leader of my life is being the meaning-maker.

Sure, I can learn from others about what’s most meaningful to them. I can learn what people have internalized from our collective society as to what should be most meaningful to us all.

But for myself, I have realized that to honor my own autonomy or agency or whatever word you want to call it, all I need to remember is that I have choices when it comes to what meaning I’m going make of my circumstances.

And just remembering that I can make these choices on a moment-to-moment basis feels empowering. And every time I choose to give myself compassion and create my own meaning, I pave my own boulevard, instead of traveling on someone else’s that may or may not take me to where I want to go.

-JLK

Sometimes things feel so out of control with my son and I just want to yell or shame or negotiate them back into shape. But that never works.

The only thing I know that works is to accept the shape of the moment, and then look at the things around the moment that might be squishing it into that shape, to see if some of those pressures can be loosened or even let go of.

Maybe it’s an expectation, or a conflict of interest. Or something that happened earlier that I didn’t think was a big deal but he did. Or something I thought was a big deal but he didn’t.

Whatever it is, whenever I remember to let go of it, I’m able to sink underneath my reactions and theories and give myself over to the moment, just by being inside the space of it with him, just as it is and isn’t.

It’s so uncomfortable at first.

But once I’m inside the moment, and I’m part of the shape of the moment, I always realize there’s no other shape it needs to be right now. I’m just in it, as it is, together with him.

And because of that, we can begin shifting to a new moment, together.

-JLK

What do you do when someone speaks confidently about something they lack first-hand experience with?

I thought of this when I scrolled past someone’s post about OCD.

“I’m going to hold meetings for people with OCD and when they take a look at my house they’ll start to clean!” it said.

And in the comments: “Send them to my house!”

One person chimed in: “That’s actually not OCD.”

And the response from poster? To be defensive. “It’s a meme. Lighten up.”

The reason I find this problematic is not only the dissonance it creates when someone turns something serious into a joke simply bc they lack any lived experience with it. But bc of the hypocrisy.

Bc if the poster scrolled through a post jokingly objectifying something that caused them pain in their lived experience, I can guarantee they wouldn’t appreciate the humor.

It’s hypocrisy.

So many of us are walking around in glass houses without even realizing that we haven’t closed our blinds. And then we get upset when someone points out what they’ve noticed inside.

Defense and saving face may seem like the right thing to do in these uncomfortable moments, but I’ve learned from experience that it prevents gaining access to other people’s contexts.

And gaining access to other contexts always expands perspectives and creates new connections so that more people care about each other and can connect authentically—which are the ingredients that create the kinds of conversations that are naturally imbued with real humor that everyone involved finds amusing.

It’s hard to scroll by posts like this, when your lived experience with OCD and your loved one’s experience with OCD is so intense and scary at times.

It feels icky to have one’s biggest hurdle in life turned into a meme, even when it’s plainly coming from a mindset that is only able to access their own context on the subject.

But as we all know, ignorance, though it intrinsically has no value, can cause a lot of inadvertent damage.

To me, humor that uses other people’s pain as a prop, knowingly or unknowingly, is the least imaginative kind of humor.

And turning what’s sensitive to others into a joke and asking these people to buy a ticket so they can laugh along at their own expense lacks awareness and emotional dexterity.

There’s no real laughter or heart in this.

It’s merely the chemical reaction of a field of vision that doesn’t exceed the circumference of their own reality combined with a refusal to gain awareness and understanding of anyone else’s.

Not much different than someone throwing garbage innocently out the car window while singing along to their favorite song and refusing to consider that they’re part of the pollution.

And the result?

People build fortresses around their contexts so that no one can mock them and this yields dangerous results. Bc their lived experience becomes even less accessible. Which means less support. Less connection. Less spaces to be seen and heard and understood. Less spaces for these people to contribute the enormous gifts they have to share.

I see this happening all over. People mocking what’s important to others instead of recognizing the potential we all have to hold space for multiple contexts all at the same time.

And I can’t see our society lasting if we aren’t willing to enter the realm of each other’s contexts. Otherwise we may all turn into vigilantes, avenging our own contexts bc no one seems to give a shit.

To me, if we are to create peace, we can only do so by extending grace to all contexts, especially to those who’ve been given the least airtime in our collective awareness.

-JLK

I bought this housecoat on Amazon. Something to make me feel less in my pajamas since I stay home so often to support my son. I thought maybe it was stylish. But this morning, my mother, who was always so elegant and put together, manicured and pedicured to the day she turned to ashes, visited me. And she said, “Jessica, I had to cross 3 universes and 17 portals to reach you, so I want to make sure you hear me loud and crystal clear: Never wear that hideous thing, ever again. It is a white flag waving with each step to the gallows of your soul. I didn’t go through what I went through so you could dress to be depressed. So get rid of it. And go find something that sparkles and shines as much as the brilliant spirit you were born to caretake.”

My son asked his friend, “How long have you been alive?" instead of "how old are you" and I think this is the most beautiful reframe.

-JLK

Thinking about the long term consequences of punishing our kids…

I was constantly grounded as a teen. Especially when I stuck up for myself.

Each time I found the courage to express my concerns, feelings and upsets, my grown-ups turned furious. “How dare you disrespect our authority by saying that!”

And my punishment for ‘talking back’ was always the same: Being deprived of community and companionship by being grounded in my room, all by my horrible, shameful self.

And I would feel so tortured being locked in my room that I would want to apologize and admit I was wrong just to get some love, even though I knew I wasn’t wrong, and even though I knew that their love felt wrong and abusive.

It was simply the only connection that was available. And I needed whatever connection I could find.

Now, how in the world does anyone think that this teen is going to be able to have healthy relationships as an adult, when she equates expressing her big concerns and feelings as a possible gateway to being punished and banished?

And it’s true. For years and years, expressing my upsets gave me tremendous anxiety. “Am I about to lose security and love by expressing this thing that’s upsetting and important to me? I’m amazingly good at pretending, should I just pretend I’m ok with this and save my true self for journaling?”

Sounds funny, but that’s what I did. I lived in the pages of my journals. And I’m not saying this is entirely bad. Living anywhere is better than living nowhere. But living in my journals out of fear that I wouldn’t be accepted in the world was not a source of empowerment. It was me coping the best I could.

For years, I did whatever I had to do to keep the peace so that I wouldn’t be left alone.

And I learned something interesting—it wasn’t only my stepmothers and my father that had trouble being with other people’s concerns and feelings. There were a whole lot of other people who also seemed threatened by these things.

And I began to wonder why.

Was it bc so many of us were walking around with unresolved upsets and concerns that had never had an opportunity to be understood and validated?

Had many of us come to the same conclusion: that feelings and concerns are threatening to our sense of self, and therefore we need to protect ourselves from them?

To upgrade this mindset, I now make it a priority to find the courage to practice communicating my feelings and concerns out loud as an opportunity for others to understand me better. And I do this knowing that I’m now an adult and unabandonable.

And I do my best to listen and validate the concerns and feelings of others without feeling threatened.

But most importantly, I make it a priority to be a safe space for my son to communicate his feelings and concerns, so he always knows that his concerns and feelings matter and deserve to be heard and validated, not punished.

-JLK

I have a teenager! My son is officially 13! Hard to imagine. Sadly, he won’t let me share his photo, but he’s very tall with wild hair, a huge heart, doesn’t hesitate to speak out against injustice and discrimination of any kind, loves his friends, is always open to learning new things about different kinds of people no matter who they are or where they’re from, he can be soft-spoken if he’s just met you, but I keep a jar of earplugs nearby for those times when he’s fully expressed and comfortable being himself, and he’s pretty funny too. So proud of my son.

I notice so much of my energy gets wasted comparing what I’m doing to what I think I should be doing. This is the software that my past installed inside me, so it’s hard to reprogram. But I think it’s important to spend my energy installing new software based on self-exploration and self-appreciation rather than spending my energy feeling like shit and then trying to avoid feeling like shit by coping in unhealthy ways.

With support, we can encourage ourselves and each other to operate from this new software. It’s possible, and we’re worth the effort.

-JLK

Instead of beating yourself up for not being who you think you should be, encourage yourself to be the authentic version of who you already are.

“Excuse me, but you dropped a piece of your mind back there…”

—a random voice I plucked from my mind’s stream of rambling while I was doing the dishes.

Years ago I named it Rilk: the random meanderings and associations of my untethered consciousness. It’s where I get a lot of my ideas and a lot of my associations—some lead to stories, some to insights and laughter, and other times, the Rilk leads to painful memories and embarrassments.

But every once in awhile, I hear a kind but impish soul who seems truly interested in helping. “Yes, Dear Rilkish Spirit, I do believe I did drop a piece of my mind back there… though I fear it may be impossible to find at this point! I am, however, doing my best with the mind I have left.”

A very short story written from the perspective of a 10 year old boy…

When I was 3, I used to go visit my grandpa. Man, he had these incredible treasures all over the place. My mom told me they were trinkets but back then I didn’t know what a trinket was. But I knew a treasure when I saw one.

On all these little shelves were all these shiny glass turtles, tall shiny giraffes with faces that looked almost real, glass boxes that opened and closed—I could hardly wait to see what was inside—all of them right at eye-level, which I assumed meant that the old man set them out just for me.

But the weirdest thing kept happening.

Every time I touched one, my grandpa would come speed-walking over. But instead of smiling like I was, and wanting to talk all about the colorful glass fish that I was in the middle of swimming around in the air, he’d say, “Don’t touch! No touch!” Real stern-like.

So I thought to myself—maybe this means he has something better I can touch, so I followed him to his chair by the tv and I realized, “Ahhh the remote control! That’s what he wants to show me! Wow! He’s not kidding! Look at all those buttons, would ya?”

And so I grabbed it from his hands and started press press pressing and he did that face again. This time louder: “No! No! No touch!”

And this time I knew he was mad. But, I still didn’t understand why. So I just stood there all confused, and cried. That’s when my mom picked me up and took me to a private room.

“Why won’t grandpa share his toys,” I asked.

My mom laughed and hugged me. “You’re right, baby. He doesn’t want to share, does he. I think it’s because sometimes, grown-ups have toys that break easily.”

“But I was going to be careful!” I said.

“I know you were.”

“Well he shouldn’t keep his toys out if he doesn’t want to share them,” I said. “That’s what you always say.”

“You’re right.”

“I guess grandpa’s mama didn’t teach him that lesson.“

So from then on, I have to be honest, I wasn’t too excited to visit my grandpa. There were just too many rules to follow and one thing I’ve learned about myself is that I can remember a lot about different species of birds and squirrels and a lot about my favorite video games, but I do not remember rules.

So when I go over to his house, I just make it simple for myself. I sit on the couch and I wait till it’s time to go home.

But now when I do that, my grandpa thinks there’s something wrong with me. I heard him say something about it to my mom last time we were there. Because she’s right, I don’t miss a beat. I hear everything.

And he said, “I’m concerned about him. He’s like a shadow of his old self. He doesn’t seem as wild or excited about anything. He doesn’t want to connect… Have you made an appointment for him to talk with someone?”

And I saw my mom’s face get so upset. I really thought she was gonna cry. And I wondered what she was going to say next… if she was gonna tell him the truth or not. I really really wanted her to tell him the truth. And thankfully she did.

She said, “You know what? Since he was little, you’ve expected him not to touch this, not to touch that, not to be too loud, not to run… so the reason he just sits there is because you’ve made him so nervous to be here, that’s the only thing he feels he can do without being scolded!”

My grandpa didn’t like hearing this. Not at all. His face turned into that same angry frown. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. And he went back to his chair, and I gave my mom the look like, ‘Can we leave yet?’

Not that I don’t love my grandpa. I do. But sometimes, I just need to get out of there so I can breathe a little easier. And she nodded, and we did.

-JLK

Holidays can be difficult for many of us. Especially when we’ve recreated who we are on our own terms, but our families of origin still stubbornly speak to who we used to be, or to who they are, instead of being curious about our growth.

So I thought I’d share this old conversation with my mother who passed unexpectedly in 2016, back when I was just learning how to create boundaries.

My mother on the other hand loved her boundaries. She went through hell to completely recreate herself, and she burned just about every bridge that led to people from her past in order to protect who she was becoming.

I’m not quite that way with my boundaries, but when I’m with other people, as a former people-pleaser driven to gain love via approval, it can still be challenging sometimes to remember that I’m ok with who I am now and that really, I don’t need anyone’s approval.

My mother could be pretty fierce. But she could be so funny. And I miss so much how I could call her whenever I felt triggered and that I could always count on her to make me laugh, even though she was a bit rough-around-the-edges.

An Old Pep Talk With My Mother After I Was Triggered By Something Someone Said To Me:

My Mother: Jessica, how many times must I tell you—if you’re allowing other people to hurt your feelings, your feelings were already hurt. So let me ask you this: Are you just a giant vagina waiting to be fucked by everyone?

Me: No.

My Mother: Well, then. You're going to have put things in their proper place. Here’s where they go: Other people exist over there outside of you, and you exist inside of you. And you never allow toxic behavior inside you. If you still have hurt parts, it’s your job to heal them, not anyone else’s. But you also need to give yourself a fucking break. You’re going through a sensitive time. You're alone in the woods, your dog just died, and you’re not thinking clearly. Why else would you go and look for approval for what you're doing in life from someone who is never going to give it to you?

Me: I guess I just don’t like that he thinks that way about me.

My Mother: Well, guess what? You can't control what other people think of you. Can he control what you think of him?

Me: No.

My Mother: That’s right. So stop looking for standing ovations from other people and look in the mirror. That’s the person you want approval from. And next time you see him, don't tell him anything about you, just talk about things he’s interested in. Talk about Jesus, talk about the mob, talk about some fucking thing, other than you. And give him that aloofness that I know you know how to do so well. After all, you are my daughter.

Me: Thank you, Mother.

My Mother: Anytime, my darling.

-JLK

My son has taught me that every environment has an expiration date. And it’s different for everyone, this point in time where we feel in our bones that it’s time to leave.

For my son, many environments have an expiration date of about fifteen minutes. And if I ask him to stay past this time, and I tell him that he can handle it bc my expiration date for this same environment hasn’t arrived yet, I will be in for some rapid decomposure.

Bc once the expiration date arrives for him, and he’s forced to stay, the environment begins to rot fast.

It’s not fun to be in environments past their expiration date. And for my son, he will begin to react the way anyone would once they’re forced to stay in a rotten place.

As adults, we can figure out how to manage this. Figure out ways to stay and ways to leave. But for my son, who is dependent on me for when to leave, has no choice.

Over the years, I have learned to honor his expiration date and leave. Mostly bc being in rotting places with him is, well… awful.

But funny, in doing so, I have learned that my true expiration date to many environments is often similar to his, it’s just that I had been under the impression that it was my duty to thrive in

environments that had long since expired.

I had also been under the impression that it was my duty to pretend I was enjoying myself. That it was even my duty to breathe new life into those spaces that were begging me to leave.

It’s a new concept for me to think about, thinking of environments in this way. But I’ve come to honor that feeling that tells us when it’s time to leave. And I realize in doing so, it helps to honor the feeling one gets when one actually wants to stay.

-JLK

Still life images often take a long time to put together. Teams of people make sure everything looks just so—make-up, hair, lighting, sets, props, after-effects, etc.

And yet so many of us have been fed still life “realities” our entire lives, to the point that we compare them to our chaotic moments that are speeding along, out of our control, without any team behind-the-scenes making anything just so.

For many of us, our moments are filled with unexpected messes, unscripted attempts at communicating and scant levels of listening, followed by unchoreographed reactions, many of which alter spaces unpredictably with consequences that can last lifetimes.

I can remember feeling so anxious when I invited people to my home when my son was younger. Everything looked just so, but my son was almost never willing to be part of my still life. He’d come ramming into my facade with his authentic experience until my facade began to crack, until I had no choice but to begin the process of letting go of the ways I always thought things should be.

Over time, once I began to let go of the impossible task of trying to uphold my still life, I began to recognize my son as someone similar to who I had always been on the inside, only he was out in the world.

And I realized I had a choice—to either force him to stuff those parts deep inside of himself like I had, or see what might happen if I accepted him with grace and humor, and guided him towards self-acceptance and self-understanding, the way I wished someone had done with me.

Acceptance of what is doesn’t mean that life is neat and tidy. It means that I accept the fact that it’s anything but. And it also means that I accept when I can’t accept it, when it’s so painful that I just want to crawl under my covers and hide for the rest of the week. With acceptance, I allow things to be as they are. And funny, whenever I do, I also allow things to move and grow into something new.

Accepting what’s so instead of what should be has had my son and I leaving loud windowless museums at high speeds as if escaping danger, only to laugh in the rain once we make it out, relieved and connected.

It’s had us leaving crowded restaurants in a hurry and taking our food to-go only to enjoy it even more in the quietude of home.

It’s had us cancelling plans left and right only to tell stories we’d never otherwise have had the chance to tell.

It’s had us leaving school to learn about the world our own way.

To me, accepting right now means not needing to stay full-time in catastrophizing mode.

It’s being in the presence of a meltdown and hearing the harsh words, feeling them hit like darts into my heart, and asking in the privacy of my mind for suppprt from my dead mother: “Can you believe this reality I’m part of?!?! Fuck me!!!” And letting the laughter soothe me.

It’s pausing before reacting, as often as I can remember, bc I know in difficult moments, that my son is waiting to learn how to respond to his own upsets by watching how I respond to his.

And that if I gasp in horror, or shame him or yell, that these reactions of mine will influence his own reactions to his own upsets.

But when I see the darts as not solely painful to me, but a sign that my son is in pain, I can see more clearly what I’m dealing with—a scared, upset kid. And I can say, “Life hurts a lot. It’s really hard to be with sometimes. Let me know what I can do to make today a little easier.”

My baseline these days is very base: it’s being alive lol. And from there, it’s sharing the experience of being alive. It’s accepting where I currently am in this craziness of being alive. It’s being flexible in difficult moments to see where circumstances might go, if I let them. It’s not sugar-coating things that don’t work, but instead of catastrophizing, it’s being in an inquiry about what to do next, even if right now, I’m not so sure.

It’s giving myself grace and giving my son grace. Even when I forget to pause and I react like someone I don’t like from my past—shaming and yelling—it’s still giving myself grace instead of shame. Bc I know that underneath my own behavior is an upset person who’s unable to access a better way to respond. But if I give myself grace, I’ll be able to remember a better way to respond, and I can extend that grace to my son.

Being alive is so crazy. It’s painful and beautiful and heartwarming and heartbreaking. It’s truly amazing to me that we’re all doing it together all at the same time.

Sending grace and love to you all.

-JLK

When we're bored or lonely or upset, I think it's important not to recreate lifelines back to people, places and dynamics we've already liberated ourselves from.

It can be so hard to find solace within ourselves when were having a difficult time, but I think it's worth the effort rather than squashing ourselves to fit inside old circumstances that we've already grown out of.

-JLK

If you always had people noticing what you didn't do, you may have not received much appreciation for all your victories.

And over time, you may have started skipping over your own victories, bc you were too focused on what you didn't do or what you didn't do good enough.

Today, please take a few moments to appreciate your victories. Those things you did, tiny or big, that were aligned with what's meaningful and beautiful to you. You might be surprised by how many victories you've had.

-JLK

It can be challenging to stay grounded when other people hook us. When they say and do things that seem to threaten the very core of who we know ourselves to be.

When this happens, I think it’s important to remember that other people are not the authorities on who we are and who we're not.

Perhaps in the past, we were forced to accept other people’s definitions of us. And perhaps we were punished for being who they mistakenly thought we were.

But as adults, we can practice listening to other people’s words without letting them hook us and define us. Because we know who we are now, and we know who we’re not. And we know we’re healing from past wounds, and we know we have nothing to be ashamed of, only everything to love and have compassion for.

We can stand grounded in ourselves, even in the presence of someone confidently misunderstanding us. And instead of defending ourselves, we can calmly choose to listen-to-understand and communicate-to-be-understood, or, if it’s not worth our energy, we can calmly excuse ourselves and continue on our way.

-JLK

(Signed copies of my book, Once Upon an Upset, are available through my website OnceUponAnUpset and also on Amazon. The ebook version is also available on Amazon and on my website. I’ll paste links below in case anyone’s interested.)

Sometimes being an adult means finding ourselves all alone, either physically or emotionally, and realizing that we're going to be ok, that we've got our own back.

-JLK

Facebook reminded me of this conversation at the post office with my then 7yo :

My son muttering under his breath: All this Christmas crap. Santa everywhere. Tricky grown-ups trying to make money. Disgusting.

Me: (chuckling.) Sorry. Ever since my son found out Santa isn’t real, he’s become a bit of a Scrooge.

Man working at post office: He’s a kid after my own heart.

(My son’s eyes light up.)

Man: They talk about the Christmas spirit... I will tell you what—the week up to Christmas is the meanest I’ve ever seen people. They practically trample each other to get their packages out in time.

My son: Well I used to think Santa Claus was terrifying. I used to think to myself that if I saw him, I would have to get a stick and knock him out.

Man: (nodding) I hear you.

Holidays come with a lot of expectations around our children’s behavior. Maybe they won’t say ‘thank you’ with enough enthusiasm or gratitude. Or maybe they’ll want to be online with their friends instead sitting and engaging with people in real life.

Whatever it is, I try to remind myself that my child is not my accessory or part of the Christmas decor. In fact he might feel stress and/or anxiety around holiday expectations.

So instead of holding onto my expectations, I try to remember to check in with myself to see where my expectations are coming from.

Do I need my son to look and behave a certain way because it’s a reflection of me? Am I still trying to earn accolades or validation from others instead of being ok with the way things are and aren’t? What might happen if I drop expectations around the holidays and see what happens naturally?

It might make the experience much less stressful for myself and for my son. And with less stress, I might be relaxed enough to notice the things that are working, things that are actually meaningful to me.

-JLK

I'm learning more and more, that when I remember to let go of what 'normal' moments in a family should look like, I can be more present to what's actually happening right now. And in this space of no comparison and no judgment, I can connect with my son just as he is, and get to experience something unpredictable and meaningful.

I wouldn't say I lost my mother to addiction.

I'd say I lost my mother because we live in a society where finding the right bridges to connect with the right resources is nearly impossible.

I'd say I lost my mother to the ways she coped with this situation.

I'd say I lost my mother because we live in a world gripped by trauma, that's run by people who shout, “Pick yourself up by your bootstraps!" to get people back to work instead of back to themselves.

A world run by people who've built themselves up so high on other people's bootstrap energy, but took down all the ladders so no one could reach them.

Who shout "tough love" to avoid liability, and "crocodile tears" if anyone complains, and "lighten up" when they don't want to be held accountable for their own corruption.

I didn't lose my mother because she didn't have the strength to utilize her grit.

I lost my mother because this world prioritizes profits over human beings and nobody considered my mother a good enough investment.

And at some point, she began to wonder if they were right.

-JLK

Every single day, throughout my entire life, I’ve had moments where I’ve felt overwhelmed and needed to understand my feelings and then make choices based on my values rather than my impulses. And yet not once during my formative years was I given any training to do so.

On the contrary, throughout my entire adult life, not once have I been in a position where I have needed to multiply fractions or know the biology of a frog or which president was the 29th.

I’m not exactly sure what kind of life my school was preparing me for, but it definitely wasn’t this one.

Knowledge is important. Being able to push through to meet goals is important. But judging from what’s going on in our society, I believe there is a huge missing in education.

I personally believe education should focus on feelings and self understanding, on communicating-to-be-understood and listening-to-understand, on helping kids accept who they are so they can turn their bodies into friends instead of receptacles of overwhelm, on helping kids understand that other people are not so different, that we’re all trying to feel safe and victorious in our moments, all at the same time.

Then, maybe kids would feel a bit more connected to themselves and each other, and maybe they’d have more energy leftover to discover their interests and be able to choose which kinds of specific things they’d like to learn about, and which kinds of real-life problems they’d like to solve with their good ideas.

I know lots of teachers and schools that are doing a lot of great things. These thoughts are just based on things I’ve noticed personally.

-JLK

“I wanted all women who are rape victims to say to themselves, ‘It's not us who should feel shame, but them.’” —Gisèle Pelicot

Amen!

This courageous woman, Gisèle Pelicot, refused to sweep any part of what happened to her under the rug and now we all get to see the despicableness and embarrassing weakness of these sorts of people who willingly and nonchalantly commit violence against women like it’s just a stop before heading home, after picking up a loaf of bread. And because of Gisèle Pelicot, we get to see the brilliant spirit of a human being who knows that she matters and knows that her story matters and that her future matters. What a powerful message to us all.

May the rest of her days be full of healing and joy and beauty and peace.

Don't take the stuff that goes through your mind personally.

The mind is a great recorder of everything you've ever seen, heard and experienced. It's a reflection of the world, not of yourself.

The meaning you make—that's you.

The insights you gain-that's you.

The action you take-that's you.

You can use your mind as a palette to create from and understand from. But if you wait for the mind to make sense of things for you, there's a good chance it'll be nonsense.

-JLK

Some affirmations that help me when I’m having a hard time:

I have enough understanding to understand myself.

I have enough clarity to see that I am not bad, only wounded.

I have enough love to love myself and get that I am worth my own love.

I have enough compassion to see myself as beautiful and to see my heart as full of so many gifts worth giving.

I have enough strength to be here for both myself and my child.

-JLK

I come from a long line of women who hid away in secret pain. My mother was the first to do something different. She came out of hiding.

And of course when you come out of hiding, so does all the stuff you’ve been hiding.

She brought her pain to the surface and tried to make different choices. And she found out the reason why so many of those women who came before her chose to hide their pain.

Because it’s painful and often embarrassing out in the world! And people can remind us again and again why it’s easier to just stay secret.

But it’s hard to only keep the pain secret. What often happens is that the rest of our parts join the pain and also stay secret.

And over time, the brilliance of all our parts together begins to burn a hole in the space where we’ve buried it, causing yet more pain.

Bc really, we want to share ourselves. And at some point, we may realize that we have to find the courage to let ourselves out and represent who we are, bc no one else will.

I will always be grateful that my mother stopped hiding, that she normalized talking about difficult things. I mean, that’s pretty much all we talked about. But she’d been carrying around so many generations of unresolved wounds, they needed sorting out.

And yes, her pain was hard to be with, but I learned a lot from it. A lot more than if she’d have kept it secret.

And seeing her pain gave me the incentive to share myself, instead of hiding what matters. Because by sharing our parts, the whole of who we were, we were able to get to know each other better. And I was able to understand the value of connecting.

So if you’re reading this and need a reminder: Whatever you’re dealing with and trying to make sense of, matters. Instead of stuffing it down or pretending these things aren’t there, remember that the stuff we’re made of is precious. All of it.

To me, it doesn’t matter how we let ourselves out—writing, singing, helping, healing, connecting—it’s all enough.

Letting our parts out of ourselves and into the world can help us to connect with our own lived experience and appreciate who we are, and allow other people to also appreciate who we are.

-JLK

For some people, this world can be especially brutal.

They have to constantly pretend they aren’t being bombarded by all the circumstances of life.

They have to paint smiles on their faces and push through the day even when every drop of harshness hurts.

They’re raw. They feel the elements from the environment around them penetrating to their very core. Including the immense beauty that others tend to miss.

Some people can armor up. They can protect themselves from the elements of life. Maybe they turn harsh to keep all those drops of pain away from their hearts. Maybe they bury their hearts in the process, but a buried heart feels better than a hurt heart.

But some people aren’t equipped with armor, and their efforts to create it are useless bc these raw people need to feel the stuff that’s alive.

They say, “Wow, look at this! My god, I have to get closer! It’s wild, it’s alive!” And they go over there to the aliveness and then boom. Something harsh lashes out unexpectedly, and they get hurt. Seriously hurt. But yet they don’t say anything bc they already know what all the well-armored people will say: ”Stop being so sensitive.”

Or, “Ha. You think you’re hurting? You don’t know what I’ve been through, and I’m fine, so you should be fine. You have to toughen up.”

Or worse, “You know what, I’m tired of your constant pain. It’s actually painful for me now. The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”

So the unarmored hurt people pretend not to be hurt.

And for some, the private pain can be too much. And maybe they decide the armored people were right—the world doesn’t revolve around them. They’re just broken. Too broken. So they give their last smiles to their loved ones and that’s it. They finally extinguish their pain the only way they know how.

And it’s f-ing awful.

Unarmored people do not need shame. They need resources—not to learn how to be armored, but how to be boundaried…

How to feel without letting their feelings drown them, so that they’re forced to numb out through substances. Or through hurting themselves so at least it’s a pain they can allow themselves to feel on their own terms. Or through whatever other destructive coping mechanism they’ve become friends with.

Boundaries:

Taking the time to learn how to filter circumstances with awareness and understanding for ourselves so that the aliveness gets in but the toxicity stays out.

Boundaries:

Taking inventory of which feelings belong to us and which belong to others, so we can stop storing other people’s stuff inside our bodies.

Boundaries:

Finding safe outlets to share our pain. Not with an armored person. Just as I wouldn’t get my groceries at the post office, I would never go to an armored person with my raw feelings. How in the world could I expect them to feel my feelings when they’re not even used to accessing their own?!

Boundaries:

Find a safe person who knows how to reflect your pain. In this society you will probably have to pay for this service. But you know what? It’s better that way sometimes, bc at least you’re clear about what you owe. You owe however much money it costs for your session, not your loyalties or first born child or your unconditional love.

Boundaries:

Find an outlet for transforming your pain into art: anything that takes your hurt out of your body and into a medium like painting, writing, whatever, so you can see it from your perspective and realize it’s fucking beautiful, bc it’s an extension of you understanding yourself.

Boundaries:

Vitamins. This may sound ridiculous, but without vitamins, my mind is a damn mess. I so often neglect my body, imagining that it will run solely on will power, thoughts and feelings. It’s as though I completely forget that I’m a living being who requires nutrients from the world, just like the rest of the living beings here. So one way of being boundaried for me is by taking my vitamins. Even when I don’t feel like it. (Which is hard for me.)

And for those who are reading this and you’re secretly planning your way out—please wait. Please be willing to try creating some boundaries to protect yourself. It may sound trite, but I know without a doubt that it’s true: you have gifts to share that the world needs. You are irreplaceable.

Sending love and peace.

-JLK

If someone isn’t valuing the idea of healing their past wounds and refuses to follow through with the commitment of taking a deeper look at their triggers and where they come from, they will not be able to hear nonviolent communication.

Everything they hear will be heard as an attack.

And if you attempt to let them know that your perspective isn’t an attack, it’s simply how you experience the moment, how you’re communicating what you feel and what works or doesn’t work for you, they will assume you are still attacking them and they may pull out their arsenal in defense. Things they know will cause a wound. Bc those are the strategies of the archaic battle:

If I am wounded, I will wound back.

Statements like “Calm down” or “You need to see a therapist.” Or “Are you getting your period?” Or “Why do you have to take everything so seriously?” Or “This isn’t fun.” Or “Why do you always have to have a problem.”?” Or “So and so was right about you.”

When dealing with the unhealed parts of people, I believe it’s important to wear a bullet proof vest. And in these kinds of battles, to me, this means you have to recognize that these “bullets” have nothing to do with you and everything to do with the person standing in front of you, who wants you to be for them everything they refuse to be for themselves:

Unconditionally loving and understanding, laboring 24/7 to meet their emotional needs, to understand what’s at the root of their behavior and work hard to offer those wounds compassion, etc etc.

But no, this isn’t anyone’s job but theirs.

It’s awful when people don’t see the impact of their not healing, and they only see life not working and believe it’s everyone’s fault but their own.

If this is a situation you find yourself in, pls stop investing in other people’s healing and do the hard work of shifting your focus to what you’d like to see grow in your proverbial garden. Do you really want to water something with your precious resources that refuses to grow? I’m thinking probably not.

Life can be so tortuous. And perhaps even more so for people who struggle with brains that process differently but are still expected to muscle through and comply with expectation after expectation in a world that’s been created for more typical brains.

And some of us mask which hurts ourselves, but some of us lash out to save face and keep people from noticing what they may perceive as shortcomings, and this hurts other people.

And to me, when adults refuse to get support for their unhealed parts, and they continue to believe that other people deserve to suffer all bc they aren't willing to see what’s really underneath their own blindspots, it’s not ok.

And for those who don’t believe they need to invest in their healing, here’s what I know to be true: Stress caused by reactive, unhealed adult behavior is contagious.

It bleeds through all members of one’s family and teaches those people destructive ways to cope with conflict until the day comes when the original unhealed person winds up being the one who gets hurt by their own arsenal.

But, healing is also contagious. It spreads healing from heart to heart with humor, vulnerability, peace and connection that turns moments into the kind of beautiful moments we actually want to live in.

-JLK

Thinking of the typical education model and demand-avoidant kids…

How we travel on our paths matters.

And from what I’ve noticed, there are many different kinds of vehicles.

Let’s say my vehicle is a bicycle: I like to go slower, look around, have insights, make associations, create meaning that leads to new ideas… and yet, I’m being asked to travel to my destination on a highway.

Naturally, I’m going to be terrified and underprepared, bc I’m one of the only vehicles on a bicycle and everyone else is vrooming at 65-75 miles an hour.

This means every second I’m on that path is going to compromise my safety and feel like a nightmare.

And the only way I know to get through the day, is to constantly put on my breaks and pull over, not only bc I have no interest in being on that highway to begin with, but bc I don’t want to get injured!

But yet when I try to explain to my caretakers that I don’t feel well enough to travel like that, that I’d rather stay home and learn about life and get to my destination my own way, I’m greeted with unspoken (or out loud) fear that there might be something wrong with me, and that they can’t take my concerns to heart bc to listen to me would ruin my future.

In my experience, what’s happening here is an incompatibility between the vehicle we’re in and the path we’re expected to travel. Along with a lack of understanding that this incompatibility is actually something to be taken seriously.

I may have the best coach and therapist teaching me ways to adapt and hurry up and get stronger and focus, but it will never change the fact that I’m still on a bicycle.

And it will not change the fact that every time I try to make that highway work as it is, I’m likely to become more traumatized and/or more dissociated from the fact that I’m on a bicycle. And I may even begin to forget the value of the unique perspective that people on bicycles are able to access.

From what I’ve noticed, the most popular pathways are the highways. And that’s why it’s so difficult to figure out how to carve new pathways for people in bicycles to thrive as their authentic selves.

And many of us with kids on bicycles feel shortchanged. Because we don’t have support communities that offer the kinds of pathways that were built for people like us.

So many of us are redefining the purpose of our education and we’re redefining what success even means. But we still don’t have access to the kind of education systems made for people who don’t travel in vehicles made for the highway.

And the reason we don’t have access to these other options is bc most these paths just haven’t been paved yet.

If this is you, I understand this anguish.

I have to try hard to remember not to use all my efforts to upgrade my bicycle and my son’s bicycle so that we can get on that highway, but to instead use my energy and resources to figure out how to pave a path that’s more compatible for our vehicles.

It’s so hard. Bc I’m already tired. But I'm doing my best. And so many others are already out there, building new pathways. All we need is to send out and receive each other’s invitations so that us people on bicycles can meet up and support each other as we are.

-JLK

I write a lot about inner elevators, about taking them to higher floors to access different perspectives in order to get unstuck and see our circumstances differently.

But I think there are also corridors on each floor.

And some corridors take us deeper into ourselves and some take us out into the world.

Sometimes when we’re having a hard time, we may find ourselves retreating so deeply inside of ourselves, that it’s hard to come back.

This happens to me frequently.

And there’s nothing wrong with going inward for solace or wisdom or even to sit with our sadness.

But I try to remind myself not to go too deep into my depths without letting someone I trust know where I’m going.

That way, if I get lost inside myself, they will know how to reach me.

Sometimes that’s what this page is for me. A place to touch base, to keep me from disappearing into my depths.

-JLK

From what I’ve noticed, people don’t clutch their pearls, they clutch their contexts. Like life preservers. To keep themselves safe in this tumultuous world.

Whenever I want someone to understand my context, I’ve learned from experience that I’ll have a much greater chance to be understood if I ask what they’re holding onto and listen-to-understand, instead of saying, “I see what you’re you’re holding onto—a bunch of bullshit!”

Whenever I try to push someone off their context, they’ll likely grasp onto their context even more. And what they’ll be trying to tell me is: “Hey, I’m safe here. And it doesn’t sound like you give a shit about my safety, so I highly doubt I’d be safe over there with you.”

But if I can share what I’m holding onto and why it’s keeping me safe, they might be able to relate, bc no matter what our contexts are, the reason we hold onto them is the same—they keep us safe, in whatever meaning of the word we’re currently holding onto.

As I heal, I often don’t need others to understand my context as much as I used to. But if I do want someone to understand my context, I realize now that I have to be willing to understand theirs first, even if what they’re holding onto would never be something I’d want to hold onto.

Without a mutual connection it’s difficult to care for one another. And in my experience, it’s only when people finally start to care for one another and recognize that we occupy the same waters, that we can even be in a position to find the incentive to want to keep each other safe.

-JLK

Each thought builds on the next.

Which means, if I’m thinking obsessively about how someone upset me, what I’m doing is building a thought structure in my mind.

Each upset thought gets added to the foundation of that original upset thought.

And if I have a habit of getting upset about things I have no control over, and I keep adding more upset thoughts to this same upset foundation, the thought structure will grow.

And before long, I will run out of room in my mind.

I will have built a neighborhood of enormous thought structures that I don’t even want to be near.

So what I need to do when I’m upset is to acknowledge my upset thought, and then shift to another space in my mind and think a thought that I want to build up.

Something creative, not destructive.

Something that represents what’s most meaningful to me. Something that’s an extension of my potential, of my most authentic self.

Something I want to invest my time and energy in. Not something that causes me anguish.

And I can build up that constructive thought by thinking another thought that’s aligned with what’s most meaningful to me. And then add another.

Until I build in my mind a neighborhood where I want to live, instead of a neighborhood that I want to escape from.

-JLK

Thinking about broken relationships…

I remember one of the last times I saw my grandmother before she died. She hadn’t seen or talked to my mother in over 20 years.

My grandmother was not the type to talk about her feelings, though.

She could send back soup for being too cold, she could complain to managers about the quality of such and such product, she could correct someone mid-sentence about their poor enunciation.

But when it came to her own feelings, and especially her feelings about her estranged relationship with her own daughter—she was dead silent.

Then one day, I was setting the table for dinner and she looked at me, and after a pause she asked, “Does your mother ever mention me?”

And I could see such anguish in her eyes. I knew it took everything she had to ask.

I of course knew better than to say, “Only when she’s asked if you’re alive, to which she replies, smiling, ‘Why no, actually, my mother has been dead over 20 years!’”

Instead, I thought to myself about what’s also true. That sometimes the damage between a parent and a child just can’t be repaired. There’s just too much that happened and too much time that’s passed.

It becomes instead a journey of repairing oneself through one’s own understanding of what happened through one’s own perspective and languaging of the hurt.

My grandmother made mistakes. Awful mistakes. And there wasn’t a way to send it back to the kitchen to make it right.

And maybe, at that moment, she was ready to accept what happened. And acknowledge the truth: that she wished she had done better.

And so I said, “Even though you made choices you probably regret, I think you can let it go now. I think maybe sometimes, people serve unexpected purposes for each other. And I’m not sure things could have gone any other way. And I think my mother understands this too.”

My grandmothers shoulders relaxed.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said.

I called my mother from the car after I left and told her what happened. “Honey,” she said. “You can’t force people to see things differently. Every choice she made in her life was to keep herself from seeing things differently, bc seeing things differently would mean becoming someone new, and that has always scared the hell out of her. I want you to understand something very important: Being complete doesn’t need to involve the person who caused the trouble in the first place. In fact, completing with yourself is the only way to stop carrying around those same old wounds.”

Both my mother and my grandmother are gone now. But I carry that wisdom in my heart.

And I realize now that intergenerational trauma doesn’t really have sides. It’s a virus of unresolved pain that continues, generation after generation, until someone finds a way to heal it through their own heart, by giving that pain our understanding and love, and then by making different kinds of choices in our lives.

And as for my grandmother—when I see someone who reminds me of her out in the world acting like a jerk, before I judge only what I see, I remind myself that for all anyone knows, they’re behaving that way bc it’s the only way they know how to express their unresolved feelings.

I’m not excusing people’s behavior, but the times I’ve smiled at these people, they often smile back, as if amazed and also confused that anyone would look at them and be happy instead of wish that they were dead.

-JLK

So many people have their hand on the dimmer switch. You tell them something you think is brilliant, something that lights you up, and there they go, dimming that brilliance, dimming that light with their assessments or opinions or well-worded ridicule or dismissal. And that’s fine for them. Let them dim the light and brilliance out of these things for themselves. But don’t ever let them dim the light and brilliance out of anything for you. They are not the authorities on what has value and what doesn’t. The world needs your passion and excitement and your inspiration. And more than that, you need it. It’s your fuel for pursuing what’s most meaningful and beautiful to you.

-JLK

Please don’t feed the shame any more shame!

If you want to feed the shame, please feed it love and understanding. It will thank you.

-JLK

”Wait what?! You’re not happy here? Things don’t feel right to you? Oh boo hoo!!! Give me a fucking break.”

Many of us grew up with some variety of this energy. And we received it the moment we tried to communicate to be understood. And when we received this sort of reaction to our feelings, for many of us, we stopped trying to communicate to be understood.

But the thing is—when we don’t honor our feelings and our experience about things, we wind up in environments that don’t work for us. And even if we keep our upsets a secret, and try our best to muscle through to keep the peace, the not-working-for-us can begin to eat at us from the inside-out.

And we may imagine that the reason our environments aren’t working for us, is bc there’s something wrong with us. And this is bc we’ve been conditioned to believe that our own feelings are not only irrelevant, but meaningless. And a sign that we’re being ungrateful, or whatever shameful word we internalized.

Well, in my opinion, this is something we urgently need to heal from!

And one way I like to heal from this business is to deconstruct this “boo hoo” mindset. And the reason it’s easy to deconstruct, is bc I’ve seen how it operates behind the scenes and it’s inauthentic.

Why?

Bc the moment these sorts of “boo hoo” people get hurt, their audacity and outrage is unmatched.

They wear blindspots in such a way that they’re perfectly ok with feeling their own feelings and making sure everyone knows they exist, but they’re perfectly not ok with acknowledging anyone else’s.

And sure, this is probably a trauma response. Some people’s trauma responses hurt themselves, and some people’s trauma responses hurt others. But does that mean we need to have compassion and be understanding of their toxic behavior?

Certainly not.

And even if we should want to find compassion for these people, we need to heal ourselves first.

And to me, if we want to heal, we need to realign ourselves with our own feelings after being disassociated from them so long.

And we need to do this by validating all those hurtful moments we’ve endured that have been waiting in a single file line as long as our intestines to get noticed and released with validation and with love and understanding.

Once we begin to honor our own feelings, we will naturally begin to discard those old awful notions that might sound something like, “You ought to be grateful to have a roof over your head!”

And we can begin the process of tending to and honoring all the stuff underneath the proverbial roof. Because who wants a roof over a war zone? That’s nothing to be grateful for.

And then maybe when you’re upset and you run into someone who says some variety of, “Oh, boo fucking hoo.” You can look at them, and get with utmost certainty that this is someone who once shared their vulnerable feelings and someone else took their big giant thumb and squashed them so deep into themselves that they never emerged.

And you might even see, if you look at them in a certain way, all their hurt feelings backed up like a long line to the only porto-potty in town wishing they knew how to relieve themselves, and you will suddenly know better not to internalize their proverbial crap.

Bc it doesn’t pertain to you.

And you can smile and say nothing. Or you can say, “Hey, I appreciate you trying to help in the way you’re used to helping, but I’ve discovered ways to feel better that don’t secretly make me feel more sad and lonely.”

Your feelings and experience matter! If you’re not feeling like your environment in some context or another is a match for who you are—that’s important information to tend to! Not something to ignore or avoid or dismiss.

It’s the beginning of an inquiry that asks: “Hmmm. I wonder what would be more of a match for who I am? I wonder if it’s time to communicate to be understood and represent my authentic experience and make some new sorts of choices in my life.”

And then we can have a board meeting with all our various parts and come up with some new ideas.

-JLK

If you grew up being constantly criticized, you might focus so much on protecting yourself from criticism that it keeps you from focusing on your natural interests and passions.

But it's so much more important to focus on our interests and passions. These are our gifts. And it's pointless to keep our gifts hidden to avoid being shamed or belittled.

Bc our gifts are not meant for people who we know aren't in a position to receive them. Our gifts are for the countless others who are.

-JLK

If you were neglected as a child, you might have come to the conclusion that no one wants to be anywhere near you and that your love and who you are is a complete waste of everyone’s time.

Well, this is False. Completely False. Even if you think you have evidence to the contrary. Even if you say, “Well, no one calls me back. And I didn’t get the (whatever it was you wanted). People really don’t seem to want to be near me!”

The truth is, what we focus on is what we see. And if you’ve got circumstances that reinforce this idea that you’re not worthy, it’s only because you’re looking at your life through the lenses of your unresolved pain from the past.

But what you’re seeing through those lenses isn’t the truth. The truth is, you are a gift. Your love is a gift. What you have to contribute is a gift.

It’s just that some people’s attentions are not tuned into what’s right in front of their eyes. Maybe they’re focused on a project. Maybe they’re 10 years in the the past, maybe they’re 10 years in the future. Maybe some sensory experience or anxiety or concern has got their attention. Maybe they’re stuck wearing the lenses that only lets them see the world through their own past pain. Who knows.

As kids, many of us waited for our grown-ups to punctuate our existence. We waited for their period or exclamation mark or question mark. And when we got nothing, we felt incomplete. And we didn’t have the tools to complete ourselves. In fact for many of us, figuring out how to complete ourselves became our life’s journey.

But…it’s not on purpose that those people from your past neglected you. That they inadvertently trampled your most beautiful blossoms that you picked just for them. It’s not on purpose that they never had time to open the pages of your most beautiful chapters you tried telling them about.

They missed you. You tried to say, “Hey, want to see something amazing? Look! Here I am!” And they mistakenly thought you were interrupting them on their way to something more important.

Well you weren’t interrupting. You had given them a beautiful invitation and they missed the special event. And this had nothing to do with you.

Please believe me: You are complete. You are valuable. You are beautiful. Keep sharing yourself. Keep sending out those invitations. The available people will show up. And they’ll be glad they did.

-JLK

Many of us grew up thinking:

I’m not old enough

I’m not special enough

I’m not smart enough

I’m not thin enough

I’m not in shape enough

I’m not pretty enough

I’m not talented enough

I’m not normal enough

I’m not lovable enough

I’m not successful enough

I’m not wealthy enough

I’m not healthy enough

I’m not young enough

Or whatever it is that has given us the impression that we aren’t “whatever enough” to live the kind of life we want to live.

But guess what—it’s a great big lie.

Bc when you take off those goggles that see yourself as who you imagine you’re supposed-to-be and you see yourself exactly as you are, you will believe this truth:

You’ve always been enough.

You were enough the moment you were born, and each moment there after, and you are enough right now.

Don’t waste another second wondering.

Share who you are right now, so that you and whoever you choose to share yourself with gets to experience the amazing being that you are while you’re still here.

-JLK

Reasons for writing…

There are people who write because they love the craft and there are people who write because they’ve got a huge tangled up ball of yarn taking up too much space inside them and writing is the only way they can even attempt to find that buried end, to unravel the whole mess, upset by upset, insight by insight, and fashion it into a story, one that makes sense to them, till at last they’ve created a thing of beauty, a tapestry of their own design, one that fits who they’ve become, in spite of where the material originated from.

-JLK