The isolation of the pandemic has had few blessings for me. It’s been an earthquake, causing upheaval as the opposing needs of connection and staying healthy ground together like tectonic plates, then parted, separating me and my loved ones from our supports and leaving troughs of emptiness in their wake. …

Names are funny, yet important things. They signify so much. I got my birth name because my dad was racist and wouldn’t let my mum use the French name she’d picked out. Chantal. He thought it sounded too Indian. …

There’s no one right way to let the people in your life you’re transgender. In the best scenarios, you’re in control of the message and timing, and you receive an affirming, supportive response. Life, as we know, isn’t always a best-case scenario. In the case of coming out as a…

Labels and boxes are funny things. Some people find comfort in knowing where they stand and where they fit. Others resist having descriptors applied to them. I think the difference comes largely on whether or not we have a sense of empowerment from those descriptions of us, whether they restrict…

When I was a teenager, I had a bumper sticker on the back of my first car, a Honda Accord hatchback, that said: Question Authority I had a lot of moxy as a teen along with an inner knowing that the things I was being taught were perhaps not in…

Not everything grows all the time. Sunflowers don’t grow in Oregon winters. And oranges don’t ripen in Florida until there’s a cold snap to ripen the fruit. Yet in a life where you can order something online and have it delivered sometimes the very next day, and we often feel…

As a child, I remember believing there were two days of the year I was guaranteed to cry: Christmas and my birthday. It’s a belief I brought with me into adulthood. …

Gratitude is good for you. If you want to give yourself a present this year, cultivating a gratitude practice is one that can offer you gifts again and again. Gratitude can help improve your relationships,your physical and psychological health, and your self-esteem. It can enhance empathy, increase mental health and…

How are you feeling right now? Can you name it? How do you know? How are you able to tell what emotions are going through you? I often have bodily sensations that give me clues to my emotional feelings. A churning or tightness in my abdomen with anxiety. A lightness…