You're the big dreamer, the money maker, the mover and shaker. You're the cook, the cleaner, the teacher and the babysitter. You're the caregiver, the guide, the shoulder to lean on. And guess what?

You're burned the f out, spent, drained, lights gone out, going through the motions but your energy isn't in it.

But do you know what else I see?

Just under the surface, longing to be seen is the part of you that's infinitely powerful

The part of you that is VITAL and alive, even with the huge weight of stress and responsibility on you

The part of you that is WHOLE and perfect even with all the ways you feel broken and deficient

The part of you that is fiercely CONFIDENT even with all the self-doubt and criticism

The part of you that KNOWS exactly what you need to do to get what you want, even with all the confusion

Once you make space to connect with and empower THAT part of you, things will change in your life and there's no more effective way than in a dedicated 1:1...

Throughout my life, I've always felt like I've had to keep working, keep moving, keep doing one more thing. But that's also made it a struggle to chill the f out and enjoy my life.

Does this sound familiar? If so, this is for you!

You're driven, you're passionate and you want to do an excellent job at whatever you take on.

These are all amazing qualities, but you've probably already learned that they also make you waaay more likely to burnout.

Here's where your secret weapon comes in.

When you consciously choose to connect to yourself in a pleasurable way, you encode the message that you deserve to feel good.

When you continue to show-up and choose pleasure, you learn to prioritize yourself over all the other things that lead you to burnout, like over-achieving and over-giving.

You learn to put yourself first over all the other things you've been taught to prioritize.

Which means you can continue kicking ass and taking names, while sustaining your own energy.

And pleasure...

Women are powerful and dangerous to the powers that be when connected to their bodies and erotic nature.

This is why my work is rooted in the body and dedicated to unwinding pernicious patriarchal patterns that lead us to perpetuate systems of oppression.

The same patterns that lead us to burn out are actually manifestations of white supremacy culture – more on that later this week!

As we continue to show up for change in our world, I cannot stress enough the importance of making space to 1) chill and rest and 2) actually feel pleasure and joy.

Choosing pleasure when everything else indicates you shouldn't – combined with taking action, of course – is the ultimate radical act, for all women but particularly for black and queer women whose identities intersect in increased layers of oppression. This is the origin of "intersectionality."

Audre Lorde, black lesbian activist and poet pictured below, wrote the essay Uses of the Erotic which was a big inspiration for me...

I know you're exhausted
I know you're overwhelmed
I know you're just trying to stay afloat

But trust me, this isn't how it ends

The thing is, beginnings often look a lot like ends

I know, trust me, I know IT CAN FEEL LIKE YOUR WORLD IS FALLING APART

And chances are, whether you identify as burned out right now, or not, I know you can identify with the feeling of the world as we once knew it ending.

So I ask you, what shifts when you approach this time as a new beginning rather than an ending?

IT'S TIME for reevaluation and big visions
IT'S TIME to decide what is most important
IT'S TIME to clarify our values and priorities

What shifts when you view burnout as a potent time of possibility?

IT'S AN OPPORTUNITY to finally put yourself first
IT'S AN OPPORTUNITY to recommit to your dreams
IT'S AN OPPORTUNITY to learn deep lessons that will transform the rest of your life

How are YOU choosing to view burnout or this current time?

Lemme know if you're with me!

If you're desiring to shift into...

Work doesn't have to be a grind — are you willing to believe?

Notice what that brings up for you, just hearing me say that.

I know some of you might fight me on this but it's my job to challenge you, to invite possibility and support the shift from possibility to reality.

So...

What if being an adult didn't have to suck?

What if work didn't have to drain you?

What if work could feel supportive?

What if stress wasn't the enemy?

What if you could feel that elusive thing we call balance?

What if...?

Yeah I know, I am sitting pretty after leaving the tech world, I don't have kids, I don't have many expenses, yadda yadda yadda.

There are A MILLION REASONS to believe this is possible for me but NOT FOR YOU.

Notice that disbelief in yourself and in what's possible for you.

I know a lot of you struggle with this and it's something that often comes up with clients.

FOR YEARS I THOUGHT I HAD NO CHOICE

I had a cushy salary, amazing benefits and unparalleled perks. How could I...

I'm one of those people that likes to point to my diplomas and certifications as a way to prove my worth. Can you relate?

Last year I finished my third coaching training, on top of a master's degree and too many self development and skill building workshops to name.

And only now do I finally feel a sense of clarity in what I'm here to do, deep confidence in my abilities and enough worthiness to take action in service of the life I most want and the people who need what I have to offer.

And no it wasn't all the trainings and diplomas that's given me this gift.

It's the DEEP WORTHINESS I have cultivated in my body through the inner work I've been doing for over a year now.

See when you embody worthiness...

You take responsibility for your life and happiness

You believe in your own potential

You feel confident in your abilities

You discover what you want and learn to ask for it

Worthiness lets you know that no matter what happens, YOU WILL BE OKAY.

If you want to do big things in...

One of my superpowers as a coach is explaining why the techniques I use work, according to the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology.

And I want to apply some of this thinking to what's going on right now.

We are living through a period of immense stress. Stress gets a bad rap today but STRESS IS ESSENTIAL because without stress, we don't grow.

Because we are under immense stress, we are in a period of HEIGHTENED NEUROPLASTICITY  aka whatever we do right now will have lasting impact on our brain development.

Anyone who's dabbled in developmental psych knows that the two biggest spurts of brain development are in the first two years of life and adolescence. These two phases are also times of immense stress.

It is 100% true that we are living through a period of UNPRECEDENTED COLLECTIVE TRAUMA. But that doesn't mean we have to emerge from this period broken and disconnected.

There is another reality you can choose to adopt if you are secure in your home right now.

...

You know self-love is a thing you should be into, right? Most of us know that we’re supposed to love and accept ourselves but we don’t know how to do it. Is that something you were taught in school? I didn't think so. And yet, love is THE essential element that makes humans thrive.

When you deeply, truly love yourself you are in control of how you feel about yourself and nothing outside of you can change that. You are unstoppable!

Really deep self-love is about loving allll of the parts of us, the parts we’ve been taught to feel ashamed of, to bury deep down, to control and contain. It means loving and accepting the bitchy greedy lazy ugly parts of ourselves.

When we can stop fighting with, trying to change or control these parts of ourselves we’re left with so much more energy and freedom to choose how we actually want to live our lives.

When we try to fix ourselves from the perspective that there’s something fundamentally wrong...

Let's be real, the past few days have been ROUGH.

I've felt sadder and more down than I have in awhile. Shit has been hard, but today, well today is a good day.

I'm still riding the high from our first Pleasure as Medicine class that was 

Friends, I owe you an apology.

I got a little cray with my branding and business that I overlooked y'all.

I had this idea that once I clarified my vision I could just run ads and have the people who resonate with what I'm doing find me. We'll get to the problem with that in a minute, but first lemme tell you a story.

A friend replied to an email about Pleasure as Medicine to say she loved the the course and to ask if it was open to her because in the past I had said I didn't work with friends. Actually I didn't even send that email to my mailing list, just to her and few other friends I knew would be perfect for it, but how would she know that?

When I got that email, I had two reactions, first was "Yayayay I'm SO excited she wants to join because I LITERALLY MADE THIS FOR HER!!" and the second was "Shit! I've so screwed up by making my friends think that I'm not available for them. I need to clarify that!"

See when I was first learning coaching in my master's program I was cautioned...