My Dear Readers,
I think I’m back to blogging, but because it’s 2026 many bloggers have moved to Substack. Honestly, I’m unclear as to why this has happened. So for now, I will publish the same posts here and in Substack. In the meantime, if you have already made the switch to Substack, please find me there and subscribe.
I haven’t had the urge to write publicly for quite sometime. There is so much noise out there, so much that I have crawled into a hole with enough exposure to the outside world that I remain angry.
I just came back from a leadership symposium at my alma mater. I came away with tons of questions and information and ideas, AND I had a few moments of feeling small and utterly discombobulated. Yes, imposter phenomenon reared its familiar head. (Does it ever go away?) I felt it in my body as someone asked me, “What do you do?” with the expectation I would respond with more than, “I teach yoga.” My cortisol levels went up and I felt flushed (though that also could just be menopause). Yes, I could’ve answered, “I’m an author/writer/podcaster” but most of my time honestly is spent in a yoga studio or planning the music I will use and the movement I will teach in said studio.
The reappearance of imposter phenomenon (I’ll call it “imphē” for shorthand) brought to mind an IG post about a woman who tells her 16-year-old daughter, “Never give up your future for a man the way I did for your father?” in front of her husband who can’t let it go. It also reminded me of a scene out of “Silo” season 3 when wife and husband Camille and Robert Sims navigate a power shift in their marriage and leadership roles in their community. I don’t want to be Camille, if you have read the book or watched the show, but it lead to a brief conversation with my own husband about shifting professional roles impacting family/marriage dynamics.
“I teach yoga” is not where I thought I would be. This is not where my immigrant parents imagined I would be. I imagined a role in corporate or editorial management. At one point I imagined senior leadership in a religious non-profit. And then I stopped imagining. I guided my three children through college to workplace transitions. I planned awesome, and I mean AWESOME, family vacations. I did manage to co-author an award-winning book somewhere in there, but it also hasn’t sold well. That brings up all sorts of feelings I may come back to later. Every now and then I applied for comms jobs but was never the hire. I still look up job listings and self-select out of even applying. My boldness and audacity comes and goes, but mostly goes.
Leaving my mid-level management role in a religious non-profit at the tail end of decolonizing my evangelically-influenced faith left me with skills that I had a difficult time translating into the “secular” world. Next month I step off the board of Christians for Social Action with two terms as chair. That is my last formal connection to the faith space I spent decades as a “thought leader” and influencer. It was one thing to wrestling with a career path, but the combination of leaving institutional leadership roles, the kind that go on LinkedIn, and the spaces I have occupied because of those roles is making me stop. The rush of cortisol this morning left me wondering “who am I without those titles and roles? Who am I becoming?” Or in the words of my late spiritual director, “What is God’s invitation” to me in this season? I have the honor of guiding people who trust me to cue breath and movement but is there an “AND”?
Any women out there considering another act in their professional lives and wondering if it’s possible? Any guidance or best-practices? Any words of encouragement or virtual nods of understanding?
During the symposium I noticed that the wallpaper in the women’s restroom remains the same. I have not.