Don’t Help Me. Please.
I was driving home with my daughter when we noticed a large snapping turtle crossing the roadway. It was a tiny back street lined with a small pond.
You arrive in Venice the way you always arrive in places that have lived longer than memory can hold.
Not just by plane or train, but by stepping into a rhythm already in motion.
The Duomo rises before you, not asking for attention, but receiving it anyway. Gold mosaics catch the light in a way that feels almost intentional, as if the building itself knows how to speak to the human longing for beauty. You stand there, looking up, letting your eyes follow stories set into stone and glass. There is devotion here, layered over centuries. Hands that built, restored, and protected. A quiet insistence that something sacred matters.
In the main square, the blue clock turns its ancient face toward you.
Time, but not the kind you check on your phone. This one carries a story. Figures emerge, disappear, reappear. You watch, not because you need to know the hour, but because something in you recognizes continuity. The kind that outlives urgency.
The tide has pushed into the square and you step through the water at its edge.
Shoes in hand, coolness around your ankles. People laugh, hesitate, complain, adapt. It is all happening at once. Venice does not pause for inconvenience. It absorbs it.
Later, in a narrow alley, you sit outside and eat what you are certain is the best pizza of your life. The kind that requires no commentary. Simple, perfect, immediate. The table is small. The air is close. Voices move around you in languages you do not need to understand.
You wander.
The streets curve and narrow, then open unexpectedly. Every turn offers something. A small shop filled with glass. A doorway framed in flowers. A bridge where someone pauses just long enough to take a photograph and then disappears into the flow again.
You notice the people.
Waiters moving quickly, carrying plates with practiced ease. Some warm, some indifferent, and some clearly tired. Shopkeepers who greet you with a smile or barely look up.
There is no uniform mood here. Just life, in all its expressions.
You can feel the weight of history beneath it, not as something romanticized, but as something lived. A place that has known beauty and strain, wealth and hardship, continuity and change.
And then, without planning it, you stop.
A window.
At first, it is simply a display. White masks, dozens of them, layered and suspended in different shapes and expressions. Some delicate. Some exaggerated. Some almost unsettling. The glass reflects the street behind you, so for a moment, everything overlaps. Faces without bodies. Movement behind stillness.
You step closer.
In another time, they offered anonymity. Freedom. Protection.
A way to move through society without being fully seen. To speak, to act, or to participate without consequence. They held power. They allowed expression that might otherwise be constrained. They served a purpose.
You stand there, looking at them, and for a brief moment, you see your own reflection layered into the display.
And something in you recognizes something. Not as a dramatic revelation that demands attention. Just a quiet noticing of the masks you have worn.
Not the literal kind, but the ones that form over time. The ways you learned to move through the world. To be accepted. To stay safe. To navigate expectations. To belong, or at least to avoid exclusion.
Some of them were subtle. A tone of voice. A way of agreeing. A way of not saying something. Some of them were more defined. Roles you stepped into. Identities that shaped how others met you, and how you met yourself.
None of them were random. They formed in response to something real. A moment, a relationship, or an environment. Each one carried intelligence. Each one served you.
You can see that now.
Standing in front of that window, in a city that has made an art form out of masks, you are not inclined to judge them. Not yours. Not anyone’s.
There is a kind of beauty in them. Although, you notice that you are no longer reaching for them. Nor have you forced them away. Not because you have decided they are wrong. Simply because, in this moment, they are not needed.
You stand there, unmasked, and realize nothing is missing.
No performance is required. No adjustment is necessary. No role to step into. Just presence.
The street continues behind you. People pass. Conversations unfold. Life moves without interruption. The masks remain in the window, as they should. Honored for what they have been. Available for those who still need them.
So you move on without fanfare. Walking, just as you are now, through a city that has seen everything.
And in this moment, that is more than enough.
Peace be with you and with all. No exceptions.
Learn the one essential skill that allows you to face any challenge with confidence, sturdiness, and inner calm.
More than a technique. It’s a game changer.
I was driving home with my daughter when we noticed a large snapping turtle crossing the roadway. It was a tiny back street lined with a small pond.
I recently found myself thinking about activism. About the many ways we show up for what matters to us.
As I considered this, three memories arrived. Rapidly, as if they were part of my contemplation.
The first was a conversation I had with a woman in my town. She was giving me an update on her recent gathering with other mothers protesting against gun violence. I was interested as we had explored what mattered to her as she approached retirement. Protecting children in schools and on street corners mattered, so she joined with other moms who cared about the same.
Three months ago, I unexpectedly entered into a relationship with a horse.
I met Zor during a visit to Liberty Stables in Florida, where I had gone to spend time with a friend’s horses. I had no particular expectations. I have no background with horses, no training, and no experience in equine-assisted therapy. I simply met this magnificent Friesian, and something quietly familiar unfolded between us.
I fell in love.
Eight years ago, I traveled to Costa Rica for a week-long retreat centered around ayahuasca, breathwork, yoga, and deep inner exploration.
Like many people who are drawn to these experiences, I went seeking something. You might call it a Divine encounter. You might call it awakening. You might call it healing.
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for. I only knew there seemed to be a place people spoke about. That place beyond ordinary life.
The women who arrive in my classes, retreats, and therapy sessions are sincerely looking for healing, expansion, clarity, or sometimes just a little room to breathe.
They are thoughtful women, deeply engaged with the people and work they love. Rarely do they arrive because they want another spiritual philosophy. Most are carrying something much more ordinary.
A life that has become full. Beautiful in many ways, but crowded.
About twenty-five years ago, I was driving with a colleague to a local conference. As we approached the hotel entrance, I noticed an open parking spot near the front door.
“There’s a spot,” I said, pointing to the right. He drove past it.
A few seconds later, another one appeared. He drove past that one, too. Then I pointed to a third. “There’s a spot.” Without the slightest hesitation, Dan replied, “I’ll leave that for someone else.”