Why am I having my kids hold this snake skin on their first day of school? A Double-Dog Dare You situation? An annual Fear Factor ritual we weirdly insist on our kids engaging in? No. It’s because it represents the process of shedding and new growth.

You see, as I’ve been pondering this next growth experience in our family’s life—leaving the phase of early childhood and...

The TEDx Minneapolis event this past Friday evening left me with a feeling of appreciation for all the ways we as humans show up to share our gifts and talents. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the event—mostly I thought there would be speakers, food, and opportunities to network with people who like ideas worth spreading. It was much more than that. Dancers, musicians, comedians,...

A couple of years ago I did the eulogy for my 101 year old Grandpa's funeral service. Afterward, a woman approached me, introduced herself, and told me that she was one of the nurses who stood with my dad while he watched me being born. I had the umbilical cord wrapped multiple times around my neck and my mother agreed that students could watch my complicated birth as a learning exercise. She...

The hubby, kids, and I are at the cabin this weekend, and I said to my husband Tyler, “now I understand why my grandparents used to sit in their rocking chairs in their living room in silence and look out their big picture window.”  After decades of raising 4 children and 13 grandchildren, I can only imagine that silence became a pretty sacred experience.

As Tyler and I have...

As someone who’s job it is to be slightly obsessed with personal and professional growth, I find myself pondering the concept of “growth” quite often. And what I find is that—no surprise--nature is one of our best teachers about what lasting, transformational growth looks like.

Take the rings of a tree, for example. This is a great representation of what growth looks...

At a women’s networking event I attended this week, the question we were asked to share about was “How do you create balance in your life?” It was interesting to hear how many professional women in that room had 4, 5, 6, and 7 kids and still managed to come up with an answer! I’ve got 2 and I’ve found creating a balanced lifestyle to be quite a challenge.

As a...

Dads. I remember in grad school, one of my Marriage and Family Therapy professors saying, “there’s so much research and so many resources poured into the mother-child relationship. What about the dads? Where’s the research about the fathers?”  

It’s true. It’s half the equation and yet, in comparison, there is little mention about the impact of the...

When I heard about Kate Spade’s suicide this week, I was surprised, saddened, and like so many of us, intrigued by the backstory that had driven her to the extreme point of choosing to end her life.

And then to wake up to the news about Anthony Bourdain, hit like a thud. Also like so many of us...my husband and I sensed Bourdain’s endearing, authentic, and sensitive nature, and we...

I find myself being inspired by almost everything these days.

This weekend it was the synchronized swimming performance of my tween-age niece. As the music started and the spotlight hit the water, it dawned on me what a cool metaphor synchronized swimming is for what’s currently happening in collective consciousness.

The beauty, power, and grace of what’s possible when feminine...

One of my brilliant clients said something like this to me recently….

“Betsy, I’ve been asking myself why things haven’t REALLY changed for women over the past century. I mean we’ve certainly made gains, and in many ways in American society we have more freedoms than ever before…at least on a surface level it seems that way.  But at the core of...