My recent Portugal visit wasn’t the exact manifestation of this vision, but it was no less majestic.

Living in Lisbon

I landed in Lisbon on a Thursday morning, after a redeye from NYC. The drive into the city from the airport made me nostalgic for Seattle, following an industrial coastline and watching a summer rain flood the car windshield.

In the coming days, Lisbon’s narrow windy streets, hills, and colorful building facades validated the initial US west-coast vibe that I felt during that morning ride from the airport, and morphed from a Seattle to a San Francisco feel.

Lisbon infused me with creative inspiration everywhere I looked - from traditional painted tile covering building facades, endless shelves of ceramics, urban street art, and contemporary art galleries. I gave myself some playtime with a graffiti art class, where the palm tree I adopted as my go-to doodle as a kid was given a new personality with a couple cans of spray paint and a cement wall.

As I walked around the city, the words “I could live here” kept coming to mind. It’s picturesque, has great food, and the people are friendly.

The magic of Miradouro and the subtlety of Saudade

If the artistic detail on the streets of Lisbon appealed to my inner artist, the miradouros stirred my inner philosopher. Miradouro - the first significant Portuguese word that I learned on this trip - means “to admire a place” and is also used as a noun to define various lookout points from the top of Lisbon’s hills where tourists and locals peer out onto the speckled terracotta rooftops and pastel yellows, corals, and aquas of the buildings below.

On my first visit to a miradouro, I sat on a bench, enjoying a solo acoustic guitar serenade of some of my favorite classic rock songs. Did someone put this guy there for me, specifically? He played a lot of my favorite tunes, and the waterworks started. This show of emotion had me wondering if there was something more deeply biological about viewpoints (and jet lag, to be fair) that was stirring this emotional outpour.

I dug a little into this and learned that what I experience at great heights is indeed a universal human response. Viewpoints diminish our egos, enabling us to contemplate our interconnectedness. With this “forest for the trees” perspective, we inherently understand our individual role as a piece of the whole - a single tree. This understanding that we feel aids a natural meditative state where our brains are still, and thrive in creative problem-solving rather than execution of details.

This may explain my experience of “feeling” the mountains in Sri Lanka before I saw them, which I wrote about in this post. If I ever thought that my fascination with mountains was apropos of nothing, my time in Portugal squashed this thought. The natural, biological contemplation that I’ve been experiencing in midlife - my 50th birthday, to be specific - is amplified by viewpoints that bring on emotional overwhelm.

And, as if Portugal hadn’t gifted me enough with miradouro, I learned another uniquely Portuguese word that communicates the emotional overwhelm I was feeling: saudade. Saudade is the longing for a memorable past that is gone, like ‘nostalgia,’ but also encompasses the anticipation of a future moment when an aching is satisfied.

I cannot think of a more perfect word to encapsulate my complicated feelings at the start of my 50th trip around the sun, especially as it coincides with my sabbatical and career transition.

A medieval fairytale in Sintra

A highlight of my trip was found in Sintra, a 40-minute train ride from Lisbon city center, and a portal to medieval castles, palaces, gardens, and caves. Together, they oozed with inspiration for future sketches, paintings, and stories.

The main attraction of Sintra is Pena Palace, a colorful fairytale palace, resembling a Disney park attraction. I was moved by its tragic existence -- a summer home built by a King for his Queen, who died before enjoying its lavishness -- and disappointed by the ridiculousness of its only real and lasting use as a tourist trap.

Sintra hosts several structures which I found more interesting, if not as colorful, as the Pena Palace.

The Moorish Castle was built in the 8th century and used through the 12th century by the Moors to defend the region from attack. I decided that if I was alive during that time, I would want the job that put me at this castle, guarding a view instead of fighting a war. I would spend my time tracing landscapes of rolling hills to a patchwork of green fields, admiring sunrises and sunsets, following an infinite horizon out to sea, and imagining the commerce and commune happening in the towns below. Maybe I’d have a sketchbook with me, although I suppose that would be the medieval equivalent of burying my face in social media while on the job - probably frowned upon.

The gardens and hiking trails in the Parques de Sintra gave me a much-needed nature fix, as well as a muse for some sketches. I came upon a gazebo, wrapped in the arms of wisteria branches and gently covered with white, pink, blue, and purple hydrangea. I perched myself in front of it, pulled out my sketchbook and started to see what might want to flow. Luckily for me, the gazebo acted as a stage for many groups of tourists, so while I got my solitary sketch time, I also enjoyed some good people watching.

The main attraction for me was the Quinta da Regaleira, another palace. It was much smaller, less ornate, more cracked and creepy, and the one that I would choose a thousand times over the fairytale Pena -- if someone were to ever build a palace for me, that is.

On the grounds of the Quinta da Regaleira was also the Initiation Well. I felt its mythology as soon as I entered it. Dark, echoey, damp, cool, moldy, spooky - all of which reverberated with me as deeply sensual. The well spirals down nine flights to a network of caves that open into lush and peaceful corners of a pond with waterfalls and tropical plants.

Adeus Lisboa, for now

Lisbon left a loud impression on me of creativity, colorful facades, and life contemplation. I had the perfect ending to my Lisbon time - which was also the beginning of the next part of my trip - when I met up with a lifelong bestie from Seattle. Together, we would roadtrip to the dramatic seaside cliffs in the Algarve, the southern region of Portugal.

I will cover the Algarve, where I officially celebrated turning 50 😬, in part two.

Stay tuned...

Live with Love. Be Unexpected. 😘

I fall in love so readily, so easily.

I find one special and unique quality to throw my ever-loving being into it, head first. I imagine a future - how my life will change because of this cosmic connection. I envision my world as a saturated photograph, from this day forward, because of this meeting.

This adoration of newness consumes me, be it a person, place, or thing. My curiosity consumes me and I commit to it, becoming mesmerized and enchanted -- like a spell, or a drug.

I used to think my curiosity was a superpower. Now, I realize it can also be my kryptonite.

The reality check of habits vs. decisions

I am leaving for Portugal in a week. The outlook on my trip is very different today as compared to a week ago. A week ago, I had been planning a two month European adventure through several countries to celebrate my 50th birthday and ride a bike over miles and mountains that I adore so much. Today, I’m mourning this plan, as I’ve made the decision to abandon it. I’m devastated, even though I know I’ve made the right choice for me.

I won’t dwell on the many factors that contributed to my decision to drop this plan - most of them are beside the point. But there is one factor, which is exactly to the point:

The excitement of this trip morphed into feelings of dread and white-knuckling that were excruciatingly familiar, reminding me of the ickiness that consumed me in the months leading up to quitting my job. I woke up with a headache every morning. I felt chronically detached, irritable, and foggy. My emotions were constantly rumbling, like a torrential downpour completely consuming me or distant thunder, warning of its impending doom.

Rationally, these feelings did not make any sense. The plan included many of my favorite things - travel, biking, mountains - and I was under the impression that the plans developed out of decision-making with my own best interest in mind. But all of this - even my favorite things - started feeling wrong. When I stopped forcing myself to execute the plan and instead paused to figure out why my body was revolting, I saw clearly that the “decisions” I had been making were not decisions at all - they were habitual actions. I had been performing them in service of my pre-sabbatical self, not for my current self or my current life. I was reverting to old habits in order to create a familiar - and therefore, comforting - environment in this crazy, uncertain new post-sabbatical life that is unfolding.

Taking responsibility means deciding

There are a few things that hit hard last week -

The burnout from my job is deep inside my psyche and my body. Four months of travel did not heal my burnout, nor did I manage to free it in the ocean in the Philippines, shake it off in the mountains in Vietnam, or drop it in the rice paddies in Bali. My recent situation unintentionally tested the waters of ‘falling in love with work’ again and showed me that the wounds are still raw.

I need to change my psyche + body foundation in order to get different results. I don’t mean to state this as a simple “step 2” of a recovery plan. I understand this is a lifetime of continuous work. But for now, my goal is to choose my work and my loves - not just carefully, but differently.

Not only do I need to change the foundation, I can change it. This is where I am now.

I had a poignant lesson of “taking responsibility” in Da Nang earlier this year. After a challenging bike trip in Northern Vietnam, I decided to visit Da Nang to take a few down days. I envisioned basking in beach time, but it rained the entire time I was there. I failed to do research on Da Nang, or the hotel I stayed at and neither were doing it for me in those conditions. I was cold and uncomfortable and generally bummed out by my predicament.

After explaining the lack of enthusiasm for my current situation to a friend, I concluded with, “Oh well, it’s all my fault - I didn’t really research any of this before I came here.”

To which he said, “Well, yeah. Who else’s fault would it be?”

Touché.

How exactly does one change their psyche and body foundation? That sounds hard.

Changing the Psychosomatics

I learned recently that psyche + body is the origin of the term “psychosomatic.” Pretty cool. I always associated this term with someone who thinks they are perpetually sick. But now the word has a whole new meaning for me - of agency, rather than lack of agency.

In learning how to lean into my intuition - as I talked about in this post), I’m doing psychosomatic work. I’m learning to listen to my body’s language - how it communicates a “yes” or a “no” to me.

To help me with this, a friend recently rapid-fired yes/no questions at me, so that I could feel and learn my instinctive responses -- Where do it feel it? Was it in my gut, my arms, my chest? I felt it in my solar plexus - that weirdly named area deep in my core between my heart and my stomach. What did it feel like? Was it a dull lull, or striking pricklies, or an energetic hum? I felt something like an electric shock shoot up to my neck - subtle, but present.

For some of the questions she asked me, there was a clear answer, but for most of her questions, I felt nothing. Paralyzed. I attribute this numbness to the years of habitual reacting I’ve been treading through, and the burnout that is still inside me.

What fills/drains my cup?

In order to dig new neural pathways, I need to create a clear intention to hear and understand my body’s yes/no signals. So, I found a way to use a spreadsheet as a tool, rather than a bible, for decision-making. I started tracking three things at the end of each day:

1. Was my day more draining than filling, or more filling than draining?

2. What specific people, things, activities, and places filled my cup?

3. What specific people, things, activities, and places drained my cup?

By the end of the week, I had created two very satisfying lists:

1. What filled my cup? → Do more of this!

2. What drained my cup? → Do less of this!

I even made a Lovable app for this. Check it out here.1 The purpose is to help me recognize personal habits and patterns so that I can do more of them - if they fill me - and less of them - if they don’t.

My current freedom from attachment to a job, career, partner, home, etc. is not the same thing as having freedom from responsibility for my life. And if taking responsibility for my life can bring me into a dark place, it can also take me to a place of great relief.

Live with Love. Be Unexpected. 😘

Sometime between when I arrived back home from my travels at the end of April and now - early June - I’ve become as lost as the day that I stepped away from my career. I still proclaim to be “on sabbatical” but somehow took on a volume and intensity of work and passion projects that made me busier and just as stressed as I was when I had a job that was grinding me to my core.

It doesn’t feel like this happened gradually. It feels like I’ve been pummeled by those ocean waves I was so afraid of in Sri Lanka, which followed me to Brooklyn and crashed on me in the supposed safety of my urban apartment. The irony is comedic. The waves crashed, I survived the ‘washing machine,’ and when my head bobbed above the water and I looked around, I found myself in a place that I desperately didn’t like and didn’t want to inhabit.

And now I’m thinking - “How did this happen? No one did this to you, Cortney. You did this to yourself. You made a series of choices that brought you exactly here. And for what purpose?”

I have never in my life been in a period of more freedom than I have now. It has had its moments of magic - as was the case with my travels earlier this year - but also a responsibility to my mental and emotional health that I’ve neglected recently.

Disconnecting From Old Habits

I’m reading and re-reading the last article I wrote because I wrote it for myself. I was deep in a place of knowing how my current state of distress was caused by my life-long habit of over-intellectualization. A habit I want to break, first by acknowledging it and naming it. I recognize that it shrouds my ability to feel the expansion and contraction of my body. It is a habit that behaves exactly like an addiction.

I ended up in this current state of overwhelm, sadness, and exhaustion because I’ve moved in the direction of intellectual yesses rather than visceral yesses. I’m struggling with understanding the range of feelings in my body - it can’t be as binary as either a Yes or a No. Certainly, something that feels intriguing may not feel like an immediate Yes or a No. It may feel magnetic. And when it does, can there be a wrong reason for this magnetism?

This sabbatical is still teaching me every day, including the hardest lessons about my own decision-making. And what I keep finding at the root of it is a need for external validation, fed entirely by my habit of over-intellectualization. I can’t say ‘yes’ to wading in the shallow water - I must swim out to where the waves are the biggest and scariest. I can’t say ‘yes’ to one glass of wine - I must consume the whole bottle. I can’t say ‘yes’ to a 3 mi run in the park - I must traverse an epic trail across several hundred miles. I can’t say ‘yes’ to sketching for pure enjoyment for an hour - it must be the source of the next greatest art company.

This need for external validation comes from my fear of being mediocre. If I’m being, doing, or making something extraordinary, my core being - all of the intellect, passion, and instinct - cannot be ignored or denied. And this, to me, justifies the perils of drained energy, or even resulting disease.

So I’m stuck right now.

While I still want to be extraordinary, and I still crave the external validation, I no longer want the energy drain, and I care more about my longevity than I do about the short-term discomfort of over-extending myself.

The way to get myself unstuck from this place is to let go of my fear of mediocrity.

A Helpful and Soulful Reframing

I went to a spiritual advisor recently, to get another perspective on this - I’ve already talked the ears off of my friends and family who will listen. It wasn’t my first visit, but it was the first time I was told that I’m a new soul. This surprised me greatly. I’ve always thought of myself as an old soul. I don’t have a good basis for thinking this, I just do. But hearing that I’m a new soul filled me with an immediate wash of warmth - like the comfort of a warm blanket or a healing hug.

In an instant, I thought of all of the things in my life I’ve tried to accomplish - with tenacity, ferocity, passion, discipline, strength - and I’ve objectively failed at. I’ve often felt like life is harder for me than most people. Others seem to dance with ease to ultimate success through situations in which I give 110% and barely move the needle. This has always puzzled, frustrated, and saddened me, as much as I try to let it go and just be ok with “doing my best.”

And in an instant, upon hearing that I am a new soul, it occurred to me that maybe my job in this life is not to accomplish any of those things, from a societal/objective perspective. Maybe my job is simply to nurture this new soul - fill it with love, allow it to explore its wonder, keep it safe from corruption - so that after I’m gone, it can grow and flourish with a solid base of understanding. It’s not up to me what happens in its next life, but I can take care of it while it inhabits me.

Without Conclusion

I haven’t felt much like writing lately, as I don’t want to disrupt the narrative of a woman in charge, who claimed her freedom - herself - by leaving a career that did not serve her and is on a mission to make a life for herself that is more authentic. But if I’m being honest (that’s the entire point), then that narrative will be disrupted with uninteresting moments of relapse into old patterns, and the messes to clean up as a result from those relapses. I offer my apologies to the reader (this includes yours truly) who wants a resolution to my current fears - I don’t have one right now.

Maybe one day, my creative fire will be sparked by this whole idea, and a brilliant creation will come out it. Then again, maybe that won’t ever happen, and this moment of my sabbatical will just live here, as one of a billion mediocre posts on the internet.

Live with Love For Yourself. Be Unexpected. 😘

I’ve been alive for 49 years. And I’ve spent a lot of this time over-intellectualizing everything. From the time I was little, I was not satisfied with the status quo and therefore had to gather and process information to make connections, decisions, and opinions. As I got older and discovered the marvel that is spreadsheets, and the SUMPRODUCT formula, I could calculate my thoughts with weighted criteria and validate my decisions with data. 🤯 Mystery of life solved.

But the mystery of life was not solved. No matter how honest I was with myself about the options in front of me, and their importance to me, and no matter how many times I followed what the calculations told me to do, I still somehow ended up in burnout - in a job that I loved, but a career that was not serving me. How is it possible that my precious spreadsheet could stray me so very afar?

Perhaps this obsession with decision making through spreadsheets is what took me over ten years to finally make the change in my life that I needed to and I quit my job. There was no spreadsheet that was ever going to tell me that I will be better off, financially, in the long run if I stepped away from my career without a plan for income. And the more I tried to make the spreadsheet tell me this story, the more my heart and my gut revolted. Until it was pointed out to me, repeatedly, by therapists, friends, and coaches:

I need to trust my intuition more than my spreadsheet for making big life decisions.

That all sounded very woo woo to me. How does one go about listening to their intuition? Is there a spreadsheet for that?

After finally taking the leap to put a career that was not serving me in the rearview mirror, and take my foot off the gas, a lot of clouds are clearing. And behind those clouds - I think I see it - is my intuition.

I’m not an expert on this. I’m just someone in the process of learning how to listen to my intuition. And here’s what I am learning.

Intuition is a feeling more than it is thought. It usually is a simple feeling - like “I like this” or “this feels bad.”

Separating Intuition from The Gut and The Heart

My Leadership professor in my MBA program told us that great leaders know how to balance logic, passion, and experience — in other words, the head, the heart, and the gut.

Intuition is different than the feeling in my gut, which feels all rumbly when I need to make an urgent decision with great gravity. I also find that it fires to warn me against something, rather than to push me in a particular direction.

Intuition is different from “listening to my heart” which is more of an ache, a desperate longing for something. If intuition gives me a generalized feeling about something, the signals from my heart look a lot like the second and third tiers on a feelings wheel. They help identify, in detail, where I’m at in a particular situation.

Balancing Bali in a Spreadsheet

Recently, when I traveled to Bali, I arrived on rocky ground, emotionally. I felt overwhelmed with the SO MUCH of it. Both overjoyed and totally uncomfortable. I found myself hunched over my laptop on my first night, deep in a spreadsheet I titled “Ubud Personal Retreat.” I was building a 10-day retreat for myself, from the long list of suggestions I received for yoga classes, restaurants, meditation classes, art classes, cultural immersion, and excursions. There wasn’t time to do everything and I had to find a way to do it all in 10 days. Structure would make me feel better, I told myself. I spent a couple blissful hours in my room hiding from my overwhelmed self, fully immersed in a color-coded schedule with time-blocked activities and back-ups for every single day.

I stared at it and felt my chest tighten. Not in excitement, but just stress. In Bali.

That tension - that low-grade, spreadsheet-induced dread - was my intuition talking. Not dramatically. Not in the voice of a guru. Just me. Just my voice. A quiet, slightly annoyed whisper: this is not why you came here.

I closed my eyes and this voice spoke a mantra I come back to every now and then: Be here now.

And then I closed the laptop and I went to sleep.

Bali was rocky for the first couple days. Intuition spoke, but I wasn’t quick to fall in line. I ached for more structure, but my intuition wanted me to just be, whatever that means. But somewhere in the middle of that rocky Ubud river, someone mentioned an open mic night. Then someone else did. I couldn’t find a group to go with, so I went alone. That was the moment when Bali opened her arms to me and allowed me to fall into her motherly embrace.

There was a vibrant bohemian crowd at the open mic. Tons of local musicians, as well as tourists stopping by trying to get on the set list for the night. I sat at a table with strangers, who slowly became friends. I listened to a traditional Javanese drum circle, followed by a 12-year-old guitarist playing “Sweet Child O’Mine,” accompanied by a local band.

It would be easy to check the box on the open mic night on my spreadsheet - if I was following it, that is - but I could not in a million years have scheduled that feeling of joy and freedom from that night into a calendar. No weighted criteria would have surfaced it.

I found the right thing, at the right time, because I was finally open enough to hear it.

Bali ended up being one of the richest sensory memories of my entire trip. (My full Bali experience is a story I’ve already told - you can read more about it here.)

The spreadsheet didn’t get me there. Getting quiet did.

Actively Quieting My Intellect

I’m starting to track the moments that give me a special feeling, and note how I got there. Was it intellect or intuition that brought me there? I’m also actively practicing putting my intellect in a time-out so that my intuition and I can get better acquainted. It’s like making a new friend. Conversation isn’t always natural, but the more familiar I get with her, the more I am growing to trust her.

Live with Love. Be Unexpected. 😘

The first time I used AI was in 1991.

I was 15 years old. I was a piano player and songwriter. I hand-wrote every single song on sheet music. I figured out the key signature, the time signature, every rest, every 16th note and 16th rest (I was fond of syncopation). And I wrote each of these down, with a pen (not a pencil) on staff paper. It was tedious. It was also necessary, because handwritten sheet music was necessary to copyright my songs.

Until one day I learned that I could buy a MIDI sound card, connect my keyboard to it, and the sheet music would write itself.

I tried it. My mind was blown.

Magic was happening before my eyes. And more importantly, I got my time back. Time I could now spend composing and producing instead of transcribing. The MIDI card didn’t write my music. It handled the part that was getting in the way of my creative process.

I’ve been thinking about that moment a lot lately, because I’ve been deep into MidJourney animation. And I cannot get it to do what I want it to do.

You want to know why?

Because I am not a digital animator. I don’t understand the technology, the terminology, or the unwritten rules. To a professional animator, MidJourney is handling the tedious parts of their craft, the “sheet music” parts. The parts that eat time without feeding the work. But I don’t know enough about animation to even identify what those parts are. So I’m fumbling through MidJourney getting amateur results, wondering why the magic isn’t happening.

The MIDI sound card didn’t make me a better composer because it was powerful. It made me a better composer because I already was one. I knew music theory. I understood structure, melody, and harmony. I knew what I was trying to say before the tool ever entered the room.

Technicians — animators, software developers, marketers, product managers, doctors, lawyers, writers — are not going to lose their jobs to AI. Not the ones who understand the core of what they actually do. If you know your craft at a molecular level, AI becomes exactly what that MIDI card was for me: the thing that handles the sheet music so you can get back to the song.

I want to acknowledge the fear behind AI, as I’m just like all of us in this day and age - I’m trying to figure it all out. I see the benefit of it, but I know it is not all puppies and rainbows. AI is also making us lazy in ways that sadden me. We are losing our curiosity. We are outsourcing our critical thinking. But, to be brutally honest, AI is not responsible for starting that slide. Smartphones put us on that slide 25 years ago. The dependency on computers to do our thinking was already well underway before ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini was even a concept.

The Call to Action for Artists and Technicians Alike

Don’t resist AI because you think it’s going to take your job or kill your craft. Resist letting any technology do your thinking for you. Learn what your superpowers are without the tools. Hone them. Really lean into them. Because when you know what you’re actually made of, you’ll know exactly how to use AI to put your own unique, irreplaceable songs on sheet music.

Live with Conviction. Be Unexpected 😘

A few years ago, substantially late to the party, I saw The Godfather — a GOAT according to basically every film critic on the planet. Despite my lack of interest in guns, violence, and blatant machismo, I owed it to my love of cinema to check this one off the required watch-list.

To my surprise, I loved it. The story, the performances — neither were overrated, and I was wrong about the machismo. But what stayed with me wasn’t the acting, the writing, or the directing. It was the women. Specifically, their minimal roles and absent perspective. Every female character reads like an afterthought — token wives and girlfriends whose stories are conveyed through their clothing rather than their voices. Critics have called the women in The Godfather “silenced,” “stupid,” and “victimized.”

I don’t know much about being a gangster’s wife, but I know something about being a woman whose story gets overlooked or taken for granted.

I am surrounded daily by women-in-charge, at every life stage: women who run entire households so their husbands can be heroes at work; women who give up careers and personal happiness to have children; women who “have it all” at the expense of their mental health; women who are afraid to speak, or shamed when they do. Their stories are not told in mass media, let alone explored with any depth. We assume every housewife has the same experience, every working woman has the same experience, every woman in love has the same experience. In flattening these stories, we erase them.

Of the AFI’s Top 100 Movies of All Time, only 14 feature a female protagonist. Of those 14, only 3 center a struggle that isn’t romance. Women are more than wives, girlfriends, and maidens in love. Where is the story of the woman in her 20s trying to understand sexy versus slutty? The woman in her 30s who hasn’t found her career or her partner, and is being told by her doctor that the “window is closing”? The woman in her 40s who has never felt comfortable in her female body and is contemplating top surgery? The woman in her 50s whose estrogen is in freefall, sending her into soul-searching questions about her marriage, her sexuality, her career, her home, her friends?

These stories are told every day by brave women who are bashing stereotypes simply by being honest. Every time a woman tells her authentic story, she becomes a soldier against the patriarchy. And that is viewed as a threat rather than an act of heroism.

Enter, The Muses

While on a creative writing retreat in Costa Rica, I heard one of these stories of powerful, adventurous, intelligent women.

📣 Check out the video below to learn more. Come join me at an upcoming event to learn more about bringing the story of The Muses to life. Fill out the RSVP at the end of this article.

It’s called The Muses and it is about 9 High Priestess Celtic Druids, bonded in an unbreakable sisterhood. The story completely captivated me. It was written by one of the retreat facilitators, Cat Lindroth. Cat is a Yale-educated history major and social impact entrepreneur and has spent two years writing The Muses.

As Cat read one of the stories from The Muses, the hair on my arms stood on end. My brain was lit up. I could feel the story in my gut. I could see it all unfolding in my head - on a big screen. I envisioned nothing less than an epic historical fantasy. I needed to make this story!

I said to Cat, “I want to help you produce this. I want to make this story real. Where do we start?”

She said: “It starts on a bike. In Croatia. This summer. Riding to Switzerland.”

If you know me, you know she had me at “bike.” 🚴

The 1,000-Kilometer Journey

In mid-July, Cat and I will ride our bikes nearly 1,000 km from Croatia to the Swiss Alps, through the lands that were sacred to the Celts in Central Europe, publishing the first 14 stories along the route using poetry, song, AI animation, and video footage.

Cat and I are especially feeling the synchronicity with The Muses call-to-action this summer, as she turns 40 and I turn 50. We’re really doing a thing 😜

RSVP: We would love to see you

Before we leave, we want to share more about The Muses with you, so we will be hosting three events. At these gatherings, Cat will read the first three bardic poems in the story, we will share more of the historical inspiration, and will share our vision for how we will bring the story to life — soliciting your input on where we take this.

Ideally, you will connect with The Muses as much as we have and you will become part of the group of ambassadors and patrons that we are seeking to bring this story into the world.

At these events, we will also open the mic to you. If you have a poem, a song, or a story you are aching to share, we want to hear it.

The three events are:

• May 31 in Wilmington, Delaware Event Full

• June 7 in New York City Event Full

• June 13 - Virtual

Reserve Your Seat

You will receive more event details when you complete the RSVP

Live with Love. Be Unexpected. 😘

I started carrying a sketchbook with me when I moved to NYC. I was inspired by my aunts, Betsy and Andee, who have done this as far back as I can remember. I told myself I don’t draw, I doodle. The sketchbook gave the shapes and colors in my head a playground where they could come to life.

In my recent travels, I carried it with more intention. Little by little, one line, one shape, one shadow at a time, I learned to draw actual things. I sketched nearly every day — not to master a craft, but for the pleasure of seeing the world differently and capturing it somewhere other than on my phone.

I did this with childlike play and curiosity. I expected I may get a little better at it over time, but what I didn’t expect was what happened every time I sketched in public. People stopped. They glanced. They started talking to each other and to me.

In Cambodia, I watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat with my sketchbook open, roughly sketching the shape of the temples, the river, and the big red orb rising before me. A couple sitting next to me glanced over. I heard the woman say quietly to her husband, “I wish I could draw.” I couldn’t help myself. “You can,” I said. “You just might not know it yet.” They laughed, complimented my “talent” — a word I always push back on when it comes to my drawings. I commented on their American accents, and we launched into a conversation that was immediately interesting and meaningful.

The three of us watched the sun come up together, and then we went our separate ways into the temple ruins. That night, at a random restaurant on Pub Street — a busy, touristy street in Siem Reap — I sat down with a view of the street and was just about to open my sketchbook again when I noticed them. The same couple, being seated at the table right next to mine. What are the chances?! I joined them for dinner. Art brought us together.

It happened in Vietnam. In the Philippines. In Costa Rica. In Thailand. Consistently, reliably, almost without exception: the sketchbook was a magnet.

One of the greatest compliments I received was a request from a fellow traveler for me to sketch something in his travel journal. Imagine — my drawing is etched in his chronicle of his latest vacation. How freakin’ cool. What an honor. 😍

There is No Wrong Way to Make Art

Somewhere between childhood finger-painting and adulthood, most of us absorbed the idea that art belongs to artists — a separate class of humans who were born with something we weren’t. And so we stopped. We became observers instead of makers. Consumers instead of participants.

Art, in its original and most essential form, has never been about mastery. It’s been about meaning-making. Looking at something — a sunset, a building, a face, a feeling — and expressing something. The impulse is human. It predates language.

There is no right way to make art. There is no wrong way to look at it, talk about it, or be moved by it. The only thing you can do wrong is convince yourself it’s not for you.

Human Connection Happens in the Flesh

My sketchbook drew me to strangers, who became new friends, reliably. I have not connected with nearly as many people through dating apps, Instagram, or any other digital community as I did with art.

We can connect through a screen. I’ve done it. I do it. This Substack is, in a certain sense, a form of connection — you’re reading words I wrote, something in them resonates, and that resonance is real. But it is a different animal from what happens when two humans are face-to-face, flesh-to-flesh, in front of a shared thing, talking about it together.

When you’re sitting next to someone, you can observe their gaze as they speak. You can see the nuances of their face and body language. You feel their energy when your eyes lock, however briefly. You can see that they are not performing to pacify an algorithm. They are practicing humanity.

Art is social infrastructure that gives us joint purpose.

Rebuilding Our Humanity

Our lives have become swallowed up by computers and devices instead of being fed by in-person human connection. We are more connected than ever, by every measurable metric, and somehow also lonelier. The research is grim and consistent: loneliness is at epidemic levels across age groups, countries, and demographics. Digital connection is real and it helps. But it is not how humans are meant to connect. We are walking around, many of us, chronically underfed in a specific and essential way.

Even though — maybe because — I’ve made a career in technology, I’m motivated to reverse this trend and rebuild our humanity.

What I build next will be centered on a mission of human connection. It won’t scale like an app or deliver a 10x multiple. It doesn’t need to. I’m not building for extreme wealth. I’m building for our humanity.

Art — visual, musical, culinary, literary, physical — has always been the mechanism by which humans recognized each other as fully human. A work of art says: I noticed something. I felt something about it. I made this so you could feel something too. And when it works, even imperfectly, it creates a bond that transcends the specific object. It says: we are in this together. We are made of the same stuff. We see the same world, even when we see it differently.

That’s not a luxury. That’s not a business. That’s not even a product. That’s a fundamental human need.

The path back runs through the art all around us — and the art we are in the process of creating.

So, dear humans, go forth! Be human! Make something. Share it. Let someone react to it. Look at what they make. Tell them what you see.

Live with Love. Be Unexpected 😘

I really had hoped that we moved past the phrase “mid-life crisis.” But I still hear this phrase and it gives me full-body aches, and not in a good way.

Like Winston Churchill, who said “in crisis is great opportunity,” I love a good crisis for the character test that it creates. But I object to mid-life being a crisis.

I understand the expectations that the world has for me, and fortunately (sometimes unfortunately), have always navigated contrary to them. I understand that a woman on the brink of 50 years old, with no job, no children, no pets, no partner, and living in a temporary situation looks like a person in crisis. I understand that this snapshot description of my life sounds empty, lonely, scary, … maybe it even resembles a crisis.

But things are not always what they seem, and we could all do with questioning our viewpoints o have an honest tally of what has been decided for us by the patriarchy versus what we’ve really immersed our minds in to develop a unique point of view.

It is a Reawakening, Not a Crisis

I feel so the opposite of a crisis. I feel like I’ve shed dead skin, emerged from a cocoon, bloomed in the Spring … all of these nature analogies apply.

All of my circumstances (except my age) were my doing, after heartbreaking, tearful contemplation with myself and the people closest to me. I made mindful decisions, not because I was being mercurial or irresponsible, but because I was doing what we all want — molding my one life into one that enables the best version of myself to unfold.

If I’m ashamed of anything, it is not that I am unmarried, unemployed, childless, or don’t own the home that I live in — it is that it took me nearly 50 years to get to the place where I could honor myself more deliberately. The re-awakening is the knowledge that I am in charge of my life. All of it. All of the roses, the buds, and the thorns. I get to decide what environment I need around me to be the highest priestess version of myself.

And by the way, we all have this power. You don’t need to be in mid-life, or on a sabbatical, or recently divorced to claim this power.

It’s Ideal but it is Not Easy

I should mention — reawakening to a new, better life is not like floating effortlessly in a rubber tube down a peaceful river with shades on and a beer in hand, marveling at a mountain view.

It’s hard. It’s time-consuming. It requires faith. It takes a specific kind of courage — brutal honesty with yourself in a world that is trying to tell you what to think and how to feel, from every conceivable direction.

If I Knew Then What I Know Now

There are many things I did in my life up to this point to make this transition easier. And there are things that I wish I did differently. A lot of people reach out to me, passionately expressing their desire to do what I’m doing — quit their job, travel, rebuild — but they can’t because of this, that, and the other. I hear you. And here’s what I say to them about achieving that ideal picture of life: If you are questioning your life, then you are already fucking doing it!

Maybe you are not in a financial position to quit your job. Or maybe you don’t really know what you would do if you quit your job. Or maybe you have kids or parents who need you. Maybe you have a health condition that dictates your life.

You will get over, through, or around each of these barriers.

I’ve always been obsessed with setting goals and creating to-do lists that get me to that goal (I can’t help it, it is an occupational hazard of being a product manager), but I am being drawn to a new type of guidance. Less action, more affirmation. Something that resembles a love letter from my intuition — a manifestation of my wild mind to bring me back to my power when I’m feeling foggy, defeated, or frazzled.

If my intuition were to write that love letter to me, here are some things it may say:

• Know what you want and what you need.

• Allow your wants and needs to evolve over time. Don’t get too attached to any of them.

• Get comfortable with articulating your wants and needs out loud, face-to-face, with other humans.

• It helps to defend your wants and needs - not to be argumentative, but to be certain for yourself.

• Listen to other people. Like, really, listen. Don’t just stop talking when they are talking. Stop thinking of your own shit when they are talking.

• Question authority, with curiosity. Including - every now and then - your own compass.

• Cry! From faintly teary eyes to deep, heaving sobs. The physical release is an absolute necessity for your body and mind.

• Hug people. Tell them how you feel about them. Give them your respect and honesty.

• Get used to living in a little discomfort. Not a ton of it - the comfort:discomfort ratio is going to be personal to you. Find that ratio.

• Your mobility is a sacred gift. Move your body every damn day.

• When you are sad, depressed, or feeling “off,” this is the time that you need to get brutally honest with yourself. Know that your courage will be tested the hardest in these moments.

Your power emerges when you get out of the rut

I had a friend point out to me this week, when I expressed frustration about all of my creative ideas stomping on top of each other that none of them are being expressed, that my brain has been working in one way for so long that it is behaving a bit wildly right now as it finds its new course of freedom.

While I cringe at the phrase “mid-life crisis,” I could get behind “mid-life rut” because it more accurately describes what is happening. Churchill said the opportunity lives inside the crisis. I'd take a different angle: the opportunity lives inside the rut. The crisis is just what it looks like from the outside.

Live with Love. Be Unexpected. 😘

In Costa Rica, I expanded my notion of spirituality. I had a guided psilocybin ceremony, during which I experienced — what I can only describe as — an exorcism. My guide named it a “soul retrieval” which is a gentler description, but my adoration of spooky things is going to insist we name it an exorcism 😈

Doesn’t matter what we call it, the intention and the resulting outcome was to cut the cord on thoughts or beliefs that have been weighing me down for a very long time.

I knew exactly the cord to cut.

It formed over thirty years ago. On the other end of the cord is a soul-sucking worm that has dosed me daily with an elixir of shame and hateful contradictions to my self-worth. Fighting against its control of my waking thoughts and nightly dreams has often felt like a one-woman battle for survival.

And I’ve tried to rid myself of it. Oh man alive, have I ever tried. With therapy, with meditation, with endless hours on a bike. Through confessionals with my closest friends, and over-sharing with near-strangers.

And yet. This snarling, persistent worm — with its controlling black eyes, indigo slime-oozing bloated body, and venomous drool — did not let go.

So when I learned that a cord-cutting would be a part of my psilocybin ceremony, I was as hopeful for relief as I was skeptical about its effectiveness.

The ceremony was transformative. After the exorcism/soul-retrieval, I felt physical relief. Additionally, throughout my following 3 months of travel, the daily obsessive thoughts — both waking and in my dreams — ceased. And in the days that followed the ceremony, self-forgiveness started to unfold. For the first time, I understood that ‘teenage me’ did not have the skills, knowledge, or experience that ‘current me’ has, and I should not be judging her for not doing better.

But two questions remained:

• What was my flaw 30+ years ago (during my high school years)? Was I complicit in the trauma that happened?

• And how has that event and its emotional impact contributed to the battles I’ve fought in my career and my romantic relationships?

Clearly, the cord between the worm and my subconscious had been severed, but there were practicalities I still hadn’t settled.

The answers to these questions have come in bits and pieces over the years, through therapy, meditation, books, conversations. But without a utility drawer to put them in, they just ended up like rubber bands, paper clips, matchbooks, and safety pins: tucked in wrong drawers, cluttering space meant for something else, lost when I needed them most.

That utility drawer — in the form of articulate, rational, and complete sentences — came to me in Sri Lanka, thanks to the quiet, the time, and the immersion in nature.

The Right Words, Finally

One morning in Ella, unceremoniously, the words came to me as I was showering, brushing my teeth, and getting dressed for a hike on Little Adam’s Peak. The words did not arrive with fanfare. They did not come during meditation, or with a beam of sunlight shining down on me at the summit of a mountain. They did not jolt me awake in the middle of the night. They emerged slowly — the way a long morning takes all the way through coffee, breakfast, a shower, and a commute before you unfold to a fully-awake state.

But even though they came without ceremony, they came clearly.

Over thirty years ago, during high school, I experienced what I can now call a predatory, manipulative, and sexually abusive relationship.

I’ve never wanted to see these words as the truth because doing so requires that I see myself as a victim. Victim. That word is the problem. By not calling it what it was, I denied my reality, holding that teenage girl to standards I had the privilege to learn over many years, expecting her to have the knowledge that I was still acquiring in real-time.

Before Ella, my version of the story named me as “the problem.” I blamed myself for what happened and spent thirty years trying to fix something about myself. I have been trying to find logic, retrospectively, from a situation that had none. After Ella, I understood: I didn’t do anything wrong. He did.

That girl — high school me — was a victim of abuse who turned into a woman who has been paying the price for impossibly not having the skills or knowledge to protect herself when she was a kid.

I have given a lot of energy over the years to the guy who did this to me — trying to understand his motivations and behaviors. But he does not deserve my energy — he never did. The person who deserves it is that teenage girl. To her, I want to give my deepest apologies for not being there for her, and for every scarred, imperfect, evolving version of the woman she became.

What the Summit Made Clear

When I got to the top of Little Adam’s Peak, I found a remote lookout where I could be alone and silent. The words that had come to me that morning rose again. This time more slowly and deliberately, making sure I heard them now that I was still.

And then the pieces connected.

My drive to get him to love me — my first experience with love — was so consuming that I abandoned everything I wanted that didn’t gain his approval. I was so focused on earning his love that I hushed everything my heart was asking for. I went along with things that made me feel terrible because the alternative — losing his approval — felt worse.

I had an interesting illustration on this lesson on my plane home while watching the movie Wuthering Heights. Catherine denied herself what her heart was asking for, which was frustrating at best. But her choice to silence her heart deeply affected everyone around her … Oi! The only words that came to me were, “What a fucking mess you’ve made, Cathy!”

In my career, the pattern shows up as me always trying to please my boss or my CEO — deferring, shrinking, performing — for the sake of acceptance. In romantic relationships, I silence myself for fear of rejection.

The unconstrained contemplation this sabbatical afforded me helped me to see it clearly: a blind drive for acceptance and external validation has conditioned me to override my heart’s requests. Whether the stakes are small — what to eat for dinner, when to schedule a meeting — or big — deciding to get married, defending a promotion — I’ve hushed my heart for the sake of ensuring acceptance from whoever I needed it from most: my spouse, my boss, my CEO, my family.

Mourning Endings (Which Are Really Just Beginnings)

The complete understanding of my evil worm brings waves of feelings, but mostly longing and devastation over the unattainable: a past that cannot be revised and a future that cannot be known. And yet there is wistfulness — a relief that the past is in the past — and more confidence to soldier forward, as I always have, but this time without the extra weight of a wicked worm in tow.

Before I left Ella, I bought a bracelet strung with carnelian stones. A reminder. Of the feeling in that moment on the mountain. The complete freedom from self-blame, from self-sabotage, from thirty years of trying to fix the wrong person. A reminder to move forward confidently, boldly, in the direction of my own heart.

All we have is each other

I am moving forward with a new perspective, in deeper service of myself, and know that the healing is ongoing. New experiences — like leaving a job that is not serving us, and traveling the world — can catalyze healing. But if there is a magic way to heal, it is with authentic human connections. These connections reveal our whole selves — past, present, and future dream selves — simply, boldly, and realistically.

I don’t know the details of what lies ahead for me — in career, love, or life — but I know that I want human connection to be at the center of it. I want to have a hand in rebuilding our humanity that has been lost through the universal trauma of pandemic isolation, power-hungry governments, and digital-first experiences. One way that I can start doing this is through authentic, vulnerable, and honest story-telling. Sharing what feels most personal almost always reveals what is most universal.

Personally, I’m ready to be free from the bitter elixir of self-doubt and shame, and would rather partake with you in a celebratory cordial that fills us with love, joy, hope, and courage. 🥂

May your life be filled with kisses, gratitude, and contrary

Thank you for being on this leg of my journey with me ❤️

If you read my last article about Bali, you may be disappointed to learn that this piece is not going to be erotica. Or maybe you’re my mother and you’re relieved to learn this. Either way, I want to set clear expectations for what you are reading 😜 (though the erotica is coming! …hmmm, pun intended?)

This is a story about what happens when you stop fighting what is, and let the detour take you for a ride. Sri Lanka had a different plan for me than I had for it, and it was perfect.

My feet are not yet planted back on NYC pavement. I am writing this from my hotel in Sri Lanka, the conclusion of 8 countries and 95 days of solo sabbatical travel. It will not end in a heart-melter, where all my wounds are healed and I ride off in the sunset with Javier Bardem. You probably never expected that story from me anyway. 😜 Let’s get to it.

An Out-of-Sync Arrival

My first day in Sri Lanka was April 14, Sri Lankan New Year’s Day. As with every New Year’s holiday across the globe, Sri Lanka was quiet and closed, which set the tone for my arrival.

My Sri Lanka plan was to spend 10 days in Mirissa, along the south coast, learning how to surf. This was meant to be a moment to face my fears, settle into beach time, pay my final worship to the sun, and make connections with my last group of travel companions.

When I arrived at surf camp, my host was not able to greet me, due to the holiday, so I changed into my swimsuit and went to the beach. The heat was suffocating. At first, I blamed Sri Lanka, then I realized that I’ve been on the road long enough to be part of the changing seasons into summer — “from hot to fucking hot” as I learned they described summer in Thailand. As much as I love the heat, I was unmistakably uncomfortable and potentially on the brink of heat stroke. My air-conditioned hotel room brought solace. Sadly.

That evening, I met a few other travelers at Surf & Yoga, my home for the next 10 days. We helped our chef, Hassid, prepare dinner, two Sri Lankan curries. I learned that the camp is exceptionally quiet right now, due to the war. Usually, they have ~50 guests but they only had ~10 at this time. I was disappointed to learn that everyone that night was scheduled to leave in the next two days.

Facing My Fears 🏄🏻‍♀️

The next morning, bright and early, I had my first surf lesson. This was kinda a big deal, and not in a bragging sense. More in a holy-shit-today-I-might-die sort of way.

As much as I love the ocean, she scares me. And I have a rule: don’t ever not do something just because it scares you. If fear is the only reason I’ve got, that’s my subconscious screaming at me to go fucking do it.

So that’s why surfing.

The possibilities of failure in surfing (in every trivial or absolute sense of that word) are endless: being pummeled by a wave, drowning, or being knocked unconscious by the “washing machine.” Losing a contact lens right before the next wave punches me in the face. Losing two contact lenses. Getting eaten by a shark. Getting eaten by a crocodile. Getting hit in the head with my surf board. Someone else’s surf board hitting me in the head.

And yet — Goddddddesss, I freaking love the ocean. The sun. The waves. The water. The ocean, while a source of paralyzing fear, is somehow also a happy place for me.

My lesson started on-land with instructions for how to “pop up,” then we progressed to the whitewash, the tail end of a wave with just enough momentum to practice standing, without the physics and skill required to catch an unbroken wave.

As my instructor Madu took me deeper, we were getting dangerously close to the scary waves. You know, the ones that were going to kill me. Surfboard in tow, my anxiety peaked. I stopped moving and shouted: “Where are you taking me? I am NOT comfortable!!” (High-five to me for saying that out loud.) Madu deserves heaps of credit for patiently guiding me through the anxiety.

After at least 1001 pop-ups on the whitewash, I was getting a fantastic workout and genuinely enjoying myself.

When your heart and mind are ready, but your body is not

Later that day, I felt an ear infection coming on. Being an avid swimmer, I’m no stranger to this dreaded feeling. But had to ask myself … ‘Is it? Could it be? Why now?’

The next morning the pain was real and my ear was clogged up. I went to the medical clinic to confirm what I already knew, and got some antibiotic ear drops. The number one cure for an ear infection is to keep the ear dry, so that was it. No more surfing until this thing was kicked.

I missed two lessons before becoming enmeshed in a classic case of the blues. I was at the ocean, unable to carry on as planned. It was hotter than the gates of hell and I couldn’t go in the water. The pain was outrageous, to boot. It was clear that this was not an easy or typical run-of-the-mill ear infection.

The tailspin of ‘what is the universe trying to tell me?’ ensued, rattling my head around the way I feared those deadly waves were going to do to me. And yet here I was, doing it to myself.

In Search of Greener Pastures

A few other travelers at the camp mentioned Ella, a town 2 hours north of Mirissa. It was described as “peaceful, but touristy,” with “beautiful views and a few great hikes.” My ears perked at the mention of hikes and after some research I made arrangements to escape to Ella for a couple nights until the ear infection cleared up.

The area around Ella is a hotbed of plantations for tea and spices. In a short detour before arriving in Ella, my driver took me to a spice field, where I was greeted by a lean Sri Lankan man, wearing sandals, sarong, and a warm smile.

“Ayubovan,” he said, looking warmly into my eyes, hands in Namaste. “This is how we say hello in my country. It means ‘may you live long.’” I tried it back and he nodded approvingly, still smiling.

He walked me through his garden of labeled spice beds, explaining each plant's role in Ayurvedic medicine. There was a mix of oils that made a “shaving cream” that removed hair on my legs in within 15 minutes. A plant for arthritis. One for spider veins. He examined my legs and said, without holding back:

“You have cellulite. This will help.”

😳 I hated — and when I say ‘hated’ I mean ‘loved’ - his honesty.

He looked at my face and pointed to the scar above my right eyebrow. “This is from chickenpox?” He had a remedy for that, too.

As we walked around, he asked, “How old do you think I am?”

Cheeky bastard. This is a trap. He looked 63. I guessed 78. He was 81.

“How old am I?,” I asked. Gotta admit, I expected to hear 35-to-37, which I had become accustomed to hearing. He looked me dead in the eyes and without skipping a beat, “You are 49. Maybe 48.”

I wanted to punch him right in the face! 😡 And at the same time was dazzled. 🤩

“How do you know how old I am?,” I asked.

“It’s in your eyes. I see the expression in your eyes,” he said.

I learned his name is Dr. Susa and he is a third-generation Ayurvedic Doctor. He set out to Himalaya on his own to learn everything about Ayurvedic medicine. When he returned home, his knowledge impressed his father, who then agreed to pay for his degree.

He took me to his student (I assume) for a face massage with sandalwood oil, a head massage with red coconut oil, and a leg massage with the magic anti-cellulite potion. I left with a few Ayurvedic oils — for the skin, the hair, and yes, the legs — his WhatsApp number so we could stay in touch, and genuine affection for this lovely, lovely man ❤️

My Sri Lanka

The view of Ella Rock from my hotel balcony hit me like a bear hug from an old friend. And I knew instantly that this was the great purpose of the ear infection — it brought me here.

I hiked Ella Rock and Little Adam's Peak. In between, I sketched, journaled, drank a couple cocktails, and sat in nature. The infinite emerald in every direction filled me with homesickness. Everything reminded me of the Pacific Northwest, more in feeling than in facade. Mountains are so deeply embedded in my body, I swear I feel them before I see them. This is what I mean when I say that mountains have my heart.

Ella Rock was my travel companion. I fell in love with her complex beauty rather quickly. She watched over me from my hotel room balcony. She was the first thing that I saw when I opened my eyes in the morning. She held me at her summit — peaks of Yala National Park to the south, and layered mountains disappearing into a haze to the north. She sat patiently as my muse for an afternoon sketch, baring her ridges and textures for me to trace with my pen and massage with my colored pencils.

Ella didn’t give me the surfing I planned for, but it gave exactly what I needed — solitude with a view, and space to feel what was coming to the surface.

Part Two is coming. It’s got some heaviness that I’m still processing. Stay tuned.

Thanks for being with me. May your day be filled with kisses, gratitude, and contrary 😘🙏

Ubud is Balance

My flight arrived into Denpasar late. I wouldn’t get settled into my room in Ubud until after 2am. I saw Nano’s message when I landed:

I exited customs in a brain fog of travel fatigue, saw the line of drivers, each holding a sign with the name of a weary traveler, and diverted my eyes to the ground, scanning the lineup of shoes.

Adidas shoes … ‘What kind of adidas shoes?,’ I wondered. 'Sandals? Sneakers? What color?’ This was asking a lot of my brain, but the fog lifted when I saw a sparkling-eyed young Balinese man walking toward me with a blinding white grin, hand outstretched, and adidas shoes. “Welcome to Bali!” said Nano.

Nano was my host for the week. On the journey to Ubud, he introduced me to his home with this simple phrase and - I realize in retrospect - advice: “Ubud is balance.”

Ten days from that moment, I would learn that balance is not a graceful stillness, held like a mountain pose, or tree pose. Balance is the stillness of a spinning top, found inside and amongst chaos, when you stop fighting the current and your ride it. Breathless, soaking, and stupidly alive.

My ride through the rapids

I came to Ubud to center my artistic spirit at the Artists in Residence (aka AIR) Ubud, expecting the energy of a lazy river pool, but instead found myself in a ten-day trip down a whitewater river.

The rapids were embodied in the crowds of tourists, flocking to Insta-worthy yoga shalas, plant-based everything, sound baths, crystal healing, and luxury spa days with dirt-cheap price tags.

The rocks of the river were made of the Balinese culture, holding urgently to the river floor — sandalwood incense, frangipani flowers, Hindu temples, warungs, coconut leaf offerings, rice paddy villages, silver- and batik-making, and statues of Hindu gods.

I was reminded of my trip on the Zambezi in Africa, after which I swore I would never touch whitewater again. But since this is only a metaphor and not actual whitewater, let’s continue to ride it…

I became swept up in the first of many rapids on the Ubud river - a realization of gentrification, challenging my authenticity values directly. My way of riding the raft involved a ruthless Ashtanga yoga class (at Radiantly Alive Yoga), a multitude of fresh fruit juice and smoothie bowls, and a near-orgasmic spa day in which I submerged into an underworld hot/cold plunge encased by stone carvings of Hindu-inspired fantasy creatures at the Hotel Tjampuhan Spa.

After the next series of rapids, my coping expanded. I traded moldy clothes packed in NYC two months prior for Bali boho-chic fashion, a pack of Marlboro Lights, and 2am conversations - deep and dirty - with people spanning more than 40 years on either side of me.

Continuing down the river, hitting calmer waters, I was purified in a temple and learned the art of silver-making (at Okta Silver Class, friends of Nano and his mother).

More rapids, and I surrendered to the freedom of wrapping my legs around the passenger seat of a motorbike enveloped in the Bali night air, and a spontaneous snorkeling trip on Nusa Pineda to swim in terrifying circles with a school of manta rays.

And there I was, living Nano’s phrase, Ubud is balance. Several contrasting things can be simultaneously true. Ubud catalyzed this truth that I’ve been too controlled for too long to live out loud.

Just to feeling something

After a couple days, I accepted the whirls of unexpected chaos that Ubud was delivering, but was not prepared for what the universe delivered next.

A woman with a melange of ethnicity and accents and cinnamon curls with honey highlights that resembled Vogue-era Madonna in look as much as attitude. In the physical sense, she was in her late 20s, but in the metaphysical, I’m certain she was reincarnated a dozen lives or more.

She played with spiders — 3-inches in diameter — letting them crawl on her face “just to feel something.” She had a face-off with a manta of a 6-foot-span, as though she owned the ocean instead of the other way around. Her sensuality was uninhibited, and her idea of intellectual foreplay was impossible questions about consciousness and the universe.

Being in her orbit made me aware of my own inhibitions — in my words, my mind, my body. She gave language and appetite to things in me that were dormant or unreachable. At first it was electric. Then it felt like a demon goddess had locked my gaze and demanded I take advantage of this moment before it slips away forever — electricity morphing into terror. The terror that my most voracious, vivacious self is already behind me. That the door is closing on me.

But Ubud looked that demon goddess dead in the eye and called her on her bullshit. The door is not closing. It is wide open. I have many more playful, electric, wild, sensual, demon-slaying stories to live and tell. That is a promise.

What Ubud Unboxed

Over thirty years ago, I declared a part of myself broken and unworthy, and put her in a box. The part of me that is unguarded, unabashedly sexual, and unwilling to ask permission or offer explanation.

I didn’t throw her away but I separated her from the rest of me, convinced that her proximity to the “good” parts - the tenacity, the empathy, the humor, the strength, the ambition - would contaminate them. That she was the thing most likely to undo me.

So I kept her contained in that box. And when I did let her out, it was never freely. It was strategically - for control, for attention, for survival. Weaponized, not integrated. Useful, but not whole.

Ubud unboxed her. Not with a single dramatic moment I can point to and package neatly for you. With ten days of accumulated electricity: a tending to my body with wellness regimens, a woman who showed me that spiders can crawl on your face without killing you, night air on a motorbike, uncensored communication, and an inspiration for erotic writing - sparked by a woman beside me and a man a thousand miles away - that consumed an embarrassing amount of brain space. ALL of Ubud was showing me the way I’m supposed to be. ALL parts of me coexisting, refusing to stay in separate boxes.

I am not two different people. All of it belongs in the same body, in a messy entanglement. Separating them was not protecting me. It was self-abandonment dressed up as self-control.

Well, that was scary

Excuse me while I take a couple deep breaths…

Articulating this has been terror-filled. Hitting the ‘publish’ button will be another whitewater rapid to run, with the help of these promises to myself:

• I will not conform to a story of who I’m supposed to be at this point in my life.

• I will not apologize for my appetite - sexual, material, fantastical, or otherwise.

• I will not let fear or past trauma censor my thoughts, words, or actions.

The door is open. I will walk through it with all of the tenacity, humor, and strength I’ve always had, but going forward I will be wearing boho-chic and a playful smile, carrying a chronicle of feminist erotica. I can leave the cigarettes, helmet-free motorbike rides, spiders, and 6-foot mantas in Bali.

May your day be filled with kisses, gratitude, and contrary 😘🙏

My travel bucket list is long. A snorkeling and island-hopping expedition in the Philippines was not on it, so how did this destination manifest for my sabbatical?

I’d landed on Southeast Asia as my primary region and had a few anchors locked in. Everything else was open water, filled in through recommendations from friends and free dives across the internet. Palawan, Philippines rose to the surface through a search I was running on must-see destinations for nature lovers, cross-referenced with my indulgent sabbatical goal of turquoise waters, velvet-soft sandy beaches, and sun-drenched skin. (I paid my dues living in the PNW for 25 years. The sun and I have some catching up to do ☀️)

My travel consultant, Claude (yes, that one), helped me connect those dots. What followed precisely matched what I was looking for, so I booked the trip.

The Philippines is an archipelago of over 7,000 islands, so island hopping isn’t a travel style so much as a geographic requirement. A snorkeling expedition here is the country-tour equivalent of a camper van in New Zealand - it’s just how you see the place.

I should be upfront: I am not a snorkeler. The last two times I attempted it - once at the Great Barrier Reef, once in Key West - I experienced a memorable combination of sea creature fright and sea sickness that culminated, at one point, in purging into my snorkeling mask. It’s not an activity I’ve chased since. What drew me here was the picture-perfect sea-and-sand dreams. The snorkeling was secondary, but clearly also an opportunity to finally do it right as the Philippines makes the cut as a top snorkeling destination in the world.

I booked a 6-day/5-night expedition with Tao Philippines, who consistently ranked among the best tour operators for solo travelers in my searches, from El Nido to Coron. We traversed the miles of exactly the turquoise water I’d been seeking. I never had my fill of it. I never will.

Here’s what I found between the open sea and the bamboo beach huts (aka “tukas,” a name coined by Tao Philippines’ eco-architecture).

When Mother Nature tells you to slow down, do as you’re told

Watching fish is a surprisingly effective meditation. One of the first creatures that caught my attention was a turtle, who I felt compelled to stalk to see what it was up to, where it was going, who it was meeting. At first, I found fish boring - they seemed to swim along with nothing to do - but I liked looking at them, nonetheless. I fell madly in love with the colorful Parrotfish, who I nicknamed Drag Fish because they reminded me of drag queens, boastfully swimming amongst their peers, knowing full well that they were the most fabulous of them all🫰

I found myself studying different species’ behaviors, patterns, and interactions. Since I didn’t know anything about their actual species names, I made up names and stories for them. There was the Witch Fish (solid black ‘angelfish’ with a subtle and ominous burgundy iridescence that swam in small groups, like witches doing research for a spell they are brewing), the Aztec Slider (white fish with an aztec-like pattern who slithered on the ocean floor, slurping up food along the way), the Zombie Fish (ugly, disfigured grey things that swam so slow they seems as though they were going to just tip over … 🤔 come to think of it, that may have actually been a dying fish).

I found personalities and patterns in each - the anemone fish (aka “clownfish” like “Nemo”) form little families, seeming to always have two adults protectively circling a patch of hairy white coral, from where the babies pop themselves out every so often to say ‘Hi.’ I hovered above a school of thousands of herrings swimming in precise inexplicable synchronicity, morphing into branches and changing formation like a kaleidoscope.

I didn’t have a proper underwater camera, and the one time I tried to take photos with my phone in a dry bag I was flustered and distracted. In fact, this entire trip was a digital detox. We didn’t have wifi or cell signal until the second to last day of the trip.

When we slow down and allow nature to consume our senses, the thoughts, visions, and ideas that follow fill us with a thick, syrupy sweetness. The kind you don't want to rush.

The mission-first business model proves sustainable again

Tao Philippines turns 20 this year. It’s the second organization I’ve encountered on this sabbatical (Elephant Nature Park (ENP) was the first) that is shaping a Contrary Cortney business philosophy: the idea that leading with mission, community, and integrity doesn't compete with profitability, it drives it. The parallels are striking enough to be a curriculum:

Both are 20+ years old with consistent growth. Both were devastated by typhoons (Tao in 2013, ENP in 2024) and rebuilt stronger, thanks to the help of the community, from which they already had strong foundations prior to the disasters. Both center women’s empowerment and local knowledge. Both treat tourism as a vehicle for education for workers, community, and travelers alike. Tao’s stated philosophy: “The future is community.” 🥰

One notable difference: at ENP, Lek and Darrick (the owners) are everywhere. You feel their presence even when they’re not in the room. At Tao, I only learned who the founders were through a commemorative magazine. Mission embedded, not embodied. A different model, not a lesser one.

One thing I’d push Tao on: women are described as being “in charge,” but they’re largely operating behind the scenes. The stories of Tao’s women deserve to be told as loudly as the men’s, not just for equity’s sake, but as an active investment in the next generation of women watching.

The universe is a better matchmaker than we are

One of the things that I am starting to love about solo travel is the journey from “stranger” to “travel companion” with the people who materialize around each experience.

Our group represented 10 countries: expats living across Asia, kids ages 9–14, couples and families, and a handful of us pushing the average age up from the back. I was the only American and one of just three solo travelers. Fair warning for solo travelers considering Tao: the reviews skew heavily solo-friendly, but my group didn't reflect that. It didn't diminish the experience - the connections I made were real - but if your energy recharges around other solo travelers, go in with open eyes.

I almost always skip political conversation, but it was hard this time, given Trump’s current war. The world is genuinely confused and concerned by Trump’s reckless actions against democracy and humanity, and, as an American, I feel a sense of guilt for not being able to provide answers or claim enough ownership on behalf of my country. In the Philippines, this feeling sank deeper. The tuk-tuk and taxi drivers weren’t shy about the 2–3x jump in gas prices since the war began, costs that are meaningfully cutting into whether they can feed their families. The weight of that conversation stays with me.

Another thread that has been surfacing, unprompted, in my travels is a Western envy of simplicity. I felt it deeply in Cambodia, it was a topic in Vietnam, and it surfaced again in the Philippines. The SE Asian pace of life is viscerally appealing, but most of us don’t have the cultural tools to actually inhabit it. So we absorb what we can and carry it home like a puzzle with several pieces lost or left behind.

The ocean is a healer. I’ve heard that the minerals in the water, combined with the sun, are restorative to our immunity, vitality, and mental health. I don’t need to know all of the science, I felt it.

If you want to check out all of my pics from this trip, go to my Google Photo Album here.

Signing off with kisses, gratitude, and a little contrary! 😘🙏

I am approaching the halfway point of my one-year sabbatical. When I left my corporate job, my goal was simple: heal from toxic thought patterns and see what I would naturally gravitate toward without work pressures hanging over my head. I was excited to live without boundaries, which included a plan to travel for an extended period of time. I wanted to visit the places I’d always wanted to go without consulting anyone else’s agenda, and to do it without time restrictions.

I’m now in my tenth week on the road. I’ve been to Seattle, Palm Springs, Costa Rica, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and am writing this from the Philippines. This is the longest I’ve ever traveled, and the first time I’ve traveled solo internationally for non-work reasons.

I love to travel (but I also enjoy cozy nights at home), and I am no stranger to self-discovery (it is my nature to be in a constant mode of self-reflection) - but when I was planning this trip, and even after I started, I genuinely wasn’t sure how much I would like extended solo travel. I thought: Would I be frustrated by all of the time in airports? How long before I would itch for the comforts of home? What could I really learn about myself in travel that I could not learn while living in the great city of New York? Am I going to feel isolated and lonely? And if I do, how will I handle it?

Those turned out to be the right questions. Here’s what I found.

You will be “solo” but you will not be alone.

This is both a practical tip and a philosophy.

From a safety standpoint, someone should always know your itinerary, especially when you’re moving frequently across countries. But the deeper gift of telling everyone is what it unlocks socially. Because I talked openly about my sabbatical - on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on Substack, in every conversation - I ended up with a trusted driver in Siem Reap who became a memorable part of Cambodia. I reconnected with a friend in Singapore I hadn’t spoken to in 26 years. Friends offered their family in Thailand and Sri Lanka as emergency contacts in case I needed one.

None of that happens if you quietly disappear into your itinerary. Solo travel is not actually solitary. I am socially alive because I show up to every interaction without distraction, without a companion to default to. That changes everything.

You will follow your own curiosity - not a partner’s and not a stranger’s.

Trip Advisor, Viator, Get Your Guide - these are useful tools, but the richest experiences of this trip happened when I was guided by my likes and curiosities instead of the highest rated tours on travel websites. When I wandered without agenda. When I talked to local people who weren’t in the tourism service industry.

The thing to do in any given place is almost never the thing you will remember most.

You also need to throw FOMO out completely. On a trip this long, you cannot sustain the pressure to experience everything, everywhere. I embraced days of relaxing and reading in an air-conditioned hotel room when my body asked for rest. That’s not wasted travel. That’s the whole point of taking a holiday.

You will find your people.

Before this trip, I’d absorbed a lot of ambient noise about solo female travel - the implied danger, the “don’t go out after dark alone,” the “just be careful.” I want to report back plainly: I have not felt unsafe or disrespected once across multiple countries. In fact, I’ve joked that I’m more unsafe in Brooklyn (where I live) than in any of the areas that I’ve traveled to!

I found a global community of women moving through the world independently and with extraordinary self-possession. They are everywhere. And they are not a “type.”

The solo female travelers I’ve met on this trip so far range from 19 to 66 years old. Married and unmarried. Seasoned travelers and first-timers. From ten different countries. Almost universally, they are at a crossroads: a career transition, a relationship change, a nagging question they haven’t answered yet, a version of themselves they’re becoming. And although they travel alone, they are not seeking isolation. They joyfully and vulnerably connect. We find each other on group tours, sitting next to each other at coffee shops and bars, or admiring the same local sight - and the conversation ignites immediately.

Sisters, let me tell you - the electricity is real, and it will find you. There is a global sisterhood of women mid-becoming - sometimes quiet, sometimes spectacularly not - and solo travel drops you right into the middle of it.

You will receive a gift from the hard days.

The hardest days of this trip have also been its most instructive. The day I woke up with a sore throat and rode in the support van instead of on my bike so that my body could rest. The day the words wouldn’t come when I tried to write. The day my elephant drawing looked like a scary sea creature. The day I sat with something grief-shaped and leaned into it with full body sobs. The day I was critical of a new city - finding fault with everything, mostly because I was grieving the last place - and curiously wandered anyway until I found myself falling in love with something about it.

I’ve stopped fighting any discomfort. It’s just part of the process.

Without your usual comforts of home to fall back on, you need to find new coping mechanisms to move through the hard days. That’s where resilience is built. And oddly, it’s also where curiosity grows. Discomfort becomes an unexpected driver of adventure.

You will see yourself crystal clearly.

The greatest gift of this trip hasn’t been any single destination. It is having uninterrupted time and space to listen to my own thoughts, without pressure to draw a conclusion or act on anything. I can hear what is poking at me, and am undistracted enough to recognize repeating thoughts. My real values. Where I’m genuinely willing to compromise. What makes me curious versus what I think should make me curious.

Solo travel didn’t create anything in me that wasn’t already there. It just held up a mirror long enough for me to actually look.

I have one month of planned travel left, and I’m intentionally going to be more stationary than everything that came before.

First, I’ll be staying in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, at an artist’s residency to connect with my creative energy, experience the mecca of spiritual wellness and healing, do daily yoga, meet other artists, and go deep with creative curiosity I’ve been carrying.

Finally, I will end in Mirissa, Sri Lanka, where I’m taking surf lessons for ten days (BTW, I do not know how to surf!), continuing daily yoga, exploring Ayurvedic healing, and seeing elephants in the wild - which will be a rewarding moment after volunteering with them in Thailand.

It feels exactly right to end where I began - with a spiritual slap in the face and a reawakening of my physical strength.

If you’ve been thinking about solo travel - even a short trip, even somewhere familiar - stop thinking and start planning. You will surprise yourself with what you find looking back at you.

Thank you for reading. I hope you find your contrary 🙏

I never had a question in my mind that Elly was being disrespected - no, abused. What I didn’t know were the horrific details of “spirit-breaking” (aka phajaan) that elephants endure for tourism and entertainment.

The Unbreakable Elephant Spirit

Elephants are the largest land mammals, and their emotional capacity matches their physical size. They grieve, giggle, console, and even cry - so, yes, those likely were tears that Lori and I saw on Elly’s face. And to ask an elephant to dance, paint, play soccer, trek with a saddle on their back, or partake in any act for the sole purpose of entertaining a human requires that their spirit is broken - that they forget they are an elephant. If elephants were human, I would be talking about sex trafficking and slavery, as it would require extreme physical and mental abuse to subject a human to trafficking.

Thankfully, there is a place where the elephant spirit is revered more than their entertainment value. This place is the Elephant Nature Park (ENP), north of Chiang Mai, Thailand. I visited the ENP in 2011 and the experience moved me the same way that seeing Elly moved me when I was 16 years old. I promised myself (and the elephants) that I would return to the park to participate in their week-long volunteer program. Finally, 15 years later, I returned to ENP to follow through on that promise.

Lek Chailert: Contrary, Audacious, Unstoppable

The heart and soul of the ENP and SEF is their founder, Lek Chailert. Lek’s life has been the epitome of barrier-breaking and it is the only kind of life that would transform a woman of her culture and stature to an international change-maker. While at the park we watched a documentary called “Love & Bananas,” which won a Genesis Award (basically, the “Oscars of animal rights” media), telling a harrowing story of how Lek saved one elephant from a trekking camp. This one rescue involved years of gently educating the trekking camp owner, luring a fearful and disobedient 4-ton animal into a truck, to then drive it 23 hours to its forever home at ENP. This would be an impossible task for most people - even Type A people with a stubborn spirit and passion for animal rights - and Lek has done this hundreds of times since opening ENP in 2003. This woman is everything I want for myself and for all women - she is contrary, audacious, and unstoppable.

When the Mission is the Margin

And with all of this, there are two thoughts I can’t get out of my head:

⏭️ How does she do it? I’m not talking about her passion - that is obvious. But, pragmatically, how does she do it?

⏭️ What if the best business school case study of the last 23 years isn’t in Silicon Valley or Seattle, but in a river valley in northern Thailand?

More than half of all corporate workers are burned out. 66% are at risk of burnout. The condition costs the US economy more than $500 billion annually through lost productivity and healthcare. And still, the organizations burning people out want more from their people.

Meanwhile, Lek Chailert has spent 23 years building something most business schools would struggle to categorize. Elephant Nature Park has grown steadily, saved hundreds of elephants one by one, and quietly converted more than 30 exploitative trekking camps into ethical sanctuaries. Along the way - without a plan or grand vision - ENP became a refuge for dogs, cats, water buffalo, and pigs. It created employment for Burmese refugees, a working space and clientele for local massage therapists, and a market for local and international artists. A mission to save elephants became an ecosystem of dignity.

No MBA. No venture backing. No exit strategy. Just a flourishing, multi-decade enterprise built by putting mission above margin.

ENP offers a different template. One where the mission is achieved. The business sustains itself. And the people - the founders, employees, and local & international communities - are genuinely cared for: mentally, physically, and financially.

Evidence of Success

Roughly half of the volunteers in my group had participated in the volunteer week previously, several of them were back for their third, fourth, or fifth time. The repeat customer rate is one of the most telling data points of a product’s success. My hypothesis for this success is a direct result of the hands-on involvement of Lek and Darrick Thomson (Lek’s husband and partner in building the business for the last 20 years). Unbelievably, Lek and Darrick are in the park every day (neck-deep in elephant poop!). They literally run around the park all day, highly engaged with employees and volunteers, smiles on their faces, friendly “Hellos!” and a willingness to stop to answer questions or chat for a few minutes at any time. The authenticity, care, and humanity they actively demonstrate is the heart and soul of the success of Elephant Nature Park.

When I adopted Elly as my animal guide all those years ago, it set in motion everything that led to my experiences during this past week. The Elephant Nature Park volunteer week isn’t really about free labor for the park. It’s about education - understanding the threat to Asian elephants, why saving them matters, and the scale of what that actually requires. The outcomes of my experiences often exceed my expectations. I expected to spend the week dirty and sweating, making the elephants comfortable. What I didn’t expect was to leave having learned as much about the role of values and integrity in business as I did about elephants.

Please check out my Google Photo Album from Elephant Nature Park. I have so many elephant pictures for you to enjoy! 🐘❤️

Thank you for stopping by 🙏

Enjoy this 1-minute meditation of elephants being elephants 😃

• Traverse backroads that you may not otherwise see on major motor routes

• Slow down or stop easily anytime to take a photo or take in the view

• Meet more people - whether you are in a tour group or riding self-supported - as it is a conversation starter for other curious travelers

• Experience the changing smells of a land, adding a layered sensory experience

• Stay fit while on vacation without sacrificing a single culinary indulgence

I recently completed a 9-day bike tour (7 days of riding) with 14 other cyclists in Northern Vietnam and recommend what I already knew: my happiness level skyrockets on a bike. 🚵‍♀️😜 This was my first time joining a bike tour group - as opposed to self-organizing and self-supporting. It was organized by Much Better Adventures, and led by local guides from Mr. Biker Saigon. My mind was blown. There are obvious advantages to joining a supported group - your luggage is transferred for you, you don’t have to plan bike routes or organize where you will stay each night, you have built-in water stops and mechanics … all of these things are great, but they are not what made this tour special.

Vietnam is a cycling heaven. Who knew?

I've biked extensively across the US, western Costa Rica, and Europe. That experience has given me a formula for 'Epic' biking: paralyzing panoramic views, lung-and-leg-burning climbs, and kindred companions. Vietnam surpassed every expectation.

Check out my complete photo album here.

Paralyzing Panoramic Views

The iconic emerald and mustard-brown hillside terraces for cultivating rice are surrounded by layers upon layers of dark turquoise conical limestone peaks. Tiny colorful dots speckle the fields and hillsides, where the Hmong women tend crops wearing bright purple, red, pink, and blue plaid head scarves. In the bright sun, the palette of greens was so vast and bright that it hurt my eyes. The heat and humidity, as well as the surrounding palm trees, reminded me that I am in a tropical climate. And when the fog and mist rolled in, I felt less like a cyclist and more like a rider on a mythical swan-dragon, winding through a Sarah J. Maas faerie tale.

Lung-and-Leg-Burning Climbs

The roads on the Ha Giang Loop, where the majority of our riding took place, are new - just a couple years old in some areas - so the mixed terrain from gravel to concrete path to pavement provided fun terrain variation. And remember those conical limestone peaks? They are responsible for the 5-15%+ grade of the monster climbs on our route (like this one, for example, at 8.6% grade over 2.8km/1.75mi). Ha Giang didn't just check the box for lung-and-quad-burning climbs - it buried it.

Kindred Companions

They say misery loves company, and if you're a cyclist, you know the misery: the climbs, the mud, the wrong turns. This is half the fun, and company makes it all gloriously worth it. The skills and fitness levels of the group of 14 of us on this trip were well-matched (kudos to Much Better Adventures for properly detailing the difficulty level of the tour), and everyone took an interest in and looked after each other. I’ve made friends and memories for life.

Another highlight of this tour was our guides - An, Minh, and Phuoc - who were kind, funny, knowledgeable, and kick-ass cyclists and leaders. And the ride would not have been possible without the the support crew of mechanics, drivers, and aid station attendees who were with us the whole way. The guides and crew were intimately familiar with the navigation and conditions of the roads, and they warmly brought us into shops and homes of local people and educated us on their culture. They became our friends as much as our guides.

Admiring Vietnamese People and Culture

Thanks to our guides and our hosts, we were immersed in Vietnamese culture throughout our tour - from dropping into a family’s home to chat with them about how they live (and take pictures with the kids), visiting homegrown sites for manufacturing hemp fabric, jewelry, and brooms, and stopping by historical monuments. With each visit, I was touched by the joy and resilience of the Vietnamese people. It is incomprehensible to our Western brains how hard these people work, how simple they live, and how joyful they are in their lives. Every child we passed gleefully shouted “Hello!” and stretched their arm out to give us a high-5. Despite any language barrier that we had with the Vietnamese people, the perma-smiles on their faces made everything make sense. They have immense pride in their country, their culture, and their way of life - and I could see it was important to them that we took that away.

I reflected on the Vietnam War (aka American War, if you are Vietnamese) that tore the country to shreds, only 51 years ago. A place that was once a war zone is now one of the most beautiful vacation destinations - the Vietnamese people did this. They rebuilt - with resilience, perseverance, and pride.

In capitalism, money talks — but after seeing rural Vietnam and Cambodia up close, I'm convinced the definition of 'money' itself is a bigger divide between Southeast Asia and the Western world than language ever could be. Like our guides told us, a simple life is a happy life.

Personal Growth - Another step in letting my marriage go

What I didn't anticipate was the unexpected emotional gift this trip handed me: a chance to finally process my marriage and let it go. There are many layers to this one, and I’ll reserve some more of the private details just for myself, but this tour oozed the essence that once was “Bartney” (aka Barry + Cortney). I talked about Barry and our marriage - specifically, our epic bike & run adventures - with my adventure-mates, more than I’ve talked about him with anyone in awhile. It felt right to bring his presence to the trip, with a full-body knowing that it is also right to have let him go when I did. Barry’s spirit was deeply with me on this trip and palpable through an unstoppable flood of memories, in mannerisms of my adventure-mates, and in various fleeting moments.

Some broken pieces of life don't get grieved in real time. My divorce was final nearly 18 months ago, and yet here I am, only now slowing down enough to be present with what happened, what it cost me, and how to honor it - which, for 'Bartney,' could only ever mean one thing: an epic bike trip.

A Call to All Cyclists: Ride Vietnam 🇻🇳

I predict that word about the luxury of biking in Vietnam will spread quickly, and the place will become overrun with cycling tourist groups before long. So, my call to fellow cyclists, as Freddy Mercury sang, “Get on your bikes and ride!” in Vietnam!

Siem Reap, Cambodia was the fifth city visited in my sabbatical travels. As I write this, I am 43 days into the trip. During my 4 days in Siem Reap, I finally felt myself unwind and feel without an undercurrent of tumult or desire to troubleshoot and fix something.

Perhaps the benefits of my meditation & gratitude practice started kicking in. Or maybe the supportive messages from home were the pick-me-up I needed. Or the Chinese herbs that I got from an acupuncturist in Singapore settled my nerves. Or the comfortable king-sized bed that enabled the much-needed catch-up on my slumber.

Maybe it was all of these things, as well as the Cambodian hospitality, radiant smiles, peacefulness, and friendliness.

Cambodia captivated me in many ways and I’m going to need to unpack it in a few different posts, so I’ll start with the obvious…

The Angkor Wat Temples were a dream-come-true

I can’t remember the first time I heard about Angkor Wat, or what it was about it that called to me. In fact, on my trip over here, I was day-dreaming about seeing the temples for the first time, and the goose bumps that formed on my body were halted by the striking reality that I did not know the first thing about Angkor Wat, other than the airport I needed to fly into to see it. In other words, I blindly followed my heart and intuition here … how cool is that?

Turns out that Angkor Wat was as mesmerizing as I had hoped it would be. For most of my life, I’ve been enchanted with Eastern religions and have never thought to unpack the reasons why, but I did on this trip and here’s what I figured out: Everything - I mean everything - in Eastern religions has a meaning; a good luck charm, a protective force, a worshipping of nature, a strength-builder, etc. And all of these symbols have a magical story behind them that explains the meanings and provides both tangibility and intrigue.

The temples of Angkor Wat are a grand-scale manifestation of all of this. The temples, built from the 9th-13th centuries, were a site of prayer, school, and burial. There are plenty of sources far more knowledgeable about Angkor than I am, so I’m not going to recount all of the facts I learned - however if you come upon an Angkor Trivia Night and are feeling competitive, I’m the woman you want on your team 🥇

There are several impressions that Angkor left me with -

• The temples embody a centuries-long tug-of-war between Hindu and Buddhist rulers. Each ruler defaced, rebuilt, or modified the temples if he worshipped a different god than the king before him. One example of this is in the photo below - This is a Buddha at the gate of Angkor Thom. See the third eye, circled in red? That was put there by the Hindu king who followed the reign of the Buddhist king before him. In a way, the fight between the two religions just ended up creating something better than the original. What started as erasure became layering, and the temples are richer for every king who thought he was winning.

• Man vs. Nature literally oozes at Ta Prohm, aka “The Tomb Raider temple.” Man built the temples, and then the trees stubbornly and fastidiously grew in, around, and over them, their roots covering the stone like lava. And while the trees claim their space, man must continue to work to protect the temples from the determination of the trees that are now as much of an attraction as the sandstone structures themselves. This particular tree is iconic:

• This brings me to my next insight about how in the holy hell these structures were even built, as it is an unfathomable feat, likened to mysteries like ‘How do planes fly?’, or ‘How do ships float?.’ The Angkor temples were built by brute force from kings’ slaves who excavated stone and elephants who carried the materials from 60-100km away (which begs, why didn’t they just build the temples 60-100 km away? why all the transport? 🤷🏻‍♀️ ) As you could imagine, the building - at least the maintenance - continues today. Thankfully, we’ve moved beyond slavery to maintain the temples, but there are hundreds of thousands of humans contributing to the upkeep of Angkor through university programs, volunteerism, UNESCO, and local work crews. In the video below, I captured a crew from a university in South Korea. (I asked my guide, Sokpee, what they were talking about - the leader was talking to the crew about his concerns of the heat, ensuring that they were done by a certain time and that everyone was taking care of themselves. And they did a warm-up before they started working! I loved seeing the care they had for each other ❤️) -

One more thing … AI Angkor?

After touring the temples, I’ve been obsessed with the idea of an AI recreation of them. I would love to see what they looked like, painted in bright crimson and marigold, and the burial chambers adorned with the kings’ walnut-sized rubies and sapphires embedded in the walls. The deteriorated palette of stone grays and mossy greens has its charm, but it seems like the originally-decorated temples were a spectacle to behold. I found this “Virtual Angkor” project, but its not exactly what I had in mind. I’ll keep searching - please put links in the comments if you come across anything that resembles AI recreation of Angkor Wat.

My Angkor Photo Album

There are too many photos for me to put in this post, so I’ve put them all on a public Google Photo Album, which you can access here. Happy photo-gazing!

Part 2 (and maybe 3)

Here’s the teaser for the reflections on Cambodia I will continue in Part 2 -

• My time in Cambodia inspired some career introspection on how I could use my product leadership skills, knowledge, and superpowers to build products and business that prioritize human connection and wellness over wealth.

• I went on a really unique countryside bike tour that I can’t recommend highly enough if you are ever in Siem Reap. It gave me an up-front look at the beautiful Cambodian people and their life in the countryside.

• The universe also connected me with a bunch of people in Siem Reap. I am beginning to think of these strangers met along the way as my “travel companions.” More on this later.

Thank You for stopping by 🙏

A few years ago, I read a product management book called Radical Product Thinking by Radhika Dutt, which opened with an analysis of Singapore as a “product” rather than a country. The thesis: all products should be designed with the end experience in mind - solving a problem and doing it delightfully. While this isn’t radical for product management, it’s radical for how a country and government operate.

Imagine a nation designed around the needs of its inhabitants - one where interactions with public transport, international airports, and government offices create a feeling of actual joy. Where citizens rave about their government like fans of a great app. That’s Singapore.

I spent four days there this week, and I can confirm: Singapore is, indeed, a delightful product.

Staying in Chinatown

My reference point for Chinatown was Seattle’s - not exactly a destination neighborhood - so Singapore’s Chinatown wowed me. It may have been my favorite part of the city. I stayed at the BEAT 1932 hostel1 and wandered constantly, which is my preferred way to experience any city.

My feet led me to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, a trip highlight. I was pulled in by a waft of sandalwood incense rising from a large metal cauldron filled with offerings from hundreds of visitors - a moment that lit up my PM brain. The customer is part of creating the welcoming atmosphere. I continued inside to see the gold Maitreya Buddha, and felt immediately transported back to my first Buddhist temple experiences in Thailand in 2011 - that rush of tranquility, safety, and awe. The “admission fee” was an optional offering: candles and flowers ranging $5–20. A beautifully effortless sliding scale model. Whatever you give, you’re contributing to the experience - another PM note taken.

Afterward, I wandered more - getting lunch AND dessert, a ritual I'm allowing myself more and more. The pistachio-honeycomb cake and black sesame oat milk latte from Rise Bakehouse was its own kind of religious experience (sans Buddha).

My Quest for Urban Nature

Needing some earthy energy, I found Fort Canning Park on Google Maps and went. Walking in gave me a relief similar to entering the temple - the pungent smell of green, wild roosters, ancient carvings, strangler trees, and endless flora species. I’m getting better at noticing what moves me and just following it.

Singapore also offers what we PMs call “surprise and delight” - several genuinely high-quality experiences with zero admission fee. The Gardens by the Bay is the best example: a stunning mesh of technology and nature with an amusement-park feel, located near the Marina Bay Sands. You can wander for free, and the signage weaves together Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Malaysian cultural symbols across the gardens. I sprung the $14 for the Supertree Overlook skywalk and felt good about it - both the view and the contribution.

Singapore Wins in Innovation

The WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) measures innovation across 78 factors - not just patents and test scores, but technology investment, adoption, and socioeconomic impact. Singapore currently ranks #5 globally and has had the fastest rate of improvement of any nation on the list. Switzerland, Sweden, and the US still hold the top spots, but Singapore is closing the gap. See the diagram below that shows Singapore’s growing rank.

What makes Singapore’s innovation story compelling is how they define it. They get that the people using the technology are as essential to innovation as the technology itself. Going back to the product lens: they understand that a great product isn’t just built - it’s experienced.

No, it’s not perfect…

I heard you can go to jail for dropping gum on the ground, yet I watched people flick cigarette butts and saw pick-pocket warning signs in Chinatown. Fine. No product is bug-free.

My real disappointment was the Marina Bay Sands Skypark. The hotel itself is an architectural marvel - a 340m “ship” mounted on top of three 57-story curved towers, with a genuine How the f%k is that possible? energy. But the $48 observation deck experience? Crushingly lame. Tourists packed into a tiny area, sitting on the ground eating dried-out samosas and sad pizza slices, blocking every view.

Hot tip from my friend Justin, who’s lived in Singapore for five years: as you follow the signs toward the Observation Deck, just before you head outside, look left for the entrance to Ce La Vie, a rooftop bar and restaurant. Same views, dramatically better experience. Reservations recommended.

This is a general travel rule I keep reconfirming - the “touristy” experiences on Viator and Expedia are almost always the least pleasant way to see a new place. Tourists, as a group, are jet-lagged and focused on getting their money’s worth, which often translates to rudeness. In Singapore especially, the real charm is the Singaporean people - and you miss that entirely when you’re moving in tourist herds.

What Will Become of Future Singapore?

I'm excited to watch the next 20 years of innovation coming out of Singapore. If any nation is going to raise the global bar on what responsible, human-centered innovation looks like, my money's on Singapore. And I'm fully planning to be around in 50 years to see if they've maintained their standing as a great product. (100 years might be pushing it — but maybe they'll have solved longevity by then, too.)

To embrace this sabbatical, I need to be as all-in on the visceral pain of self-discovery as I am on the fun stuff, i.e. the travel. I’ve been back in NYC for the last week, before heading out on the next phase of my travels and, Friends, it has been a rough go for me. I have not bounced back from my illness as quickly as I’m accustomed to, and reflections on my retreat and experiences in Costa Rica have been hyper-vivid in my mind, bringing on a frisson that pulsates powerfully, urgently, and rawly in my heart and solar plexus and radiates out to my arms, my throat, my head, my lower abdomen, and down through my legs. I’m trying to describe that indescribable rawness of a mending and transforming heart.

I have cried every day since being home - in giant cathartic waves, in gentle teardrops that trickle down my cheeks unexpectedly, and out of a chokehold I put on myself during the profoundly loving conversations that I’ve had with so many friends. And while crying alone is a special and necessary kind of healing, it is the crying with friends that has made me realize that my heart is not broken right now. It is on the mend. The breaking already happened — over the course of years that I kept marching on, seeking the lesson to be learned and the skills to be gained, putting off the acknowledgement of the sadness I was feeling. I’ve allowed myself to be angry - because that seemed like the “right” reaction for a strong-minded woman - but never sad enough to allow myself to live through the grief. And it is all coming out now, as I have been clued into with my recent respiratory illnesses.

In a 9-to-5 life at a high-pressure job, what I’ve just described is classic depression, remedied by one of dozens of readily-prescribed anti-depressants. But in sabbatical life (which I have no experience navigating, mind you), I’m realizing that the only way out is through. It is my responsibility to my authentic self to do nothing with this feeling other than to feel it. And holy hell, it fucking sucks.

And yet - in this moment - I feel love. A deep, tender, yearning for true love. Not in the co-dependent way of needing a partner to carry part of the load for me, but in the need to live this entire feeling with other humans. And I am feeling this need met all around me, in so many moments:

• When a friend reaches out to hold my hand as I cry, recounting my thoughts from recent travels

• When I watch movies and shows that are written, acted, produced, and marketed with love, support, and honesty as the central themes

• When a friend texts me first thing in the morning to check on me

• When a friend makes me dinner and is more than content to just hang out - even if there are tears involved

• When a friend shows genuine interest in my life by taking a phone call to share her similar experiences, learnings, advice, resources

• When a friend reminds me that it’s not just the sabbatical and the sickness happening right now - my body is also in the middle of some serious hormonal shifting that wreaks all kinds of havoc, newly discovered on a daily basis

• When my aunts ask the most personal questions, that somehow always get to the heart of what I need to talk about, even when I don’t know what I need to get off my chest

• When my parents genuinely listen and ask questions out of curiosity and care, rather than ignorance or worry

• When my parents insist on a daily text from me while I’m traveling

• When a friend sends a random text to tell me that she’s thinking of me and I’m always with her through our matching tattoos

• When my sister tells me about acts of peace that are happening as we speak (i.e. the monks’ Peace Walk)

• When a group of women who I have known for less than a month send brief, beautiful, and bold messages of creativity and support to each other

• When someone I met only 2 weeks ago responds to an “I need your guidance” message from me with her own vulnerability and words that touch deeply - her words killed me and they are so beautiful that I want to share them with you here:

“One thing I’ve come to understand about heart pain is that even when it feels endless, it is not. The heart holds an incredible wisdom and capacity to heal, to soften, and to forgive all that life brings. You are walking such a profound path of transformation, my friend. Be so gentle with yourself. Surround yourself with nurturing touch, healing work, and anything that brings your spirit peace. Your soul is calling for deeper support and you are so worthy of receiving it.”

I could go on. These are all reminders to me that love is all around.

My wish for you is to reach out with love to someone this week - a friend, family member, colleague, or complete stranger. Smile, send a text that says “I miss you,” put your arm around them or rest your head on their shoulder, hold eye contact for longer than what feels natural. If these small vulnerabilities feel uncomfortable, know that this discomfort is because we are part of a broken system that does not readily enable or reward acts of kindness as we much as we do acts of commerce. But these small gestures are acts of love that, when done consistently in numbers, change our nature.

❤️ Sending You Love

I have been sick for 32 of the last 55 days. Nothing serious, just typical common cold symptoms - sore throat, congestion, slight fever, dry itchy throat, and cough. This is unusual for me. I am accustomed to being sick with a mild cold only once a year, and am one of the few people during flu season able to resist the “something going around.”

What gives? I've become a walking pharmacy - DayQuil for function, NyQuil for sleep, Mucinex for the rattling in my chest that sounds like my body is trying to tell me something I refuse to hear.

For years, I followed the pragmatic path: excel at the job, stay in the marriage, swallow the disappointment, take the vitamins, keep moving. Traditional. Socially acceptable. Slowly suffocating. Now, in this sabbatical year, I am stepping outside the box, leading with curiosity instead of traditional rules. This curiosity-led learning has revealed an insight about my pragmatism:

It is ONE way, but it is not the ONLY way.

Traditional vs. Alternative Explanations of My Endless Cold

With refreshed curiosity and open-mindedness, I’ve found explanations about my recent illness that profoundly resonate with me and also give me new hope in a way that my traditional views have not.

Western/traditional medicine may explain my current respiratory ailments as a result of my travel over the last 55 days:

• I’ve been on 8 planes, in 5 distinct and contrasting climates, in the close company of dozens of people from all over the world, in the middle of “flu season.”

While this is ONE explanation, but it is not the ONLY one.

Alternative mind-body medicine traditions may say this:

• Physical ailments cannot be separated from emotional states. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the lungs are the organ that stores grief and governs our ability to let go. A TCM practitioner who sees chronic respiratory issues will ask: What are you holding onto that you need to release? What are you grieving?

What haven't you been able to exhale?

From this philosophy, my body has been storing unprocessed grief, anger, and resentment that created energy blockages resulting in physiological stress to my respiratory system. And now that these stresses are able to be released, they are manifested as physical ailments in my lungs, nasal cavity, and throat.

There’s more. I told a friend about my recent psilocybin journey, she astutely picked up on my references to tension around my throat. In mind-body terms, throat ailments point to silenced voice - words swallowed to keep the peace. For years, I bit my tongue at work and in my marriage. My throat is now telling me that it remembers every time I chose silence over honesty. And it is saying, “Enough.”

Grief, anger, and resentment have been my chronic state of being for the last couple years - through a marriage where I felt unloved that resulted in divorce, and a demanding job where I felt systematically unrecognized and unappreciated.

Choosing the Antidote

Since I’ve been applying a Western mindset to my current colds, I’ve opted to attack them with a constant stream of DayQuil, NyQuil, Mucinex, Sudafed, nasal spray, Tylenol PM, Zinc, Vitamin C, and Vitamin B. While these antidotes have gotten me from point A to point B to point C on my travels, they have been unsuccessful in resolving the heart of the issue.

These kept me functional. They did not make me well.

Mind-body medicines - i.e. Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, somatic healing, energy healing, and metaphysical healing - advocate for very different antidotes for my cold:

• Compassionate self-inquiry to understand why I suppressed grief, anger, and resentment for so long, and developing affirmations to counteract them

• Breath work/Kundalini Yoga (what I did on my recent retreat)

• Yoga Nidra to tracking body sensations without interpretation

• Chakra clearing and Reiki to move stagnant energy in my body

• Meditation and visualization

And more importantly, these mind-body medicine beliefs stress prevention, in the form of:

• Letting go of what no longer serves me

• Taking in what nourishes me

• Examining the exchange between myself and my world (i.e. what energy am I putting out there, and therefore magnetizing back)

• Feeling worthy to take up space and breathe fully

• Productively expressing anger in real-time instead of storing it in my tissue

Spa Time in Southeast Asia, Here I Come!

While I most definitely hope that I kick my cold by the time I leave for Southeast Asia, I’m thankful to be traveling to a mecca for mind-body medicines. Some treatments that I will seek out to experience in my travels include:

• Traditional Chinese Medicine consultation in Singapore for a comprehensive non-Western assessment

• Bodywork to move energy, such as Khmer massage in Cambodia,

  Gua sha + cupping in Vietnam, Watsu (aquatic bodywork) in Indonesia

• Chakra clearing and breathwork in Indonesia

• Ayurvedic consultation and Shirodhara in Sri Lanka

Continuing to Build Mind-Body Knowledge

In researching various mind-body medicines, I also came across a bunch of books to add to my reading list. Here are the books I'll be reading between treatments:

• Heal Your Body by Louise Hay

• The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest

• Between Heaven and Earth by by Harriet Beinfield and Efrem Korngold

• Anything by Deepak Chopra

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

• The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté

• Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss

I don't know yet if breathwork in Bali or Shirodhara in Sri Lanka will cure what DayQuil and Mucinex couldn't. But I do know this: for three years I performed at the highest level while swallowing disappointment, anger, and grief. My body kept me going, but it’s now charging interest on the loan. I guess the challenge isn’t to kick this cold before my flight to Singapore. The challenge is to finally let go of what's been stuck in my body for too long - the recognition I craved but never received, the love that starved me, and all the words I should have said but swallowed instead.

🧐 I’m Curious

• What are your experiences with Eastern and Metaphysical medicines and treatments?

• What additional resources do you recommend I explore?

Please leave comments or send me a DM.

Thanks for being here 🙏 Onward!

I want to inhale the humidity, the sea, the blue sky, and the thin air.

I want to suck all of the emerald elixir from the jewel that is the jungle and fill my body with it, drowning my heart, my lungs, my belly, my pelvis, and my vagina. Overflowing into my legs, slow and thick like honey.

I want to take walks on a long stretch of beach that morphs over distance and time, with my moods.

I want a place to flourish, to commune, and to isolate, with papaya to soothe my gut and pineapple to heal my blood.

I want a home that welcomes family, friends, and strangers.

I want a community to serve, to lead, to mother, to create.

I want an Art Camp with drawers of paints, markers, pencils, and pastels. Drawers of unmade treasures from construction paper, tissue paper, and magazine scraps. From a closet of knives, jigsaws, bolts and screws, protractors and compasses, hammers and nails.

I want to build a rain shower overlooking a landscape of awe-inspiring jagged mountains.

I want to stock the shower with soaps that smell like a magic forest of cedar, sandalwood, lemongrass, pine, eucalyptus, rosemary, and lavender; where the pipes and the plumbing look like lush vines. (It’s cool that vine and vein are pretty much the same word.)

I want a playground of trails, up and down mountains that carry my Ghost and my Devotion, my Speedgoats and my Peregrines. Muddy trails where I lose myself, ravish in my suffering, and then convene with my most rawest most beautifullest self.

I want a home filled with collections, curios, and heart-born creations.

Weavings, paintings, doodles, sketches, pencil charcoal and black marker drawings that are complete and perfect, just as they are. Black and white and brave enough to be colorless, and yet hold fearless combinations of colors that take up space.

I want a place where my guitar will be cradled and accompanied by the sounds of birds and bugs and night creatures.

I want warm cuddles from animal friends. Dogs, cats, chickens. Goats? Pigs?

I want guidance from trees that protect, shelter, clean the air, grow, shed, and share their centuries of wisdom. That provide hope, health, prosperity, safety, and strategy. That tell me when to move, when to stop, where to turn to left, or right, or - the scariest of all - when to turn around, and to say: “This is not working for me.”

Those failures - No, those lessons - tattooed on me as a scar, tell a story that only I can understand.

I want a partner - my consult, my champion, my playmate, my support, my second set of hands. My 1+1 = 3, or 5, or 800 gajillion.

And when the inevitable storms cause erosion and carry in debris that blocks our flow, and the runoff starts to destroy our forest, we will say:

“Stop. Come back. These rocks are too much for me to carry on my own. This water is too powerful for me to redirect. I need you to help me save this forest.

We can rebuild the river. We can clear the sticks and the leaves and the rocks and the carcasses of the casualties. We can make it right again. But we have to do it together. It is a two-person job.”

This is all I want. That’s it. Only all of it. Is that too much to ask?