Have Our Online Lives Eroded Our Communities?
And can we bring ourselves back from collapse?
Latest
If FEMA Goes Away, Could Communities Step Up?
Three books offer a vision of future disaster recovery – if we can come together in mutuality
If Disaster Response Shifts to States, How Can Communities Respond?
Waiting for rescue probably isn't sustainable for any of us
Organizing in Community, Also When You Have No Experience
Stepping up isn't just about collecting training or experience. It's also about healing past trauma.
Taking Experiential Training When You Have No Experience
Learning as much as I can from people who know a lot better than I do... and my own instincts
Twenty Years After I Wrote About Emergency Management Topics, Where Do Things Stand Now?
The more things change, the more they've stayed the same, only maybe with more political urgency
What's a Girl Have to Do to Get Into a Graduate Program?
There's explaining why I want to get this degree. Then there's bleeding on the page.
How I Updated My Resume to Move Towards a Brand New Career
The way I was able to see and appreciate just how much I've accomplished over the years, and to frame it all in a way that felt the most authentic to me
Following the Action Steps in Navigating the Chaos
Now that I'm rebuilding my entire life from the ground up, I'm more feeling my way along than planning my steps
Leadership, Trauma, and the Space for Connection Between Them
Rarely can we admit that our carefully crafted structures may not always be the right ones for the circumstances
What Does Intentional, Human Centered Disaster Response Look Like?
Nothing much can get done unless and until people feel safe, seen and heard before they can act effectively.
The Importance of Human Response to Systemic Failure
Trauma is arguably a part of life, but also arguably, hardship can be prevented from ever becoming trauma by loving care and compassion
healing
A reintroduction
We don't talk about what happens or how to manage when the losses keep piling on
community
Five Years After My Dystopian Fiction Was Published, I’m Afraid It Might Actually Be Coming True
What I never expected in writing to process my layoffs as well as my privilege
community
Finding Community and Building Solidarity for Socially Exhausted Introverts*
If you're paying attention, you find the keys to all your future interactions
community
How to Heal When Life Feels Like the Environment That Harmed You
Regaining our sense of agency is another way of saying regaining the sense of power we lost in the environment(s) that harmed us
community
Asking for Help When You Don’t Conform to Social Expectations
Here’s what “trans rights are human rights” really means -- for everyone
child-abuse
To Protect Our Children, We First Need to Heal Ourselves
The predatory men I engaged with recognized I was starved for connection. Our support structures need to realize this, too.
child-abuse
How American Hero Narratives Keep Us From Solving Social Crises — or Healing
We insist on “rescuer” narratives at the expense of developing agency for our children and ourselves
child-abuse
5 Things “Stranger Danger” Education Got Wrong, and 1 It Gets Right
How emphasizing “stranger danger” hamstrung a generation’s understanding of threats to child safety
child-abuse
How Generational Trauma Compounds Child and Intimate Partner Abuse
Learning to fit in and not make waves might have been considered a form of “practice” for adult womanhood. We paper over our needs, preferences, and sense of autonomy when we learn they’re antithetical to our survival.
child-abuse
Why It’s More Critical Now Than Ever to Tell Our “Not That Bad” Abuse Stories
Knowing what it looks, sounds, acts, and feels like before it becomes criminal can help us heal — and know what to look for. Our future may depend on it.
community
Asking for Help When Help Feels Few and Far Between
At a time when I feel less fearful of healthy confrontation, others seem to fear it from me — a sign of a deeply dysfunctional society
Asking for Help When You Can’t Pull Back Any Longer
Sharing from survival mode introduces power differentials that can feel difficult to get out from under, but which are, ultimately, temporary.