Clarity On Fire

Last month during the side chat where we processed 2021, I shared that one of the big lessons I got hit with (and am very much still trying to learn) was about pain. Namely, that just because you’re in pain doesn’t mean that something is going wrong.    The more Kristen and I mulled that one over, the more obvious it became that we needed to have a whole separate conversation about it to do the thing justice!    So, in this month’s side chat we’re getting into …   When is pain necessary vs. unnecessary? Where’s the line between pain, suffering, and plain old torture? And how do we end up torturing ourselves without meaning to? How to use pain and turmoil as a catalyst for growth, rather than end up stagnating in it.   Come leave a comment after you’ve listened to share how this one resonated with you!   1:1 COACHING IS BACK!   If some of the pain you’ve found yourself in lately is of the “confused, overwhelmed, lost, no idea what to do with myself” variety, then you’re in luck, because …    One-on-one coach

Francine Mends’ life is unrecognizable from several years ago when she was feeling trapped and miserable in her highly specialized field of neuroradiology, with no escape in sight.   After a series of personal tragedies that emotionally shook her to her core, she decided to finally make some serious (and scary) changes in her life, including doing something she never imagined she could do: take a year-long sabbatical from work.    Since then, she’s quit her job, lived internationally, worked as a digital nomad, and started her own business.    Listen in to this replay interview with a normal person from 2019 that’s even more relevant now than it was back then! You’ll hear Kristen and Francine talk about…   How she broke through her self-imposed limitations to finally make big life changes that she never imagined she could make. How she was able to take a year-long sabbatical from work to travel the world and get right within herself. Once she realized she wanted to work for herself, how she figured out what

Welcome to another episode of Dear Krachel, our monthly advice segment where we answer listener questions about life, career, relationships, existential angst, and anything that helps you become a more whole, fulfilled version of yourself.   This month we answered questions from:   Higher Thoughts, who’s in a “mental breakdown, rock bottom, everything spiral out of control” phase … how do they regain focus and positivity when everything is falling apart? Tasha, whose passion is cooking and whose dream is to open her own restaurant. But she’s done research into what it takes to become a chef, and the low pay, long hours, and weekend work is making her think again. Should she pursue her dream anyway and ignore the disadvantages? Loving Shiny Objects, who can’t seem to stop bouncing from one amazing opportunity to the next, often before they finish the last thing they started. How do they tame their incessant fascination with everything and actually decide what to pursue?   We also got an update from Murphy’s

First things first – Happy birthday to Kristen!! We know how I feel about birthdays, but Kristen is the Tiny Tim to my Ebenezer Scrooge, so feel free to celebrate her and congratulate her on getting older as much as you want today!   And if you want a deal that even Scrooge couldn’t find fault with, then by all means, scroll down.   Now, allow us to move on to the last podcast episode of this year! And what a year it’s been, hmm? How ever will we process it? Or prepare for 2022? I mean, aren’t most of us still trying to process 2020?!    So, listen in as we share two questions to help you process what you learned this year, and set you up for more growth in the year ahead. We talked about:   Giving yourself credit for not just what you learned, but what you actually mastered in the last year. Pinpointing what you still need to work on in the year ahead. And plenty of stories of what we mastered, what we’re still struggling to integrate, and how we intend to move ahead in 2022.   This one will give you a lot

Six months ago, my friend (and former client) Alex and I embarked on an adventure: Me quitting a part-time gig, and her quitting a full-time job.    We had one thing in common: No real plans for what happened next.   It was the start of what’s become a very interesting, surprising, rollercoaster of a journey … and I thought I’d let you in on it.   Alex and I originally recorded this episode for the Clarity on Fire Patreon Community, but today we’re gifting it to all of you (happy holidays, I guess?!). In fact, it’s the first episode in a series — every 3 months, we get back together and talk about how the most recent leg of the quitting journey has gone.   So, listen in as Alex and I get into…   How to sense when it’s time to cut your losses. Why sometimes the only way you can get something better is by quitting before you have another job lined up. The inevitable guilt and freak-outs that happen after making this huge of a decision, and how to navigate those big feelings. Our ideas for what we thought we’d

Welcome to another episode of Dear Krachel, our monthly advice segment where we answer listener questions about life, career, relationships, existential angst, and anything that helps you become a more whole, fulfilled version of yourself.   This month we answered questions from:   Dates-ed & Confused, who’s been dating a guy for a few weeks and is already thinking about ending it. But are their reasons good enough? So much of the relationship advice floating around says no person is perfect. How do you tell what’s reasonable to expect and what isn’t, and whose advice do we actually listen to?  Holly, who just got a job in a very niche field. She knows she’s being underpaid, but is finding it hard to do research about how much to ask for. How can she figure out what she’s worth and make a good case, when there’s so little information to go off of? Second Bestie, who’s feeling down about the fact that the person she calls her best friend wouldn’t say the same about her, in return. How can she make peace w

Honing your intuition is one of the most important parts of getting clear on who you are, what you want, and where you’re headed. Without it, you’re like a GPS with bad reception — you’re not going to get very clear guidance, and you may end up driving in circles.   But honing your intuition can take time and practice, so sometimes it’s nice to piggyback off of another GPS you can trust, even if it’s just long enough to check your directions.    So, in that spirit, here’s another Message from the Universe episode for you! Tune in if you need a little clarity, guidance, or just a fun pick-me-up.    Today we pulled a few cards from our usual favorite, The Enchanted Map deck by Colette Baron-Reid. One or all has a message for you — come find out what it is!    We mixed things up and got … interesting results. You’re going to want to hear this one.

Lately we’ve had multiple clients share a worrying pattern. It goes something like, “I can’t stop ruminating on this awful experience I had at work. I obsess over it constantly. It’s really affecting my mood, energy, performance, and confidence.”   If you’ve had a bad romantic relationship—maybe an ex who said nasty things to your face, or who would scream at you at the drop of a hat, or who neglected your needs and then gaslit you into thinking you were crazy for having needs in the first place—you get to call it what it is. Namely, unhealthy, toxic, traumatic, even abusive.   But when these things happen at work (and they do happen at work, all the time) … we often don’t call it any of that. We often think we aren’t allowed to have feelings, at all, because we’re at work.   So, in this month’s brand-new Side Chat, Kristen and I are getting frank and talking about workplace trauma, namely:   What “counts” as traumatic when you’re in a work setting Signs that you might be struggling with some form of work tr

Hello again, friends! I’ve returned with more Forever Alone … but not Season 2 (yet). Instead, I’m here with something special.    Most of what I shared in Season 1 was very thorough. I said exactly what I needed to say, and have nothing left to add. But there’s one thing I wasn’t able to go into enough depth about, because I had too much to say and my opinions weren’t essential to the story—and that’s what I’m here to dig into now.   So, join in for this bonus chapter in which I don my coaching hat (beribboned bonnet? jaunty fascinator?) and dole out opinions, advice, and general musings on how (and whether) to use dating apps without losing your mind.   As always, I love hearing all of your comments and reactions, so after you’ve listened, leave a comment here or DM me on the Forever Alone site.   NEW TO FOREVER ALONE?   If you have no idea what I’m talking about, never fear! Forever Alone: One millennial’s half-agonizing, half-hopeful journey through singledom is my 7-part miniseries podcast I released bac

Welcome to another episode of Dear Krachel, our monthly advice segment where we answer listener questions about life, career, relationships, existential angst, and anything that helps you become a more whole, fulfilled version of yourself.   This month we answered questions from:   Dee, who recently went through a tough breakup with someone that she thought was “it.” She’s someone who’s cautious and does her vetting before getting into a relationship, so she’s upset about not seeing this coming. How can she trust herself in the future when she gets a “knowing” about someone? Chelsea, who serves us up a philosophical question about … questions. Namely, how to ask good ones. If finding life’s big answers depends on asking good questions, then how do we ask questions that actually get us somewhere, rather than spiraling into anxiety loops and making no progress?  Serena, who’s been looking for a job for a while, and recently got offered an 8/10. It’s OK, but it’s not exactly what she wants … and now she feels g

Calling all fellow bookworms, library nerds, and general lovers of literature — it’s time for another book club episode of the podcast!    Whenever there are five Fridays in a month we devote the extra Friday to a book that we can’t get enough of. In this episode we’re diving into Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most by Greg McKeown, author of the mega-bestseller Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.   We’ve got a LOT to say about this book. If you’ve been following along with the episodes we’ve been doing this year about masculine & feminine energy, you’re going to find this conversation very interesting!   Listen in as we dive into…   How to achieve more because you’re at ease (not in spite of it) Strategies for making it easier to focus, making critical work easier to do, and getting the highest return on the least possible effort Why it’s your responsibility to relax, and why you’ll still get better results (and enjoy your life way more) when you slow down     After you listen

At the very end of Chapter 7 of Forever Alone (tiny spoiler alert, I guess!), I said:   We don’t all have the same amount of ambition in every area of life, and that’s OK. Some of us are perfectly content with a small, modest townhouse: Comfortable, safe, not flashy, but warm and homey. Honestly, my career ambitions are probably somewhere in that realm—it matters to me, but it’s not where my big, big dreams have ever lived. But man, I’ve got skyscraper ambitions when it comes to love. And I’m not talking some ugly thing that doesn’t even win skyscraper of the year award in Architectural Digest. It’s gotta be beautiful and impressive and very much larger than life. I think I might have more ambition in love than just about anyone I know.   I’ve been sitting with this and thinking about it so much that I decided it deserved more than just a single paragraph of attention.   So, in this month’s brand-new Side Chat Kristen and I are digging into …   How Passion Profiles show up outside of your career—in relations

I’m as guilty as anyone else of saying that I value creativity, but then as soon as life gets busy, it’s the first thing I throw on the backburner.    It doesn’t help that many of us got the message (from our parents, from society at large, from wherever) that creativity in adulthood is kind of frivolous and should, at best, be relegated to a side hobby.    Whenever I find myself ignoring my creative side in favor of more “productive” things, I try to remember this quote from Brené Brown:   “Creativity has to be cultivated. Unused creativity is not benign. It metastasizes. It turns into grief, rage, judgment, sorrow, shame. We are by nature creative. It gets lost along the way.” Kara Guilfoyle can attest to just how true this is! After years of working herself into exhaustion in the intense, fast-paced, emotionally exhausting medical world, she finally realized that the best way to heal her burnout and make her feel whole again was to reignite her artistic side.    Listen in as I ask Kara about her evolving

Welcome to another episode of Dear Krachel, our monthly advice segment where we answer listener questions about life, career, relationships, existential angst, and anything that helps you become a more whole, fulfilled version of yourself.   This month we answered questions from:   Jane, who wants to encourage more feminine energy in the workplace, but is running up against an issue. How do you communicate the idea of feminine energy to male co-workers who don’t get it, and who might find their masculinity threatened? Yuba Love, who quit her old job, moved to a new state, a recently started a new job in a completely different industry. But, in taking the job, she also took a BIG step backward in salary. How can she silence the inner critic that’s mad she isn’t making more money, and see this new job as the potential big opportunity it is?    We also got an update from Tribe of One, a listener whose question we answered back in November 2020. Find out what happened when she confronted those important people

Well, dear listener, we’ve arrived. The grand finale (and I do mean grand … this one’s a full HOUR long) of Forever Alone! Thank you for joining me on this journey. It’s truly been one of the most fun, gratifying things I’ve ever done. I might be prouder of this seven-part series than anything I’ve ever done with Clarity on Fire! (But don’t tell Kristen).   So, tune in one more time and enjoy Chapter 7: Stories & Skyscrapers, in which I…   Consult with a fictional Board of Directors, Download Hinge, Go on a date with a hot man, And finally answer the question I posed at the beginning of this tale.   I’ve loved hearing all of your comments and reactions, so after you’ve listened, leave a comment here or DM me on the Forever Alone site.   And if you’ve listened to this whole series and haven’t left a 5-star rating and review, it would delight me to no end if you’d take a minute and do that today!   As always, you can find Forever Alone on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon, YouTube, am

Honing your intuition is one of the most important parts of getting clear on who you are, what you want, and where you’re headed. Without it, you’re like a GPS with bad reception — you’re not going to get very clear guidance, and you may end up driving in circles.   But honing your intuition can take time and practice, so sometimes it’s nice to piggyback off of another GPS you can trust, even if it’s just long enough to check your directions.    So, in that spirit, here’s another Message from the Universe episode for you! Tune in if you need a little clarity, guidance, or just a fun pick-me-up.    Today we pulled a few cards from The Enchanted Map deck by Colette Baron-Reid. One or all has a message for you — come find out what it is!    This one made us SCREAM, so definitely come find out why.

If you can believe it, we’ve reached the penultimate chapter of Forever Alone! And it wouldn’t be an epic story if there wasn’t an intense ramp up to a big season finale, hmm?   So, tune in to Chapter 6: Covid & Copping out, in which I …   Get called out so hard I break out in cold sweats Offend people at a wedding Surprise myself by getting a job And rant like my life depends on it   You know I love hearing your reactions, so after you’ve listened, leave a comment here or DM me on the Forever Alone site!   As always, this episode is available on the Clarity on Fire podcast feed, but I’d love it if you subscribed to the Forever Alone feed and listened there!    And of course, if you haven’t yet, It would mean a lot if you’d leave a 5-star rating and review! You can find Forever Alone on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon, YouTube, among other places you listen to podcasts.   1:1 COACHING ENROLLMENT IS HAPPENING NOW!   We’re accepting sign-up forms for new clients now through Wednesda

I’ve gotta admit, there’s something fun about those “what do you eat in a day?” or “what’s in your bag?” videos that you’ll often find celebrities doing on YouTube. Of course, I highly doubt what’s being curated for YouTube is real — their bags are probably a whole lot more embarrassing, and their food choices more realistic, than what you see online.   Kristen and I are about as far from celebrities as you can get, but there can still be a bit of a ~mystique~ around people you don’t really know, IRL. In the past 3.5 years, we’ve published over 300 episodes of the podcast! And if you didn’t know any better, you might think that we’ve somehow managed to integrate every bit of wisdom from each of them.     But much like a famous chef with a glossy cookbook who rarely makes those meals (and eats oatmeal for breakfast every day instead), we definitely aren’t always walking our talk!   So, in this month’s brand-new Side Chat, we’re getting into what the two of us actually do every day for our mental health. We got

If you’re all caught up with Forever Alone, what did you think about all those crazy Universe stories I told last week??   This week we’re on to Chapter 5: Highlands & High Expectations, in which I…   Encounter a hot Scottish man on a train, Zero in on a future mother-in-law, Break up with the Universe, And finally drag myself to therapy.   This might be my favorite episode so far, so if you want to share your reaction with me, you can leave a comment here or DM me on the Forever Alone site!   As always, this episode is available on the Clarity on Fire podcast feed, but I’d love it if you subscribed to the Forever Alone feed and listened there!    And of course, if you haven’t yet, It would mean a lot if you’d leave a 5-star rating and review! You can find Forever Alone on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon, YouTube, among other places you listen to podcasts.   1:1 COACHING IS COMING BACK!   One-on-one coaching will be open for enrollment again this Friday, September 17! A few pointe

I once told Kristen, and I quote, “I’d rather my life be harder and more complicated than necessary, but still happen on my terms, rather than it be easier but not go the way I’ve envisioned.” Charming, I know!   What can I say? I’m a Hermione-Granger type know-it-all with a penchant to grab onto something and insist that I know when, how, and why it’s supposed to happen … and then get indignant when it doesn’t go my, naturally.   Wouldn’t it be easier to, I dunno, release control over the unknown and chill out? Yes! It would. But that’s not as easy as it sounds, which is why I’ll never stop having conversations about how to let go—I need constant reminders. And I suspect you do, too.   So, in this month’s brand-new interview with a normal person, tune in as I chat with Diana, a former-client-turned-friend, about how she learned to let go of control. We got into…   Why Diana was tripping up on how to put the concept of feminine energy into practice. How an early experience with chronic illness created her pa