IMPACT

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12). Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is a gift. It is a marvel when you can bask in its light as you look backward toward the vast expanse you had arrived from. We show people the easiest way to make it through a crowd at a concert. We make space so people can feel the music. Guides. A guide for the tens of thousands at night who go out is often a DJ. Time for a small story. A local DJ hides a song away from the world that they’ve discovered. It’s made people cry. It’s brought people together. It’s opened up their eyes to ways they could change. This gem might be a song that would set a soul free if heard alone in their room. It might be a record that would take feet and remove fear through its beat. Perhaps this song...

Twenty-three switchbacks between Lake Serene and us. The trail comes into a small plain of sorts, a million shades of green interlaced with branches teeming with leaves and wildlife. Trees were growing out of other trees — nature helping itself advance and thrive. A friend of mine had invited me to get out of the city. I increased our ardent pace and didn’t feel any drudge of the ascent. I wanted to feel the chilling water through my muscles and bones. Reaching the summit, I hesitated to dive into the clear water ahead. It was not due to the temperature but a new obstacle I was not accustomed to handling. A curve-sloped rock face that touched the waterline made it difficult to conceptualize how I would get out of the water. There was nervous excitement. My friend dove in first and showed m...

At the intersection of 11th and Fir, I refined my definition of what it means to be liberated as I closed the front door on a rental Chevy Tahoe, tinted windows and black paint dusted by the trails we had traversed. That weekend, I discovered a new source of inspiration to further the excavation of my soul and the connection between us all. The Gorge Amphitheatre was formed by a natural catastrophe almost 50,000 years ago when an ice dam ruptured in what is regarded today as Canada.  A rush coursed across plains, eroding the landscape with ferocity and grace that boomed beyond any human-designed tower of speakers. The natural process of the world carved out a home for what would become known as one of the most beautiful natural venues in North America. Water into wine, in 1980, hundre...

Thirty-two years it took for me to trust myself. A sliding glass door to an inherent truth–value in my existence. “Stepping into my first dance-music concert was the beginning of opening that door,” I thought to myself, as I walked the grounds of Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island. Standing amongst countless variations of flora and trees, my dad seemed to recite their names by memory. Hundreds of acres of meticulously designed gardens represented their natural surroundings while defining their uniqueness. It was the vision of someone who built an enterprise in timber, trusting themselves to give the community a treasure of reverence. The reserve was a place outside normalcy that ratified reality, like a music festival. I stood still for a second and closed my eyes. Inside of me was both ...

Previously, I discussed how making time to “date” ourselves can pave the way for increasing our emotional intelligence. It is a key to understanding “you” as a human. Humans are driven by emotion. Heightening your emotional intelligence improves your ability to respond to different situations optimally. To know why you feel the way you do, without mystery; meaningful action to better your well-being can take place with clarity. Once you’ve been dating yourself for a while, you begin to understand the tiny nuances and narratives in your mind that cause subsects of the emotion you are feeling. Suddenly, you identify the core reasons why you feel the way you are from a trauma-informed perspective that sees the origins of the moment you are in. You understand your triggers, the characters in y...