Aurora * Embracing Intensity (@auroraremember)

It’s amazing how much energy we can put into supporting other people while barely recognizing that we deserve some of that same care & attention. 🧡 There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be helpful, valued, or included. Connection & community are important. But when our sense of belonging depends…

Sometimes the easiest way to get out of our heads is to spend a little time paying attention to what’s happening around us. 🍂 There’s something grounding about noticing the little changes in the natural world. The way the light shifts throughout the day, what’s blooming or fading in the garden, or…

There’s a big difference between wanting to be seen & understood and making our sense of worth dependent on whether other people recognize it. 🧡 This week in the Embracing Intensity community, Cosette Leary is joining us for a conversation on From Surviving to Thriving. We’ll be exploring what it…

There’s something comforting about having little things to look forward to that don’t require a lot of planning or decision-making. For neurodivergent brains especially, finding the right balance between novelty & familiarity can make a big difference in how we manage our energy. 🕯️ Not every…

Ten years of Embracing Intensity! It’s been quite a journey, and one of the most meaningful parts has been the friendships and connections that have grown out of this podcast. 🎉 For my 10th anniversary episode, I invited past guests, friends, and community members to reflect on what embracing…

I think one of the biggest shifts in my burnout recovery has been learning to stop measuring everything by what it accomplishes. For so long, even the things we enjoy can become another opportunity for self-improvement, productivity, or working toward some bigger goal. 🍂 But sometimes the value of…

TEN YEARS of Embracing Intensity! 🎉 This Saturday marks a full decade since I launched the podcast, and I’d love to celebrate by hearing from the people who have been part of the journey along the way. 🧡 Whether you’ve been following since the beginning or only recently found us, I’d love to hear…

I fully expected to go off and do my own thing today, but after cake they asked, “What do WE want to do tomorrow?” 😝 I’ll be taking some pictures with them at the secret garden, then wandering the grounds while they do their own thing. 🥰

Life has been feeling pretty heavy lately, which makes finding opportunities for play and laughter feel especially valuable. 🎈 Tomorrow, Angel Ocasio is joining us in the Embracing Intensity Community to explore Finding Humor in the Mundane—drawing from decades of experience in physical comedy…

I’m not saying intent doesn’t matter. But there’s usually a much wider range of possible explanations for someone’s behavior than internet relationship discourse would have us believe. 🤔 If we genuinely want to understand what’s going on for someone, we can ASK. And we can leave room for curiosity…

Something not working doesn’t mean the effort was wasted. 🧪 In my latest Embracing Intensity episode, longtime performer and comedy teacher Angel Ocasio talks about experimentation as part of the creative process. When something doesn’t land, you’ve learned something. You can adjust, pull back…

Purpose doesn’t always look like a dramatic life change. Sometimes it’s much smaller than that — choosing work that reflects your values, making something you care about, contributing to a cause that matters to you, or finding meaning in the ordinary things you already do. 🧭 Hard things can still…

Angel Ocasio has a way of finding humor in everyday experiences without dismissing what’s actually happening. 🦋 This week he’s joining us in the Embracing Intensity community to talk about Finding Humor in the Mundane—using humor, play & perspective to find a little more lightness in ordinary…

#onthisday

You can have enough sleep, enough downtime, even enough time alone… and still feel like something is missing. Sometimes the thing we’re depleted from isn’t effort. It’s disconnection. 🌌 Feeling connected to something bigger than our daily responsibilities can bring a different kind of energy back…

There’s nothing quite like trying to have a peaceful evening after getting a tooth pulled and somehow ending up with an eventful but not so relaxing bath! 🛁😵‍💫 So there I was, dripping water and tracking it all over the house, turning on fans, increasingly annoyed, while the smoke detector…

Two more days till I can finally get my tooth pulled. 😬 I’m a little miffed at the nonchalance of the dentists who told me how long it was going to be between appointments, with no suggestions for how to make it through in the meantime. 🦷 I was pretty proud of myself for keeping things contained…

There’s a particular kind of relief in realizing you don’t have to turn everything you’re feeling into a problem that needs to be solved. 🧡 Sometimes what helps most is having another person stay with you in the experience long enough for you to feel understood. No advice. No reframing. No…

I feel incredibly lucky that Brendan Mahan came to talk with the Embracing Intensity community about the Wall of Awful years ago, because it’s one of those concepts that immediately gives language to something SO many ADHDers experience. 🧱 This week, Brendan came back to talk about the Wall of…

Asking for help can be a lot of work before anyone has actually helped. 🧩 First you have to figure out what you need. Then you have to figure out what kind of help would actually be useful, who to ask, and how to explain it. For neurodivergent folks, that upfront effort can become its own barrier…

I love the kinds of connection that give us something to DO together. 🧡 Not every meaningful relationship needs to be built through deep conversations or hours spent analyzing our inner worlds. Sometimes connection grows because we keep showing up to sing together, make things, play games, cook…

There’s a big difference between using cognitive testing as ONE source of information and treating a single Full Scale IQ score as the definitive measure of giftedness. 🧠 One of the things I wish more people understood about twice exceptionality is that unevenness is often part of the picture…

I think we lose something when we treat friendship as the relationship you settle for when romance isn’t available. Friendship can be intimate, meaningful, energizing, supportive, playful, or deeply important in its own right. It doesn’t need to be a stepping stone to something else to have value…

Once upon a time, I went TEN YEARS without going to the dentist. 😬 I was fortunate back then to have abnormally healthy teeth, so somehow I got away with it. As I get older, though, going years between appointments is definitely taking its toll. 🦷 I’ve become way too good at ignoring my own…

Being alone and feeling lonely are two very different experiences. When solitude is intentional, it can give us space to hear our own thoughts again, follow our own rhythms, and decide what we actually have energy for without anyone else’s needs in the equation. 🧡 For people who need a lot of…

Some connections become a lot less draining when we stop relating to their potential and start relating to what they actually are. 🧡 That doesn’t mean lowering our standards or accepting relationships where the effort is consistently one-sided. It means being honest about what a particular person…

Talent doesn’t have to mean being the best at something. Sometimes it’s something you’ve practiced for years, something you haven’t done in ages, or something you enjoy enough that you finally stopped worrying about whether you’re “good” at it. 🧡 For our final Summer Camp Scavenger Hunt challenge…

There’s a big difference between understanding why something is hard and turning that struggle into a judgment about who someone is. 🧡 That’s a distinction Brendan Mahan brings so well to conversations about ADHD, motivation, and the Wall of Awful. Tomorrow, he’s joining us in the Embracing…

Food can be nourishing in a lot of different ways. It can give us energy, connect us to our culture or family, remind us of a particular time in our lives, or give us something new to experiment with in the kitchen. 🍓 And what feels good doesn’t have to look the same for everyone. Part of…

Creativity gets a lot more fun when the goal isn’t to make something “good.” 🧡 Sometimes the most energizing part is getting absorbed in the process, trying something with your hands, and giving yourself permission to be a beginner again. There’s something freeing about making things that don’t…