Crushed

I wasn't prepared for last week. I'm not sure there's any way I could have been.

I wasn’t prepared for last week. I’m not sure there’s any way I could have been.

Last Monday, two boys (17 and 19 years old) drove to the Islamic Center of San Diego and opened fire. Teachers, clergy, and children were inside the building, and three men lost their lives running toward the danger to prevent a bigger massacre. The two shooters later killed themselves in a murder-suicide. I can’t wrap my head around any of it.

I live in this city. Some of the people grieving the three men who died are people I know, and even where that distance exists, it doesn’t really. Grief moves through a community before you’ve had a chance to name it.

Tuesday, Derrick and I hosted coach Kate Heard on our podcast, Let’s Play. Kate ended up coaching me on the episode. Her coaching is surgical and unrelenting; she will not let you escape what you need to know, and she is completely okay with pissing you off to get you there. At one point I told her: “You know I love you, and f**k you, Kate.” I asked for that session; I just wasn’t expecting the heat. Knowing I’m planning to eventually make that episode public added another layer to the experience.

That evening, I attended a vigil with several thousand other San Diegans. Hatred and violence, however loudly stoked by the current administration and profited from by certain media and influencers, are not how we want to live here.

Wednesday I came up for air, briefly.

Thursday and Friday I sat with clients navigating serious personal crises.

The weekend brought friends in crisis, safety concerns that brought me right back to what it felt like to be on call as a psychologist; that feeling of being on call, on point, and at the same time completely helpless to make people do what you know they need to do to be safe.

The training doesn’t do it for you.

I have spent the better part of my adult professional life studying what happens inside people. First as a clinician, then as a coach, always as someone who thinks carefully about the relationship between internal state and external behavior. I am not new to this work, and I am not new to hard weeks.

Despite it all, I had to make myself slow down, and constantly remind myself to match my output to my energy levels (emotional, physical, psychological).

I urge the people I work with to build practices that allow them to actually check in with themselves, to notice what they’re feeling, understand what it means, and do something with that information. Not because it’s good coaching advice, but because the leaders I’ve watched sustain themselves through genuine pressure are the ones who treat this as non-negotiable. Last week was a reminder that you teach most what you need to learn.

What the practices are actually for.

Self-reflection isn’t about feeling better. It’s about functioning clearly.

Any time I slow down and actually observe and fully experience what I am carrying, I notice a few things. I often notice frustration, irritation, and resentment before I experience the real emotions: helplessness, boredom, anxiety, and over-commitment.

Caretaking, or as I like to call it, stepping into Dr. Wall, is second nature for me; but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to show up, for me or for others.

Slowing down doesn’t just help me clock my feelings, it helps me capture patterns and adjust as needed.

That combination of awareness and insight is powerful and transformative. What creates leverage is recognizing the emotional data, decoding what it actually means, deciding what can be done with it, and then actually doing the thing. In my case, that meant turning down the volume on the week, pulling back from some of what I was holding for others, and remembering that the first person who needs tending is me.

Simple to say. Genuinely hard to do when the grooves run deep.

The question I’ll leave you with.

You had a week last week too. Probably not identical to mine, but your own version of accumulation: the professional pressure, the personal weight, the things that land and stack without announcement.

Do you have the space, the stillness, the practice to even know what you’re carrying?

Practices of self-reflection are not a luxury for leaders operating at your level; they are load-bearing. Without them, you’re making high-stakes decisions from a state you can’t see clearly, reacting from patterns you haven’t examined, and burning through reserves you don’t realize are depleting. And if you’re one of my clients reading this thinking “she’s talking about me!” you’re right, I am.

The work of building that practice is something I take seriously with every client I work with. But it starts with a decision: knowing what’s happening inside you is not optional.

I hope you’ll make it.

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P.S. We are beginning to interview leaders who want to join Elite Executive this Fall. If you’ve been curious about the program or have been wondering whether it’s for you, click here and let’s talk.

I also have 2 spots open for 1:1 clients beginning in Q3 and early Q4. If you’re ready to do the work, click here to apply and we’ll see if we’re a fit.