Monday doesn’t start when the alarm goes off. It starts with the reset I give myself on Sunday. I want to move into Monday rested, not spend the first hours recovering from a week that never properly ended. That is the point: arrive ready, clear-eyed, and responsible for how I use my energy. The Grind isn’t a demand to work seven days a week. It is the discipline of building a life that can support the work, and the person doing it. Sunday gives me a chance to close one week,

A 22-year-old wrote this. That is the sentence I keep coming back to as I read In the Shadow of Eight by Collin Gosselin, one of the sextuplets from the TLC reality show. I have the book in my hands, and it does not read to me like a routine celebrity memoir. It reads like a case file: one person’s account of a childhood in which the adults and institutions meant to protect a child did not, he says, protect him. I am reading as a pediatrician, a CFE student, and a person who

Friday’s audit is a look-back, not a scorecard. I’m asking what worked, what I fussed about profitably, and what deserves to come with me into next week. Nobody gets a grade, not the people who sent me suspicious emails, and not me. The week had a little bit of everything: fraud examination, an honest conversation about AI, a website refresh, laundry, comfort food, and one very shiny keyboard. The theme that ties it together is simple: protect what you make, and make room for

I use AI. Freely admitted. Not for the living, for the keeping. The experiences are mine. The images are mine. The moment happens first, before anyone polishes a sentence or adjusts a visual. Then I use tools (including Penny, Sonny, and Gemini) to help shape and enhance what I’ve already experienced. Before anything is published, I review it for accuracy. That’s the confession, and it’s also the boundary. I’m not asking a tool to manufacture a life for me. I’m asking it to h

The first Monday after the Soul of the Valley retreat debrief series wrapped, I woke up to the kind of quiet that makes you notice your own thoughts before the day starts talking over them. Monday was still Monday. The week had not magically cleared its calendar because I had been away. There were things to do, messages to answer, and the familiar temptation to begin by mentally sprinting through every hour ahead. But I noticed something about arrival day. Its secret weapon w

Sunday has a way of making small things feel worth noticing. The quiet. The warm kitchen. The fact that I am down to a corner of the pumpkin spice loaf from our retreat’s bread ceremony. And, yes, a corner does not do the ceremony justice. It’s a little too small to carry the full drama of a shared loaf, and it certainly doesn’t come with the whole circle gathered around it. So this is not really a story about the bread left on my counter. It’s about what the bread meant, and

I woke up at 5 a.m. and, after making a sincere attempt to go back to sleep, accepted that my day had begun without consulting me. First came Nescafé Taster’s Choice Instant Silky in the dark. Later, when the morning properly got going, I graduated to Bali Coffee Pods in my Ninja. Then I settled in with Cop Without a Badge by Charles Kipps and drank a lot of coffee while chilling with this book. It was a whole vibe: quiet morning, strong coffee, and the kind of reading that s

Soul of the Valley was four days of healing, intention, and trying different ways to show up for ourselves and seek balance. There was meditation, yoga, Reiki, sound, and plenty of room to arrive as you were. The right people were in the room: funny, open, and safe. That is the headline of the whole journey. Here it is again, all in one sitting: the full retreat, in order, with the moments that stayed with me. Day One: Arrival and the Welcome Dinner Getting there took the l

The Last Morning The last morning arrived quietly. No big announcement, no rush to turn the moment into something it wasn’t. Just the soft light, the stillness, and the knowledge that this was our final day together. The retreat had begun around a welcome dinner table, with intentions spoken among people who were still getting to know one another. It ended in a meditation circle. That symmetry felt right to me: we began by putting our hopes into the room, and we closed by ma

Day three had its own current. It wasn’t a day to hurry through a checklist or keep one eye on what came next. It moved at a different pace: yoga, Reiki, and a gong whose sound seemed to reach beyond the ears. The valley was there around us, but the day’s focus was close in: breath, movement, stillness, and the feeling of being present in your own body. The practice didn’t need to look a certain way. There was room to take part as we were, without turning the moment into a pe

The first full day at Soul of the Valley began while the property was still stirring awake. The valley was already there, of course: layered green ridges, open sky, and that particular morning quiet that makes even a small sound seem worth noticing. I was looking forward to the movement. I was also carrying a few worries into the morning with me. Before the practice, we started with hot lemon water. In a retreat where food is part of the experience, that felt like a fitting f

The first day at Soul of the Valley did not begin with a smooth, cinematic arrival. It began with a road closure, a detour, and a drive that took longer than expected. Guests came in through the early afternoon, working their way around part of US-40 that was closed. The route had other ideas about how quickly everyone would get there. Still, they arrived happy in spite of the hassle. And, as the story goes, a stop at Buc-ee’s helped make everything all right. By the time peo

On Sunday morning, October 11, the Soul of the Valley retreat in Rossville, Georgia, reaches its quiet, satisfying final note. You return to the intentions you arrived with, not as a performance review, thankfully, but as a conversation with the person you hoped to become when you first walked in. The room feels softer after holding a few honest days. Outside, the valley keeps doing what valleys do. Inside, you notice that you are breathing differently, and that nobody is ask

Saturday gives you permission to stop treating the evening like a project. During Soul of the Valley near Chattanooga, wander through the Harvest Moon Market at the Choo-Choo, where autumn gathers itself in warm lights, handmade treasures, and the pleasant hum of people enjoying themselves. Settle near the food stalls and let dinner become part of the scenery, or take your time moving through the market without needing to purchase, perform, or explain a thing. The best plans

At Soul of the Valley, Day Two begins before the world has a chance to become demanding. At 52 Big Vistas Lane in Rossville, Georgia, morning unfolds with coffee without hurry, the kind of small luxury that makes an ordinary schedule feel faintly insulting. Then comes meditation, Tai Chi, and optional yoga in the soft morning light over the valley. There is no proving anything, no perfect posture to locate, and no need to arrive as a more polished version of yourself. You sim

At 52 Big Vistas Lane in Rossville, Georgia, just outside Chattanooga, arrival feels less like checking in and more like exhaling. Twelve guests set down their bags, trade names and hometowns, and begin meeting the people they’ll share this mountain pause with. Outside, the layered valley catches the last light. Inside, candles are glowing, coats are being draped over chairs, and the evening is already making a persuasive case for putting your phone somewhere you cannot see i

There is a particular kind of calm that arrives just before a meaningful trip. Not the calm of having nothing left to do. That would be suspicious. There is always one more email, one more charger to locate, one more person who suddenly remembers they need something from you before you leave town. This is a different kind of calm: the moment when the important details have been handled, the calendar has been cleared, and the journey no longer belongs entirely to the planning

A retreat does not begin when the first formal session appears on the schedule. It begins earlier, often with the first shared meal, the first real conversation, and the moment everyone stops feeling like a collection of arrivals and starts feeling like a gathering. At Soul of the Valley, that moment happens around a long table at nightfall. The welcome dinner at Soul of the Valley is more than the first meal of the retreat. It is the opening act. Before the menu, there is t

This Thursday, Soul of the Valley opens at 52 Big Vistas Lane in the Lookout Mountain area of Rossville, Georgia. From October 8–11, twelve guests will gather for four days shaped around guided mindfulness, quiet mornings, meaningful conversation, and restoration without performance. There is no need to arrive with a polished version of yourself. The retreat was created as space to step away from the noise and return to what feels clear, steady, and true. The setting matters.

Sunday: Meditative Rituals I Am Tired of Performing I am tired of all the performances. Social media is everywhere, and so much of what we see feels arranged, edited, polished, and presented for approval. Even ordinary life can start to feel like it needs a caption, a lesson, a carefully chosen angle. Somebody is always watching, or at least we are imagining that somebody is watching. I want to be authentically me. Not the most impressive version. Not the most wounded versi