August 21, 2026
The gifts of spaciousness (from my walk yesterday)
How has your summer been? Have you been able to walk through the world as you’d hoped?
If you attended my Start the Summer Strong workshop in May, you know that I intended to move through the summer lightly and freely, flitting like a butterfly.
That didn’t happen.
June and July were packed to the gills with activity and too long to-do lists, and I felt more like a fully loaded pack mule than anything that travels lightly or floats through the sky.
Thankfully, things started to shift in August, and along with the all-too-familiar end-of-summer dread, some spaciousness finally appeared.
Does any of this sound familiar? Wherever we are, the back-to-school season provides us an opportunity for a fresh start. So does each day, and even each moment if we can pause and become aware.
So as we savor these fleeting August days, I encourage us to soak in everything that’s here—the serious and the silly, the easy and the challenging, the awe-inspiring and the devastating—knowing that we don’t need to fix or change anything. Maybe we can even practice trusting that everything is perfect, just as it is (including us).
I’ve shared a few new resources below that I hope you’ll find helpful. If you do, please share them with others.
As always, thanks for being here, and thanks for being you. ❤️
Elizabeth
My good friend, fellow coach, and all-around amazing human Victoria Fontana and I recently started a series of conversations called The Inner Academic. As coaches who work with a wide range of academic clients—and as past higher-ed people ourselves—Victoria and I are keenly aware of the challenges academics face every day. In each episode, we’ll explore a question or struggle we frequently hear from clients—not to offer one-size-fits-all solutions, but to help you feel less alone, broaden your perspective, and discover new possibilities for moving forward. We hope you'll check out the first episode and stay tuned for more.
I had the great pleasure of appearing on the Peer Review podcast with Hebrew Union College Professor Sarah Bunin Benor and Carleton University Professor Mira Sucharov. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discussed things like navigating loneliness, perfectionism, and productive paralysis. Please give it a listen!
Whether you’re feeling empowered and energized or overwhelmed and exhausted, Resourced & Ready: The Ultimate R&R provides keys to finding balance and building resilience. I hope you’ll return to it often as you continue to navigate this uncertain terrain.
And if you missed my Resourced & Ready newsletter series, check out the messages from June through December 2025 to explore additional ways to try out each key!