Posts by Valerie Friedlander

Responsive practices to create a supportive relationship with your teen starts with learning to stop assuming and start listening. It also involves acknowledging your own inner child’s unhealed wounds so that you can create space in yourself to hold space for another. These wounds often become activated when we see them mirrored in our children’s…

Navigating tough conversations with emotional awareness is a critical skill as we are all likely to need to engage difficult dialogues, especially during this time of heightened political and social tensions. These types of conversations can be emotionally taxing, and it’s important we approach them with both strong self-awareness and self-care. Our ability to show…

Learning self-advocacy to strengthen collective action is a critical component of sustainable social change. Those of us socialized as women are often conditioned to prioritize supporting others, which can make self-advocacy more difficult. However, by connecting to our own value and values, and speaking up for ourselves even when it’s uncomfortable, we lead by example…

Embracing periods of reflection, introspection, and processing is a crucial but often overlooked and devalued aspect of personal and societal growth and change. To create real shifts in the world’s imbalances, we must first engage with the internalized patterns and conditioning that hold us back. This self-work not only deepens the impact of our efforts,…

Being intentional with when to say yes isn’t just considering yes vs no.  Intentionality also involves how you engage internal resistance to what you say you want to do. There are many reasons you might experience tension and resistance even when you want to do something. First, it could highlight an area that needs clarification…

Collaborative Leadership from Boardroom to Patient-Centered Caregiving is essential for fostering effective relationships between CEOs and board members, as well as between healthcare professionals and patients. This approach not only enhances organizational dynamics but also improves patient outcomes by prioritizing communication, trust, and shared goals. By empowering all stakeholders and embracing transparency, collaborative leadership creates…

Micro-actions to manifest big change is key because we can often feel overwhelmed by the changes we want to make in our own life, let alone the change we’d like to see in the world. The best part is micro-actions naturally build on themselves. First and most obviously, they provide momentum as you do the…

Realigning your core values requires exploring both what is consciously important to you AND your societal conditioning. Your values, both conscious and subconscious, shape your decisions and motivate our behavior. If you find yourself feeling stuck, drained, or sabotaging what you say you want, it’s likely you have a subconscious values conflict. There are 5…

Navigating our relationship with death is a profound part of our human experience, yet we often avoid talking about it. This avoidance not only prevents us from asking for and receiving care, it also reduces our capacity to provide care. Additionally, we must be able to embrace our mortality (rather than trying to transcend it)…