From Fallback to Spring Forward: Bringing our better selves in times of complexity
Fallback Valerie Livesay Fallback Valerie Livesay

From Fallback to Spring Forward: Bringing our better selves in times of complexity

Do you remember in those old 80’s horror, adventure, sci-fi flicks when the walls start closing in around the protagonist?  Think Indiana Jones…or Star Wars.  Doorways close, a boulder rolls in to block the entrance to the cave, windows disappear behind the shifting walls.  All the while, the protagonist is desperate for a way to escape the impending doom and is forced to become smaller and smaller in an effort to avoid being crushed by the shrinking space he is in. Well, this doesn’t just happen in movies. This shrinking is also what happens in our psychological self when we experience fallback. 

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Lost and Found
Fallback, Witnessing the Shedding of Me Valerie Livesay Fallback, Witnessing the Shedding of Me Valerie Livesay

Lost and Found

In November, I lost my wedding and engagement rings. I love my rings, but I don’t wear them all the time. Only when I’m going out do I really put on any jewelry. I opened the dryer one day and found my engagement ring lying under the jeans. I didn’t even realize it had been lost. Suddenly I recalled that the night before when I was putting lotion on Sloane, I slipped the rings off and put them in my pocket. Then I forgot all about them. So tumble-dried engagement ring – here. Where’s the wedding ring? I searched the dryer, shaking each of the jeans that inhabited it.  Nothing.

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Who am I?
Witnessing the Shedding of Me Valerie Livesay Witnessing the Shedding of Me Valerie Livesay

Who am I?

My name is Valerie Livesay. Not so long ago, I left my job as full-time faculty teaching in a graduate program in organizational leadership at a university. I left my job…to attempt to be. To sink into not doing (doing being a favorite compulsion of mine). To find myself anew. To shed the many parts of my identity that I had spent a lifetime creating; the parts that had been created on my behalf; the parts that had certainly served me well to that point. And, to see if I could still be loved…by myself…by others.

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