renegade resilience
Coming soon in Rooted in Resilience
I’m thrilled to share that my chapter, “Renegade Resilience: Growing Deeper Roots Instead of Thicker Skin,” will be published in the forthcoming multi-author book Rooted in Resilience, curated by Cathy Durskin.
This chapter puts words to a concept that has become central to my work:
True resilience isn’t about growing thicker skin. It’s about having the courage to turn toward pain of the past, so we no longer have to abandon ourselves to belong, achieve, succeed, or be loved.
This isn’t simply about feeling better, though…
The point isn’t simply to feel better.
*
The point isn’t simply to feel better. *
The point isn’t simply to feel better.
It’s to recover the energy that has been quietly diverted into managing, pleasing, proving, preventing, rescuing and surviving, and put it back where it belongs: into your your creativity, your desires, your contribution, your joy, and the life you’re here to live.
Renegade Resilience in Times Square
There are some moments you can’t fully imagine until you’re standing underneath them.
Seeing Rooted in Resilience — and my contribution to it — appear above Times Square was one of those moments.
This chapter began as an attempt to name something I had witnessed in myself and in so many accomplished women: we had gotten extraordinarily good at adapting, enduring, carrying, and continuing.
And somewhere along the way, much of that got called resilience.
Seeing myself on these two billboards was a powerful reminder of why I wrote Renegade Resilience in the first place, to shine light on what’s possible when we
Grow deeper roots. Not thicker skin.
Livestream information courtesy of Skyline Webcams.
“True resilience isn’t about growing thicker skin, it’s about growing deeper roots: Roots steady enough to keep you grounded, so that no matter what happens you will never again abandon yourself to belong, achieve, succeed, or be loved. That’s a kind of Renegade Resilience you can cultivate.”
What if some of what we call resilience is really outdated adaptation?
Women are often praised for how much they can handle.
For staying strong. Being dependable. Keeping things moving. Taking care of what needs to be taken care of. Getting back up. Pushing through.
And sometimes, those capacities really are expressions of strength.
But sometimes they’re survival strategies that became so familiar — and so rewarded — that we stopped noticing what they cost.
In “Renegade Resilience,” I explore the difference between enduring more and becoming more deeply rooted in yourself.
It’s about recognizing the adaptations that once helped you feel safe, loved, successful, or like you belonged — without mistaking them for who you fundamentally are.
And it’s about having the courage to turn toward the pain those adaptations grew around. Because we can spend a lifetime organizing ourselves around what happened without ever realizing how much of our present-day energy is still tied up in protecting us from something that belongs to the past.
Renegade Resilience means becoming rooted enough in yourself to go back for what still needs your attention — to feel, process, and integrate what you once had to survive — so the strategies that protected you then no longer have to keep running your life now.
And what I’m exponentially more interested in is what becomes possible when the energy those adaptations once required is no longer consumed by overfunctioning, perfectionism, people-pleasing, vigilance, or holding everything together! That energy becomes available again — for joy, creativity, connection, rest, desire, contribution, and the choices that move you toward the life you’ve been longing for.
That’s the kind of resilience I’m interested in cultivating: one grounded in enough self-trust that you can stay connected to yourself even when life asks something difficult of you, and rooted enough to use your energy not simply to endure your life, but to create it.
Not thicker skin.
Deeper roots.
The book
Rooted in Resilience
Rooted in Resilience brings together stories and perspectives from women who courageously redefined success by aligning passion, purpose, and lived experience through resilience.
I’m honored to contribute “Renegade Resilience: Growing Deeper Roots Instead of Thicker Skin” to this collection.
Coming in early 2027.
recommended
The conversation continues
The chapter may be where Renegade Resilience began on the page, but the ideas inside it reach much further.
I write about resilience, resentment, the old bargains accomplished women are ready to break, and what becomes possible when we stop measuring strength by how much we can tolerate.
It’s a conversation about having the courage to turn toward what we’ve spent years adapting around, reclaiming the time and energy those old patterns have consumed, trusting ourselves more deeply, and using that energy to create a life that feels as good as it looks. Join me for a loving renegade note each week.
Insight and inspiration for accomplished women ready to Carry Less. Live More.