Hello!

I’m Lisa — author, speaker, lover of chocolate and matcha…and the person who will never hand you a lofty platitude when what you actually need is someone to tell you, “yeah, that’s hard.”

For over 25 years, I’ve been coming alongside people in the middle of their most difficult seasons — not with formulas or five-step systems, but with the kind of honest, hard-won encouragement that says: you don’t have to do all of it today. You just have to do the next small thing.

Sometimes that next small thing is brushing your teeth.

My path here was anything but straight.

I’ve been a bank teller (yes, they let me count money), an administrative assistant, a medical transcriber, a sign language interpreter, a small groups director, a recording artist, an editor, a speaker, an admissions director, a speech-language pathology assistant, and a program director for brain injury support.

I have had the privilege of sitting in a lot of different rooms with a lot of different kinds of people. And what have I learned from it all? Grief, loss, and hard seasons don’t discriminate. Neither does hope.

I’m the author of two books.

Days of Whine and Noses: Pep Talks for Tuckered Out Moms found its way into the hands of mothers nationwide who needed someone to remind them that the mundane moments of mothering are anything but trivial or inconsequential. Wiping the noses and the bottoms matters, more than you even know. First, Brush Your Teeth: Grief and Hope in Real Time gave voice to the kind of profound pain people didn’t know how to articulate and pointed them toward the possibility of hope again.

I don’t write for the people who are hellbent on appearing to have their **** together. Those folks won’t listen to me anyway. The people I’m most drawn to are the ones who are desperately hungry for something real. Something true. A genuine glimmer that joy is still possible. That hope can exist beneath despair.

That’s who I write for.

Here’s what I believe.

Resilience doesn’t always look like heroism. Sometimes it looks like walking to the sink and brushing your teeth. Sometimes the bravest thing you do all day is the smallest thing. And good for you. Whether anyone else notices or not.

My promise to you is this.

I will write about what I’m trying to figure out for myself and about what I seem to have figured out that might help other humans. I’ll write about what brings me joy and what frustrates me. I process life in words, so you’ll get the honest-to-goodness truth according to Lisa on any given day — or at the very least, the musings of someone who knows she is always, always a learner.

Underneath all of it is hope. Hard-won, stubborn hope.

So if you’re in a tough season and someone just told you everything happens for a reason, put down the shoe you were planning to hoist at them and know that you’re in the right place here.

Welcome, my fellow figure-it-outer. I’m glad you’re here.