Bits of WISEdom

What can a frightened, peeing frog teach us about anxiety? More than you might think! When a panicked frog attempts to escape and jumps in the wrong direction, it got me thinking about how our own brains react to fear. We tell ourselves scary “what if” stories, mistake uncertainty for danger, and sometimes make decisions we later regret. Just like that frog, we can overreact to threats that aren't real. The good news? We can learn to recognize our stress response and calm o

Image generated using Canva AI. Our family, my husband and three of our adult kids, have begun a tradition called “Catan Day”. I blame my husband for Catan Day. I introduced my husband to the board game, Settlers of Catan, several years ago. He is not a huge board game fan, but he found that this one was more tolerable because it was similar to some of the resource gathering games he had played on his video gaming consoles (e.g., Sim City). Fast forward a year or more. One da

Zeab, a 16-year-old wolf cared for by Mission Wolf. Photograph taken by Kris Tolman It happens. My months of planning and dreaming for a beautiful life-changing retreat in Yellowstone came to a screeching halt. Two weeks ago, I was getting ready for a long road trip to Gardiner, MT to meet with my retreat partner, to finalize the details of our new business venture when his email arrived in my inbox. Life had happened to him. He was having to make some tough decisions and one

Photograph taken at Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park, October 2025. Recently I have been reading a book about indigenous peoples’ wisdom called, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. It begins with an origin story, Skywoman Falling. The story changed my perspective of how I think about the world, my presence in it, and increased my joy and gratitude for my life on this planet. Skywoman Falling tells the story of a woman who fell out of a hole in the Skyworld clut