[This post is part of a series on how to effectively self-coach yourself, focusing on your existential needs as well as your emotional and practical needs. To learn more about existential wellness coaching, please take a look at my new book published by Routledge and called Existential Wellness Coaching.]

If someone asked you to describe who you are, how would you answer? Most people reach quickly for roles. “I’m a parent.” “I’m a coach.” “I’m a writer.” “I’m a partner.” These answers are not wrong. Roles are real. They structure our days, shape our responsibilities, and influence how others relate to us. And yet, they do not fully answer the question. The deeper question—Who are you, really?—cannot be answered by roles alone.

In self-coaching, this question matters because the way you understand yourself determines how you live. If you equate yourself entirely with your roles, your identity becomes dependent on circumstances. When roles change, weaken, or disappear—as they inevitably do—you may feel destabilized, even lost.

Exploring identity beyond roles is not about rejecting roles. It is about placing them in a larger, more flexible understanding of who you are.

The Structure and Limits of Roles

Roles provide structure. They tell you what is expected. They offer a sense of place in the social world. When you say, “I’m a teacher,” or “I’m a parent,” you are naming a set of activities, responsibilities, and relationships. These roles organize your time and your attention. They also provide meaning. Many people derive deep satisfaction from fulfilling their roles well.

But roles have limits.

First, they are externally defined. Even if you choose them, they come with cultural expectations. There is a shared understanding of what a “good parent” or a “successful professional” looks like. These expectations can be helpful, but they can also be constraining.

Second, roles are conditional. They can change or be taken away. Careers end. Children grow up. Relationships shift. If your identity is tightly bound to a role, its loss can feel like a loss of self.

Third, roles are partial. No single role captures the full complexity of who you are. Even a collection of roles does not quite get there. There is always something more—something that is not easily named.

The Quiet Question Beneath Roles

Many people encounter the limits of roles during periods of transition or disruption. A person retires and wonders, “Who am I now that I’m no longer working?” A parent whose children have left home asks, “What is my life about now?” A professional who feels disconnected from their work thinks, “Is this really who I am?”

These moments can be unsettling. The familiar answers no longer feel sufficient. The question of identity becomes more immediate, more pressing. This is not a problem to be solved quickly. It is an invitation to look more deeply.

Beyond Roles: Qualities, Values, and Presence

If you set aside roles, even temporarily, what remains?

One way to approach this is to shift your attention from what you do to how you are.

Instead of defining yourself by roles, you might consider qualities:

• Are you attentive, curious, resilient, compassionate, disciplined?
• How do you respond to difficulty?
• How do you relate to others?

These qualities are not tied to a single role. They can be expressed in many contexts. You can be compassionate as a parent, as a friend, as a colleague, or even toward yourself. You can be curious in your work, your hobbies, or your inner life. In this sense, identity becomes less about specific positions and more about patterns of being.

Another layer involves values:

• What matters to you?
• What do you care about, regardless of external expectations?
• What do you stand for?

Values provide continuity across changing roles. You may express them differently at different times, but they remain a reference point.

Finally, there is the simple fact of your presence—your awareness, your capacity to experience, to choose, to respond. This is harder to define, but it is central. Before you are any role, you are a conscious being engaging with life.

The Risk of Role Over-Identification

When identity is overly tied to roles, several difficulties can arise.

You may feel pressure to perform constantly, as if your worth depends on how well you fulfill the role. You may hesitate to explore new directions, fearing that they do not fit your established identity. You may struggle with transitions, experiencing them as losses rather than changes.

You may also neglect parts of yourself that are not expressed in your dominant roles. A person deeply identified with their career may lose touch with their creative side. A devoted caregiver may forget their own needs and aspirations.

Self-coaching invites you to notice these patterns:

• “Where am I overly identified with a role?”
• “What parts of myself are not being expressed?”
• “How is this identification shaping my choices?”

These questions are not meant to diminish your roles, but to loosen their grip.

Identity as Lived Practice

If you are not just your roles, then who are you? One useful shift is to think of identity not as a fixed description but as a lived practice. Instead of asking, “What label defines me?” you might ask:

• “How do I want to live?”
• “What qualities do I want to bring into my day?”
• “What matters enough to guide my actions?”

In this view, identity is enacted moment by moment. It is less about a static answer and more about ongoing expression.

You are not only a “writer” because you hold that title; you are a writer when you engage in writing, when you think creatively, when you bring words into form. You are not only a “kind person” because you believe it; you are kind in the ways you act, respond, and choose.

This perspective restores agency. It reminds you that identity is not something you passively possess but something you actively participate in shaping.

Holding Roles Lightly

To move beyond roles does not mean abandoning them. It means holding them more lightly. You can fully inhabit a role—be committed, responsible, engaged—without confusing it with your entire identity.

For example:

• You can be deeply invested in your work without believing that your worth depends on your job title.
• You can care for others without losing sight of yourself as a separate person.
• You can enjoy a role while remaining open to change.

Holding roles lightly allows for flexibility. When circumstances shift, you are better able to adapt. You experience change as part of life, not as a collapse of identity.

Self-Coaching Questions for Identity Beyond Roles

As part of your self-coaching practice, you might explore questions such as:

• “If I set aside my roles, how would I describe myself?”
• “What qualities do I consistently bring to my life?”
• “What values guide me, even when no one is watching?”
• “Where am I defining myself too narrowly?”
• “What aspects of myself am I ready to explore or reclaim?”

These questions are not meant to produce a final answer. They are meant to deepen your understanding and expand your perspective.

Living the Larger Identity

The question “Who are you, really?” may never have a complete, fixed answer. That is part of its power.

You are more than your roles, more than any single description. You are a changing, responding, meaning-making being. You carry history, but you are not limited to it. You occupy roles, but you are not confined to them.

In self-coaching, the aim is not to replace roles with a new rigid identity. It is to cultivate a more spacious sense of self—one that can include roles without being defined by them.

From this place, you can engage your roles more freely. You can step into them, step out of them, and reshape them as needed. You can navigate transitions with greater resilience. And you can live with a deeper sense of continuity that does not depend entirely on external definitions. You are the one who lives your life—across roles, through changes, and beyond any single name you give yourself.

Existential Wellness Coaching: A Guide to Helping Clients Make Meaning and Live Authentically 

This comprehensive guide merges existential philosophy with wellness coaching strategies, equipping coaches with powerful tools to help clients meet their existential challenges and lead lives of authentic purpose, deeper meaning, and sustainable well-being.

Dr. Eric Maisel introduces existential wellness coaching as a holistic approach that recognizes how physical and psychological well-being are intrinsically connected to our sense of purpose, meaning, and authenticity. Grounded in concepts from existential philosophy, this practical guide helps coaches, therapists, and other mental health practitioners deepen their work with clients to address existential challenges, and to help clients develop the resilience to maintain existential well-being in challenging times. Unlike traditional coaching that focuses solely on goals or conventional therapy that treats symptoms, existential wellness coaching empowers clients to confront life’s fundamental questions while developing concrete strategies for living with greater intention. Each chapter systematically addresses core existential concerns, including self-relationship, value identification, purpose creation, meaning-making, authenticity, and developing a personal life philosophy.

Offering new ways of thinking about common existential issues, this book contains tools that will help coaches enable their clients to make life-changing shifts and necessary mental reframes.

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By Shefali Luthra, The 19th

This story was originally reported by Shefali Luthra of The 19th. Meet Shefali and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Republicans are focusing on one question in one of November’s top races: Is the Democrat a real man?

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who clinched the GOP’s nomination for U.S. Senate on Tuesday night, released a new ad Wednesday —his first of the general election — accusing his opponent, state Sen. James Talarico, of being too “low-T for Texas.” “Low-T” is a reference to testosterone levels and often used as an insult by influencers in the so-called manosphere, who say low testosterone makes someone weaker.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy and one of his top advisers, picked up on a similar line of attack, posting on the social media platform X on Wednesday that Democrats had nominated the “their first transgender senate candidate.” Talarico is cisgender and identifies as an LGBTQ+ ally; he is in a relationship with a woman.

For Trump’s Republican Party, the focus on testosterone isn’t new. In 2016, as a presidential candidate, Trump appeared on Dr. Mehmet Oz’s talk show to highlight his testosterone levels as proof of his health and manliness. Oz is now the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Trump.

“It isn’t new to the ethos of America — the masculine as everything — but it is much more politically forward now thanks to Trump than it used to be,” said Monika McDermott, a political scientist at Fordham University who studies masculinity in politics. “Now it’s the game plan of most Republicans to try to play on having the more masculine party and being able to claim that liberals and progressives are weak and feminine and not masculine enough for America.”

Even before Paxton’s Tuesday night victory, Republicans were developing a line of attack essentially calling Talarico effeminate or gay — with Wesley Hunt, a Republican congressman who also lost in the Senate primary, posting “what’s his name” when Talarico confirmed in an interview last week that he had a partner who is a woman.

Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. But Talarico, a former middle school teacher and seminarian, has energized Democrats, who hope that record-setting campaign fundraising could help flip the seat.

Polling suggests a close general election contest between Talarico and Paxton, who was endorsed by Trump and won the runoff with incumbent Sen. John Cornyn handily but who has been embroiled in controversy for much of his time in the public eye. In 2023 he was impeached by the Republican-led state House of Representatives on charges of bribery, abuse of office and obstruction of justice. He was then acquitted. After Paxton’s Tuesday night victory, the Cook Political Report updated its assessment of the race from “Likely Republican” to only “Lean Republican.”

In his first ad of the general election, Talarico has focused on Paxton’s impeachment trial, highlighting news clips to argue that the scandal-ridden attorney general is corrupt. In a television interview, he called his opponent the “most corrupt politician in America.” Many Republicans have expressed concern that Paxton’s baggage — his wife filed for divorce last July on what she called “biblical grounds” — could make him a weaker candidate.

Paxton, meanwhile, is focusing on gender, asserting that a more conservative vision of masculinity will sway Texas voters.

In his same ad on Wednesday, Paxton highlighted a clip from 2021 in which Talarico said there are “six biological sexes” — a reference to the fact that humans can have six chromosomal karyotypes, including XX, XY, XXY, XYY, XXXY and X. The ad also points to an interview where Talarico expressed compassion for trans children.

Paxton’s ad also highlighted a clip from 2022 in which Talarico said his state Senate campaign had become a “non-meat campaign.” Trump and other Republicans have falsely accused Talarico of being vegan. (The Democratic nominee recently ordered breakfast tacos with egg, cheese and potatoes at a campaign event; neither eggs nor cheese are vegan.)

“This is clearly the way Republicans are going to talk as long as it’s successful for them – which it has been for Trump, certainly,” McDermott said.

Commentators in the manosphere have often suggested that avoiding or eating less meat makes one a “soy boy,” or less of a man — a slur based in part on a false notion that eating soybeans lowers testosterone levels and raises estrogen.

For his part, Talarico told CBS News on Wednesday that he has “been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton’s first indictment.”

In office, Paxton has specifically gone after medical providers who offer gender-affirming care. His office issued a legal opinion in March meant to discourage mental health professionals from counseling trans kids about their gender, and in 2022 his office labeled gender-affirming care for minors as “child abuse.” In 2023, his office investigated Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, accusing the hospital of providing such care for minors; this month, the state reached a settlement that involved making the hospital open a clinic focused on “detransitioning” young people.

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This post was previously published on 19THNEWS.ORG.

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At The Good Men Project, we are proud to syndicate reporting from The 19th, an independent nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics, policy, and power. We value their work because it helps make visible something that is too often treated as secondary or niche: you cannot fully understand public life without understanding how gender and race shape who gets heard, who gets protected, and who is asked to carry the consequences when systems fail.

We believe these stories belong here because the questions The 19th raises are also human questions. They affect families, schools, health care, faith communities, citizenship, safety, and the everyday experience of belonging in a democracy. They also intersect with many of the conversations we care about at GMP, including masculinity, identity, care, fairness, and the social expectations that shape people’s lives long before they have language for them. If we want a more honest conversation about how to live well in a rapidly changing world, we need reporting that looks clearly at power, rights, and whose stories get centered. That is one reason we are glad to share their work.

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You know. The one where you bend over backwards to be kind and somehow end up feeling like something you’d scrape off your shoe. Delightful. (Not!) Let’s talk about it.

There’s a line many of us learned as kids: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Beautiful, right? A little sparkle of human decency to pin to your lapel and wear proudly.

Except somewhere between childhood and now, a sneaky footnote crept in. The invisible second half reads:
…and then they will do unto you as you did unto them.

Ah. There it is. The false promise. The implied guarantee. The part that hurts like the dickens when it doesn’t come true.

Because here’s the thing: you can be thoughtful, measured, respectful—your best “kind human” self—and still get met with rudeness, dismissal, or a general vibe of “who invited you?” That sting feels personal, like your heart handed over a freshly baked loaf of bread and got a door slammed in its face.

It’s confusing. And when we’re confused, we usually do one of two things:

• Spiral into overthinking (“What did I do wrong? Should I have said less? More? Different eyebrows?”), or
• Shut down and decide kindness is for suckers.

I have been to both of those parties. They were not fun.

The Rule Isn’t a Contract; It’s a Compass

The original line never promised results. It didn’t say, “Do unto others so that they’ll do the same.” It didn’t include a loyalty program or offer points you can redeem for respect. It just said: You do you. Your behaviour is your territory. Other people’s behaviour is theirs.

That’s maddening when you’re hurting. I know. Someone is rude after you consciously chose grace? It feels like they reached into your chest and jangled your sense of fairness like a set of keys. But their reaction is not evidence that your kindness failed. It’s evidence that they’re living by a different rulebook—or having a bad day—or don’t have the emotional Wi-Fi to receive what you offered. None of which is yours to fix.

Why It Stings So Much

We’re not robots. There’s a tender, hopeful eight-year-old in most of us who still wants the world to be fair. She wants kindness to boomerang. She wants cause-and-effect to behave itself. When it doesn’t, she takes it personally. Of course she does. And then the grown-up version of us goes rummaging for reasons, because if we can understand it, maybe we won’t have to feel it.

But understanding someone else’s rudeness rarely softens the bruise. You can write a doctoral thesis on Why Kevin Was a Jerk and still wake up with that ache behind your ribs.

The Two Losses (and How to Avoid the Second One)

When you’re kind and someone is unkind back, there are two potential losses:

1. The first is the hurt. Ouch. That’s real.
2. The second is subtler: letting their behaviour change yours.

If their rudeness talks you out of your own integrity, they win twice. First they hurt you. Then they change you. That second one? That’s the one we can prevent.

Kindness with a Spine

This is where people worry I’m saying “just be nice and swallow the disrespect.” Absolutely not. Boundaries matter. You don’t have to stay in the room with someone who treats you like lint. You don’t have to return the text. You don’t have to keep explaining your humanity to a brick wall. Exits exist. Use them.

But also—don’t confuse boundaries with bitterness. You can be clear without being cruel. You can step back without making a speech. You can keep your dignity and your softness intact. Kindness isn’t weakness; kindness without clarity is exhaustion. Pair your heart with a backbone and watch your energy come back online.

Detaching the Strings

Let’s be honest about the sneaky strings we sometimes attach to kindness:

• “If I’m gentle, they’ll be gentle.”
• “If I’m generous, they’ll appreciate me.”
• “If I’m respectful, I’ll be respected.”

Those are lovely hopes. They are not reliable strategies. Swap the strings for intentions you can actually control:

• “I will be gentle because I like who I am when I’m gentle.”
• “I will be generous because it aligns with my values.”
• “I will be respectful because I respect myself.”

Notice the centre of gravity shifting back where it belongs? You stop performing kindness to get a receipt. You start living kindness because it feels like home in your body.

Three Tiny Scripts for When People Are… People

You don’t need a monologue. Just a sentence or two that holds your line.

1. The drive-by dismissive:
   “I’m not available for that tone. We can talk when it’s respectful.”
2. The boundary tap-dancer:
   “I’ve been clear about my limit. I’m going to hold it.”
3. The shoe-scrape special:
   “I’m stepping back. Wishing you well.”

Short. Calm. Done. No courtroom. No closing arguments. Go make tea.

What to Do With the Feelings (Because They Don’t Just Evaporate)

• Name it: “I’m disappointed. That hurt.” Your nervous system likes it when you tell the truth.
• Move it: A brisk walk. Shake your hands. Roll your shoulders. Put on one song and full-body wiggle like a toddler. (Close the blinds if the squirrels are judgy.)
• Soothe it: Warm drink. Favourite blanket. A ten-minute show that requires zero brain cells.
• Reframe it: Not “I was foolish to be kind,” but “I’m proud I stayed aligned.”

A Mini Field Guide to Expectations

• Expectation: If I’m nice, I’ll be treated nicely.
  Reality: If I’m nice, I will be proud of my behaviour—even if others aren’t.
• Expectation: Kindness earns me a seat at the table.
  Reality: Kindness earns me self-respect. Seats at tables are case-by-case.
• Expectation: If they don’t mirror my goodness, my goodness was naïve.
  Reality: My goodness is mine. Mirroring optional.

But What If I’m Tired of Being the Bigger Person?

Then don’t be “bigger.” Be clearer. Being the “bigger person” often implies swallowing things that aren’t good for you. Clarity simply says, “Here’s what I allow. Here’s what I don’t.” It’s quieter, lighter, and much more sustainable.

The Quiet Power Move

There’s a particular kind of power in not taking the bait. In not explaining yourself to someone committed to misunderstanding you. In not sending the third paragraph you wrote in your head at 2 a.m. (We’ve all drafted it. We do not have to press send.)

Power looks like this:

• Choosing not to match someone’s worst moment.
• Choosing not to contort yourself for approval you don’t actually want.
• Choosing a graceful exit over a dramatic finale.

It’s not passive. It’s precise.

A Note for the Tender-Hearted (That’s Us)

If you’re someone who loves deeply, you’ve probably been told you’re “too sensitive.” Translation: you notice more. You feel more. You care more. Congratulations—you’re exquisitely alive. Sensitivity isn’t a flaw; it’s data. Use it to calibrate your boundaries, not to build a bunker around your heart.

When Kindness Becomes Freedom

Here’s the shift that changes everything:
Stop treating kindness like currency. Start treating it like identity.

Currency has to be spent carefully because you might run out. Identity is renewable. The more you act like who you truly are, the more energy you have. When kindness is identity, other people’s responses stop being invoices you’re waiting to be paid.

The One-Sentence Reminder to Stick on Your Fridge

“I do unto others because it’s who I am, not because of what I’ll get.”

If affirmation sticky notes are your thing, add these:

• “Boundaries make my kindness sustainable.”
• “Their behaviour is information, not a verdict on my worth.”
• “I won’t let someone else’s bad day rewrite my character.”

Bringing It Home

So yes—keep living by the Golden Rule. The real one. The one with the period at the end, not the dangling dot-dot-dot of expectation.

Be kind because you like who you are when you’re kind.
Be clear because your energy matters.
And when someone responds like you tracked mud across their white carpet, step back. Feel the sting. Then dust off your shoes and keep walking in your own direction.

Let the Golden Rule be your compass, not your contract.
Let your kindness be real, not transactional.
And let your soft heart keep its spine.

Because the moment you refuse to let someone else’s behaviour decide who you are—that’s the moment you get your power back.

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Previously Published on Liberty Forrest’s blog

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We fell for each other — We also fell for the stakes.

I didn’t realize I was walking into it until much later, when the cards were already on the felt and the blinds were rising faster than either of us could keep up. Yet, we decided to play the game.

Las Vegas Whale Table

Playing at a table where the blinds were incredibly high.

In high-stakes poker, it’s not just about the cards; it’s about the psychology of the players — in this case, it was me vs. him. It’s also about the size of the blinds and the timing of the bets.

Only later did I realize we were playing two very different styles of the game.

Here is the “Hand History” of the relationship played at the table:

The Buy-In (The Beginning)

In the beginning, we both sat down with massive stacks.

You could say he appeared as the “High Roller” — the successful business owner. Then I sat down as the Whale — the other high roller of some sort with a strategic mind and soul.

Our initial conversations were fast, vulnerable, eloquent, and deep. Basically, our “Pre-Flop” phase, where we both realized each of us had a premium hand. I’d say our vibe was “Nice.”

He was betting big on our future because his “bankroll” was flush. He felt he could afford to be “my” man in those moments because the stakes felt manageable.

“Pre-Flop” Illusion

What I didn’t see yet was that early confidence is cheap when the blinds are low.

My butterflies and our “love is in the air” feeling were intense from temporary hormones rather than sustained compatibility in early dating.

I’ve realized anyone can play like a “High Roller” when there is no skin in the game.

The Flop (The “3-Month” Warning)

The Flop is when the first three community cards are dealt, and the reality of the game starts to set in. For him, the Flop was the sudden realization that his business was bleeding.

In the action of poker, he revealed the “3-Month Fuse.” This was his first “Check.”

He signaled to me his stack was smaller than it looked. And as crazy a Whale as I am, I didn’t fold. In fact, I “Raised.” I’d even get all my lucky trinkets out, placing them on the table for hope.

That’s when I offered him my heart and my strategic mind.

Basically, it signaled that I was playing for the Long Game, not just the Short Win.

This is the moment most players walk away. I didn’t. I doubled down.

The Turn (The Fragility Reveal)

The fourth card in our high-stakes poker game was the Turn.

In his case, the pressure became unbearable.

“All-In”

My move? I went All-In.

I had a Nut Hand and pushed all my chips to the center of the table.

This is when I poured my heart out — telling the High Roller I loved him and was there for him. I put everything on the table. Perhaps it was my ultimate power move.

In fact, it wasn’t a bluff at all. I bet on the long-term value of the partnership. I played Aggressive Loyalty, assuming that if I showed him my cards, he would show his.

An offer of partnership.

His reaction? He looked at my All-In and panicked. He looked at his own cards — the fragility, the debt, a zombie-running business — and realized he couldn’t call my bet.

This bet of high-level intimacy.

And this is where the game stopped being about cards and became about character.

Poker Meltdown

Instead of meeting my vulnerability, he became silent and not himself. In poker, this is Tilting. He was so frustrated by his own failing hand that he started playing poorly.

Emotional, Self-Destructive Moves

Like a little bit of Will Kassouf — playing poorly, lashing out, and (not banned) but withdrawing.

When you lose a big hand, you lose your logic.

His business crisis was his Bad Beat.

Instead of letting me — his best teammate — help him rebuild his stack, his ego tilted. He became silent because he was embarrassed to be seen at the table while he was down. He thought he had to figure it out alone and return when he was a High Roller again.

Men don’t fear losing the woman. They fear being witnessed losing themselves.

The River

Our final card — the River — completed the board, and the final decision had to be made.

“Performance Trap”

I offered help, love, and support. He listened for a bit but felt the crushing weight of the Performance Trap and realized he couldn’t win the hand as the Hero he wanted to be.

He Folded

After a long night, he check-folded out of shame — and realized he couldn’t match my bet.

Everything was fragile at this point. This was him showing me his low chip count. He was letting me know he was bleeding out at the table. He couldn’t buy in like at the beginning.

Instead of finishing the game — playing his hand with me — he paused everything abruptly.

Basically, it was then that he threw his cards into the muck and walked away from the table.

He didn’t want to lose in front of me, so he chose to stop playing entirely.

Some men would rather disappear than be seen losing.

The Current State

In the end, the All-In move was my effort to win the pot together.

I’ve been waiting a loooong time sitting at that poker table.

I haven’t even moved my chips.

But eventually, since he never returned to our high-stakes table, I refused to chase him to the cheap tables. I wrote him a final letter but adhered to the No Contact rule.

“The game is still here. The stakes are still high. I am still the partner.”

“But I won’t play for pennies.”

That’s the moment I realized the difference between loyalty and self-abandonment.

The Disciplined Refusal to Chase a Bad Hand

Never Chase Your Losses

In a high-stakes poker game, the most dangerous thing you can do is chase your losses.

If you reach out to your person because of fear of losing them, you are chasing.

If you follow the No Contact rule, you will continue to win in your own life.

Basically, you are building your bankroll.

People don’t fold because they didn’t love the game; they fold because they were terrified they’d already lost everything and couldn’t bear for their partner to watch them go bust.

Some people don’t walk away from you.

They walk away from the version of themselves they can’t bear for you to see.

You stop being a player waiting for a turn and become the house itself 

— the one who sets the rules, the stakes, and the buy‑in.

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Vladyslav Novikov is a Ukrainian journalist, investigator, and broadcaster with 24 Channel whose work focuses on open-source intelligence, digital evidence preservation, and Russian information operations. He is the creator of the Alabuga Case Archive, a project documenting the online promotion and recruitment activities of Alabuga Polytech, an institution linked to Russia’s drone-production ecosystem. Through large-scale analysis of social media content, archived videos, and promotional networks, Novikov examines sanctions loopholes, propaganda, and wartime recruitment. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Vladyslav Novikov discuss the emotional transformation caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion, explaining how war reshaped his journalism, relationships, and sense of feeling. Speaking with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, he emphasizes Ukraine’s need for continued access to AI, semiconductors, and advanced technologies. Novikov also examines Russian propaganda, Storm-1516-style influence operations, and the importance of better coordination among Ukrainian OSINT researchers, journalists, institutions, and civil society projects documenting wartime truth.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Mental health has become a major topic among journalists internationally. Two of the most recent national conferences for Canadian journalists included discussions about mental health, and similar conversations have taken place in Ukraine.

Globally, journalists are being harassed, threatened, defamed, imprisoned, and killed at alarming rates. Speaking not only as a journalist but also as someone engaged in open-source intelligence research, which is a particularly specialized field, do you find yourself emotionally affected by the things you encounter?

Do you experience distress or emotional difficulties as a result of this work?

Vladyslav Novikov: Are you asking how I feel while doing this work?

Jacobsen: Yes. For example, a friend of mine documents the war through photography and social media. On one occasion, he arrived at a recently bombed site and encountered an entire family that had been killed.

Experiences like that naturally provoke strong emotions. In your case, do you encounter things that affect you emotionally, or does the nature of your work create more distance from those experiences?

Novikov: I think, Scott, when this war began, I experienced a great deal of negative emotion.

The war affected every part of my life. It disrupted my career, my relationships, and my emotional and psychological well-being.

When the full-scale invasion started and I felt the impact of all those things, I decided that I needed to do something as a journalist. I took a camera and went toward the front lines to document what was happening.

After everything I experienced during that period, I think something changed in me emotionally.

I do not feel things in quite the same way that I did before the war. That applies to both positive and negative emotions.

Now I focus on doing what I believe needs to be done. I continue my work and try to contribute in whatever way I can.

Of course, I hope the war ends soon. I genuinely hope that it does. I cannot say it will happen soon, but I hope for it.

In the meantime, I know that I need to do what I can. I am a journalist, and that means continuing to do the work that I believe is necessary.

So I wouldn’t say I focus on my feelings. I focus on the work, while hoping that one day the war will end.

Jacobsen: If you were speaking directly to decision-makers and opinion leaders in Washington, what would you want them to understand about this stage of the war? You are speaking not only as a journalist but also as someone who has conducted a substantial open-source intelligence investigation. What trends have you identified? What recurring patterns or activities have you found? And what do Western analysts get wrong?

Novikov: I do not think the issue is primarily with Western intelligence. I think it is more about Western democracy.

In my view, one of the major vulnerabilities of democratic societies is their openness. At the same time, I want to emphasize that many journalists, researchers, and analysts in the United States, Europe, and other Western countries are doing excellent work. They deserve recognition for their efforts.

The same is true of the technology sector. Ukraine relies heavily on technologies developed in the United States and Europe. That support has been extremely important.

Ukraine is defending democratic principles, and because of that, support should not be viewed only in terms of weapons, ammunition, or financial assistance. Technological support is equally important.

I think we are entering a new era defined by artificial intelligence and advanced technologies. Governments often focus on bullets, missiles, and conventional weapons, but I believe that access to semiconductors, manufacturing capabilities, AI technologies, and advanced computing will become increasingly decisive.

Whoever leads in those technologies will have significant advantages not only in conventional warfare but also in information warfare and intelligence gathering.

So if I had to identify one major message, it would be that Ukraine needs continued access to advanced technologies, including AI.

Jacobsen: What do Western analysts and intelligence researchers get right? Where do the findings of Ukrainian professionals align with what Western researchers are discovering about Russian activities and conduct during the war?

Novikov: One area of strong alignment is the documentation of Russian propaganda and disinformation.

As a journalist, I see Russian propaganda as a major problem.

For example, Bloomberg reported on a Russian influence operation on X, formerly Twitter, known as Storm-1516. That is a useful example of how Russia uses information operations not only against Ukraine but also against audiences in the United States and Europe.

The goal is often not to persuade people of one specific narrative. Instead, it is to flood the information environment with large volumes of misleading or false claims.

People encounter stories alleging that President Zelenskyy is selling weapons, purchasing luxury cars, buying property abroad, or engaging in other forms of misconduct. These claims circulate constantly.

The volume of information itself becomes part of the strategy.

As a result, many people struggle to distinguish credible from false information.

I think Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns remain one of the most significant challenges facing democratic societies.

For me personally, documenting and exposing those activities is another important part of my work. I cannot eliminate propaganda on my own, but I can contribute to efforts that challenge it.

Jacobsen: This raises an important question. What have open-source intelligence researchers within Ukraine gotten wrong? Are there cases where researchers believed they had reached the correct conclusion but later discovered they were mistaken and had to revise their assessments?

Novikov: I think there are many talented people in Ukraine doing impressive work with technology and artificial intelligence.

However, one challenge is that many projects operate in isolation. People often work independently and do not communicate enough with journalists, researchers, government institutions, or law enforcement agencies.

One example is a project called Stars About War. Only two people created it.

The project examines statements made by Russian public figures, artists, and celebrities regarding the war. Many Ukrainians are familiar with Russian music, films, and cultural figures. People may enjoy an artist’s work but have no idea what that person has said about the war.

The project helps users answer that question by collecting and organizing publicly available information.

I mention this example because it demonstrates how much can be accomplished by a very small team. Two people created a resource that many Ukrainians now use.

At the same time, it also illustrates a broader challenge. Many people in Ukraine want to contribute, build projects, and solve problems. Still, they are often uncertain about how to scale their work, coordinate with institutions, or transform a useful project into something with broader impact.

That’s one area where improvement is possible. There is a great deal of initiative and talent, but there could be more cooperation, coordination, and knowledge-sharing among researchers, journalists, institutions, and civil society organizations.

Even so, the fact that people continue trying to build these projects and contribute despite the circumstances is extremely important.

Jacobsen: Is there anything that would be too risky for you to research? For example, are there subjects where you could potentially face legal consequences or other serious risks for investigating them?

Vladyslav Novikov: Do you mean in Ukraine?

Jacobsen: Well, given the work you are doing on Russia, you are probably already viewed negatively by Russian authorities. I was thinking more about risks within Ukraine.

For example, Ukraine has institutions such as the SBU, NABU, SAPO, and other anti-corruption bodies. Corruption has decreased over time, but it remains an issue. Investigating powerful individuals or sensitive corruption cases could potentially create risks. Are there areas of research that would be particularly dangerous or inadvisable to pursue?

Novikov: I do not think that this kind of work would create legal problems for me in Ukraine.

The SBU, the police, and other institutions generally understand that journalists and researchers are working toward the same broad goal. We all want Ukraine to survive, defend itself, and ultimately end the war.

If government institutions were to review my work, I do not believe they would find that I had violated any laws.

Of course, there are always risks associated with investigative journalism, but I do not see my current work as creating legal problems within Ukraine.

Jacobsen: I should probably call it a day. 

Novikov: Yes, of course. Thank you, Scott, for the interview and for your work. Thank you for listening to me and for your questions.

Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Vladyslav. 

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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer-Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 1,900 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic fellowships, and currently serves on several boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.

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by Mike Rosen

Reinhold Niehbur.

Does that name ring a bell or mean anything to you? Reinhold is widely credited as the author of the Serenity Prayer. He graduated from Elmhurst University (then Elmhurst College) in 1910. Like MenLiving, great things spring forth from Elmhurst!

I’ve learned there’s a short version and a long version of his prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

And then the long version:

“God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, Taking, as Jesus did, This sinful world as it is, Not as I would have it, Trusting that You will make all things right, If I surrender to Your will, So that I may be reasonably happy in this life, And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.”

Recently I became aware of an analogy which I offer is a modern interpretation of that prayer. It’s titled ‘Hat, Haircut, or Leaky Roof’. I feel it’s a great mental model for emotional regulation and determining how much “stress equity” to invest in a situation. It goes like this:

1. The Bad Hat

This is a problem that is entirely external and easily removed.

• The Feeling: you’re annoyed, but you can literally just “take off the hat.”
• The Wisdom: If someone is being rude to you in traffic or a store, that’s a “bad hat.” It doesn’t belong to you; you can choose to take it off and leave it behind. It has no lasting impact on your identity or your day unless you choose to keep wearing it.

2. The Bad Haircut

This is a problem that is temporary but unavoidable.

• The Feeling: You can’t “take off” a bad haircut. You have to live with it, and people might notice it. It’s frustrating and affects your daily life for a while.
• The Wisdom: You just have to wait for it to grow out. It’s a test of patience. You acknowledge it’s there, you accept that time is the only cure, and you stop checking the mirror every five minutes to see if it’s fixed yet.

3. The Leaky Roof

This is a structural problem that requires actual labor and attention.

• The Feeling: It won’t go away on its own (like a haircut) and you can’t walk away from it (like a hat). If you ignore it, the damage gets worse.
• The Wisdom: This is where you actually spend your energy. These are the “real” problems—health issues, core relationship repairs, or career shifts.

The wisdom of the analogy is to prevent “Category Errors.” I often treat “Bad Hats”, like a rude comment from a stranger,  like “Leaky Roofs”, letting it ruin the moment and internal peace. By pausing to ask, “Is this a hat, a haircut, or a leak?” I can decide whether to just take it off, wait it out, or call in the repair crew.

I’m curious if you’ve had recent examples of hats, bad haircuts, or leaky roofs in your life? What can I change, what can I accept, and what can I ignore? Please share below!

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Previously Published on Men Living

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By Susannah Broun

Editor’s Note: A version of this story also appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, a newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, retrospectives, recommendations, and more. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.

I believe movie trailers are a truly special art form. I have spent a lot of time professing my love for trailers as a small sliver of genuine entertainment. They build excitement, start conversations, show off creative editing skills, and allow me to decide which movies deserve my time and money. However, I must admit that recently, my precious movie trailers betrayed me.

When the trailer for “The Sheep Detectives” (2026) played before a movie I was seeing in the theater, I turned to my friend with a massive eye roll. Why did all these stars agree to do this silly film? Sigh… just another cash-grab. They just aren’t making kids’ movies like they did when we were young! After writing off the film as nonsense, I vowed not to see it. However, duty calls, and my duties include reviewing rural media for the Daily Yonder.

So last week, I sat down in a fully packed theater, seats filled with audience members ranging from groups of chattering young kids with their parents to solo adults looking for a light, weeknight film. This crowd was engaged in the movie from its very first moment, when the classic MGM Lion let out a “baaa” instead of its typical roar. As the movie continued, I got to be a part of the best kind of movie theater experience, where a whole crowd moves through a range of emotions all together. We laughed, we gasped, and yes, we cried, at a movie about sheep who are detectives.

My initial reaction to “The Sheep Detectives’” trailer was proven incorrect. What I saw was not profit-driven slop, but a sweet and poignant (albeit silly) movie for all ages.

“The Sheep Detectives,” directed by Kyle Balda, is based on the 2005 novel “Three Bags Full” by Leonie Swann and tells the story of George, a kindly loner shepherd (Hugh Jackman) who loves nothing more in the world than his flock of sheep. He takes great care of them, gives them each a name, and of course, reads them murder mystery stories every night.

So when one day the sheep awake to find George dead, they are well-equipped to solve the murder. The sheep, voiced by a star-studded cast including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Patrick Stewart, Chris O’Dowd, Bryan Cranston, Bella Ramsey, Brett Goldstein, and Regina Hall, devise a plan using what they know from all the books George had read to them to uncover the truth behind their beloved shepherd’s death. They head into the fictional rural British town of Denbrook to interact with the townspeople who may have had a motive in the murder. (The human cast is equally full of talent, with actors such as Emma Thompson, Hong Chau, Nicholas Braun, Molly Gordon, and more.) As the mystery unfolds, so do powerful lessons on memory, grief, and compassion.

“The Sheep Detectives” is a PG “Knives Out” with a similar whodunnit structure – complete with hints, twists, and a big reveal. Also similar to the “Knives Out” franchise is the colorful cast of characters/suspects. In this film, these are the residents of Denbrook, a town whose rurality is central to the drama of the movie. In typical Hollywood fashion, Denbrook is depicted as a place where all of the residents know each other’s business — and nothing fuels a scandal like small-town gossip. One of the lessons that the sheep learned from their murder mystery education is that the criminal is often an outsider, making them distrustful of anyone new to Denbrook. The sheep, who until now have remained in their pasture, are learning the town dynamics along with the viewer. The movie follows the tropes of small-town mysteries, but is never mean-spirited in its depiction. Denbrook, although fictional, will feel familiar to many, and the film invites viewers to laugh together at the quirks of small-town tension.

But within the cozy small-town mystery is the aspect of the film that many viewers are talking about most: its surprising emotional depth. The sheep are coping with intense grief and have to learn to move forward without the person they love the most. The film treats that loss with an unexpected level of care, leading to genuinely tear-inducing moments alongside comedic ones. Rather than shying away from difficult emotions, the film addresses important lessons for young children (and the rest of us) about some of life’s biggest challenges.

Now, one thing I must make clear is that “The Sheep Detectives” does not hold a candle to my favorites in the heartwarming, talking-animals genre. Undisputed classics like “Paddington” (2014) and “Babe” (1995) will be films I insist my future children watch, and “The Sheep Detectives” likely will not fall into that category. Even though I was pleasantly surprised by the film, it was missing a bit of the clever charm that my absolute favorite children’s movies possess. This weakness was largely due to some of the flat and uninteresting human characters. The human interactions were the moments that I was reminded that I was, in fact, watching a movie for kids, with one-note caricatures of adults who added more annoyance than story elevation.

But overall, I am thrilled that this movie got a theatrical release, especially for young children who might get their first theater experience with “The Sheep Detectives.” It’s the kind of fun, warm experience that can create a lasting positive association with watching stories unfold alongside a room full of people.

And movie trailers, don’t worry, I will always love you. I just have to remind myself and other theater-goers to keep an open mind, lest you get (pardon the pun)… fleeced.

This article first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, recommendations, retrospectives, and more. Join the mailing list today to have future editions delivered straight to your inbox.

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Previously Published on dailyyonder.com with Creative Commons License

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Photo: The sheep in “The Sheep Detectives” (2026) are voiced by a star-studded cast including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Patrick Stewart, Chris O’Dowd, Bryan Cranston, and more. (Credit: Amazon MGM Studios via IMDb)

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Purchasing travel insurance is a smart way to protect your finances that can occur while you are away from home. However, you must read the fine print in your policy document, especially the section dedicated to exclusion clauses, before you finalise your purchase. This article outlines seven areas you must review to ensure your policy provides the protection you actually require for your upcoming trip.

1. Identifying Exclusions Related to High-Risk Adventure Activities

Many standard travel insurance policies include blanket exclusions for activities that they categorise as high-risk or adventurous in nature. If your trip involves sports, you must check if these are covered or if you need an additional premium to include them. Take note that failing to confirm this means you could be left without support if an accident happens while you are pursuing your favourite hobby.

2. Reviewing Limitations for Pre-Existing Medical Conditions

The way an insurer handles pre-existing medical conditions is one of the aspects of your policy. Some plans offer limited coverage for these conditions only if they have been stable for a certain period, while others may exclude them entirely unless you declare them upfront. Be honest about your health history during the application process, as any omission can lead to your entire claim being rejected later.

3. Checking for Clauses Regarding Alcohol and Substance Consumption

A very common exclusion found in almost every travel insurance policy involves incidents that occur while the traveller is under the influence of alcohol or drugs. If a medical emergency or an accident happens after you have consumed alcohol, the insurer may use this clause to deny your claim. Understand that this applies even in destinations where social drinking is a normal part of the culture.

4. Examining the Impact of Unattended Belongings on Theft Claims

Travel insurance is designed to cover the loss or theft of your personal items, but it does not cover you for simple carelessness. Policies typically include exclusion clauses that state they will not pay out if your bag or gear was left unattended in a public area. Additionally, this means you have a duty to secure your items at all times, and failing to do so effectively voids your coverage for those specific belongings.

5. Verifying Coverage for Travel to High-Risk or Conflict Zones

Insurers maintain a list of countries or regions that are excluded from coverage due to political instability or security threats. If you choose to travel to a destination that your insurer has flagged with a travel advisory, your policy will likely provide no coverage for any related incidents. Check the list of excluded destinations before you book your flights, as this ensures your destination is covered by the policy.

6. Reviewing Exclusions for Natural Disasters and Weather Events

While travel insurance covers many emergencies, it does not always include protection for losses. Some policies require you to purchase specific add-ons to get coverage for these events, while others may exclude them entirely if they are considered foreseeable risks. Plus, clarify what happens if a weather event disrupts your travel plans, as this is a frequent cause of frustration for many travellers.

7. Understanding the Requirements for Documentation of Losses

An insurance policy is a legal contract, and your right to a payout is dependent on your ability to provide valid proof of any incident. Policies often exclude claims that lack the necessary formal documentation, such as a police report for theft or a signed medical note for health issues. You must know what kind of paperwork is expected of you, as you will need to collect this while you are still in the foreign location.

Protecting Your Trip Through Careful Policy Review

Taking the time to read through your travel insurance policy before you buy is the most effective way to ensure your financial safety. When you know exactly what is and is not covered, you can enjoy your trip with genuine peace of mind. Never assume that basic coverage is enough; take the initiative to verify your specific needs against the policy terms. Your research is the best tool for a stress-free journey.

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We often imagine family as a space of instinctive harmony, yet its most enduring feature is not agreement but proximity to difference—lives generally shaped together, but rarely shaped alike. Nowhere is this more evident than among siblings, who inherit the same beginnings but not the same interpretations of them. Even before we learn the language of persuasion or the discipline of compromise, we encounter an enduring counterpart: someone who shares our history but not always our view of it. It is in this intimate encounter with disagreement that the family quietly becomes a training ground for how we will, or will not, learn to live with others.

The Longest Relationship We Will Ever Have

Most people spend more years with their siblings than with their parents. Parents eventually depart through age, illness, distance or death. Friendships evolve with circumstance. Romantic relationships may begin and end. But siblings often remain woven through the entirety of a life, from childhood memories to the practical realities of caring for ageing parents and preserving family histories. It is, for many, the longest relationship they will ever have.

Yet sibling relationships occupy a curious place in public discourse. We romanticise them as naturally harmonious or sensationalise them through stories of inheritance disputes and irreparable estrangements. Reality is far more nuanced. The strongest sibling relationships are not those untouched by disagreement, but those resilient enough to survive it.

This distinction matters because modern society has become increasingly uncomfortable with conflict. We often mistake harmony for health and disagreement for dysfunction. Families, in particular, are frequently judged by how little conflict they display rather than by how well they manage it. But the absence of disagreement is not necessarily evidence of unity. It can just as easily indicate fear, suppression or emotional withdrawal.

Healthy families are not those without arguments; they are those in which arguments do not threaten one’s sense of belonging.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt, reflecting on the human condition, argued that plurality is a defining feature of human existence. We are equal enough to understand one another, yet different enough to require conversation. Families embody this paradox more intimately than any other institution. Siblings emerge from the same household, share the same parents and inherit many of the same experiences, yet often become remarkably different people. The challenge of family life is therefore not the elimination of difference but the cultivation of a mind and relationships capable of accommodating it.

In an era characterised by mental health challenges, polarisation, social fragmentation and above all an epidemic of loneliness and insecurity, sibling relationships offer a neglected lesson. They remind us that enduring relationships are not built upon perpetual agreement but upon the willingness to remain in dialogue despite disagreement.

The Family as the First School of Democracy

Alexis de Tocqueville observed in Democracy in America that democratic societies are sustained not merely by constitutions or elections but by habits of association learned in everyday life. Democracy, in his view, begins long before citizens enter the public square. It is cultivated through ordinary relationships that teach negotiation, compromise and mutual respect.

The family is the first republic a child encounters.

Within it, siblings become our earliest fellow citizens. Unlike friends, they are not chosen. They arrive with their own temperaments, ambitions, insecurities and convictions. Sharing space with them requires learning one of civilisation’s most difficult skills: how to coexist with people whose perspectives and preferences differ from our own with honesty.

Arguments between siblings are therefore not just domestic inconveniences, but developmental exercises. Children learn to negotiate boundaries, resolve disputes, defend viewpoints and accommodate competing interests. These interactions cultivate precisely the qualities that democratic societies require: truth, empathy, perspective-taking, patience and compromise.

This insight finds support in contemporary psychology. Researchers increasingly view sibling relationships as critical developmental arenas where social and emotional competencies are forged. Studies have shown that positive sibling relationships during adolescence are associated with healthier interpersonal relationships in adulthood, including stronger friendships and more stable romantic partnerships. The lessons learned among siblings often become templates for navigating the wider social world.

The relevance of this extends beyond childhood. Murray Bowen, the pioneering family systems theorist, argued that psychological maturity depends upon what he called “differentiation of self”—the ability to maintain one’s individuality while remaining emotionally connected to others. In healthy families, people are permitted to disagree without being cast out. They can preserve their autonomy without severing relationships.

This may be one of the most important yet underappreciated functions of siblinghood. Brothers and sisters teach one another that affection need not require conformity.

A mature sibling relationship allows one person to say, “I disagree with you completely,” or that “you are wrong,” without abusive violence or implying, “I no longer love you.”

Such a lesson has become increasingly valuable in a culture that often treats disagreement as a form of disloyalty. The strength of a family lies not in unanimity but in its capacity to absorb differences without disintegration and take collective decisions whenever required.

When Power Replaces Dialogue

The opposite of a healthy family is not conflict. It is domination.

Many dysfunctional households are characterised by unhealthy concentrations of power. Decisions are dictated rather than discussed. Authority is enforced rather than earned. Emotional expression is discouraged, criticism is punished, and disagreement is interpreted as disobedience. Such families may appear orderly from the outside.

In reality, they often operate through fear and fraud rather than trust.

Family therapists have long observed that toxic family systems suppress communication. Instead of resolving tensions through dialogue, they manage them through intimidation, manipulation or silence. Children raised in such environments frequently learn two dysfunctional responses: submission or rebellion. What they rarely learn is negotiation.

The consequences are profound and measurable. Research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) has consistently demonstrated that exposure to abuse, neglect, domestic violence and household dysfunction significantly increases the risk of depression, anxiety disorders, substance misuse and chronic health problems later in life. A landmark 2023 meta-analysis encompassing more than half a million individuals across 206 studies confirmed the extensive prevalence and lifelong impact of adverse childhood experiences across societies.

The World Health Organization has likewise identified childhood maltreatment and family dysfunction as major contributors to mental illness, self-harm, suicide risk and the intergenerational transmission of violence.

Importantly, harm is not confined to physical abuse.

Chronic verbal humiliation and emotional degradation can leave psychological scars comparable to other forms of maltreatment. The wounds inflicted by ridicule, contempt and constant criticism often persist long after visible injuries have faded.

Here, sibling relationships occupy a pivotal position.

In many dysfunctional households, siblings are frequently drawn into destructive competition for parental approval, attention or resources. Favouritism can transform potential allies into adversaries. Emotional neglect can foster resentment that lasts decades.

Yet sibling bonds can also become sources of extraordinary resilience. In families marked by instability, siblings often serve as witnesses to one another’s experiences. They provide validation when others deny reality. They preserve memories when trauma threatens to erase them. They become, in effect, custodians of one another’s stories.

This protective function helps explain why strong sibling relationships are associated with lower levels of emotional distress across adulthood.

Studies increasingly indicate that sibling warmth acts as a psychological buffer, while persistent hostility predicts poorer mental-health outcomes. Conflict itself is not the determining factor. What matters is whether affection survives the conflict.

Healthy families are not conflict-free. They are abuse-free. That distinction is essential.

The Enduring Power of Siblinghood

Literature understood long ago what psychology is now confirming with data.

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s  The Brothers Karamazov revolves around brothers whose philosophical and moral differences are so profound that they appear irreconcilable. Yet the novel’s emotional force derives precisely from the fact that disagreement does not erase kinship. Likewise, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women portrays sisters whose personalities, ambitions and temperaments differ dramatically, yet whose affection survives those differences. These works endure because they capture a universal truth: families are strengthened not by sameness but by the ability to remain connected across difference.

The philosopher Aristotle argued that meaningful relationships rest upon mutual recognition and shared commitment rather than convenience. While popular culture often attributes to him the phrase that friendship is “a single soul dwelling in two bodies,” his deeper insight was that enduring relationships require the cultivation of virtue, reciprocity and respect. Siblinghood, at its best, embodies these qualities precisely.

This becomes especially evident later in life. Studies on ageing consistently find that emotionally close sibling relationships contribute to lower levels of loneliness and greater psychological well-being. As social circles contract with age, siblings often become repositories of shared memory and identity. They remember us before our professional achievements, before our public personas and before the narratives we construct about ourselves.

Perhaps this explains why reconciliation between siblings carries such emotional significance. To restore a fractured sibling relationship is often to recover a piece of one’s own history.

In a world that celebrates individual achievement while neglecting sustaining relationships, siblings remind us that life is not a solitary project but a shared story.

Beyond the household, where outrage and certainty often dominate public discourse, sibling bonds offer a quieter model of human connection—showing that disagreement need not become estrangement and that affection can coexist with difference.

The strongest siblings are not those who think alike, but those who remain in a relationship despite disagreement. In that sense, siblinghood is a civic virtue: it teaches us how to live with difference, negotiate competing perspectives, and preserve connection in the face of conflict, reminding us that love is strongest not when it silences disagreement, but when it survives it.

*With inputs from Lekshmi Narayan, a columnist and law scholar.

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There is a distinct, sterile satisfaction in the immediate aftermath of construction.

When you finally slide the last heavy block of stone into place, drop the iron portcullis, and look out at the world through a narrow slit in the wall, your first instinct is to breathe a sigh of relief.

For years, I told myself that this structure was a necessity. It was an act of profound self-love. A monument to my own survival.

I called it by many sophisticated, modern names:

• Healthy boundaries
• Emotional self-sufficiency
• Hyper-independence
• Protective styling of the soul

…

I looked at the chaotic, bruising landscape of human relationships—the unpredictable rejections, the casual betrayals, the agonizing slow-fades of people I once trusted—and I made an executive decision.

I would no longer be a casualty of open-country warfare. I would build a fortress.

Inside these walls, nothing could hurt me. If I had never bared my chest, no one could aim for my heart. If I had never admitted that I needed a hand to hold, I would never be left hanging in the void. If I became an island, entirely self-contained and beautifully operational, I would achieve a state of emotional invulnerability.

For a long time, the strategy worked beautifully. I was calm. I was highly productive. I was entirely untouched by the turbulence and drama that seemed to track everyone else’s lives.

But emotional architecture has a way of changing its purpose over time.

The stones don’t care whether they were laid to keep the enemy out or to keep the prisoner in. Slowly, imperceptibly, the temperature inside my creation began to drop. The safety grew heavy. The silence, which had once felt like peace, began to echo with a terrifying realization:

While no one could get in to hurt me, I could no longer get out to live.

I had built a fortress to protect my life, only to find that the fortress had become my prison.

Part I: The Blueprints of Self-Preservation

Nobody builds a dungeon on purpose. We design our defenses out of raw necessity, usually in the wake of a total emotional collapse.

To understand how a person becomes the architect of their own isolation, you have to look at the ruins they walked away from.

For me, the blueprint for my fortress was drawn during a period of profound emotional over-exposure. I had spent years operating with an open-door policy. I gave away my trust with the reckless enthusiasm of someone who believed that goodness always met goodness in return.

I allowed people to wander through the private corridors of my mind, rearrange my self-worth, and leave behind their own heavy bags of unresolved trauma before slipping out the back door without saying goodbye.

The human psyche can only endure a certain amount of unpredictable vandalism before it rebels. After a devastating eviction—the kind where a relationship or a deep friendship dissolves so abruptly that it leaves you questioning your baseline reality—the survival instinct takes the wheel.

It whispers a seductive, dangerous lie:

“The problem wasn’t the people you let in. The problem was the door itself. Remove the door.”

When I began building my walls, I did it with a sense of righteous empowerment. I devoured self-help articles that championed the virtues of cutting out toxicity, protecting one’s peace at all costs, and finding complete validation from within.

These are noble concepts in moderation. But when filtered through a wounded ego, they transform into a radical theology of isolation.

I constructed my defenses out of three primary materials:

1. The Pre-Emptive Strike (Leaving Before Being Left)

The first layer of the wall was psychological forecasting. I developed an exquisite, almost psychic ability to spot microscopic cracks in a relationship before they even fully formed.

The moment someone showed a sign of emotional inconsistency—a text response that took too long, a subtle shift in tone, a night where they seemed slightly distant—my internal alarm system would scream.

Instead of asking what was wrong or allowing for the human reality that people get tired, stressed, or distracted, I assumed the absolute worst: They are losing interest. They are going to leave.

To protect my pride, I would quietly pack my bags and emotionally check out first. I would cool my tone, withdraw my affection, and manufacture distance.

When the relationship inevitably withered due to my sudden frostiness, I would smugly tell myself, “See? I knew they would leave.”

I was entirely blind to the fact that I was the one who had murdered the connection in its sleep.

2. The Illusion of Total Self-Sufficiency

The second layer was logistical and emotional independence taken to a pathological extreme. I made a solemn vow that I would never need anyone for anything. Need was a vulnerability; need was leverage that could be used against me.

If I were going through an existential crisis, I would process it alone in my room at 3:00 AM, staring at the ceiling, rather than calling a friend. If I faced a professional setback, I carried the weight silently, presenting a perfectly polished facade of success to the outer world.

I became the person everyone else leaned on—the stable, unshakable advisor—because being the caregiver allowed me to control the terms of engagement. It kept me in a position of power.

I could look at my life and think, Look at how many people need me, and look at how little I need them. It felt like winning.

3. The Intellectualization of Feeling

The third layer was the most insidious because it masqueraded as wisdom. Whenever a raw, messy emotion attempted to bubble up to the surface — grief, longing, the deep desire for companionship — I would immediately catch it, drag it into the laboratory of my mind, and dissect it.

I would analyze my feelings through the lens of psychology, attachment theory, and sociology. I would tell myself:

• “You don’t actually miss that person; you are merely experiencing a dopamine withdrawal.”
• “This is just an anxious attachment trigger rooted in childhood.”

…

By turning my feelings into academic case studies, I didn’t have to actually feel them. I could understand them intellectually while remaining completely numb to them emotionally.

With these three materials, the walls rose quickly. They were beautiful, symmetrical, and completely impenetrable.

I stood at the top of my tower, looked down at the messy, chaotic world of people hurting people, and felt a profound, chilling sense of safety.

Part II: The Subtle Shift from Safety to Suffocation

The tragedy of emotional armor is that it doesn’t just stop the bad things from entering; it stops the good things from growing.

For the first year or two, my life within the fortress felt highly functional. I was focused on my career, my personal routines, and my self-improvement. I was a well-oiled machine.

But a human being is not a machine. We are biological organisms, and like any living thing kept in a sealed vault, I began to suffer from a lack of psychological oxygen.

The transformation of a fortress into a prison doesn’t happen with a dramatic clanging of chains. It happens through a series of quiet, devastating realizations that accumulate over time:

The Era of the Fortress The Reality of the Prison I am protecting my peace. I am utterly and hopelessly alone. I don’t owe anyone anything. No one owes me anything either. I am completely self-sufficient. I am entirely disconnected. No one can hurt me. No one can love me, either.

The first warning sign was the flattening of my emotional spectrum. When you build a wall to block out pain, the wall doesn’t have a smart filter. It doesn’t let joy, wonder, and deep affection slide through while blocking sadness and rejection. It blocks everything.

I noticed that while I no longer experienced the sharp, agonizing valleys of heartbreak, I also no longer experienced the soaring, electric peaks of true connection. My life had become a flat, grey line of perpetual moderation.

I would go out to dinners, attend gatherings, and participate in conversations, but I felt like an actor reading lines through a thick pane of plexiglass. I could see the warmth on the other side, but I couldn’t feel its heat.

The second realization was the crushing weight of my own performance. Because I had established myself as the person who “had it all together,” the person who didn’t need help, I had inadvertently trained my environment to leave me alone.

Friends stopped checking in on me during tough times because they assumed I was handling it. People stopped offering emotional support because I gave off an aura of complete invulnerability.

One evening, after a particularly grueling month of personal stress, I looked at my phone and realized there wasn’t a single person I felt comfortable reaching out to in my raw state.

To show up broken would mean dismantling the facade, and the facade was the only thing keeping the walls standing.

I was trapped by my own reputation for strength.

The most terrifying moment, however, came when I realized that I had lost the capacity for intimacy.

On the rare occasions when someone tried to climb my walls — when a person showed genuine, persistent interest in knowing the unpolished version of me — I didn’t feel grateful. I felt a visceral, suffocating panic.

Their kindness felt like an invasion; their desire to be close felt like an attempt to find my vulnerabilities so they could use them as weapons later.

I would find myself picking fights over trivial matters, manufacturing flaws in their character, or deliberately withdrawing until they gave up and walked away.

It was a sobering realization: I was no longer staying inside the fortress because I wanted to. I was staying inside because I had forgotten how to live outside.

The gates were rusted shut, and I was the one who had thrown away the key.

Part III: The Pathology of Hyper-Independence

To break out of a prison, you must first understand the mechanics of the cell. Why do we become so addicted to our own isolation, even when it begins to starve our souls?

In our modern culture, hyper-independence is rarely diagnosed as a coping mechanism for trauma. Instead, it is frequently celebrated.

We live in a society that fetishizes the self-made individual, the solo traveler, the person who needs no one. We are told that dependency is a weakness, that expecting others to validate or support us is a sign of codependency, and that our ultimate goal should be total emotional autarky.

But this celebration of hyper-independence is built on a fundamental misunderstanding of human biology and psychology.

We are wired for connection. Our nervous systems are literally designed to co-regulate with other human beings. When we cut ourselves off from that co-regulation, our bodies don’t interpret it as “”freedom”—they interpret it as chronic danger.

When I examined my hyper-independence honestly, I had to admit that it wasn’t born out of strength at all.

It wasn’t born out of strength. It was born out of a profound, paralyzing cowardice.

It takes zero courage to sit alone in a room and declare that you are at peace. True peace is easy when there is no one around to challenge your ego, no one to misinterpret your words, no one to disrupt your schedule, and no one to require you to compromise.

The fortress isn’t a sign of high self-esteem; it is a controlled environment. It is the laboratory condition of someone who is too terrified to step into the actual arena of life.

Real strength doesn’t lie in avoiding the possibility of being hurt. Real strength lies in knowing that you can be hurt, that you will be hurt, and that you possess the resilience to rebuild yourself in the aftermath.

By refusing to risk rejection, I wasn’t mastering my life — I was opting out of it. I was treating my heart like a piece of fine porcelain, locking it away in a dark cabinet where it would never be chipped, but where it would also never hold water or serve a purpose.

Part IV: The Silent Erosion of Contentment

What does life look like when you live in a prison of your own making? It looks remarkably normal from the outside, which is what makes it so dangerous.

I didn’t stop writing; I didn’t stop working; I didn’t stop smiling. But the internal landscape was suffering from a slow, steady desertification.

Every day that I chose safety over vulnerability, a little bit of my capacity for empathy withered away. When you don’t allow yourself to feel your own deep emotions, it becomes increasingly difficult to tolerate or understand the emotions of others.

I found myself becoming cynical. When I saw friends falling in love, celebrating deep partnerships, or mourning losses together, I would feel a dark, bitter twinge of superiority.

In reality, that superiority was just a thin veneer over a well of profound envy.

“They are so naive,” I would whisper to myself. “Don’t they know how this ends? Don’t they know they are just setting themselves up for pain?”

But as the months bled into years, that cynicism turned into a hollow ache. I remember one specific evening that broke the illusion for good.

I was celebrating a significant professional milestone — a project I had spent months executing entirely on my own, driven by that fierce, independent work ethic. I had achieved exactly what I wanted, precisely the way I wanted to achieve it.

I came home to my spotless, quiet apartment. I poured a glass of wine. I sat down at my dining table.

The silence of the room was absolute.

There was no one to look across the table at and say, “We did it.” There was no one to laugh with about the absurd crises we had averted along the way.

There was only me, my trophy, and my walls.

In that moment, the architecture collapsed under its own weight. I realized that success, joy, and even peace are hollow currencies when they are spent in an empty room. The safety I had purchased at the expense of connection was bankrupting my humanity.

Part V: Dismantling the Stonework

You cannot demolish a fortress overnight. If you try to use a wrecking ball on walls that were built out of deep survival instincts, your nervous system will violently rebel. You will experience a flood of panic that will drive you straight back into the center of the tower, where you will build the walls even higher.

The work of escaping your own fortress is a slow, meticulous process of stone-by-stone deconstruction. It requires you to look at each block of defense, understand why you put it there, thank it for protecting you when you were weak, and then deliberately lay it down on the ground.

For me, the dismantling began with three intentional shifts in my daily life:

• Micro-Admissions of Need: I started with things that felt incredibly low-stakes but made my chest tighten nonetheless. Instead of dealing with a minor household issue or a technical glitch entirely by myself, I forced myself to text a friend and ask, “Hey, do you know how to fix this? I’m struggling with it.” The first time I sent a text like that, my ego screamed that I was being weak, that I was being an inconvenience. But the response I received wasn’t mockery or rejection; it was an immediate, warm willingness to help. By allowing someone else to be useful to me, I gave them an invitation to connect. I was letting them into my yard.
• Distinguishing Between a Boundary and a Wall: A boundary is like a gate with a latch: it regulates who comes in and out based on safety and mutual respect. It keeps out the people who wish to cause harm while opening wide for the people who bring peace. A wall, however, has no hinges. It keeps out the saint and the sinner alike. I had to audit my rules of engagement. When I felt myself pulling away from someone, I had to ask, “Is this person actually showing red flags, or am I just terrified because they are getting close enough to see my scars?” More often than not, the answer was the latter.
• Learning to Stay in the Room When It Hurts: Intimacy is messy. When you let people into your life, they will occasionally disappoint you. They will say the wrong thing, they will forget important dates, they will be clumsy with your feelings, and you will be clumsy with theirs. This isn’t a sign that the relationship is broken; it is a sign that the relationship is human. In the past, the moment an interaction became uncomfortable or tense, I would retreat behind my battlements and pull up the drawbridge. Now, I forced myself to sit in the discomfort. I forced myself to say, “That comment hurt my feelings,” or “I feel really insecure right now,” rather than converting that hurt into cold, defensive anger.

…

The Beauty of the Ruins

Today, my fortress is no longer intact. It is a work in progress, an active demolition site.

There are still days when the wind blows cold, and my first instinct is to grab a trowel and start mortar-patching the cracks in my old walls. The fear of being dropped, misunderstood, or left behind never completely disappears. It is a baseline tax we pay for being alive and possessing a heart.

But most days, I choose to live among the ruins.

There is an unexpected, wild beauty in architecture that has been breached. When you let the walls crumble, the sunlight can finally reach the soil that has been dark for years. Wildflowers start to grow in the spaces where the stones used to sit. The air circulates again.

I am no longer invulnerable. I am susceptible to the sudden shifts of human weather. I can be hurt, I can be blindsided, and I can be left out in the cold.

But I can also be touched. I can be seen. I can sit across from someone, look into their eyes without a mask or a shield between us, and experience the profound, life-saving truth that we are navigating this chaotic wilderness together.

If you are standing inside your own creation today—if you are looking at your flawless, quiet, independent life and wondering why it feels like an anchor around your chest—I invite you to walk down to the gate.

Look at the stones you built with such care to keep the world away. You don’t have to tear down the whole structure today.

Just find one loose rock. Pry it free. Toss it aside. And let the outside world see the beautiful, trembling human being waiting inside.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

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The post The Fortress I Built to Protect Myself Became My Prison appeared first on The Good Men Project.

By James Branscome

When I published “Annihilating the Hillbilly” in 1971, the manifesto argued that the stereotyping of Appalachian people was not folklore but a tool. Coal operators, federal agencies, national media, and political elites used the hillbilly caricature to blame mountain people for conditions created by absentee ownership and extractive industries. The image was a weapon. The essay first appeared in the Journal of the Committee of Southern Churchmen, edited by my former Berea College professor Dr. James Y. Holloway. Fifty-five years later, the weapon is still in use, and the conditions it justified have only deepened.

I have spent the half-century since documenting what happened next. My book “Annihilating the Hillbilly Redux,” releasing June 6 on Amazon, brings together 37 chapters of reporting across that span — from the Mountain Eagle of Whitesburg, Kentucky, where I have been a contributor since 1973, through the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, American Heritage, Business Week, the Daily Yonder, Cardinal News, the Lantern, and West Virginia Watch, among many others. The argument that runs through all of it is straightforward: Appalachia’s and Eastern Kentucky’s struggles are not the result of cultural failure or individual choice. They are the predictable outcome of how institutions chose to operate in the region.

The numbers tell the story plainly. The sixty counties of Central Appalachia — 30 in Kentucky, 16 in West Virginia, seven in Virginia, seven in Tennessee — lost approximately 49,100 people between 2020 and 2025. In Kentucky’s coalfield counties, the losses ran 2.5 percent. In West Virginia’s coalfields, they ran 5.0 percent. The projections through 2050 are worse: Harlan County, projected to lose 44.6 percent of its remaining population. Breathitt County, 39.4 percent. Buchanan County, Virginia, 48 percent. These are not slow demographic adjustments. They are the final stages of a region being emptied.

The Appalachian Regional Commission has spent approximately $30 billion dollars in the region since 1965. Twenty-five billion of that went to highways. The remaining $5 billion supported people programs across 60 years. For comparison, post-Hurricane Katrina recovery in Louisiana drew well over $100 billion dollars in a fraction of the time. The federal response to extraction, displacement, and structural collapse in Appalachia has never approached the scale of the underlying damage.

Starting with the TVA

The Tennessee Valley Authority, founded as a New Deal experiment in democratic regional development, became something else entirely. In its pursuit of the cheapest possible coal for the cheapest possible electricity, TVA introduced and aggressively expanded strip mining across eastern Kentucky and the western Kentucky coalfields — including the Paradise generating station and surrounding mines that John Prine memorialized in song. The agency could have insisted on safe deep mines, which would have preserved both jobs and the mountains. It chose instead to drive a market for surface extraction that hollowed both. The agency that was supposed to model an alternative path for the region instead became the most reliable customer of the practices that destroyed it.

And now the next chapter is being written before the previous one has been finished. Across the Appalachian states, former mine land and virgin parcels are being targeted by industrial-scale data centers serving the artificial intelligence boom. The environmental impacts are deep — water consumption at scales that strain regional supply, electricity demand that drives up residential rates for the same households living next to the facilities, particulate and noise pollution that mirrors the patterns of coal era externalities. The job creation is modest and largely temporary, concentrated in construction and short-term technical roles. The same patterns of absentee ownership, externalized environmental costs, and minimal local benefit that defined coal extraction are being replicated by the cloud computing industry. The region is being recolonized for its electricity and its empty land. Local communities are being told, again, that this represents opportunity.

The question my book asks is not whether Appalachia can be saved through cultural reform or individual resilience. J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” offered that answer to millions of readers. It was the wrong answer in 2016, and it remains the wrong answer now. The question is whether American institutions will ever take responsibility for what they have done to the region — and whether the next generation of institutions will choose a different path.

Three ideas

I propose a three-part policy framework for that different path, scaled to Central Appalachia specifically rather than to the broader rural United States.

First, an Ascend Central Appalachia talent-attraction program, modeled on West Virginia’s Ascend program. The West Virginia version, launched in 2021 by a public-private partnership led by Brad Smith — former CEO of Intuit and now president of Marshall University in Huntington — and his wife Alys, has drawn nearly 1,000 new residents to the state through cash incentives, free outdoor recreation, and community-building support. Participants receive $12,000 plus benefits; the program reports a retention rate above 96 percent. A version scaled for Central Appalachia would specifically target the coalfield counties whose population losses are most acute, with structural support for housing, childcare, and broadband.

Second, a contemporary Appalachian Homestead Act, modeled on the 1862 legislation that opened the American West, transferring land currently held by absentee corporations into the hands of people willing to settle and build communities in the region. The legal mechanisms exist. What has been missing is political will.

Third, a time-limited Universal Basic Income experiment scaled to the specific economic challenges of Central Appalachia. A regional pilot, run for five or seven years, testing whether direct income support can stabilize communities, reverse outmigration, and provide the floor that decades of policy has refused to construct.

These are not utopian proposals. They are mechanisms that have been used elsewhere, in other regions facing other crises, with measurable results. They cost a fraction of what is being spent on highway projects that serve through-traffic rather than the communities they pass through. They could begin tomorrow if the federal and state governments chose to begin.

The mountains do not need to be saved through the heroic exertions of the people who live there. They need to be treated, finally, as a region whose institutions failed it — and as a region whose recovery requires the same scale of public investment and creative policy that the country has marshaled for every other place it has chosen to value.

What my book documents, across 55 years of reporting, is that the choice has always been there. Appalachia has never been beyond saving. It has been beneath bothering to save.

That is the real elegy. And it is one Kentucky and the nation still have time to correct.

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Linda Blackford for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.

—

Previously Published on kentuckylantern with Creative Commons License

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Photo credit: James Branscome’s new book, “Annihilating the Hillbilly Redux,” will be published on June 6, 2026.

The post Five Decades Later, the Mountains Still Need What They Never Got appeared first on The Good Men Project.

By Patrick O’Donnell, The 74

This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering education. Sign up for free newsletters from The 74 to get more like this in your inbox.

Letting students decide how they learn is almost as important a goal of Mayfield High School near Cleveland as learning itself.

The school lets students skip traditional classrooms and lectures if they don’t fit how a student learns best. They can work independently at their own pace, earning credit based on what they learn, not for sitting in a class all year.

Or students can leave school each afternoon to complete a paid internship, earning credit for what they learn in the workplace.

Mayfield High School, with an enrollment of 1,200 students, is one of many high schools across the country increasingly offering students flexibility to shape their class schedules and how they earn credits toward diplomas, as career demands keep shifting and students grapple with family and life challenges.

It’s an approach that has grown as students mix high school classes with early college courses or seek different ways to try out jobs and train for them, none of which fit neatly into days divided by class periods.

“Let’s be real, our students have many more responsibilities in today’s world than we did back in the day,” said principal Brian Linn added. “They may be working to support their family. They may need that internship, because they need to go right into the world of work.”

Students “live in a personalized world outside of school,” said Linn, “so we have to personalize (school) to meet their needs.”

It’s a shift that has drawn praise from national education advocates, including the XQ Institute and Battelle for Kids. Personalized learning has also become a greater priority for states, including Indiana, Vermont and Virginia, while schools that adopt the approach are cropping up from Washington, D.C. to greater Chicago.

Two new paths have taken hold at Mayfield High School with this flexibility:

• A Learn and Earn program that offers 127 of the school’s 1,200 students paid internships in fields such as manufacturing and construction. Students often pick the chance to learn on the job over being trained in a trade in a school workshop as part of a career technical education program.
• An alternative schedule and class experience that gives students more independence, simply called The Option. It’s a mix of study hall and class time with its own open space as big as a gym where students can do as much math or English as they want each day, as long as they finish all their work each week.

“We wanted to create a self-paced option for students,” Linn said. “To be very frank, we couldn’t think of a better name for it, so we called it The Option.”

It’s a program about 20% of the school’s students choose over taking classes the traditional way, with teachers leading a lesson. The Option allows them to do classwork at their own speed, while teachers act as guides instead of lecturers. Students read materials or watch videos, then answer questions or write about the lessons independently, seeking teachers when they need help.

“Option time, for lack of a better word, is a structured study hall,” said Paige Zenovic, an English teacher who chairs the program. “It’s basically the idea that the students are with their teacher for study hall.”

Students study multiple subjects – such as math, English, history — all within The Option’s high-ceilinged study space larger than a basketball court that was once a building trades workshop. It’s now renovated for tables that seat a handful of students and with a balcony and wide staircase where students can work.

Teachers for multiple subjects are based there, so they and students can interact whenever they are there about any option classes at any time. Lessons are given to small groups of students and sometimes just in one-on-one sessions, in this version of what some call a “flipped classroom.”

“You just will not see a 50-minute specific lecture with 25 students in the class,” Linn said. “You’ll see one 10- to 15-minute mini lesson.”

Superintendent Michael Barnes called The Option a “fully customizable” school day that lets students pick what subjects to work on when, so long as regular assessments show they are on track in a limited form of mastery-based learning, in which students work on academic material until they know it and can show competency in it.

“We allow our students to exercise agency over their own learning so they have voice and choice,” Barnes said. “They set their schedule every single day. They can determine what they want to work on, when they want to work on and when they want to assess.”

That independence helps teach students responsibility to do their work and time management skills.

“That’s a really important piece that doesn’t typically happen in the traditional class, because everyone’s supposed to be doing the same thing,” Zenovic said.

Because The Option is voluntary, students can choose to return to traditional classes. Some do, but many continue it all through high school. Senior Giovanna Zahedi has used The Option all four years of high school because she considers lectures unfocused and rambling.

“I find it really hard to concentrate in classrooms,” she said. “I just want to get straight to the point, just finish my schoolwork.”

Sophomore Madilyn Senning splits her classes between traditional classrooms and The Option, but says she prefers The Option.

“I have a hard time focusing when they’re lecturing the whole class,” she said. “I can work ahead, because a lot of the time I get things done faster than some other people in my classroom. It’s just easier for me to get my work done.”

The Option is joined by Learn to Earn as the two most aggressive ways the school gives students choices.

The school belongs to a consortium of 10 suburban school districts that share career technical education classes such as welding and auto repair between them. But those have become so popular that 17 out of 19 CTE programs are oversubscribed and turn students away. Welding, for example, has room for 35 students but had 175 applicants this year.

“We don’t want to have to tell a student, no,” said Deanna Elsing, the school’s director of innovation.

“A typical high school isn’t in a position to build a million plus dollar facility…to support the needs of our students’ personalized interest,” Elsing said. “But for the bargain price of free, we can partner with local industry, organizations and businesses and they can become the classroom.”

So Elsing started recruiting local businesses to bring in student interns — and pay them. That’s rare nationally, with fewer than five percent of high schoolers doing an internship or apprenticeship before graduating, according to federal data and surveys by the American Student Assistance nonprofit, now known as Britebound.

Started with just nine students three years ago, Learn and Earn now has 127 — about 10% of the school — doing internships in fields that include welding, manufacturing and home construction.

The program is open to juniors and seniors, who spend their first semester learning workplace etiquette, doing tours of companies and hearing presentations from different businesses. They then move on to working about 20 hours a week for businesses over the next year and a half, often including summer work.

That meant the school altering its schedule so the students can take academic classes in the morning, leave by 11:45 a.m. and be at their internships by 12:15. That lets them work all afternoon, often staying after school hours to keep working until the end of the work day, as many employers requested.

The school also added training sessions for employers, not just students, before interns would start at a company.

“It’s so important for our students to be able to look someone in the eyes, shake their hand, dress appropriately, test drug free, and have those professional skills,” Elsing said. “But we found over the last three years that some of these industries have not quite yet mastered how to properly engage and train a Gen Z or Gen Alpha student. Because they are 16, 17, 18-year-olds, they’re not going to come in as polished as your college graduate is going to come in.”

Jacob Reed, 19, who graduated from the high school last May, started working for nearby Kerek Industries, a manufacturer of parts for municipal transit systems, about 20 hours a week as an intern his junior year, continued as a senior and was hired after. He now works part-time while studying engineering at the local community college.

“I’ve already been in a professional work environment for over two years now, so I know what it’s like working jobs, coming every day, knowing what’s expected of me,” he said. “I think that gives me a leg up for sure.”

The company even adjusted his work schedule to accommodate final exams and for practices and games for the school’s football team. Because he could leave school to start work around noon, he could leave at 3 p.m. for practice.

Company owner John Kerek said he knows he has to train students more than when hiring adults, but he said manufacturing companies need employees and everyone has to start somewhere.

“I expect from day one I’m going to start at the very ground-level basics of ‘This is a machine shop..this is what this machine is capable of doing…this is what we’re using it for. ..this is how we check the parts that it’s making,” Kerek said. “I’ve learned repetition is key. The more I say something, the better it sticks, and the more I let them fail a little bit, the better it sticks too.”

Senior Mackenzie Lofton has a very different internship learning how to be a project manager for a construction business through the Brookes & Henderson Building Company, a builder of luxury homes. He first tried to do the traditional construction trades program through school, but too many students applied and he was shut out.

He has no regrets. Officially, he is a laborer that does low-skill jobs at houses under construction around the region. But the company is also giving him a look at construction he’d never see in class — how to run a project.

Zak Mowry, the company’s operations manager, said schools are good at teaching students specific trades, such as carpentry, electrical or plumbing work. But schools, he said, don’t provide an overarching look at how to plan and manage all those trades to finish a home.

So most days Mackenzie sweeps floors and moves construction materials to help skilled workers. But he is also invited to company meetings to plan houses. And every Thursday, he shadows managers as they oversee different aspects of construction, ranging from foundations to heating and cooling. The company even created a hardcover manual and workbook for interns that explains key terms for each specialty and has questions they answer after each shadowing day.

“You see all the trades come into action,” he said. “ So you see the foundation being made, you see the electrical running wires, you see the plumbing coming in, you see all the hardware coming in. All those things that are behind the scenes, you get to see out in the field that they don’t teach you in the classroom.”

Just as importantly, Mackenzie is learning management skills by watching managers navigate disputes between different trades, architects and customers on multi-million dollar homes.

“I feel like I have way more experience because I’m actually in the field, while they’re just learning in classrooms,” he said. “You’re interacting with people, getting your social skills up. You also have to be on time, so you’re becoming more responsible as a man and as a person.”

Disclosure: XQ provides financial support to The 74. 

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By C. Brandon Ogbunu

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The first thing he said to me was not hello.

It was, “You look like someone who has been carrying other people’s weather for too long.”

My reaction? I laughed. I didn’t know what else to do when a stranger diagnosed my soul.

But he didn’t laugh with me.

That should have been my first warning. Instead, I decided he was intense. Deep. Different.

His name was Elias. He had silver rings, dark eyes, and… a romantic voice.

He asked me for a coffee.

I said yes. Of course I said yes.

At that point in my life, I was saying yes to almost anything that could give me an escape route.

I was twenty-eight, tired in a way sleep could not fix, and recently spat out by a relationship that had taken two years, half my dignity, and most of my ability to make decisions.

My job was fine, in the same way plain toast is. It kept me alive. It did not make me feel anything, though.

So when Elias told me he worked with a “conscious living studio” that helped people rebuild their inner self, I did not hear nonsense.

I heard possibility.

He spoke about emotional sense, somatic memory, and how modern life trained us to betray the body.

“You’re not broken,” he said, stirring his coffee without looking down. “You’re opening.”

I nearly cried, because… he was right.

Within a week, we started casual texting. Within a month, we started meeting almost daily. He cooked for me. He noticed things I was ignoring. He touched my wrist when I got anxious. He made attention feel medicinal.

The trouble with being starved is that even poison can taste like care.

Soon, his friends started appearing.

Not physically at first.

Digitally.

A man called Theo sent me a voice note after seeing one photo of me online, telling me my eyes had “old grief.” Another woman, June, wrote that the house had been “waiting for my frequency.”

The house. Like what?

I asked Elias what she meant. He smiled as if I had asked a sweet, childish question.

“You’ll understand when you come.”

And there it was.

The invitation.

Or the bait.

But I wasn’t in my senses. The house was in the countryside. An old white building with wild grass. Too many wind chimes, honestly. It sounded like ghosts doing laundry.

Inside, everyone was beautiful in that suspiciously relaxed way certain people become when they have no visible bills. They wore linen. They hugged with both arms.

I was nervous, though.

Everyone knew my name. Everyone said they had heard “so much” about me… a very clever way to make someone feel welcomed.

The first evening was harmless enough. We sat in a circle. People spoke about what they were releasing. Shame. Control. Mother wounds. Capitalism. Gluten, at one point.

I said very little.

Afterwards, Elias told me I had done beautifully.

“You’re guarded,” he said, kissing my forehead. “But that’s just trauma trying to keep you small.”

I believed him.

That was the beginning of me not trusting myself.

Each visit pushed a little further. First, it was eye-gazing. Then touch exercises. Then confession rounds. We were asked to say things we were once ashamed of.

I kept feeling something tighten inside me.

Not fear exactly.

More like my body tapping politely on the glass, trying to get my attention.

Excuse me. We hate this.

But whenever I mentioned my discomfort, Elias had an explanation ready.

“You intellectualize safety.”

“You confuse resistance with intuition.”

“You’re addicted to control because chaos raised you.”

It sounded intelligent. It sounded caring.

That was the problem.

Cruelty is easier to reject when it wears boots. Much harder when it shows up barefoot, makes soup, and tells you your fear is a doorway.

By the fourth weekend, they had a plan for me.

A “pattern-breaking night.”

I was told it would help me release the version of myself that survived by shrinking. Everyone spoke about it like a gift. Like I should be grateful they were willing to gather around my brokenness.

I wanted to refuse.

Instead, I smiled.

They blindfolded me.

“Only if you consent,” Raina said.

But twenty people were watching.

So I nodded.

They led me around the room while whispering things into my ear.

You are safe.

Let go.

Stop performing.

Trust the collective.

Someone touched my shoulders. Someone held my hands. Someone pressed their forehead against mine. The music grew louder. People began crying. Or laughing. Or making sounds I could not identify and did not want to investigate further.

Then Elias leaned close, “Now we need you to surrender the last wall.”

I did not know what that meant.

But I knew, with sudden animal certainty, that I needed to leave.

NOW.

I pulled off the blindfold, grabbed my shoes, and ran without saying anything to anyone.

Outside, the night air hit my face like common sense.

I stood by the road, shaking, one shoe on, one shoe in my hand, waiting for a taxi that took some minutes.

The next morning, the messages began.

At first, they were loving.

Elias said he understood that breakthroughs could feel frightening.

Raina said the group was holding me in tenderness.

Theo said my nervous system had mistaken liberation for danger.

I didn’t answer.

Then the tenderness spoiled.

Elias said I was abandoning my healing.

Raina said not everyone was ready to meet themselves honestly.

June said running away was also a choice, but not a brave one.

Theo sent a long message about how people who reject the work often return to the patterns that destroyed them.

That one got me.

I had spent years terrified of being the problem.

And now they had found the exact bruise.

For days, I wondered if I had overreacted. Maybe I was closed. Maybe I was damaged. Maybe healthy people liked being blindfolded in rooms full of strangers while a man they had known for six weeks whispered about surrender.

The mind can become a circus when enough people call your instincts fear.

Then I received something from Elias.

“You’ll come back when the pain of staying asleep becomes unbearable.”

I blocked them all.

I moved in with my sister for a month. I told her everything in pieces. She listened without making the face people make, judging my intelligence.

“You were lonely,” she said. “They knew that.”

That sentence helped more than all their ceremonies combined.

It took therapy for me to understand what had happened. Because I was human. I wanted meaning. I wanted community. I wanted someone to look at the mess of me and say it was not a mess at all, but a beginning.

That is how people get pulled in.

Not usually through evil music and dramatic robes.

Sometimes through coffee.

Through kindness.

Through language that makes your pain sound sacred.

Through someone attractive telling you your exhaustion is a portal.

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By Rachel Berliner

Dear EarthTalk: How can I spot social media misinformation regarding climate change and what can I do to combat it?

—Maurice Maloney, Providence, RI

Climate misinformation is a term that refers to false or deceiving claims about climate change, sustainability, or climate solutions. Disinformation spreads rapidly and creates tension around environmental issues. Misinformation also “fuels political extremism and puts lives at risk,” according to COP30 Special Envoy for Information Integrity Frederico Assis.

Researchers at Texas A&M University and Ripple Research, a non-profit advisory firm, found that misinformation is typically centered around two narratives, claiming either environmental research is invalid or solutions are not viable. “One of the most powerful [types of disinformation] is saying that it’s too late,” says UN Verified Champion Maria Clara Moraes. These false claims are hindering advancements towards climate change solutions and sustainability initiatives, as recognized in November 2025 at COP30, the United Nation’s 30th Climate Change Conference. “There is a broad recognition that disinformation can affect and compromise every part of the COP process,” says Assis, “diplomatic negotiations, the action agenda, or mobilization and summits. All out efforts will be at risk if we fail to tackle disinformation properly, which stems from denialism.”

Communities and organizations around the globe are working together to fight the spread of misinformation. For example, COP30 hosted twelve nations who created a program against misinformation and signed the first Declaration on Information Integrity on Climate Change. Brazil’s Secretary of Digital Policies João Brant says the goal is to “create a wave of truth”. Brazil was one of the many initiators of the Declaration. The initiative’s global fund has generated support from around 100 countries who have submitted about 450 proposals, according to UN News.

In addition to global action, individual decisions can weaken the influence of misinformation. If a post or article lacks a credible source, employs strong emotional appeals, presents logical fallacies, or includes cherry-picked data, conduct more research to determine the statement’s credibility. Readers can use fact-checking websites such as Science Feedback and FactCheck to help assess a source’s reliability. If a reader chooses to respond to or comment directly on the misinformation, they must act diligently to not inadvertently magnify the false claim on a social media algorithm. For example, when responding to misinformation, do not repeat the false claim itself. Experts say anyone commenting on a misinformation post or article should address it with a “truth sandwich”: start by relaying the truth, address the false claim without repeating it, and then end the comment with a truthful statement. Commenters should also include credible sources and scientific studies when responding. Additionally, many social media algorithms allow users to report posts that include false claims. Readers can work together to stop misinformation by staying alert online, acting diligently, and responding to false claims in an effective way.

CONTACTS

• How to fight climate change misinformation
• Climate Disinformation Booms As Extreme Weather Threats Grow
• ‘A wave of truth’: COP30 targets disinformation threat to climate action

EarthTalk® is produced by Roddy Scheer & Doug Moss for the 501(c)3 nonprofit EarthTalk. See more at https://emagazine.com. To donate, visit https://earthtalk.org. Send questions to: question@earthtalk.org.

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Previously Published on emagazine

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This morning Craig and I visited a new church.

The worship music was beautiful. People were warm and welcoming from the moment we walked through the doors. There was joy in the room, real joy, not forced or performative. You could feel people genuinely wanting connection, wanting hope, wanting something deeper than the endless noise and division the world keeps feeding all of us lately.

The sermon centered around the parables of seeds. Not just one of them, but several of the seed parables Jesus taught throughout scripture. The pastor said something that stayed with me all day: many of the seeds God places in our lives are actually the answers to the prayers we keep asking for. The problem is that we often overlook them because seeds rarely arrive looking like miracles at first.

That landed deeply.

A seed looks small.

Insignificant.

Ordinary.

And yet inside a seed exists an entire future waiting for stewardship.

I think many of us spend years begging God for transformation while ignoring the seeds already sitting in our hands.

Seeds of discipline.

Seeds of honesty.

Seeds of stillness.

Seeds of forgiveness.

Seeds of courage.

Seeds of repentance.

Seeds of discernment.

Seeds of responsibility.

Seeds of boundaries.

Especially boundaries.

Honestly, the older I get, the more convinced I become that darkness absolutely hates healthy boundaries.

Seriously though, it’s true. Just think about it in your own life.

Psychologically. Emotionally. Relationally. Spiritually. Boundaries interrupt unhealthy systems. They expose manipulation. They force accountability. They remove easy access to someone’s energy, attention, resources, emotions, or peace.

That’s why people often become the angriest precisely when we stop participating in unhealthy dynamics.

I have seen this in relationships, friendships, family systems, churches, coaching dynamics, and even business environments. The moment someone says, “This no longer feels healthy for me,” the entire atmosphere can shift. Suddenly the person setting the boundary becomes “selfish,” “crazy,” “cold,” “unloving,” or “difficult.” Guilt starts flying. Accusations emerge. Revisionist history appears out of nowhere. Emotional manipulation intensifies because unhealthy systems tend to panic when access is removed.

And honestly? That overlap between psychology and spirituality fascinates me deeply lately.

The more I work on Everyday Demons, the more I notice how often destructive spiritual patterns move through profoundly human psychological mechanisms. Fear. Shame. Pride. Narcissism. Addiction. Rage. Victimhood. Compulsive distraction. Emotional chaos. Self-erasure. Manipulation disguised as love. Control disguised as protection. Spiritual superiority disguised as wisdom.

Darkness rarely announces itself dramatically in our lives.

Most of the time it simply whispers agreement.

Agree with the resentment and chaos.

Obsession and bitterness.

Agree with the ego or confusion.

Agree with the lie that peace is weakness and emotional volatility is passion.

One tiny agreement at a time.

That is why I no longer dismiss the importance of what we repeatedly feed in our lives. Scripture speaks about this constantly. Seeds. Fruit. Soil. Harvest. Christ understood human nature far better than many modern people give Him credit for. He knew environments mattered. He knew repetition mattered. He knew what we continually entertain eventually shapes us.

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.” — Galatians 6:7

That verse feels almost uncomfortable to modern culture because we want freedom from consequences while still feeding unhealthy things daily. We feed anxiety while starving stillness. We feed lust while starving intimacy. We feed ego while starving humility. We feed outrage while starving wisdom. Then we sit confused wondering why peace feels distant.

Seeds always grow eventually.

That truth applies psychologically as much as spiritually.

Carl Jung once wrote, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” I think about that line often now. Many people are living from unconscious wounds, unresolved trauma, unexamined fears, emotional compulsions, and inherited dysfunction while believing their suffering is entirely external. Meanwhile, their inner soil is crowded with bitterness, fear, envy, chaos, resentment, self-abandonment, and emotional fragmentation.

The fruit tells the story eventually.

Every single time.

One of the things I have become increasingly aware of is how modern culture rewards emotional performance while quietly starving the soul. We are encouraged to react instantly, broadcast constantly, consume endlessly, and avoid silence at all costs. Stillness has become terrifying to many people because stillness eventually exposes what is unresolved.

Silence reveals what noise hides.

That’s part of why The Hippie Christian became so important for me to write. Somewhere along the way, many of us lost touch with presence itself. We became disconnected from creation, rhythm, embodiment, contemplation, prayer, groundedness, and deep listening. We started treating spirituality like performance instead of communion.

And communion requires honesty.

Real honesty.

The kind that asks difficult questions.

What am I feeding daily?

What atmosphere am I cultivating inside my home?

What relationships leave me grounded versus chronically confused?

What thought patterns have become normalized?

What emotional patterns keep repeating?

What have I been entertaining that quietly steals my peace?

Those are not small questions.

These questions shape destinies.

One of the most dangerous things about emotional and spiritual dysfunction is that human beings adapt to it remarkably fast. We normalize chaos. We normalize confusion. We normalize emotional exhaustion. We normalize anxiety and overstimulation to the point that genuine peace can start feeling unfamiliar. Some people have lived inside emotional turbulence so long that calmness feels suspicious to them.

Peace is not boring.

Peace is healthy.

Peace creates space for clarity.

Peace allows truth to breathe.

Peace reconnects us to God, to ourselves, and to each other.

And no, that does not mean life becomes easy or painless. Christ never promised the absence of hardship. What He demonstrated was alignment. Groundedness. Integrity. Compassion without self-erasure. Boundaries without hatred. Love without enabling destruction.

That last part matters deeply.

Loving someone does not require participation in their chaos.

I think many of us need to hear that more clearly.

There is nothing unloving about refusing to water weeds that are choking the life out of your garden.

That’s stewardship.

The pastor said something else this morning that I have continued turning over in my mind all afternoon. He said that many people pray for miracles while overlooking the tiny seeds God already placed directly in front of them. A healthy marriage begins with tiny seeds. Healing begins with tiny seeds. Peace begins with tiny seeds. Faithfulness begins with tiny seeds. Wisdom begins with tiny seeds. Entire orchards grow from what initially looked insignificant.

Christ constantly spoke in agricultural language for a reason.

The condition of the soil matters.

And maybe that is the real question many of us need to ask ourselves right now:

What is growing inside me?

Not what am I posting.

Not what am I performing.

Not what image am I projecting to the world.

What is actually growing inside me?

Fear or peace?

Bitterness or compassion?

Chaos or groundedness?

Pride or humility?

Confusion or clarity?

Resentment or forgiveness?

Because eventually, every seed bears fruit.

And the fruit always tells the truth.

That question has been sitting heavy on me all day:

What is actually growing inside me?

Not the image.

Not the performance.

Not the curated version we hand the world online.

The real fruit.

The real atmosphere.

The real condition of the soil.

What we feed grows. Every single time.

So I’m curious… what part of this musing hit you the hardest today? What seed are you realizing you need to stop feeding — or finally start watering?

Drop a thought below. I read far more of these comments than people realize.

And if this stirred something in you, share it. Somebody you love may be watering weeds while praying for a garden.

As always loving and praying for you and our world,

Rene Schooler

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By Daniella Jiménez

Julie Hendrickson was nervous about her 87-year-old father’s move to a San Diego County assisted living facility and wanted to make sure they both understood the rules and conditions before signing the contract. The person who admitted her father was walking them through the document line by line, when two words caught Hendrickson’s attention: family council.

“I’d never heard of it before,” Hendrickson said. “I was looking for a way that I might transition to give him some space and independence but still advocate, you know, still be supportive.”

But the worker offered no information, directing Hendrickson to the executive director. While waiting for that person to respond, Hendrickson turned to Google.

It told her that under California law, residential care and skilled nursing facilities must inform new residents and their families of the existence of a family council. And if a council doesn’t exist, relatives must be told of their right to form one.

But to her dismay, Hendrickson found that the facility her father was moving into in 2024, didn’t have a family council and that it would be up to her to form one.

Hendrickson is among many who learn about family councils only because they ask. Family councils are independent groups of residents’ relatives or friends that meet to discuss issues to raise with staff members, who are not allowed at the meetings unless invited. California strengthened these rights in 2023, giving family councils some of the strongest protections in the country. Among other things, the law now requires facilities to respond to a council’s written requests within 14 calendar days.

Facilities with active councils often see higher quality care because families are more engaged, said Tony Chicotel, a senior attorney with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. But creating one can take persistence.

“Family councils are like a precious desert flower,” Chicotel said. “They can do beautiful things, but they need lots of tender and loving care to thrive.”

Consequently, family councils remain rare, often forming only after care issues arise, he said.

In nursing homes, short stays make it harder for relatives to invest in organizing. In assisted-living facilities, families may fear backlash or simply lack information, Chicotel said. Although facilities are required to disclose the right to form a council, Chicotel said those notices often get buried in voluminous admission packets.

Getting started

Patti Marin and her sister, Ruby Marin, formed a family council last year, because they were not satisfied with the way their mother’s assisted living facility in Long Beach responded to their concerns about her medication schedule.

When their complaints went nowhere, Patti Marin drove to Los Angeles County’s Social Services Community Care Licensing Division to ask how the system was supposed to work. A supervisor pointed her to Title 22, California’s regulatory framework for long-term-care facilities, where Marin said she learned for the first time about family councils.

Marin said that soon after forming the council, she casually invited others to join. “I remember saying, ‘Hey, we have a family council, if you have any concerns, please come,’” she recalled.

Now a year old, the council has 10 active members and has raised dozens of concerns with the facility’s administrators. Some complaints have resulted in changes, including a shift away from high-carbohydrate meals and the hiring of a new chef to design more balanced, nutritious menus.

Help from the state

In San Diego, Hendrickson’s research led her to a county ombudsman. They act as advocates, making sure facilities comply with state rules.

The California Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program has representatives in counties who support residents in care facilities and their families, including in forming family councils. Fay Gordon, the state’s long-term care ombudsman, said her office supports about 200 family councils. She encourages relatives to ask early about whether a council exists and to contact their county’s ombudsman office if it does not.

“Once they get past that initial process, it can be hard to reengage, and I think that’s a really critical moment for that caregiver to feel supported,” Gordon said.

After talking with her local ombudsman, Hendrickson began her own outreach, designing flyers and postcards and posting them on bulletin boards near the front desk as families gathered at the San Diego facility for Fourth of July festivities.

A month later, she had connected with one other family member and convened the first meeting. Now the council has about a dozen participants, and monthly meetings typically run about an hour.

With support from the ombudsman, the group works through issues, brainstorming strategies for supporting residents, engaging staff and management, and elevating complaints to the state’s licensing division when needed.

Neither the San Diego nor the Long Beach facility responded to multiple requests for comment about the difficulties Hendrickson and Marin had in getting information about family councils.

Both women said stronger state and county oversight is needed to ensure facilities address complaints raised by families. Those families, they noted, are overwhelmed, intimidated and unsure how to navigate the care system. They shouldn’t then be tasked with figuring out how to form a council that is supposed to support, rather than stress, them.

Hendrickson is no longer involved with the family council, because eventually her father decided to move. But she recommends the experience to family members who are trying to ensure their loved ones get the best possible care. Connections formed through the council, she said, offer something invaluable: a community.

“The positive is you get to meet people,” Hendrickson said. “You just get to meet people who are doing the same thing with their life energy that you’re doing.”

Daniella Jiménez is a writer with the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley. She reported this story through a grant from The SCAN Foundation.

This article first appeared on California Health Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Previously Published on calhealthreport.org with Creative Commons License

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