Fall 2025: Resources We Love
As the back-to-school season begins, life can feel a bit busier. It’s a great time to find small ways to stay grounded — whether that’s getting outside for a breath of fresh air, pausing with a good read, or visiting us here at the Center.
Our team loves to share meaningful resources we come across in our own lives. Here are a few that offer insight and encouragement during this season of transition.
Alea Bell
There have been two practices bringing me joy recently.
First, I have returned to a favorite evening routine for grounding, mindfulness, and spiritual connection. I enjoy reading from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo, which includes a reading and exercise for every day of the year. I love that I can pick it up on and off, and it's an easy way I can build in a moment of connection with myself amidst busy schedules and routines.
I've also been talking with families about how much more difficult it can be to find the moments of delight and connection with our children in the bustle of back-to-school season. An easy practice I enjoy and recommend is playing "the mirror game." It's a simple way to build focus, co-regulate, and laugh together wherever we might find a free moment of time.
It’s as simple as it sounds: Two partners face each other and one acts as the "leader" while the other acts as the "mirror," copying their movements and facial expressions — movements can be slow and deliberate or fast and energizing. Then, partners can switch roles. It's a great way to fill your child's emotional piggy bank and build attunement all around. And it’s likely to lead to some giggles!
Stephanie Brown
While traveling, I often feel inspired and think more creatively. I've been trying to keep up my creative vacation energy during non-vacation times by engaging in things I most enjoyed while traveling — being outdoors, trying out new restaurants, and learning from museums. Sometimes it doesn't hit like the real thing, but it sure helps!
A resource I've been inspired by lately is Katherine May’s Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. We have all been through “Winters” in our lives. These times can actually coincide with the Winter season or they can hit on the warmest of days. May provides valuable insights, drawn from her own experiences and other sources, on how to navigate these challenging times, take care of ourselves, and embrace uncertainty, fear, and loss. It gives me hope that if we allow ourselves to Winter, we can create the potential for a glorious Spring.
Dania Fawaz
Change shows up in big and small ways: a new classroom, a new season, a big life transition. However it arrives, it can be grounding to slow down and make space within. Lately I’ve been leaning on Sarah Blondin’s Live Awake episode, “Accepting Change.” This gentle 10-minute reflection welcomes the full mix of feelings and invites us back to kindness and self-compassion. You can listen to it on Insight Timer here.
Elizabeth Ebaugh
I am loving David Whyte’s book of prose and poetry, Still Possible. It’s nourishment for the soul during these times.
Liz Hagerman
This summer, I spent most of my time in nature — hiking in forests, being on the sea, and climbing onto a glacier. The experience reinforced my belief that Mother Nature is a very good mother.
Being outdoors among the trees or the sea — breathing fresh air, hearing the birds, and taking in the rich scents of earth, pine sap, and flowers — is deeply nourishing for all ages and stages.
And for those with young children from birth to age 5, I have a couple of helpful reading recommendations:
Substack: Nurtured Child — More specifically, check out writer Anna Ruth Myers. Here’s a recent piece I enjoyed: The Value of ‘No’ — Rethinking Refusal.
Circle of Security International — They recently posted a fascinating piece about how a baby’s brain comes pre-wired to learn: Your Baby’s Beautiful Brain: Built to Thrive in Any World.
Kate Kelly
I’ve been diving deep into Sarah Blondin’s short book of meditations, Heart Minded How to Hold Yourself and Others in Love. It’s a gentle, wise, loving, and practical guide to support us in coming home to ourselves and resting ever more deeply in our hearts. Each inspiring chapter encourages thoughtful and deep reflection. I’d encourage readers to listen to Sarah’s soothing voice sharing these meditations and to also record their own voice reciting them as well.
I have also been resonating with the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of therapy. I had the good fortune this summer to attend a week-long training in Cape Cod with its founder Dick Schwartz, and his wife, therapist Jeanne Catanzaro. IFS is an evidence-based therapeutic model that is de-pathologizing, honors the multiplicity of the human personality, and deeply enhances self-compassion.
To learn more, one book I like and think is a great introduction to the work is, No Bad Parts Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Dick Schwartz.
I’m looking forward to sharing IFS work with my clients of all ages this fall!
Liz Liptak
Some people struggle with the feeling that yoga and other mindfulness practices are self-indulgent. I was recently introduced to Barrie Risman, a yoga teacher whose weekly blog explores how to make yoga practice relevant and valuable in everyday life.
In a recent post titled A Place to Land, she writes about how yoga often feels like an inward journey. Yet through breath and movement, it also has the power to connect us to something larger than ourselves.
“Landing inside yourself doesn’t have to mean retreating from the world; it can be a rediscovery that you are part of something far greater and vaster than your individual self. When the mind rests in this way — into connection rather than isolation — our sense of self begins to expand.”
As she notes, this connection is “both deeply personal and utterly universal — the same quiet that lives in old-growth forests and star-filled skies — reminding us we were never separate at all.”
Ultimately, her message is that these practices don’t turn us inward in isolation, but instead help us open up more fully to others and to the world around us.
Amy Murphy
During these increasingly chaotic days in our city, I have reduced my consumption of news. Instead, I’ve been seeking refuge in nature and reading more books. My latest read combines both of these strategies!
I have just begun reading The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. It is a visually pleasing book, full of Tan's whimsical and wise observations about the birds she spent time watching in her own backyard. Interspersed throughout are Tan's own sketches of these birds — they are delightful and full of personality. I learned that the book itself is the culmination of Tan's own search for refuge during an upsetting and chaotic time in her life; it has certainly provided a bit of an escape for me.
