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The Things I Can Do (But Really Don’t Want To)

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By Kristi Cruise I can do a lot of things. I can color-code a spreadsheet, write a grant proposal, build a website, manage a board meeting, and respond to seventy-two emails before breakfast. I can even fake enthusiasm while updating an Excel tab called “Pending Follow-Ups.” But let me be clear: I loathe operations. Like, deep-soul, energy-vacuum, “please let this be over soon” loathe. It’s funny, really, because somehow I do more of it now than ever. My days are an endless carousel of calendars, approvals, and tasks that multiply when I look away. Somewhere in the middle of all this productivity, my inner artist is waving a little white flag. I remember my high school swim coach, Mrs. Cullen, once told me I was a “jack of all trades, master of none.” She wasn’t wrong. I can survive in almost any situation — smile through chaos, fill in for anyone, and duct-tape broken systems together until they look like modern art. But thriving? That’s another story. Operations are like chlo...
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A New Definition of Love

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  A New Definition of Love By Kristi Cruise Love is not the ache of wanting to be chosen. It’s the calm of remembering you already are — by yourself, by life, by something steady that has never left you. Love isn’t the spark that burns hot and fast. It’s the flame that hums in rhythm with your breath, asking nothing but truth. It’s not the drama of leaving and returning, the high of chaos followed by the relief of apology. It’s the gentle consistency that makes time feel soft again. Love does not demand proof or perfection. It asks only for presence. It says, " You are safe here. You don’t have to earn peace." It’s not about rescuing or being rescued.  It’s about walking side by side, both whole, both free, both curious enough to keep learning from each other. Love is an exhale. A place to land. A laughter that lingers because there’s nothing left to hide. The old kind of love taught me endurance. The new kind teaches me ease. And I will no longer confuse longi...
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Surrender

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Surrender By Kristi Cruise There was once a yoga class I taught called Surrender. It was always the quietest on the schedule, tucked between the more popular power flows and sculpt sessions. People used to skip it, assuming they’d get more out of something harder, sweatier, faster. I get that now—how surrender can look like giving up when it’s really the beginning of freedom. I used to think surrender meant letting go of control. Now I think it’s more like letting go of the illusion of control— the exhausting upstream paddling that keeps us busy but rarely gets us anywhere new. Sometimes I can almost hear the river whisper, “You could rest now, you know. I can carry you farther than you think.” I’m starting to believe it. Lately, life has been reminding me that my oars are optional. The more tightly I grip them and paddle, the more tired I become. And yet when I finally release, when I let the current take me—the world rearranges itself with an ease I could never have plan...
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Quiet October

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By Kristi Cruise October has been quiet. Not the kind of quiet that feels empty—just the kind that doesn’t buzz on the surface. All the humming has been inside, beneath the hood, in closed circles and private spaces. I find myself—and my swirling head of endless ideas—in a state of incubation. I feel deep healing. I sleep hard, dream hard, and have started keeping a journal of every dream, each one more revealing than the last. It’s quite possible I’ve cracked a code for sleep self-therapy. I used to go to bed to reset; now most nights feel like an eight-hour existential therapy session… in the best way. Since my birthday, I haven’t gone silent so much as inward. I’ve been polishing, refining, tending to the ideas already in flight. It’s a different kind of motion—slower, steadier—like the mind sanding down the edges of something that’s finally starting to shine. And I’m tired. But it’s a good tired. The kind that follows deep work. The extrovert in me feels guilty that the labor is i...
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It Just Was (A Birthday Reflection)

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  It Just Was (A Birthday Reflection)  A birthday reflection on peace, presence, and the quiet miracle of enoughness By Kristi Cruise Usually, my birthday feels fragile — the kind of day where any tiny thing can send me into tears, and considering how clunky life is, that means tears on my birthday most years.  There’s always been this quiet pressure underneath it all: to feel celebrated, to feel seen, to make the day special without having to plan too much myself and without crying . But this year was different. It wasn’t perfect, obviously. There was a 4-hour stretch of morning chaos where nothing went right, and I was definitely NOT sleeping in. There were last-minute cancellations to my birthday happy hour, mix-ups, and all the usual things that could’ve thrown me. But I didn’t flinch. I felt calm, grounded, and steady — as if all of my healing work from the last 30 years had finally integrated. And best of all, I felt all the birthday love. All day long. I felt al...
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Charlottesville-- A (Write) of Passage

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 By Kristi Cruise I’ve just returned from three beautiful days in Charlottesville, and I can’t quite explain why, but it feels like something important shifted in me. It wasn’t just the stunning fall weather or the familiar Downtown Mall. It was the people. Friends I hadn’t seen in 5+ years — faces that felt like home the moment I was with them. We picked up as if no time had passed. I felt so loved, so seen, and so deeply grateful. Being back in the place where I spent four formative years as a news anchor reminded me of something: true friendships don’t disappear. They wait. They hold. And they welcome us back in. This trip was more than a reunion. It felt like a rite of passage. I stepped into the past for a moment, carried my present self with me, and left with a new sense of the future. The younger me who once walked those roads would hardly believe the risks I’ve taken, the obstacles I’ve overcome, and the dreams I’ve followed. And yet, surrounded by old friends (and familiar...
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The Gift of Time

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By Kristi Cruise For the past month, I’ve been in a season of nonstop motion. The kind where the days blur and the work keeps pouring out of me in waves—sometimes gentle, sometimes tidal, but always forward. Just when I think this project has reached its highest point, another idea lands, another refinement flows, and suddenly it’s even stronger. It’s humbling, exhilarating, and honestly feels like some of the best work of my life is being born right here, right now. Honestly, it all feels like a dream, like a dejavu, a dream I think I've had before.  I had braced myself for the big meeting to come quickly as was originally. Every ounce of me was prepared to hand it over, ready or not. But life handed me something else today: because of travel schedules, it’s been pushed back two whole weeks! Yea! Two whole weeks for me to breathe and take care of the million and one things I haven't even touched in the last 4 weeks due to this unexpected awesomeness.  I feel… relief. A glor...
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A Book Born in Three Hours

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Two days ago, I wrote the first draft of a new children’s book. Late last night, after the kids went to bed, I managed to illustrate the entire thing in just three hours. I’m still reeling. I didn't know I had it in me. And it's really good!)  Usually, my stories take months (even years) to unfold. This one came sprinting — as if it already existed and just needed me to catch it. Twelve double spreads, a beginning, middle, and end, all complete in less than a day. I’ve never worked this fast, this free, or this joyfully. This also proves to me one of my favorite quotes, "We can do hard things," meaning we are capable of so much more than we know.   Of course, it’s not finished. The artwork is rough, the characters are only placeholders, and the whole thing will need layers of polish. But the bones are strong. The heartbeat is there. And that’s the part you can’t fake. I can’t share the specifics yet — it’s still too new, too tender, too unprotected. But I’ll say ...
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View on the Golden Path

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By: Kristi Cruise  There are moments in life when you can almost hear the click of something falling into place—like a cosmic lock turning with perfect ease and you have the Key. You don’t have to force it, chase it, or convince it. The doors swing open as if they’ve been waiting for you all along. "Walk through the open doors," with a set of gold Keys in hand.  Lately, that’s how life feels for me. Every small choice, every leap of faith, every late night and early morning (I am not a morning person) of work and wondering—it’s as though they’ve been stacking in silence, forming a paved path that now suddenly glows with clarity like the Keys I have created. The people I meet, the conversations I have, even the setbacks that once felt unbearable… they all fit together like puzzle pieces I couldn’t see before. It’s humbling. It’s electrifying. And it’s teaching me something profound: when we align with our deepest purpose, the universe conspires to meet us there. It doesn’t m...
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The Alchemy of Clarity

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Sometimes the universe doesn’t whisper—it shouts. Not through ease, but through resistance. Not by smoothing the path, but by forcing us to choose where to place our energy. Alchemy isn’t magic in the old sense. It’s the process of turning something raw and heavy into something radiant and valuable. It's the ability and the choice to shift focus. And often, the raw material we’re given is discomfort, and that's ok, because the universe is always lining up the greatest good for us.  When we decide to show up fully—clear-headed, present, sovereign and unwilling to numb ourselves—the energy that might have been swallowed by distraction transforms. The weight becomes fuel and the unvierse flows right through you. What once felt like mud underfoot suddenly powers the roots of something bigger, something alive. This is the quiet gift of clarity: it makes space for creation. It says, you can channel what hurts into what heals, what drains into what drives, what breaks into what bui...
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A Pitch Perfect Happy Birthday

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Today he would have turned forty-seven. Three days before he died in December of 2018 he called me to say goodbye and to make me promise to leave my position at a company I had created and grown for a decade. Unwillingly, I promised. He promised to help me from up there the way he did from down here. And on his birthday today, I feel his loving spirit wrapped around me like a warm hug.  Birthdays measure more than time. They measure the distance between who we were and who we’re becoming, the people we miss and the futures they still shape. I didn’t plan it this way, but I spent today, his birthday, drafting a sponsorship package that could become the most meaningful partnership of my career—a financial literacy arm that helps kids feel confident with money. I don’t think it’s an accident. My north star is simple: give kids tools they can actually use—short lessons, approachable stories, quick games, books (obviously) and small actions they can try the same day. No lectures. No ...
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Still Learning To Write Like Me

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By Kristi Cruise People assume writing comes easy for me. After all, I’ve been a journalist, a health reporter, an author for nearly 30 years. (Wow, that's a long time.)  My days of pretending to be older than I am to be taken seriously have long since passed. And my writing has changes so much over time. I’ve written thousands of stories in my life—but most of them weren’t mine. That was the job. You learned to strip yourself out of it. You knew that the story was never about you. You didn’t cry on the copy. You didn’t let your voice shake. (Expect that one time when I was coming the house fire that swallowed 2 firefighters. they were moving across the living room floor, the fire was in the basement and when the crossed the unknown inferno, it swallowed them whole. That the only time I remember in my TV career where I had a difficult time keeping it together.)  But those days of writing hard news. They are long gone. And now? Now, almost everything I write is me. It’s weird,...
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