You can't stop hard things from happening. You can change how you meet them.
A free 20-minute audio walk-through of the C.A.L.M. Method — for the moments when knowing what to do isn't enough.
Watch the Chapter Series
A deep dive into why you react the way you do — and how to change it.
Identity Crisis After Divorce - You’re Not Broken
Your Defensiveness in Relationships Is Your Ego
Nervous System Regulation Starts in Ordinary Moments — Not Crisis Ones
The One Question That Unlocks Emotional Pattern Recognition
Don't Try to Stay Positive: Do This Instead
Still Stuck in Emotional Reactivity? Here's the Regulation Method That Actually Works
More videos on identity, resilience, and navigating major life changes. Subscribe on YouTube →
Latest Insights:
Hi, I'm Mike
I teach a four-step framework called the C.A.L.M. Method for navigating major life transitions — divorces, job losses, faith changes, and the kind of identity disruption that comes when something you used to define yourself by isn't there anymore.
If you're in the middle of one of those right now, you probably know the disorientation I'm describing. It's not just that the circumstances have changed. It's that your sense of who you are has gotten shaky in the process.
You're not broken. You're going through what most people go through when external markers of identity stop holding the weight they used to.
I learned this the hard way. In 2008 I lost a long-held ministry position. Six years later, my marriage ended; and because of the divorce, the church community I'd rebuilt with afterward dismissed us from our roles.
What I figured out in that stretch — and what eventually became the C.A.L.M. Method — wasn't a new belief system. It was a distinction I'd been missing: between the temporary circumstances and the steadier awareness underneath them.
The C.A.L.M. Method
C — Connect with what's happening in and around you. Pause and notice what's actually here — your body, your breath, your thoughts, the room.
A — Allow the things that are to be as they are. Let the moment be what it is, without rushing to label or fix it.
L — Let Go of your running commentary about the situation. Notice when the voice in your head is driving, and stop following it.
M — Move Forward with action informed by the present moment. Take the next step from awareness, not from habit.
This is introduced briefly here. The free guided audio practice walks through all four steps in real time. The book applies the framework across fourteen chapters of common stuck-points.
The book includes 184 research endnotes and was edited by Cathy Suter, who has edited books by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Where to Go Next
Get the book on Amazon — the full framework with practices for fourteen real-life situations.
Watch on YouTube — videos every two weeks walking through the method, one piece at a time.
Read the articles — practical writing on identity, transitions, and present-moment work.
Thanks for being here.
I'm Mike.
I live in central Wisconsin and write about staying steady through hard transitions. The C.A.L.M. Method came out of my own version of that — losing a ministry position in 2008, and a marriage and a second church community in 2014. The book and the practices are the part of that experience that turned out to be useful to other people.
Inflated egos, narcissistic relationships, high-control groups — they all hook into the same vulnerability: a self that doesn't feel solid. Here's how the pattern works, and what's helped me find a way back.