I have spent my entire professional life sitting with people who are searching for meaning. Not success. Not productivity. Not even happiness, at least not in the shallow sense. Meaning. People come into my office with impressive resumes, full calendars, families they love, and lives that look good from the outside. And yet something feels off. Flat. Misaligned. Quietly aching. Over time, I’ve noticed a pattern. Most people have never actually been asked the most important qu

We are living in a time where it feels like everything is an argument waiting to happen. Politics. Parenting. Race. Gender. Religion. Vaccines. Education. Even grief has become something people debate instead of honor. For many people I sit with, the exhaustion is not just about what they believe. It is about what their bodies are carrying. Tight chests. Shallow breath. Shorter fuses. A constant low-grade vigilance that says, “Be careful. Say it right. Don’t get attacked.” Th

The longest journey most of us will ever take is not across countries or careers or relationships. It is the journey from head to heart. From knowing why we are the way we are to feeling what we have been carrying. From understanding ourselves to forgiving ourselves. Most people stop halfway. We read the books. Listen to the podcasts. Learn the language. We can explain our attachment style, name our trauma responses, trace our patterns back three generations. We know exactly

Most of us are not afraid of silence because it is empty. We are afraid because it is full. We stay busy on purpose. Podcasts in the car. Music in the shower. Notifications lighting up the quiet moments between tasks. Even exhaustion can feel safer than stillness. At least exhaustion gives us something to point to. Quiet asks something different. Quiet removes the distractions we hide behind and leaves us alone with ourselves. And for many people, that is the scariest place t

A colleague said something to me recently that stopped me cold: “Gratitude and stress can’t coexist.” At first, I wanted to argue with it. Because stress shows up everywhere. In good lives. In meaningful work. In loving families. And gratitude can feel like a luxury when your nervous system is fried and your mind is running laps at 3 a.m. But the more I sat with it, the more it landed. Not as a platitude. As a practice. Stress thrives on contraction. On narrowing. On the beli

I once read something from the 1700s discussing, in essence, that people of the time were overstimulated. I remember thinking to myself, "if they thought THEY were overstimulated, what chance do WE have?!?" Most people who come into my office don’t say, “I’m overwhelmed.” They say things like: “I’m fine, I’m just tired.” “I can’t focus like I used to.” “I don’t feel like myself, but nothing is technically wrong.” And they usually assume this means something inside them is fai

We spend a lot of time talking about beginnings and endings. Fresh starts. Clean slates. Big breakthroughs. And when things fall apart, we talk about closure. Letting go. Moving on. But most of life doesn’t happen at the beginning or the end. It happens in the middle. The middle is where the excitement has worn off, but the payoff hasn’t arrived. Where you’re no longer who you were, but not yet who you’re becoming. Where motivation dips, doubts get louder, and the question qu

And That Might Be the Best News You Get All Day January has a particular pressure to it. Not loud, not aggressive, but heavy. Like the calendar turned a page and now expects proof that you will finally get your life together. Everywhere you look, someone is promising a reset. A breakthrough. A better version of you, neatly packaged and ready by February. But here is the quieter truth most people feel in their bones and never say out loud. The new year does not change you. You

"Calm seas do not make for skillful sailors." -African Proverb Most people think calm is a personality trait. You either have it or you don’t. You’re naturally grounded or you’re not. Some people just stay steady. Others fall apart. That story is comforting if you’re already calm. It’s brutal if you’re not. The truth is less glamorous and far more hopeful. Calm is not passive. It’s not a vibe. It’s not the absence of stress. Calm is an active skill  that gets built in moments

Every leader will get it wrong at some point. Not because they’re careless or unqualified, but because they’re human. And yet, most workplaces treat mistakes like they’re radioactive. People scramble to defend themselves, bury the tension, or quietly hope time will smooth everything over. But time doesn’t repair anything. Skill does. In my work with organizations, I see the same pattern again and again: Teams don’t break down because someone made a mistake. They break down be

People talk about joy as if it’s an emotion that strikes out of nowhere like a weather pattern. One minute nothing, the next minute sunshine. But joy, in the way most of us experience it, isn’t an accident. It isn’t even a feeling that arrives fully formed. In the Sheade house, we have a little plaque on our mantel that says "Happiness is something you decide ahead of time." Joy is a spiritual principle that gets built one quiet gratitude at a time. Most of the people I sit w

Most of us grow up learning that being loved means being agreeable. Easy. Low-maintenance. We learn to read the room, soften our edges, and adjust ourselves so other people stay comfortable. At some point, it becomes second nature. We start shaping our lives around not rocking the boat. But there is a cost to shrinking. When you spend your life managing the emotional weather of everyone around you, you lose track of your own climate. You forget what you believe. What you want

Winnie the Pooh has been around long enough to feel like an old friend. A simple bear with a soft heart and a bottomless appetite for honey somehow ended up giving us one of the most quietly brilliant lessons in mental health we’ve ever seen. Look closely at the Hundred Acre Wood and you’ll notice something familiar. Every character carries something. A fear. A wound. A quirk that shapes how they move through the world. And yet no one is trying to fix anyone else. They just w

When I step onto a stage or into a training room, I meet people who want the same thing. They want their teams, their clients, and their relationships to communicate better. They want fewer blowups, less confusion, and more clarity. But communication is almost never the real issue. Underneath the surface, the real challenge is that people are trying to work, lead, and love without a strong enough sense of self. This is where differentiation becomes the game changer. Different

A pattern I see every year around this season: when I ask clients what they feel genuinely grateful for, many freeze. They default to the usual answers. Family. Food. A roof. And of course those matter. But gratitude gets a lot more powerful when we move past the obvious and tap into the parts of life we usually rush past. The quiet stuff. The small wins. The pieces of our daily experience that actually make us feel human. So here is a list drawn from themes I use in my pract

A foundational principle of cognitive behavioral theory and also much of human philosophy is the idea of perspective. Whether it is found in the simple phrase “let go, let God” that many of us know from Christianity or in the ancient philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, who in 124 CE said “The Universe is change, our life is what our thoughts make it,” humans have been discussing the concept of changing perspective for literally millenia. An issue with this incredibly simple conce

I listened to a brilliant talk this past Sunday about forgiveness – and as I listened, it made me think that this concept of forgiveness, both by us (forgiving others) and to us (others forgiving us), is a concept that I consistently see be relevant in the therapy office as well. As the speaker pointed out, the “punishment” of non-forgiveness is normally felt by the person who is not forgiving – not by the person who is not forgiven. It has been said that withholding forgive

Why Mental Health is Critical in the Workplace In today’s fast-paced corporate world, mental health is more important than ever. From high-pressure deadlines to the challenges of work-life balance, employees face stressors that can significantly impact their productivity, well-being, and overall job satisfaction. As a  professional speaker ,  Ryan M. Sheade understands the impact mental health has on organizational success. Through his engaging and insightful presentations, R

Nothing meaningful in life can be had without good, solid boundaries for ourselves.

Key Insights on Mental Health from Professional Speaker Ryan M. Sheade: Mental health affects every individual, regardless of age, gender, or profession. As a  professional speaker  with extensive experience addressing mental health issues, Ryan M. Sheade brings awareness and understanding to audiences, offering practical strategies for managing mental health challenges. His dynamic speaking engagements provide actionable insights for personal growth, wellness, and resilience