When’s it okay to cut ties with people?

— When you want to live by design rather than default.

— When you’re no longer settling for life on autopilot.

This is when it’s important to free yourself from beliefs, habits, and people that don’t align with this new version of you and what you're building.

It’s a chance to ask:

•  “Which connections no longer serve me?”

Then act on the answers.

Every relationship will have its unique factors to assess.

And there can be a shifting of degrees of connectedness vs ending a relationship all together.

But even before a contemplative assessment you’ll have answers about some.

Those with whom you feel worse rather than better after encounters.

Relationships where, on balance, you feel

Drained.

Criticized.

Belittled.

Undermined.

Ignored.

These are the no brainer changes you’ve been putting off.

Cutting ties to these is probably best, whatever the cost.

And because other relationships are more nuanced

and your needs are unique t...

Patience was what amazed me most on my job as a medical social worker for kids receiving specialty medical care.

Patience on the part of the child who spoke very VERY slowly due to conditions like cerebral palsy.

…While knowing that the speed of the child’s thoughts were not reflected in the speed of delivery, that her thinking was the same speed as mine…

Or the ones who couldn’t speak with their voice at all, communicating only by facial expression and pointing to pictures or letters of the alphabet on their wheelchair tray.

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And those who didn’t have the ability to use their hands to point AND couldn’t annunciate in intelligible ways, but whose cognition was still sharp as a tack.

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The ones who struggled to get every bit of food off their plate and into their mouth while so much never made it there.

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Those who walked with a wobbly gait, looking like they would definitely fall over with each and every step, even WITH their crutches.

And those who didn’t need crut...

Yesterday, June 12, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools—a major victory for students with disabilities.

The Court clarified that schools 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙩 make it harder for disabled kids to seek justice.

• Previously, families in some states had to prove “bad faith or gross misjudgment” by schools—a nearly impossible standard.

Now, they only need to show “deliberate indifference”, the same as any other disability case.

This change levels the legal playing field.

• It ensures students with disabilities can get proper accommodations without jumping through extra hoops.

Chief Justice Roberts emphasized that dealing with daily challenges shouldn’t come with more legal barriers.

Schools across the country will now need to be extra attentive—or face more accountability.

For parents fighting for fair access to education, this is a BIG deal.

https://www.reuters.com/.../us-supreme-court-bolsters.../

—Julie 

One of the most painful aspects of a catastrophic medical diagnosis is loss of control.

With so many unknowns and so much new, disruptive stuff to deal with and fit your life around, any sense of control may feel completely out of reach.

This is where my friend Yomi’s seemingly rote mantra comes into play:

• “When the going gets tough the tough get going.”

He said that to me when I was struggling with statistics in graduate school.

For it’s under duress that we find strength we didn’t know we had.

When we have the chance to find our full power and take it back.

You don’t become superhuman, you become fully human.

You’re able to find peace in the eye of the storm.

And as we struggle, using our power in the moment, we’re also healing past wounds.

Because healing only happens after the fact.

What I’ve found from clients and podcast guests is this:

• It was only when great tragedy struck that they summoned up their best.

In dealing with the present they also changed thin...

3,232 total individual episodes of respite provided in 2023—

I’ve written a lot about the need for support that families with kids with special needs have.

And a little directly talking about the high risk for abuse these kids are under.

If you’re the generous type (and I believe you are, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this post) and you have some financial wiggle room, I’m asking you to look into PEACE PLACE and consider giving a donation.

They just had their annual fundraiser.

• They provide FREE RESPITE services for parents and caregivers of children with medical or neurodiverse needs.

They say they’re just “scratching the surface of the number of families in [their] region who have children with special needs.”

They add:

“We know how prevalent child abuse and neglect are in our region, and we also know that families who have a child with some sort of diagnosis (medical or developmental) are even more likely to suffer from these crimes.

• Peace Place is on the forefr
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“Sometimes we just need to sit with people in the mud, and make sure they feel seen, heard and supported.”
—Allan Kehler

Got this quote from a LinkedIn post.

For allies of special needs families, know that many of their problems are insurmountable.

There are no fixes.

Fixes that could exist (such as in service systems) will take longer than they should, if they ever happen at all.

A parent today was asking a special needs attorney if there’s a way to do an emergency appeal, since the appeals system for her child’s educational needs is so bogged down…

A child’s physical, cognitive, and emotional statuses may or may not change.

Things might even get worse.

I just talked with a mom who’d adjusted well to her child’s initial condition, only to have a brand new condition arise.

This put Mom back at square one in the puzzle of what their lives will become.

• It’s hard to feel helpless while your friend or family member is suffering.

But trying to change the subject or turn realit...

“In the silence of your mind, your heart will deliver the answers you seek.”

—Julie Browne

This is the last sentence of my book Masters of Change.

A book for people navigating waters they’re not prepared for.

Making decisions about things they never intended to deal with.

Needing answers to things they never imagined.

Because a catastrophic event changed their lives forever.

People who’ve lost their rudder to who they are and where they’re going.

And don’t have the option to stay where they are.

Whose only choice is to keep moving forward, even when not knowing which direction is forward.

—.—

If you were in that boat, what would this sentence mean to you, or what does it instruct you to do?

—Julie

The intersection of grief and identity loss is my topic. It’s brought on by forced change.

That’s what my book MASTERS OF CHANGE is about—reinventing yourself after the rug’s pulled out from under you.

Ever since young adulthood I’m fascinated hearing stories from individuals overcoming adversity.

Truth be told, I was seeking guidance on doing it better myself.

I also wanted to understand how people with much fewer resources than I overcame situations much more dire.

This was late 70s - early 90s.

I’m not a historian AT ALL but these are a few basic truths. This was when:

— Central America was in turmoil with “civil” war.

— A genocide against indigenous communities of Guatemala was taking place, one village at a time.

— The School of the Americas (in the United States) was training Salvadoreans on torture techniques.

— The US government was supporting:

— paramilitaries conducting extrajudicial killings in Colombia and other countries,

— puppet and authoritarian regimes th...

Yesterday I read the saddest Facebook post ever.

A foster mom was ready to throw in the towel.

But she couldn’t.

Because she “knew too much” she HAD to keep helping kids, broken as she was.

Although The System broke her, she wasn’t going to let that keep her from helping kids.

My post yesterday was about this same problem:

—human service systems that don’t work as intended—

for clients, workers, or society.

• Systems that turn many workers into unempathic people just clocking in because of paychecks and benefits.

The most tragic part of the post?

A comment thread a MILE LONG with other foster parents in the same place.

Telling the EXACT same story.

I never worked for child protective services because it was such a broken system.

I got a masters degree in social welfare with an emphasis on planning to change inadequate and inefficient systems so agencies would actually fulfill their mission statements.

But then I became “just” a social worker.

I was reprimanded for “com...

And what does an empathy project for Ukrainian families have to do with special needs families?

A pilot project in Ukraine focused on shared pain, strength, and healing for individuals.

Then they trained municipal workers in:

— emotional regulation,

— conflict de-escalation, and

— trauma-informed communication.

The goal was for frontline staff to work better with people in crisis.

The result?

They expanded community-based trauma support to institutions, shifting culture not just one family at a time but one institution at a time.

How?

They brough humanity back into an institutional model by integrating empathy into daily interactions.

This topic is of great concern because when parents receive a catastrophic medical diagnosis for their child it’s a traumatic event.

It’s akin to entering a war zone.

• The loss of their child’s potential as they envisioned, on top of a demanding new lifestyle attending to special needs, is a form of psychological death and physical unfreedom
...