What might change if young people learned that big feelings are not bad feelings – and feelings are not the boss? This is another song I’ve developed as part of my internal literacy curriculum for young people. It’s a teaching tool for one of the most important capacities we can help children, adolescents, and adults build: how to stay present when big feelings come. Not suppress them, perform calm, pretend they are fine, shame the reaction, or let the feeling make every choi

Learning to recognize what is happening inside you while it is happening — so automatic patterns do not have to make the next choice for you. We recognize many forms of literacy: reading literacy helps us understand words, digital literacy helps us navigate technology, and AI literacy is increasingly helping people understand and use powerful new tools. But most people were never taught another form of literacy: Internal Literacy. Internal Literacy is the real-time ability to

When a response has become automatic through repetition, insight can help us see it—but a new response still needs practice. Most people have attempted to force themselves to change: they try harder, promise harder, push harder, and shame themselves harder. They tell themselves, "I should know better," "I need to stop doing this," "Why am I like this?" or "I already understand the problem, so why am I still repeating it?" However, knowing better isn't always enough. Many patt

Why the moments that activate our old patterns are often the same moments where a new response can be practiced. Most of us think change happens somewhere outside ordinary life: after the hard season we're living in, after the stress calms down, after the relationship improves, after the job changes, after the kids are older, after we have more time, more energy, more money, more support, more clarity, more confidence. But life does not pause so we can become ready. Life is w

Schools teach young people how to read words, numbers, historical documents, scientific evidence, financial information, digital tools, and, increasingly, artificial intelligence. But there is one literacy underneath all the others that most students are never explicitly taught. They are rarely taught how to read themselves. They are not consistently taught how to notice the internal patterns shaping how they think, choose, respond, relate, recover, avoid, persist, use opport

Equity conversations in education often focus on access: Access to rigorous coursework. Access to qualified teachers. Access to safe learning environments. Access to technology. Access to college pathways. Access to career programs. Access to mentors, networks, funding, support, opportunity, and representation. All of this matters; it matters deeply. Students do not all begin from the same place. They do not all inherit the same resources, models, safety, networks, expectatio

Schools understand practice. Students practice reading so decoding becomes more fluent. They practice math so problem-solving becomes more available. They practice writing so language becomes clearer. They practice instruments, sports, speeches, lab procedures, presentations, and technical skills so what once felt difficult becomes more natural through repetition. We know that repetition trains capacity. But there is another kind of practice happening in students every day. S