Finding Your Matrix

As I round the corner on another year, I have been reflecting. What went well? What didn’t go as I had hoped? Where did my patterns show up? What can I learn about my patterns? What was beyond my control? What lessons can I take into the new year?

As we rang in 2025, Joe Biden was still President. As the Presidency changed, so too did the rules of decorum. Over the last year, we have been living through the reality of a President focused on destabilizing the country, our communities, and families. I want to name that because it is the background against which everything has happened this year. Families have been terrorized and separated, money games with federal funding, needless targeting of higher education and nonprofits, and stripping away health care and food from millions to give tax credits to billionaires. 

The echoes of pain from this Presidency have been the reverberation permeating the year. Based on my work in politics and organizing, responses and solutions are not always immediate and must come through collective action and change. Still, I have had moments when I am frozen, unable to move forward despite knowing it could be part of a long-term solution. And so when I reflect on 2025, I am immensely proud that despite this backdrop, I have been able to develop three heart-centered projects while continuing to work in health policy. 

The oral history project went from a prospectus to reality, despite losing a Rhode Island Humanities Council grant to the DOGE, and I am humbled to note that nearly 40 people have shared their oral histories. It is an honor that these folks’ stories of activism and civic efforts will be preserved and shared with future generations. I completed my Advanced Graduate Certificate in the Expressive and Creative Arts at Salve Regina University and, with fellow graduates, founded The Expressive Arts Collaborative. Together, we wrote a grant proposal and hosted our first two workshops at Now or Never Hobby Hub and Social Club. And finally, this website, The Victory of Running, was launched. All of this work, all of these projects, are collaborative efforts. I am grateful to the people who stepped in at just the right moment to help carry these ideas, visions, and opportunities forward, especially given the conditions outside our control in 2025.

With those reflections top of mind, I wanted to be intentional about navigating 2026. Knowing that we will continue to live in an uncertain world, I reflected on how to take care of myself. Not a bubble bath and wine, but authentic self-care. Self-care that accounts for longevity and brain health, my perimenopausal age, can happen no matter where I am physically, or who resides in the White House. I also reflected with gratitude on the fantastic friends, family, and cheerleaders I have come across in the last year, and how they have been integral in making these visions a reality. As I roll into 2026, I want all the gratitude and warmth to keep growing.  

With this long wind-up, my 2026 vision is a matrix of five items, and one bonus item, that I want to do my best to foster daily over the following year. Consistently completing my daily matrix will make me healthier and wiser for years to come. With that, here is my self-care matrix:

• Floss
• Read 
• Strength/HIIT/Rest 
• Meditate twice a day 
• Vitamins
• One Bonus Item – Because extra credit is always motivating!

These items are uniquely for me; of course, they might be useful to others, but the process by which I created them centered on my life, my long-term goals, and visions. These five – and the bonus – also represent foundational habits from which I can grow self-confidence and agency, providing me a base of support to take on new challenges. With that in mind, what might your matrix look like? What foundational pieces of self-care keep you grounded? I would love it if you sent an email and shared, because I want this to be a space that nurtures our whole selves, where we are constantly learning from each other.