The sun is warm, but the shadows are cold. This is the paradox of the spring equinox. When we have a blue sky sunny day, it feels like our whole being is rejuvenated. But for now, the rain is nourishing the daffodils and tulips.

Beneath the cold soil, the ecosystems are ever so active. Still feeling the effects of winter, I remind myself that this cycle is necessary for renewal and rebirth, in plants, animals, and us humans alike. How easily we forget that the dark, fertile void is the most important part of growth. It is a tender and powerful time. Let this be your reminder that it is okay to rest and recover. In fact, it is the work. We spoke of this here.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in an experience of claiming rest, and in the end it taught me to surrender yet again.

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It all started when I was having a much needed nap (read: tired mom) with the door locked, amplification out, surrendering to a deep sleep that my body craved.

I didn’t realize that my hearing aid was still in the other room where I had co-slept with my one year old overnight. When I woke, refreshed, ready to put on my hearing aid, it was nowhere to be found. I looked everywhere — high, low, in the car toy bin, closet, kitchen drawers, laundry hamper, stuffy basket, clothing dresser. It was simply gone. I followed the little guy around asking, “where did Mama’s hearing aid go?” Despite him knowing some signs, he wasn’t quite able to tell me.

I looked for five days until I admitted defeat. This is the first and only hearing aid I have lost since I was diagnosed with my hearing loss at three years old! I realized just how reliant I am on this hearing aid, even though it is not my ‘better’ ear. My right ear has always been my non-dominant side, my focus on hearing best has been on my left where I have my cochlear implant (CI). Without my hearing aid, I realized how well it actually complements my CI: it provides me with lower sound frequencies; it supports localization; it gives the sound a fullness around me. I was under the impression the hearing aid was giving a little benefit.

That is, until I didn’t have the option.

In this short time, I became disregulated. Hearing became more of a challenge. Tinnitus roaring in my mind with no break to the sound. Background noise is ever present in a house with two young boys. I began to realize the ways we communicate as a family are in fact not deaf friendly, and just how much effort I was putting into hearing them every day. This alerted me to the work I still need to do to educate my family in sign language, remembering the efforts I make to sign will have a ripple effect onto my boys’ understanding too.

After looking and looking and looking, I conceded. On the fifth day, I bought a new hearing aid. Three thousand dollars later.

And here I wasn’t planning to get another one for a few more years!

The fitting appointment lasted an hour and a half. My audiologist is quite thorough and committed to getting the settings exactly right. It reminded me how important it is to have a good relationship with your audiologist. They are such an important part of your health and wellness team.

I typically get a new hearing aid every 5-7 years, and I wasn’t expecting much of a change this time. But the upgrade has been incredible. I find myself wishing my cochlear implant could match the same sound, and my CI has been far superior for 10 years.

Soon after, I had another appointment in the city, so I drove downtown solo with my new hearing aid, taking in the sounds. I found myself in a French coffee shop I have always wanted to try. This in itself is such a treat. Time alone to sip on a hot tea and take in the ambience. As I was writing, I realized I was picking up information: stocks, spreadsheets, numbers. I looked up confused. The table next to me was empty. I looked ahead and noticed three men sitting together two tables over. I could overhear what they were saying as if they were sitting beside me. Wait, what?

All my life, overhearing others has been a superpower that was something hearing people could do. This is a well documented struggle for deaf and hard of hearing children and adults. Imagine my excitement when I realized that I was in fact hearing these men discuss finances. And my curiosity ran. Is this how hearing people live? Can they overhear this far? This much? Is anything private?!

My mind went on another tangent. This hearing aid uses the newest technology, of course, AI. It is trained on thousands of samples of speech in noise to create an algorithm that detects speech in all environments over a certain decibel threshold. Is my hearing aid dictating what I should listen to? How do I feel about that? This is definitely something I will dive into in the future.

All of this, brought about by the simple act of accepting what was lost and making space for something new. I had a difficult time making the decision to stop looking and move on. In moments like this, I often look to astrology, curious to see if what I am feeling is reflected in the skies.

The energy of the moment mirrors exactly what I was experiencing. We have now entered into spring, the real ‘new year’ for many. We completed the last total lunar eclipse until 2029. We have shifted from Pisces to Aries season, along with Saturn, Neptune and Chiron being in Aries as well. It is an intense time that focuses on self expression, new beginnings, and action. We haven’t completely moved on from the watery energy of Pisces though. The North Node and Mercury both in Pisces are reminding us that forward movement still requires surrender to our intuition and flow. And finally, with the recent Full Moon, called the Pink Moon, which is ruled by Venus currently in the sign of Taurus to ground us back down and be present.

Losing my hearing aid was my own lesson in acceptance. It helped me grow and accept my way of life as a Deaf woman and mother more fully, recognizing what it actually requires of me and how I have to navigate communication, my energy levels, and the tinnitus in my head. And it pushed me into action, finding a whole new level of amplification awaited me I wasn’t even aware of.

Of course, once I gave in and bought the new hearing aid, my lost one turned up. I arrived home and my mom, who had been babysitting my one year old Oliver, handed him to me, along with my missing hearing aid. She had found it tucked away in the dark depths of my eldest son’s sock drawer. Of all places. It almost feels like a cliche.

And yet, that’s exactly the point of the fertile void. It can feel disorienting and inconvenient, but surrender to it and you never know just what it will yield.

As I grew up with hearing loss, expression was something I learned to mute or dampen. Don’t be too much. I had enough moments where I heard the situation incorrectly and responded with enthusiasm when it was definitely not merited. Excited when it was sombre, shrinking back with red cheeks in horror.

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I learned to observe, to wait until I was sure of what was being discussed — sometimes missing the topic change, sometimes waiting for someone to bring me into the conversation by asking me a question. Being neutral with my expression was a safe bet, only letting myself be open and comfortable in the company of close friends.

Learning sign language in high school (where I met Kristin actually!) felt outside of my comfort zone. This was expressions abound! Using my hands to sign ‘in the air’ around my body, facial expressions to express the range of emotions. I learned quickly that I had to adapt when in a signing environment vs. a hearing one.

In sign language, expression, called non-manual markers, are the cornerstone of conveying meaning. Dr. Bill Vicars, who created the free sign language resource Lifeprint: ASL University, describes non-manual markers as “crucial for understanding and conveying the full meaning of ASL signs, as they add grammatical and emotional context to the manual signs.” For example, as explained on the website:

1. Eyebrows Raised:

   • Yes/No Questions: Raised eyebrows are used when asking yes/no questions.

   • Conditional Clauses: Raised eyebrows are used to indicate the conditional part of a sentence.

2. Eyebrows Furrowed:

   • Wh-Questions: Furrowed eyebrows are used when asking questions that begin with words like who, what, where, when, why, and how.

   • Negation and Doubt: Furrowed eyebrows can indicate negation or doubt.

One comment I hear most often from hearing people is that sign language is beautiful. And I agree! It really is poetic to watch a native signer express a poem or cultural narrative fable. The next comment is often that they wish to learn it, yet I feel an unspoken part is a wish for the ability to express yourself with abandon.

Where can we invite more authentic expression into our lives? What are the silent rules teaching us such restraint?

When I lost my hearing 12 years ago, one book I read was The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. We have come a long way in understanding authenticity since then. She reminds us, “authenticity is not something we have or don’t have. It’s a practice — a conscious choice of how we want to live. Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”

Recently, a story caught my attention, speaking to the connection of Botox and muting women’s expression — both facial and emotional — being a form of the suppression of women’s voices. It made me me stop mid-scroll, because it echoed something I’ve been thinking about in my own body and work for a long time.

I have a lot more questions than answers as I creep closer to 40 and notice my skin’s elasticity changing after two kids. It’s hard not to feel the longing for my younger skin.

For all of our lives we have been bombarded with beauty messages in magazines, TV ads, and now social media. To change our bodies, to be more palatable, even to become more beautiful. As if beauty is not inherently a part of us from the moment we are born.

There is nothing more pure than holding a new baby and watching as they take in our faces as we converse with them. Babies learn from our social cues and facial expressions. In my studies, I learned of a research program by Dr. Edward Tronick of UMass Boston’s Infant-Parent Mental Health Program, first presented in 1975, called the “Still Face Experiment.” It describes a mother and infant interaction where the mother begins interacting with the baby in an expressive way, and suddenly changes and becomes still. The infant then tries many different ways to connect with the mother through babbling, pointing, and reaching, and becomes increasingly sad and withdrawn. You can watch it here. This research is still relevant in psychology today, showing the relationship between facial expression and emotion.

It is intriguing to consider: in our search to stay youthful and not show our age (and wisdom) through Botox, are we changing the way we express ourselves, and ultimately muting our emotions displayed on our faces?

Are we minimizing our connection to each other?

What are the long reach implications of not having an expressive face?

Does Botox stifle our expression literally and metaphorically?

Why do we fear wrinkles and aging?

This so nuanced, of course. There is a need for medical Botox, and many people find relief with for certain conditions (bladder, migraines, etc.).

All this to say, as we see in witnessing sign language, our beauty is in our expression and embodiment of our emotions.

I’ve found one thing children can do is bring us back to remembrance of true, unfiltered childlike joy. The ability to delight in expression and be so silly. Adulting can be so serious, especially in this world lately. Remembering that I can indulge in simple joy helps me to stay connected to my inner child, which connects me to my intuitive wisdom. This is important work for us, especially women, to undertake. We can collectively support each other in this remembering of our strength, connection to our bodies, and inner authority. To resist the pull of products designed to focus on our self worth rather than our authenticity. We are more than a body.

I hope in the future when I am much older, I will be able to look down at my hands, see my choices, and reflect on a life filled with unfiltered expression.

I am writing to tell you, I am emerging from a sleep deprived month from back-to-back illness and a teething baby. I have missed this space. I’m back with a sense of newfound clarity and vulnerability. It is incredible how illness can knock you down to what is essential. For me, that is being a mother to my children. Somewhere in that time I fell through the cracks of myself without capacity for much else. The flu ran through our house with fevers and chills. It always hits me the hardest; I got quite sick twice in three weeks, all during the lead up to and over the Christmas holidays. Managing the weight of the invisible load of being a mother, holiday magic maker, and planner all while deeply tired and ill. Making the already challenging holiday events as a deaf person more difficult. Feeling deeply drained I was left to wonder, where did my power go?

Upon closer reflection, 2025 began in the depths of my birthing portal, wintering, turning within, and feeling my power as a fully pregnant woman. I ended the year as a depleted, pressure-filled mother of two with low energy, motivation, and capacity. A dance of balancing my needs and capacity to anticipate what I will be able to achieve, while towing the line of helping others. I wonder, does this sound familiar to you?

It feels quite strange to be in such a busy season during the heart of winter, when it is a time to slow down the body and mind. My body is feeling a pull to match the changing seasons, to winter when the plants are wintering. It is a way to anchor in my connection with the earth when I feel unrooted.

Honouring the cyclic seasons with ceremony helps me to acknowledge these shifts and understand my inner world in that moment. For my winter solstice ritual, I focused on honing my voice, as a woman, through a place of empowerment. Astrology also guides me to understand my inner and outer worlds as mirrors of each other. As a woman, following astrology and the seasons feels important to help us to honour our cycles. We can use these last few weeks of January to reflect on ways that we can use deep winter to pause and recalibrate. To allow our soul to rest as it needs to rest, including asking ourselves, “What do I need in this moment?”

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I am sure you have heard by now that the year of the Wood Snake ends in February. Until then, we/I will continue to shed what we do not need to carry; purging emotions, belongings in our home, schedules. Again, whittling down to only essentials. (I wish I didn’t need a flu to see this!) When emotions feel difficult, I am focusing on being heard and seen by myself first, repeating “I see you, I hear you, I’m right here.” I am working on treating my body and mind with utmost care and respect: what I think, how I eat, how I move. Smaller shifts towards honouring myself.

With these foundations, after a season of feeling hurried and tired, I can move towards the Year of the Fire Horse, a steadfast, strong energy, with intention. I heard an analogy recently, to think about the energy of this year as being on and steering the horse, rather than being the horse running wildly. I can picture this so vividly!

So, let this be our reminder of our light and power, to attune to ourselves this month, to be able to change our lens in which we see the world.

Take good care xx

A few winter favourites:

Turning my attention to: Rose bushes and pruning in anticipation of spring

Reading: Atomic Habits by James Clear

Art: This short film, Five Studies on Light

Exploring: Astrocartography

Listening to: “Motion” by Peter Sandberg

Watching: Annie McNee on “The Case for Making Art When the World is On Fire”

Nervous system support: Camomile Tea

Bookmarked: “A low-stakes way to reset your brain and body”

I’m trying something new – writing this post by hand, lit only by the string of lights I hung around my window three days ago. I have been wanting to write about the experience of Nordic winter darkness as it sets in this month, but it’s only now that I’m actually living what I’m writing about that it’s beginning to flow.

Earlier, I bought myself a Joulutorttu now that they’re hitting the shelves, one of my favourite treats of the season. I turned off all the lights except the ones that give the lowest, softest glow, and enjoyed each notch of this flaky pastry one by one in total silence.

This is what November is for.

It is notoriously gloomy here this month, the shade of the sky mimicking the pavement. The days simply fade from fog to concrete grey to black in these weeks before the first snowfall illuminates the city again.

In a region of extremes – nearly 24 hours of light in the summer, the dark expanse of winter – November is a pause. We know the holidays are around the corner and the pressure of a new year looms. This is a time to take stock and just exhale.

It reminds me of my late ‘Finnish grandfather’ and his deep winter sleeps. While neither of us are Finnish, my partner and I have been ‘adopted’ into a Finnish family here, who have welcomed us in as if we’re two of their own. Our ‘grandfather’ used to take a solo trip each winter up north – with just his books, notebooks, and heavy clothes – to rest deeply as the darkness enveloped him. His stories always felt like an invitation to fully sink into the season.

Let’s be clear, this is not to romanticize a time that is truly difficult for so many here in Helsinki, including me. But after five years of living here, and as someone with a hearing loss, I’ve learned to invite the quiet. It feels like the reset I need after months of input and stimulation.

I see it as an invitation to design around the darkness instead.

If you’re looking for ways to settle into this season, here are a few I’ve collected over time:

Create a light map of your home: How does the light flow through your space during the day? Which corner needs illumination for lipreading? Where and when can you soften from the workday’s glare into warmer light? How can you layer it intentionally? After living with a photographer back in Canada who banned overhead lighting, I have internalized her rules. No harsh fake daylight when it’s a time of year to melt into early evenings as the day winds down.

Tap into different sensory stimulation: This may come naturally to those of us with a hearing loss, I can only speak for myself. (Though tell me below if this resonates!) The diminishing of one sense heightens the others. Darkness shrinks space to what’s closest to you. Rather than straining to see or hear, turn toward texture or scent. When the light is dim, this isn’t the time to try to hear what someone is saying across the room. This is the time to feel the cushions on your back, the warmth of the tea in your hand.

Clear the static: My task list has grown as I think about all the goals for the year I wanted to achieve, all of Q4’s looming deadlines. This feels like another form of background noise, a low hum of guilt, overwhelm, and distraction. So this month, I’m clearing tasks one by one – one small thing at 1pm each day, lowering the volume on all this mental clutter before we round the final corner of the year. And for those things that don’t get done – well, I send them into the darkness :) See you again next spring!

Cultivate intentional silence, or curate your noise: There may be nobody who does silence like the Finns. Pauses in conversations aren’t awkward, they’re natural. Trams and busses are hushed. Personal space is a firm right. So lean in: have that no plans weekend, turn off that habitual podcast in your ear on your walk, take a bit longer to respond to texts when the inputs feel constant. Try a solo sauna.

When you’re recharged, you can tell when it’s time to turn the volume back up. My partner always reminds me that this is the time of year to be the instigator when that’s the energy you need. Organize that dinner when life feels a bit isolating. Buy the tickets to the ballet. Work from the café.

November needs a balance of rest, action, and sensory attunements.

Finally, savour the anticipation that you’ve made space for: for the snow, the holiday plans, stocking up on beeswax candles, writing your wish list early.

I’ll be unfolding my deep winter clothes and finding that right mix of dark and light, silence and sound, rest and renewal.

How are you leaning into November’s energy?

Here in Vancouver, we celebrated my son’s 5th birthday recently. I love that his birthday is in October, marking autumn transitions. There are warm sunny days and the air is cooler. The sunflowers have died and the birds are eating the seeds. His birth month flower – the cosmos – are still blooming amongst the decay. I feel a need to find ways to slow down and surrender to the changing season. On my fridge, I have a sticky note saying ‘nourishment and warmth’ – reminding me to choose myself in every decision I make, from what I eat to what I wear to what I read. As a nod to warmth, I added a soft wool rug to the studio space.

In pursuit of nourishment, I attended a local meditation and mindfulness class. It was just what I needed to slow right down. I have been practicing mindfulness for many years, finding it when tinnitus found me. However, it is a first for me to join in a community practice, made possible with a mini mic that connects to my cochlear implant (along with a dose of bravery). The teacher’s soothing voice is then directly in my ear, as if listening to a recording. But, I learned, there is something special and vulnerable about meditating with others in the room. A mutual trust and understanding that you all share, surrendering to rest and self-compassion. Mindful living is a practice of mine that has ebbed and flowed over the years, but has remained a steady support during difficult times.

Mindfulness originates from early Hindu and Buddhist teachings that can be dated back thousands of years to the Vedic texts and traditions located in the Indus Valley (now known as Pakistan and Northern India). Mindfulness comes from the word sati in Buddhist tradition, meaning awareness, attention, or to remember. It is the moment-to-moment monitoring of your experiences. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist and activist who has been recognized globally since the 70s for bringing awareness to mindfulness. He says, “when we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.”

My introduction to mindfulness began when I was in my early twenties and suddenly lost my hearing. Learning my muffled hearing wasn’t from a stuffy cold, I tried everything I could to get it back, including a steroid medication that didn’t guarantee any success. I personally believe this is when my tinnitus began, and tinnitus complicated my hearing levels greatly. In my head, I now listen to a combination of a fire alarm and radio static all day, every day. It is relentless and distressing. To help cope, I was encouraged to learn about the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program from Jon Kabat-Zinn. He is well known for bringing mindfulness into mainstream medicine for use in clinical settings for stress and pain.

On his website, he writes “the core invitation of mindfulness is for you to befriend yourself. That means recognizing and inhabiting your own intrinsic wholeness and beauty in the only moment any of us ever has – namely this one.” What I’ve learned is that mindfulness is the state of being over the state of doing. In this way, while it is often connected to meditation, mindfulness can be applied to all areas of your life, as you are living it – including as you are folding laundry with a rambunctious five-year-old laundry monster. Yes, challenging!

Mindfulness has allowed me an entry point to practicing compassion for myself while feeling emotionally and energetically swamped. With my cochlear implant and daily practice, the tinnitus is not as bothersome, but is still there, quite loud. I have learned to use my energy as a form of currency. It is vital to have time alone, even just five minutes of breathing and awareness to honour myself and keep adding to my wellness bank. Last night, I was laying in bed (read: doom scrolling) when I remembered to take a proper deep breath and my nine month old sleeping beside me suddenly did the same. That’s our intertwined nervous system and my reminder to continue my practice for my children as well.

If you are new to mindfulness and would like to start a practice, I gently suggest starting with the intention to honour yourself in this way.

1- Pick a time that you are able to stick to consistently (I choose after the morning school drop off, and once the baby is asleep)

2- Choose a place in your home or workspace where you can be comfortable, ideally laying down and with a blanket for warmth. You can do this in your bed, too. (Kabat-Zinn reminds us to “fall awake” rather than fall asleep, but sometimes our bodies just need that 10-minute nap and that is okay!) I like to choose a space where I have my altar close by so I can light a candle or incense. This helps to signal to my mind the transition to calm.

3- Bring your attention to the present. This is where you can listen to a body scan, focus on your breathing, or be guided with visual imagery.

4- Notice the distractions. It is natural for your mind to wander; notice this and which feelings occur.

5- Practice non-judgement. If you notice your mind wandering, gently bring it back to the present moment without judgment. Self-kindness is key here.

For an informal mindfulness practice, you can bring awareness to the present moment, wherever you may find yourself. Noticing what you see, hear, and touch is a good way to start.

For those interested, I have shared the links blow to body scans and Yoga Nidra in audio and video form, carefully selected with the d/Deaf community in mind.

There are options for female or male voices, depending on which frequencies you hear best.

There are also options for background music or not, depending on your hearing level.

There are two videos, signed body scan and an audio with captions.

I also recommend downloading the free Insight Timer app! Of course, you can peek around and find various recordings that suit your listening needs, from beginner to advanced.

Note: while a component of Yoga Nidra, a body scan is slightly different in that it focuses only on bringing attention to various parts of the body. Yoga Nidra, on the other hand, guides you through deeper stages of relaxation and awareness beyond the physical body.

If you try one out, comment below or send us a message with how it went!

Insight Timer:

Body Scan

• Female Voice (7 minutes) with music

• Male Voice (6 minutes) with music

• Female Voice (6 minutes) without music

• Male Voice (21 minutes) without music

Yoga Nidra

• Female Voice (30 mins) - with music

• Male Voice - (16 minutes) - with music

YouTube:

• ASL Body Scan Meditation

• Audio of Yoga Nidra with captions

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I’m writing this as we transition into October – my favourite time of year. Like many, I love that nostalgic back-to-school feeling that comes in September, only feeling it anchor down even more at this time. For me, this year’s transition brings a renewed focus on work and business, something I’m craving right now.

I’ve worked for myself since 2021, a decision that has come with a number of different seasons, peaks and valleys. Some of these seasons have been expansive and fast-paced, others quieter and more uncertain. The one I’m currently in is a building phase, one that’s requiring me to design better habits, systems, and processes to support endurance, not burnout. Scaling projects with ease rather than overcommitment, communicating my needs rather than seeing those as a sign of weakness, building access right into my workflows rather than it being an after-thought.

I would describe what I have today as a portfolio career. (Credit to for introducing me to this concept!) It’s a mix of different services and income streams across editorial, brand strategy, communications, and marketing. Sometimes I work in a fractional leadership capacity, other times I’m brought in for specific projects. It’s also very international. My business is based in Helsinki, where I live, though I’ve partnered with an agency in Vienna, have worked with clients in Dubai, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and London, and collaborate with Kelsie (who’s based in Canada) to create this space here.

This means multiple time zones, languages, and yes, sometimes client calls or presentations at 11pm.

I recently had a client experience that totally transformed my way of working, ushering in a new way I structure workshops and meetings. This past summer, I had a strategy project for a Vancouver-based client. Their team often met together in a boardroom while I joined online. Normally, those setups are a nightmare: a conference room full of people talking to a speakerphone while I’m the face on the big screen. I would frantically zoom in on whoever was speaking, trying to act natural while lipreading through tech lags and poor lighting. I would record the calls and pray the transcripts filled the gaps, but they rarely did. It was a flawed system at best.

This time, I did things differently.

My client knew about my hearing loss in advance, so we discussed what would make our calls more accessible and efficient. Together, we designed a structure that worked for everyone:

• For meetings with smaller groups, everyone dialled in individually from their respective desks or home offices so I could see each face clearly.

• If the larger team gathered in one conference room, we noted my hearing loss at the start and asked speakers to face the camera and raise a hand before speaking so I could follow the conversation.

• My main contact always joined calls separately from her laptop so I knew I’d be able to see and hear her clearly. She tracked the comments in the chat and flagged any missed questions for me. I didn’t see these as special accommodations, just good communication practices.

• Every call was recorded, with auto-captions on by default. (I’ve used both Microsoft Teams and Google Meet for this.)

The result? Seamless, productive meetings, proving that incorporating accessibility doesn’t have to introduce friction. It just takes awareness, intention, and repetition, turning these processes into my new norm.

I have a few other ‘best practices’ that I’ve implemented for myself as well. I think of them as uplevelling operational excellence within my own business, and my clients’:

Defaulting to documentation

If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist. Every client project runs through Notion pages and detailed meeting notes that capture next steps. It’s not bureaucracy, it’s clarity. And clarity saves time, money, and sanity.

Managing energy like a budget

I approach my work week with an energy budget. It requires learning my energy patterns and structuring my days accordingly (i.e. creative work in the mornings, admin time on Fridays). The reality of running a business across time zones means work commitments at off-peak hours. But I know – and choose – this, so I manage my energy throughout the day accordingly.

Leading with transparency

I no longer view being upfront about how I work as vulnerability, I see it as leadership. I tell clients what I need to do my best work: captions on, clear follow-ups, visible faces. That sets expectations, conveys confidence, and models a better way to collaborate.

When access is built right into the system, everyone benefits, even those who don’t think they need it. Hearing loss is a spectrum and an “invisible disability.” When I advocate for clear communication, this likely benefits someone else in the room without me even knowing it.

I hope that sharing these inspires your own advocacy in the workplace. I believe that making practices like these our default isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s how strong leaders and teams actually get things done.

The Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “the only constant in life is change.”

This often rings in my mind when I am digging in my heels at the idea of yet another transition. As a true Taurus Sun, I can be quite stubborn when it comes to change.

Recently my oldest son started Kindergarten and this is not a step I feel ready for, despite him being quite keen to learn. I found my own inner child stories bubbling up and my heart feeling tender. Our journey together has been nothing but change; navigating pregnancy during a pandemic, birth just days before a lockdown, and of course the shift from maiden to mother. Matrescence, a term describing this process, originally coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s, showed me I would never be the same, feeling into a new collective power and intuition as a mother. A shift in identity and selfhood.

As my 8 month old baby’s patterns are changing yet again, I am reminded of how difficult I found the early months with my first. You are so raw in those first days motherhood and feel success in finding a rhythm, only for the baby to grow and change. Again, there too, change was constant.

I recently gave a presentation at the University of British Columbia, to the newest cohort of students entering the speech and language & audiology program. I shared with these new students how my journey of becoming profoundly deaf impacted my art practice over those years. My work shifted from deconstructing architecture in abstract paintings to conveying the beauty in deafness through painting and installation works.

As I listened to the other Deaf and hard-of-hearing speakers, I noted they also had to shift their acceptance of deafness at some point in their lives. Each person felt a need to adapt and change as part of their evolving identity. Maybe this is growing up, or maybe this is simply living life with a disability.

As I navigate another season of change this September, I am inspired to look to others in the community and the incredible work they’re doing. And as part of Deaf Awareness Month, I want to highlight some women and mothers in our Deaf and hard-of-hearing hearing community whose thoughts and ideas have inspired my own growth and identity as a Deaf person and as a mother.

• Sarah Reighley is a US-based Deaf mother of three. On her blog, Hands Full, Heart Full, she shares more about what Deaf Awareness Month is, and why it’s so important.

• Drisana Levitzke-Gray is an Australian Deaf mother of a Deaf daughter. In her public speaking, she shares the importance of Auslan (Australian Sign Language) in children and adults, and advocates for the diverse human rights of deaf people globally.

• Leila Hanaumi is a US-based Deaf mother of two who has created a lifestyle brand, Today I Awaken, to inspire the Deaf community towards living a courageous and intentional life. On YouTube, you can watch her latest series, Bucket List – created out of vulnerability and healing to inspire your own dreams.

• Bailey Ann Vincent is a US-based Deaf and disabled mother of two girls, one being hard of hearing, a professional dancer, an Artistic Director and a talented writer. She shares about her journey on her Substack, Catching Breaths.

• Elisa Richards is a US-based hard of hearing multidisciplinary artist, with comedic stories on Instagram, TikTok and colourful artwork on merchandise aimed to address stigma in disabilities. On YouTube, she recently released a podcast series titled, Bionic, highlighting guests who live an adventurous life.

For most of my life, I worked very hard not to make my hearing loss part of my story. Maybe that’s why now, when I sit down to write about it, the words don’t always come.

I keep showing up, committed to this community Kelsie and I have created. And yet, despite hearing loss shaping my daily reality – and despite having ideas I want to share – when it comes to putting words down on the page, I’ve been drawing a blank on what exactly to say.

Have any of you felt this too?

It’s not for lack of lived experience. There are plenty of real-time day-to-day challenges, observations, and negotiations I could inspect, dissect, and share.

It’s not for lack of intention, or commitment, or accountability.

So, what is it?

I remember when I was a preteen, my parents sent me to an all-girls weekend camp, designed to empower young women. One of the exercises involved writing a one-page introduction about ourselves – a short personal biography, guided by some prompts. How would you describe yourself? What are the qualities you like about yourself? What are you most proud of? I happily filled a page with details about my love of reading, being a big sister to twin brothers, my friends, my hobbies.

It wasn’t until later that night, rereading my notes, that I noticed what was missing: not a single mention of my hearing loss. I remember pondering what that meant, deciding proudly it meant yes, I had a hearing loss but no, this fact didn’t define me. Just look at what I wrote! I didn’t even think about it. This memory is still vivid to me today.

That experience shaped how I thought about and described my hearing loss as a teenager, and well into my twenties. I felt certain there was so much more that was interesting or notable about who I was.

Growing up, my hair was a shield. I was totally clueless on how to style my long curls, but I was determined they would always cover my ears – failed experiments with Dippity Do hair gel (iykyk), flat ironing it with an actual iron, or wearing it in a low bun, hair swept back so it awkwardly covered my hearing aid. I smile now thinking back on that girl – all those bad hair days.

It felt momentous when I finally wore it up in hip hop class at the age of 17. That small gesture felt like liberation. If my hearing aid was visible and I didn’t care, that was just more proof that it wasn’t such a big deal. See! Like that preteen girl, I’m still not even thinking about it.

In my twenties, I realized the value of self-advocacy – and this confronted these deeply held beliefs. It began with getting notetakers in large university lectures (I refused – to my own detriment – to use an FM system, finding the whole process too cumbersome). Yet I still cringed every time I heard secondhand that someone had “figured it out” – maybe from the way I spoke, or because I didn’t hear them calling to me across campus, or they simply spotted my hearing aid. (I still wore my hair down most days.)

That self-advocacy continued into the workplace, which is where I really began to own this identity. I simply had to sit in the right place at the boardroom table. I had to let my team know how best to communicate with me in large meetings (i.e. hand-raising, no popcorn-style discussions I couldn’t follow). Having success in my career and advancing to manager, and then director, reinforced that stubborn focus: I can do it, I just happen to do it with a hearing loss. But that’s not who I am.

It was only in my 30s – especially during the past two years, and largely through this collaboration with Kelsie – that this is now changing again. I see now how much energy I poured into trying to separate myself from my hearing loss. How much I believed I could exist outside of it, relentlessly focused on fitting into the hearing world, convinced my identity could exist outside this part of myself.

Now I’m learning to celebrate it. Seeing others claim their deafness proudly, reading their stories, and sharing here has cracked something open.

But no wonder it’s hard to write about. I’ve spent a lifetime proudly shoving it down, concealing it. This became so habitual that even after acceptance, expressing these parts can still feel unnatural or difficult.

In shadow work, they say the parts of ourselves we bury, the ones we find shameful or inconvenient, don’t disappear. They just live underground, shaping us quietly. For me, my hearing loss was one of those shadows. I kept it in the background for so long that even now, when I want to bring it forward, the words don’t come easily.

This month, Deaf Awareness Month, feels like a meaningful time to be reflecting on this, however this shows up in your life. Maybe your shadow isn’t hearing loss, it’s something else you’ve learned to hide or downplay. I’m reminding myself that awareness begins here, not only in public, but in the private work of bringing what we’ve hidden into the light.

For me, sharing this is one small step in that direction.

I must confess, when I look in the mirror, I internally cringe seeing my CI. I’ve worn the device on my head for nine years and, with my hair up in a top knot, I still do a double take. It is not a part of me, but it must be with me.

And it looks so… electronic.

When it was time for an upgrade, I made a last-minute decision to change the colour from blend-in brown to stand-out white. The contrast against my chestnut hair means you cannot miss it with a top knot. Others take note right away and change how they interact with me – helpful or not – and I can’t help but notice. When my hair is down, I go back to being hearing adjacent (and “no one would know”). That shift in identity can feel jarring – am I feeling like advocating today or being a poster girl for cochlear implants?

Identity is a term I have given so much thought to over the last nine years since my hearing dropped. I have worn hearing aids since the age of three without second thought. As I grew, I self identified as hard-of-hearing, my hearings aids were happily a part of my life. I didn’t have any close connections to Deaf role models so, when I suddenly lost my hearing, I felt quite in between – no longer hard-of-hearing, not quite deaf. I straddle this dual identity of life with and without. A yearning for the old way, but sometimes, often, the new way is better.

My cochlear implants allow me to continue my life as it was before without much change with how I interact with the people in my life, if I wanted to.

However, I have changed. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience what it feels like to be a part of the Deaf community. It is quite freeing to know and be understood, with or without my amplification. I often wonder, what would our world look like if more people knew sign?

The past few years, I have noticed a shift in perception and acceptance of openly living life with a disability, thanks to others in the community paving the way in movies and social media. Yet, the history of the treatment of Deaf and disabled people seeps into our consciousness. Authors Lexi Kite and Lindsay Kite write about the difficulties in overcoming societies’ objectification of our bodies in the book, More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament. The difficulties of being comfortable with your self image and living life without focusing on being perceived are universal, able bodied or not. I am learning to shift my thinking of my body as an instrument, not an ornament, while also relying on a literal tool to hear because society values spoken word over sign language. This can be difficult to do – the dominant culture does not wear hearing aids and CIs. There is little representation for beauty with a device. One must walk through their own reckoning with their self-objectification.

Over the years, motherhood, chronic pain, and disability have shifted my body. I am at a point now, seven months postpartum where I feel a shift yet again. My old knowing is no longer, yet the new is still emerging. I now understand that the way through is with self-compassion. The teachings of Dr. Kristin Neff have been instrumental towards this shift through self-compassion. Her research orients us to living with resilience throughout our struggles, being present in the moment.

And so, while my days are filled with playing Lego, making lunches, and walking with my boys, one step at a time I am creating a new path. One where I try to nourish the body from inside out, making a choice – one minute at a time, one day at a time – to create a loving, healthy habit when I look in the mirror back at myself.

Here is a short self-compassion exercise called “The Self-Compassion Break”

Read: https://self-compassion.org/exercises/exercise-2-self-compassion-break/

Audio: https://insig.ht/F3t0PN4yZVb

If you see my partner walk next to someone, he usually walks on their right. We joke that it’s muscle memory, the result of years of ‘training’ in our relationship. I wear a hearing aid in my right ear, and don’t hear at all in my left, so I often reorient myself to someone else’s left side to hear them better – something he has evidently internalized as well.

Living with this dynamic – the choreography required in a relationship between a hearing person and someone who is hard of hearing – is something both Kelsie and I know well, both having hearing partners. I’ll leave Kelsie to share her own perspective, but lately I’ve been reflecting on partnership and the way intimacy is found in the daily recalibrations you make for someone else.

In many ways, my partner and I are total opposites: he’s a foot taller than me; he’s the extroverted entertainer while I’m more often the introverted observer; he’s happiest in water, while I’m usually content on the shore (hating to take your hearing aids out to swim as a kid will do that to you).

We’ve known each other for 18 years – through periods of being together and apart – which has given him plenty of time to adapt to life with a hard-of-hearing partner. I remember the first nights I spent at his house. I’d always leave my hearing aid in overnight, choosing to sleep uncomfortably rather than reveal this vulnerable side of myself.

One evening, he finally said to me: “Isn’t it more comfortable to take that out when you sleep?” And so, with this external permission (and a bit of shame that he noticed), my hearing aid found its new home on the shelf beside us.

These days, once I’m asleep, he can listen to music or even slam pots together, I’d never know. He quickly discovered I’m a low-maintenance companion in this way. When we argue, he gets the good fortune to rephrase himself if needed when I miss his words the first time. When I drop something and search in all directions, he can automatically point me in the direction it fell.

There is, of course, the flip side – the micro ways frustration shows up every day. There’s a quiet fatigue that accumulates from constantly adapting. The times I get annoyed when he still talks to me from another room, knowing that out of habit, I’ll make the effort to stop what I’m doing and find him, just so I can see his face and catch the full sentence.

There’s invisible labour on his side, too – a kind I didn’t always notice. I know it gets tiring for him to be on alert for both of us, almost instinctively. When a cyclist comes up behind us and rings their bell, a frequency I can’t hear, he always pulls me to the side. When we’re sitting with friends at a dinner table and he notices that I’m struggling to follow a conversation, he’ll chime in with a story or a response, phrased in such a way that it recaps the parts I missed. In a way, he’s listening for the two of us. Of course, there’s also learning to repeat himself with patience – sometimes knowing that I’ve actually caught more of what he said than I initially realized.

Then there are ways we’ve grown together, solutions that benefit us both. We have a shared calendar, where he documents upcoming appointments or events. For a hard-of-hearing person, this information is so important. I don’t overhear things or may miss quick updates said casually in passing. Having a record that I can refer to provides answers before I even ask for them.

The moments we take to decompress when I need some quiet offer respite for him, too. We’ve become more focused listeners, both with each other and others. There’s also a non-verbal attunement you build with a partner, a sort of fluency you develop across shared looks, body language, and energy – those nuances that help you learn how to read any room you’re in.

What I’ve found is that any relationship challenges you to see support as a mutual act, not a one-way requirement. With my hearing loss, we just might have learned this faster.

Each of us comes to relationships with differences. The fusion of those differences – that’s the real choreography.

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It is afternoon, the sun is burning hot in the sky and I am laying back in my bed, nursing my newly 6 month old baby. My thoughts naturally turn to how my body sinks into the soft surroundings, and a feeling of fatigue washes over me.

My life for the past 12 years has unraveled to become a quiet rebellion against hustle culture. Living slowly was easily attainable for seven years while I lived on the water in my floathome. I adopted the pace of nature when I looked out the window. I could tell the moment the tide was about to change on the river.

Nowadays I live closer to town, in the suburbs.

I seek quiet but haven’t been able to find the same feeling of rest as I did when I was one with nature. I miss taking out my hearing aids and having quiet… a type of silence that is unique to me. Tinnitus has been with me for 12 years, and with it, I am perpetually looking for a soft landing to feel home in my body.

Now, I seek a visual silence. I find it in beauty, in my surroundings by going into a forest or being by the water, whether the river or ocean. Nature is the original canvas of peace and tranquility, isn’t it?

I also try to find visual silence in my artwork. To create work is a meditation to train my focus away from the incessant static in my mind. It’s also a way to enter into beauty. Frustration and beauty co- existing. It’s beautiful to be deaf. It’s frustrating to be deaf. It’s a need to go inward but a repulsion of sound when I do.

I used to feel a sense of deep rest when I took out my hearing aids at the end of the day. The world is noisy and I needed quiet alone time to pause. It has been 12 years of trying to find this feeling again – a quest to literally quiet the noise, mental chatter, and tinnitus.

Author Nicola Jane Hobbs shares how she likes to ground with her rest rituals. I loved this to reframe the idea of rest – from a traditional nap to little moments throughout your day. I think many of us may do these things, but the idea of intentionally resting in these micro pauses helps to create a ritual of wellness. In The Relaxed Woman, she writes:

“Becoming a relaxed woman is less about what we do and more about how we attend to the world – carefully, lovingly, vulnerably. The relaxed woman is who we are when we live by our values, take off our masks and relax into our most authentic selves.”

We can find rest and safety in the nervous system by going slowly. As a mother, this has become even more challenging, but I am learning to find it in small pockets. Walking slower at a 4 year olds pace, noticing the bees gathering pollen from the flowers, a deep breath between tasks, a note of gratitude before a meal, putting down the phone to look up at our surroundings.

When I say yes, to these between moments, I know I will find the solace I am looking for. Now, I live by this guiding question: am I showing up for myself in a way that builds trust and opens my heart?

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Some days, it’s in the background. Other days, it drowns everything out. But it’s always there.

This is what it’s like to live with tinnitus, and here’s how I’ve learned to live with it well.

It was 3:50am in March 2023. I was supposed to be heading to the airport for a flight to Venice, but instead I was in the emergency room. The previous 10 hours were a blur. One minute, I was at dinner with friends and making my final mental packing list before setting an early alarm. The next, I was waking up in the middle of night, stumbling and then fainting, hitting my head on the bathroom floor.

By the time I got to the emergency room, my hearing had totally disappeared. What began from there was a cancelled flight, an intense round of steroid treatments, a waiting game for my hearing to return, and the arrival of something new.

The tinnitus began like a smoke alarm going off at full volume constantly. I remember staring up at the device on my kitchen ceiling, hoping it was the source of the non-stop siren in my head, in total disbelief and devastation that the room was actually silent.

Three weeks later, as my hearing gradually returned and stabilized, the noise changed too – sometimes like high-pitched bells ringing, sometimes the whine of a vacuum. These days it’s like the sound of a distant school fire alarm, though one whose cause is never resolved, so it simply never turns off.

As anyone would, I read about different treatments and remedies, and tried some while oscillating between hope and hopelessness. The white noise feature on the iPhone became a saviour in moments of overload. A good playlist helps too, of course. Over time, your body will also communicate with you. Coffee immediately triggered a spike in the intensity, so I became (much to my own shock!) a tea drinker. Alcohol, surprisingly, was okay in moderation. Lack of sleep – something a lot of people with tinnitus struggle with – truly compounded the worst of it.

I was told that over time the noise will fade into the background. Sometimes, when I’m out with friends, listening to music, or dining in a restaurant, it does. But there are also moments that require silence and concentration, focus and productivity, and I’ve had to find effective ways to ensure my professional output, moods, and sanity remain intact.

I learned it wasn’t hacks that would save me, it was habits. What began as strategies for recovery have since become rituals for resilience. These are not medical recommendations, nor quick fixes. But they’ve helped me stay centred and resourced through travel, through intense periods of exciting and demanding work, through the minutiae of day-to-day life.

If you’re going through something similar, I hope they can help you too.

What I reach for when it gets loud

The first is a stillness practice. Meditation became a survival tool early on. It helped me reframe the noise, no longer an intruder, but a surface-level disturbance. I now picture it as the crashing of waves on the ocean. If I can drop below, into the stillness of the deep water, I find calm. This is the last thing I picture every night before I fall asleep, not erasing the sound, but diving beneath it.

The second is release through movement. Everyone’s tinnitus is different, triggered by different things. For me, physical tension makes it worse. If I’ve been sitting too long, curled up with my legs tucked or hunched over my laptop, the sound intensifies. Movement counters this, both blood-pumping exercise and low-impact stretching. I have found that gentle nerve stretches for my arms and legs are one of the levers I can pull when the noise gets too strong.

Another is time with the elements. The benefits of time in nature are well-documented, but life in Helsinki does not always mean optimal weather. We’re surrounded by the sea and forests and islands, spaces to wander when I just need to breathe. Sometimes that means venturing out in snowstorms and lashing winds, grumbling about my damn mental health walk. Regardless, this one always pays dividends.

The fourth is interrupting isolation. This was the most challenging at first, when I just wanted to cocoon in my recovery bubble. As someone with hearing loss, solitude (aka time away from active listening) is how I recharge. But tinnitus can trigger a quiet kind of hopelessness, and it thrives in isolation. Going for that coffee with a friend, finding a point of connection somewhere, breaks that spell.

And finally, guilt-free recovery time. I’ve learned to take breaks before I need them. To give myself recovery time not as a reward, but as a requirement. I think of it as my tank of “I can deal with this” energy, like willpower. We start the day with the tank full, but with every task, growing decision fatigue, every moment of overstimulation, it drains. That’s why we front-load our most important work. That’s why bad habits creep back in after dinner.

It’s the same with tinnitus. The ability to tolerate the sound is real, but limited. And the only way to sustain it is to refill your tank regularly, not as a luxury, but as a non-negotiable.

There’s a difference between coping and caring for yourself. For me, these rituals are the latter. They create an important sense of agency in a situation outside of my control.

And while they haven’t made the ringing disappear, they’ve made me capable of thriving alongside it. If you’re learning to live with your own kind of noise, perhaps there’s something here for you too.

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Growing up, my house was filled with cherished items that my mom made by hand, pottery and textiles. I come from an artistic and musical family, and creativity was encouraged from a young age. I started weekly acrylic painting lessons with a local artist at nine years old and continued to the end of high school. I was lucky to have such great role models through school and post-secondary who were teachers, but also practicing artists and parents.

And yet, 5 months postpartum, I am struggling to find my creativity.

On one hand, of course I’m struggling to be creative in the state of our world, while juggling two boys and a house full of animals. But on the other, it should be so easy to just sit down and paint something, shouldn’t it?

Many years ago, my creative practice flourished out of a desperate longing for silence and quiet. The tinnitus was loud and unrelenting, guiding me to find a slow and intentional way of living. I am drawn to minimalism and essentialism, and try to focus my life and artwork to reflect that. These days, my longing for quiet stems from other reasons, as you can imagine!

To be inspired is a practice in itself, an ongoing conversation with the world around us. By taking moments away from the busyness in life, we can allow the magic to seep in. It can be as simple as starting to notice the things we love doing, going back to basics. Perhaps start by gathering scraps of inspiration and let them sit for a while. Alleviate the pressure to shape them into something. Maybe creativity right now looks like jotting down a word your child mispronounced that you never want to correct. Maybe it’s naming the exact colour of the sky while your hands are in a sink full of dishes. This isn’t about making something beautiful. It’s about staying in relationship with your noticing self. Curiosity and presence, just noticing, will lead us back to creativity. When we are present and noticing, our bodies feel safe. We are clearing space for ourselves – our bodies, our voices – to show up as they are, and start listening.

This is my reminder to notice the softer feminine side of creativity and allow it to be as it needs to be.

Here are a few gentle ways to begin, that I'm incorporating these days as well:

Automatic journaling for just 3 minutes, extend to 3 pages. Use the same notebook and a pen that flows well. I love the 0.38 black pens from Muji.

Recording a voice memo of your ideas - whether for writing or art or just what you're thinking about.

Sketching an object in your home - I love to have a fresh vase of flowers from the garden and draw what I see. Keep a small sketchbook in your living room for ease.

You could prep your space – an artist's version of a mis en place – to create, but not put any pressure on yourself to sit down and do it. That way, when the moment strikes, there is no barrier to begin.

Make it ugly on purpose. Like writing a shitty first draft.

Taking time to be in your creative space, sit in silence, maybe meditate with a recording. Have a rhythm of repetition, I find the ideas eventually start to flow.

For the busy mothers, colouring in your child’s colouring book. That counts!

Even one gesture is a return.

Start small, start messy. Let your return be as imperfect and beautiful as the work itself.

I’ve been on the road a lot lately – work trips, family time, visiting friends. Living abroad means regular pilgrimages to cities in distant countries and continents, reconnecting with loved ones. And while that’s wonderful, there are also challenges – and not just travel logistics. As a hard-of-hearing person, certain situations present obstacles others may not even notice.

Restaurants, cafés, dinner tables: all those social gatherings set against background chatter and clatter. Not only do these demand intense mental focus to follow conversations, but – being deaf in my left ear – I’m always strategizing like a chess player.

There are countless, constant, real-time calculations. How many times can I ask that person to repeat what they said before it gets awkward? Is it a safe bet to smile and nod, or would that look strange and tactless?

When it comes to seating, this strategy is crucial.

There are only two places I can sit at a rectangular table in which everyone else is either on my right, where I can hear them better with my aided ear, or in my field of vision, where I can read their lips. Dine with me, and you’ll notice I hover toward the front of the waiting area and make straight for the table, claiming a corner seat while others are still taking off their jackets.

But when I get distracted, arrive late, or someone else is swifter, I end up smack in the middle, people on both sides, one of them on my deaf side. What always comes next is a quiet, inner negotiation:

Do I stick it out? Ask them to switch spots? Discreetly explain I won’t hear them unless they tap me to get my attention?

The last two, of course, seem simplest. Yet so often I find myself taking path number one, tired of feeling like an inconvenience, a person with fine print requiring constant advocacy. I notice this even more in boardrooms or meetings with clients, where personal accommodations collide with professional presentation, wondering how much attention I want to draw to myself at that moment.

Recently, for example, a group of us were visiting friends, and I met someone new for the first time. As the host, she naturally took the seat at the head of the table, to my left, and I noticed her habit of tossing out quick, funny, under-her-breath jokes to those next to her. I knew I’d miss most of them – and risk seeming aloof or disinterested, humourless even – if I didn’t say something. But the conversation gathered momentum, and the natural window to mention my hearing loss quickly slipped by. It’s like noticing someone has spinach in their teeth mid-conversation. The longer the time lapses, the less comfortable it is to broach the subject.

I’ve started to recognize what I call my ‘toughen up’ bias. Those moments where I just can’t be bothered – given my moods, energy levels, simply who I’m sitting with – to bring up my hearing loss, even though it will surely make the situation easier. Those moments where just existing in anonymity or keeping it private feels easier. I know this stems from external programming. We celebrate those who overcome, who achieve against the odds. We praise grit and resolve and resourcefulness. It seems noble somehow. People telling me, “I didn’t even know you have a hearing loss!” was a badge of pride I carried for so long.

But I’ve come to learn that vulnerability (hello, sharing this on Substack!) is actually braver and stronger. Those moments of advocacy get easier and compound over time.

So speak up. Gently ask if someone can swap spots with you. It doesn’t need to be dramatic. The less of a big deal we make it, the less it becomes. A simple, matter-of-fact update or request. Then we all move on.

Some days I do that. Some days I don’t. And both are okay.

What I know is this: the real inconvenience isn’t asking for what you need. It’s pretending your needs don’t matter.

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I recently came across the question: How good is perfect? What are you basing your standards on?

I realized I didn't even know the answer myself.

As I thought about this, I noticed all the times in my life where perfectionism felt like a moving target, unattainable and intangible. I’m the one setting the goal post, and I'm making it up in my mind.

It’s not a bad thing to strive to do your best, but what if you're told that your best isn't good enough? I've never heard this from someone directly, but it’s a constant, unconscious message I receive from society as a person with a disability.

This started when I was a baby. When I was two and a half, I failed my first test — my hearing test. This set the stage for the years to come: living life measured against another’s set of standards. Ingrained within day-to-day life is a set of unspoken rules we live by — some through communication, some through social norms. I want to acknowledge the difficulties that can lie in these social systems for underrepresented people, such as racism, classism, ableism.

Growing up with hearing aids, trying to function as a hearing person, creates a constant dynamic of feeling less than. My hearing level is less than a hearing person’s, therefore I need to work harder to compensate in conversations. I need to focus differently to absorb the information. I need to attune to my body when I am tired from listening all day. Standards of education and learning are measured against hearing-centric definitions of achievement. Being compared to the level of a hearing person in every aspect of life has created an unintentional mask of perfection, with the hearing person as the ideal.

Now, as an adult, I am learning how to unlearn these ways of thinking, this striving to be something that doesn't exist. What does success look like to someone who is living a deaf positive way of life?

Using my internal values as my guide, I can begin to deeply know myself, my definition of success in life and art. With this inherent worth, I can feel brave to make mistakes, fail, and try again. My idea of success is evolving as I learn.

It’s a constant work in progress, understanding that society's ideas of normal, beauty, and perfection are made to keep us small, striving, consuming. When we know ourselves, we don’t need to account for other people’s opinions and values.

Remembering this is daily work. It is allowing myself to be as I am when I wake up in the morning, journaling and meditating to clear my head and start the day feeling grounded in the knowledge of who I am.

I now listen to my inner guide to hold myself to a higher standard — but one that is my own.

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In 2013, Kelsie Grazier woke up one morning to find that she had totally lost her hearing, her mild-to-moderate hearing loss completely transformed. This set the stage for evolving and ongoing healing, and deepened her art practice as a way to cope with this abrupt identity shift and an intrusive newcomer: the loud tinnitus in her head.

I met Kelsie years ago when I was 17, in American Sign Language class. We kept in touch on and off over the years, but that changed when I had a similar experience in 2023 and my moderate-to-severe hearing loss completely dropped. Twice. I couldn’t hear anything for a month, putting work on pause and starting an intense course of steroids to restore what hearing I previously had. Though it eventually returned to its prior levels, it also came back with loud ringing and a complete perspective shift. Kelsie was the only person I know who really understood.

This led to both a deepening of our friendship and the launch of this newsletter, a concept Kelsie created years ago to explore her changing identity and to invite others to share theirs as well. I’m grateful to be joining her here.

The following is a conversation recorded between Kelsie and me, introducing ourselves and discussing our vision for Between Silence and Sound.

This will be a place to unpack different modalities of healing, the tools we find, our spirituality, creative practices, and learnings through our perspectives as d/Deaf women: what life feels like in the ‘in between,’ the non-linear healing journey, Deaf Gain, how to build an art career or a business with joy and rest woven in, and more.

Thank you for being here with us.

— Kristin

A note on deaf/Deaf: we use Deaf to refer to those who view themselves as culturally Deaf/part of the Deaf community and who (usually) use sign language as their first language. We use deaf to refer to all levels of deafness and hearing loss.

Kristin: Why don't we start off with introductions to help readers get to know us?

Kelsie: Sure! My name is Kelsie and I am from the general Vancouver area, where I grew up. I am Deaf, and I’m an artist as well as a mother. My days are filled with trying to maintain a balance and a rhythm between those identities, while also grappling with my Deaf identity, having gone from hard of hearing to Deaf as my hearing levels changed.

My art is influenced by that experience. I create abstract paintings and art installations that express this sense of being in between and the experiences that I've encountered while learning about Deaf culture.

Kristin: I also grew up in the Greater Vancouver area. I'm hard of hearing, and I was diagnosed when I was three. I wear a hearing aid in my right ear, but my hearing loss is too profound in my left ear for one to help. I relate to your exploration of the ‘in between.’ I'm also mixed race, so navigating identity has been a big theme throughout my life. I live in Helsinki, Finland now, and work in editorial, marketing, and communications.

Let’s talk a bit about why you wanted to create Between Silence and Sound, and what your vision for this space is.

Kelsie: The idea came to me when I was healing from my cochlear implant surgery. At the time, I lived on a houseboat. In my healing, I’d spend hours sitting in this cozy little nook, staring at the water with a cup of tea and getting used to this new sensation of hearing in a different way. I realized that even though this kind of experience isn’t unique, it still feels very isolating. There are many people in the world who've had a cochlear implant, but it's still not very well known or understood. The same goes for being hard of hearing. It’s a reality shared by people of all ages, but it's not often talked about. And being profoundly deaf, part of Deaf culture and signing, is even less discussed or understood.

I found myself thinking, how can I use my background as a teacher for d/Deaf and hard of hearing individuals and that knowledge to support others going through something similar? Despite having that academic knowledge, it was very, very challenging to suddenly lose my hearing and have tinnitus. It sounds different for everyone, but for me it’s like an old-school fire alarm on full blast, layered with radio static in my head 24/7. The cochlear implant helps, but doesn’t erase it.

The idea just popped into my head: you need to start a newsletter. I first called it This Perspective. I sat with this idea for a long time, considering what I wanted it to be. Over the years, my ideas shifted a bit, but the crux is the same: this healing journey I’ve been on, and that you’ve now experienced, is one that many people go through, often alone. I hope that by sharing my learnings and wellness practices, other people can tap into them as well. That vision has become this space, Between Silence and Sound.

Kristin: Growing up, my mom worked with the Deaf community — even though she is hearing — so she's fluent in American Sign Language. But I always grappled with my hearing loss growing up (I’m the only one in my family with it), and it wasn't something I ever put front and centre.

Then in 2023, I hit my head and suddenly lost my hearing. It came back gradually, but it also brought tinnitus with it — something I’d never experienced before. You were such a great support to me through this time. It was so nice to have someone who understood what it felt like, how totally unsettling it was.

I've been on a new path since then. My hearing returned to its previous level, but I still have this ringing and a new awareness of how quickly things can shift. Exploring my identity as a deaf person (lowercase ‘d’) has been a healing part of that.

At one point, you invited me to join you in this project, so that led us to where we are now.

Kelsie: I’ll share a bit more background as well. I was also born hard of hearing, also diagnosed at three with a mild-to-moderate hearing loss and aided with two hearing aids. I functioned like a hearing person in a hearing world. I didn't know sign language, and didn't know many Deaf or hard of hearing people. When I was 24, I suddenly lost my hearing and it never came back. Shortly after that, the tinnitus started. I eventually went on the waitlist for a cochlear implant and got one two years later. Then came the whole experience of learning how to hear again with an electronic device in my head.

Kristin: You said you didn't have a lot of Deaf or hard of hearing friends growing up and it can be a very isolating experience. What do you hope people will take away from what we’re sharing here?

Kelsie: It's interesting, when I lost my hearing I was studying to become a teacher for d/Deaf and hard of hearing students. So I was actually studying deafness as I became Deaf. But I didn’t know much sign language yet, and I didn’t feel like I belonged to the Deaf community. I was speaking, but I wasn’t hearing, and I didn’t know where I fit.

The studies I read during my master's program really enlightened me to this idea of you can be both — and many people in the world are — so I decided to study what deafness looks like around the world.

Deafness is very hidden. It's an invisible disability. It's often labelled a disability by governments and society, but it is not disabling unless the environment that you're in is disabling. That’s what I’ve had to learn firsthand. Like going into a coffee shop and struggling so hard to understand the barista, or going into a restaurant and not being able to track the conversation and experiencing isolation. I realized it’s important for people to not feel this way.

Representation matters. Growing up, I didn't see anyone wearing a hearing aid in a magazine. I still very rarely see that. It's this unspoken thing. Yet, as I met more and more culturally Deaf people, who are so proud to be Deaf, and felt so welcomed and so included in the community, I realized something needs to change. Maybe by talking about this, showing different kinds of representation, we can help create more awareness and a more inclusive space.

Kristin: Yes, I feel that too — though my lens is different. I’ve always tried to stay in the hearing world. I’m not fluent in sign language. I’ve learned some over the years, and I want to learn more, but I identify as hard of hearing and I’m still working through what that means. It’s not something I’ve shared publicly before.

Let’s shift and talk a bit about the other themes that will come up: wellness, beauty, spirituality. They’re such important parts of how we process and heal as well.

Kelsie: I would say I have been on a quiet spiritual journey, entering through the lens of meditation and mindfulness. I learned from many Buddhist teachers — which was accessible to me through shows or YouTube videos with captions — that mindfulness is important for centering myself within this noisy tinnitus in my head, which is really hard to live with.

For more than 10 years, I've been learning to listen to that inner voice and that idea of worthiness, that I am worthy enough to take care of myself and rest. Within that, that's when my art practice started to thrive. I focused on the repetition of painting fine white lines, and that was the mindfulness piece that allowed me to feel a sense of inner calm.

I've learned over the years to create a life that is beautiful and meaningful. When there’s something really ugly inside my head, this tinnitus noise, I try to create something beautiful through my art. It's the antithesis of what I'm experiencing. I’m exploring this idea of what beauty is through all of the senses. How can your environment reflect beauty? How can it be calming for you? How can you eat in a way that's nourishing to your body? How can you create mindful living?

Another aspect of beauty is wearing and accepting my cochlear implant, which feels foreign and unnatural. It doesn't feel like it's one with my body. Growing up with hearing aids, I didn't know any different, so it wasn't as much of an issue. I’m still unpacking these ‘standards of beauty’ and learning to accept that it's okay to feel uncomfortable with these technologies that help me.

Kristin: You talked about being on this path for a decade, and this chapter for me — the sudden hearing loss, the ringing — is still so new. But I think we both bring tools, practices, and perspectives as creative people and d/Deaf women that could be meaningful to others.

Kelsie: Yes, I'm excited to see what we build together, being so different yet so similar. And how we can incorporate slow living, joyful rest, and healing. There's this hustle culture that we live in, and yet our bodies have forced us in some ways to slow down.

Kristin: Definitely. I’m coming into this from a place of rebuilding after time off to heal. I’ve always been very career-driven, and I still am, but I’m thinking about it differently now. I want to pursue ambition and build a business in a way that’s sustainable and joyful, so that it’s something that nourishes me over time. More on that soon.

Kelsie: Yes, more to come!

Photo: Lauren D. Zbarsky

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