The Thread that Held

In that last post I named a grief. The Greenhouse Collective — the nonprofit we were building before the ground shifted. I want you to know I haven't moved past that. But something has grown alongside it.

The work has continued to clarify.

On one side: Greenhouse Amsterdam. I work with teams and organizations on emotional intelligence — specifically on attuned listening. The skill of receiving what another person is actually communicating, not just what you expected them to say. It turns out this is rare. And learnable. And when it takes root in an organization, things change. It feels good to continue moving forward and spreading the present of presence that I so value from my spiritual companioning work.

As you know, I didn't arrive at this work through a tidy professional arc. I arrived at it the way most of us arrive at the things that matter — through loss, and attention, and the slow accumulation of noticing what happens when people in power don't know how to hear.

I'm also a partner with Synarchy — a collective working to build organizations that serve the people inside them. My role there is the human layer: the emotional readiness and listening infrastructure that makes everything else — neuroinclusion, leadership development, the harder work of cultural change — more accurate and more humane. It sounds abstract, surprisingly maybe, it isn't.

And beneath both of those: the companioning. Still here. Still opening space in person in Amsterdam and online, for those navigating deconstruction, grief, and the kind of questions that don't resolve quickly and aren't meant to. Americans are flooding here in record numbers and whether back in the states or moving away for safety and hope - we are in a deep need for introspection - who are we as expat/immigrant Americans? What does America really mean and stand for when our values and institutions crumble around us? How do I hold spirituality and faith - especially if my faith has been co-opted by Christian Nationalism?

Five months in. Residency cards here. The kids are finding their feet and so, slowly, am I.

I write this not as someone who has arrived. But I'm finding, a little at a time, that the work itself is part of how I find the ground.

If something here landed — reach out.

Wishing you peace and every good.

Rachel