Christen Hong Coaching 1/7/26 Hi friends, A coworker recently told me that something I said to her a long time ago really stuck: self-maintenance is self-care. I still believe this deeply. Taking care of yourself and prioritizing your needs isn't selfish, it's essential. We can't show up as our best selves when we're depleted, and no one else can do this work for you. Often, support begins by covering the basics. Ask yourself:Are you hydrated?Are you sleeping enough – and well?Are you moving...
7 days ago • 2 min read
Christen Hong Coaching 12/31/25 Hi friends, Happy New Year! Perhaps it's my Capricorn sun and moon, but I tend to be a planner. I love setting a goal and then taking steps to make it happen — it's a guiding force in my life and something I genuinely enjoy. So when I saw this TikTok earlier this week, it guided me to spend a little time dreaming up my plans for 2026. It was surprisingly fun and light, so I thought I'd share here in case this is your kind of thing. Year in Motion: A 3-Step...
14 days ago • 1 min read
Christen Hong Coaching 12/24/25 Hi friends, It's the final week of the How Not to Explode series. I hope you haven't exploded, though if you have I understand. This time of year can be overwhelming. But this week, instead of focusing on overwhelm, we're playing The Rampage of Appreciation – a simple game where we deliberately focus our attention on the things that please us. This practice comes from Ask and It Is Given, where it's shared as the first of 22 processes for raising your emotional...
21 days ago • 2 min read
Christen Hong Coaching 12/17/25 Hi friends, This week's installment of the How Not to Explode series is all about getting the feeling out of your body. This theme has been one of the biggest game changers for me. For most of my life, I kept my emotions tucked tightly inside — especially the ones that felt inconvenient. I grew up believing I should be pleasant, composed, non-disruptive. So instead of expressing what I felt, I swallowed it. Anger, betrayal, sadness... they lived inside my...
28 days ago • 2 min read
Christen Hong Coaching 12/10/25 Hi friends, This third installment of the How Not to Explode series is centered around a concept that quietly shapes everything in our lives: the meaning we assign to our experiences. One thing I've consciously worked on — and have gotten pretty good at — is noticing when a thought pattern isn't serving me, pausing, and choosing a different interpretation. The more I've observed my own reactions, the more I've realized that most things that happen are...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Christen Hong Coaching 12/3/25 Hi friends, This week we're back with the next installment in the How Not to Explode series — Grounding. I first learned these techniques in the height of the pandemic and immediately felt how effective they could be. I believed in them so much that I even started building a course about it… which has been living half-finished on my desktop ever since. So today I'm switching things up and sharing the lesson images on grounding from that course. If you try these...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Christen Hong Coaching 11/26/25 Hi friends, As promised last week, I'm here to share a few tools that have been instrumental to my growth — the first in my multi-week How Not to Explode series. First and foremost, breath is always my go-to when struggling in the moment. I can't recommend enough finding breathwork exercises that actually work for you when things start to feel overwhelming. But another amazing technique that's helped me firsthand (and people I've practiced with in the moment),...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Christen Hong Coaching 11/18/25 Hi friends, Y'all I hope you're taking care out there. I've started noticing people exploding lately - quick to react, quick to anger, quick to reach their limit. It's been people I know, total strangers, even myself some days. And I get it. Things are wild. This is a hard part of a hard year and we as a society aren't really taught how to hold empathy for others (or, frankly, ourselves), especially when we're in the throes of our limits. And though my initial...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Christen Hong Coaching 11/12/25 Hi friends, You may not have noticed, but I didn't send out a newsletter last week. It's not because I didn't want to — I actually spent time throughout the week thinking about what I'd write. But then I got in my head about it. I told myself I should probably wait until after the election results came in, just in case I felt the need to comment. And then...I just forgot. When I remembered, I initially felt panicked. I'd made a goal to write every week, and...
2 months ago • 1 min read
