About

EM Hager's life is a journey back to the center.
• I was born an artistic child in a blue bubble in my red hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. My first career was a registered Landscape Architect with a West coast education, doing water and earthworks in OR, CA, OK, TN, GA & TX. It was satisfying until it changed. So I changed...and moved.
• San Francisco began further entrepreneurial explorations but, this time, in the digital landscape creating bleeding edge projects in imagery, digital cartography & mapping...Now What Software with time layers to see for yourself - when, and where we were. It was "proto-google-ian" (ahem...back in the ancient days before Google and an useful Internet). It was fun for a decade...or so. Then it changed on me again.
• It all stopped working. The multi-media techie bubble tanked us: personal and corporate bankruptcy, divorce and the death of my brother. (No matter how many times he jumped out of planes, skydiving did not give him wings...)
• Then eleven years of caregiving happened and changed it all again. But this tragic journey, brought me (eventually) back to something I had lost: my original center. I realized I had been a pretzel of adaptability and...more importantly...fear based. This is where the Fieldguide came into being. It helps me remember that I stand for love. We all do– all us human knuckleheads...
• All of the above informs my work in hospice and all my writing. May it help caregivers and making the planet a more caring place.

We live in the garden of change. My Intention now is resilient master gardening
Resentments and regrets are seeds which I do not want to grow...The secret of this is taking care-each day-tending the tender and the resilient...new shoots of life.

Resilience allows me to renew myself even in the trenches of love and loss. Caregiving is a gamechanger, but all loss is depleting. Remembering to first care well for ourselves and then others, is not selfish. To put on your oxygen mask first, is just responsible, evergreen behavior. I remember to treat all as worthy (including myself) so I am able to care more. (How can I give a drink to others when my own cup is a sieve?)

The answer is always love. (But what was the question, again?)
Renewal is about remembering what I came here to do. It’s not always clear in the trenches of change. We must, somehow, get back to our center…our garden into which we can plant new stories that fit us now. If we can remember the joy behind the sadness while we are in the throes, we become resilient and evergreen–like the giant redwoods (Gratitude of Redwoods No. 5).

How do we get to this resilience? We take care...and we tend one small step, one moment, one day at a time. The Fieldguide’s rules and this site is about finding that resilience for ourselves and in ourselves.

Stay Tuned...
Whatever it will be, it will be more fun together. When you sign up for the Taking Care Resilient News, you get the Fieldguide’s first few secrets for healthy caregiving as a gift. There are so many gifts in front of us. But when we are stressed, it is hard to see.

They will get you back to center—your center— where you will (probably) not be a caregiving health statistic, and (definitely) you will make better decisions for your loved ones who are infirm and in our care. You will get first crack at the (upcoming) podcasts, the audio meditations, and the memoir of Betty and I– girlQuantum–A Time Traveling Memoir of a Better Remembering - Fall 2019.

Now What? Connect. Plant something good. Grow your life... while doing what needs to be done.

...life is better as a conversation. You can't know it all. Let's talk.