Welcome – I’m Juliette.

My five-year-old daughter is currently going through a rite of passage every poor kid inevitably faces — she is afraid of the dark.

She’s done handstands on every wall and chased her shrieking sister through every hallway with delight, but the moment night falls, our house becomes a scary place filled with shadows and monsters.

I think that’s because, deep down, we all fear the unknown.

When something is unknown, we feel powerless. When we shine a light on it and finally understand it, we become powerful.

There is agency in understanding.

I’ve lived the reality of a brain that feels stuck, addicted and so rigidly wired that it was as if an unknown and powerful force was steering every thought and action. Learning what was actually happening in that once-scary space between my ears is what helped me slowly reclaim myself - to rewire and rebuild my brain one new, conscious thought at a time. (It’s an experience I’ll write more about here when the time feels right.)

I’m not a neuroscientist by training — my PhD is in Civil Engineering — but I’ve spent years trying to understand the science so that I can answer the everyday questions that keep me (and possibly you) up at night:

“Why did my child do that?”

“Wait, why did I do that?”

… and the far more existential “How do I get off this path and choose a better one?”

Instead of something scary and inalterable, I now find the human brain to be the second most magical thing in the world, full of limitless potential. (My daughters take first place.)

If you’re someone who finds comfort (and hope) in understanding how the brain works — and not in a lab-coat way, but in a heartfelt, everyday-trenches way — I hope you’ll find something here that resonates.