When I posted two cover options for Tracking Triggers, I asked two questions: which cover has the real lion tracks, and which one draws you in? I expected a clear winner. What I got was something more interesting.

Faux feelings are feeling-words that embed interpretations about another person's intent. They don't just name an internal state; they imply a narrative about what someone did to you. The experience behind these words is fully real. What makes them "faux" is that the language points outward rather than inward.

A reflection on language, precision, and meeting readers where they are: I've been working on Tracking Triggers: From Reactivity to Responsiveness, and a thoughtful reader recently pushed back on something fundamental: my definition of "trigger."

Archive won. It names a place where things are stored and recovered. Reservoir felt too utilitarian. Depths describes a quality, not a location.

Like the San trackers of the Kalahari—who can read a landscape that appears empty to the untrained eye and find the animal that passed through hours before—mediators learn to read the emotional terrain of conflict. We listen for more than words. We follow the subtle spoor of tone, posture, silence, and story to discover what's really alive beneath the surface. We track it to its source.

Two significant additions are being made based on reader feedback about cultural appropriation, credit to the San people, and historical context for my South African background.

A trigger is a disproportionate reaction in the present, activated by something unintegrated from the past.

As I return to the Introduction of Tracking Triggers, I'm paying attention to what still feels alive—and what I'm uncertain about.

This journal documents the making of Tracking Triggers: From Reactivity to Responsiveness.