We made it to another January! Another New Year, another chance to reflect on the past, to start over, and to think fresh thoughts about the future. Of course, we have the ability to reflect, start over, and think fresh every day, but there’s something about hanging a new calendar […]
A few years ago, I was a devoted reader of Eckhart Tolle’s spiritual writings, such as The Power of Now and Stillness Speaks. I never thought Tolle was a particularly good writer, as far as writing goes, but his spiritual approach appealed to me. It still does, though I […]
Suddenly realizing you’re naked while at school or work is a nightmare almost everyone has experienced. What if it really happened? Imagine recess on a clear, spring day in northern California, children running and playing in a schoolyard, shouting, kicking balls, and swarming the play structures. There I was, five […]
A wonderful thing happened this week! Eight little ducklings, well hidden under a bush at the base of our house, hatched under the careful care of Momma Mallard. My partner and I had seen Momma around now and then, but until a few days ago, when I accidentally disturbed her […]
We all do it. Compare ourselves with other, that is. It’s human nature. Children learn by mimicking others—a skill based on the ability to compare oneself with another. When I was a little girl, I mimicked the older girls’ ways of talking and walking, of wearing their hair, and their […]
Do you regret wrong decisions you’ve made? What does it really mean to feel regret? And is life better without it? In the following TED talk, Kathryn Schulz makes a strong case for accepting regret as a positive and reasonable emotional response to bad decisions and mistakes. “We should feel […]
This week’s journal writing prompts are about vulnerability. For most of us, to be vulnerable means to be open to the possibility of physical or emotional injury, or to be easily manipulated, and is a state we have learned — or been taught — to avoid. In reaction, we build […]
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. DISAPPOINTMENT is the opposite of optimism, hopeful anticipation, and joy. We feel disappointed when something we’ve hoped for or expected doesn’t occur. Perhaps you’ve worked for a reward — a promotion, a raise, an acknowledgement […]
ONE of the (many) reasons I have made it my mission to promote journaling and memoir writing is because of writing’s proven ability to help us heal. In my article, Why Write? Making Meaning of the Meaningless, I wrote about how we can use journaling to help us see meaning […]
EMOTIONS are an essential part of our lives. If you don’t think that’s true, just ask yourself the question: who would want to go through life without joy? In many cultures however, we are taught to value dispassionate logic over matters of the heart. Science and “objective” forms of thinking […]
A HEALTHY PHYSICAL PROCESS means that we take in food and water from our environment, process it for nutrients, then expel the wastes. In the same way, a healthy emotional process means that we take in our life experiences, process them for nutrients, find what we need to grow and […]
