I am reading (well, listening to) a book I am finding personally inspiring. Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness. That combined with being at Steve’s, a place where I tend to think about life, and it being the season of reflection —long nights, short and cold days which bring us inside for rest while we wait for the returning of the light, I awoke a few days ago with a new idea.
Read MoreThanksgiving in America is celebrated in a variety of ways. Some folks gather with family (people they love and some they don’t. Others celebrate with chosen family and friends. Some give thanks, others take the opportunity to shop like mad. And some do all of it. This year, it seems like we are being asked to shift who we spend the day with and how we spend our time.
Read MoreThat’s correct. It isn’t. No matter what the topic. When people are talking about institutional and systemic inequity and racism and are asking you to reflect on your own privilege, you might hear blame. You might not like how you feeling hearing the word, especially how it relates to you, and resist. After all, you are progressive and want —possibly even have worked for civil rights. Having this conversation in the context of blame will be super challenging. Because it isn’t your fault. Yet you have contributed to the issue.
Read MoreIt seems like the confluence of events in America and the world in 2020 culminating with watching the murder of a You care deeply want to say something yet, are stuck for a single thing to say, possibly because you think it won’t help, it won’t be enough, you have no right to say anything, or you will make someone angry. You do not have to say anything in order to be engaged in what’s happening.
Read MoreWhy be grateful when the day (relationship, project, moment) just sucks? Because it changes everything.
You do not have to be pleasant and wear lovely yoga pants and burn incense to have a gratitude practice. Grumpy Gratitudes are just fine.
Read MoreThis post is written by a friend. Alan Muskat. Alan is well-known as the Mushroom Man in Asheville, NC. He is a forager and takes thousands of people on walks through the woods. Alan and I talk often. We were talking about his business No Taste Like Home a few years back. In this conversation I remember him sharing something to me about understanding nature, the earth and foraging. It was then and remains one of the most profound wake-ups for me —living here in the city.
Read MoreLoving ourselves is so deeply mixed in our history of not receiving love (or being seen and celebrated) for who we actually were. Many of us got messages growing up about how unlovable we were (often unintentionally) in a variety of ways. Add in years and years of trying to get our love needs from outside —wanting others to love us —most often unsuccessfully, the idea of loving ourselves is like gibberish, we don’t have a reference point.
Here’s the funny (not funny) thing.
Read MoreEvery New Year you think about making resolutions. You are going to be the new, better you?
I don’t know, doesn’t that imply that there is something wrong with the old you? Which is the you, you are right now.
It is so easy to think there is something wrong with us.
Read MoreI was driving on the Schuylkill Expressway last week. And I ran into traffic jams. So what’s new about this story?
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