Change and challenge
-
Breaking your silence
“Once you start to speak, people will yell at you….or put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don’t miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And at last you’ll know with surprising certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.” ~ Audre Lorde I thought of Audre Lorde’s words yesterday while I was typing my post about political lawn signs and the courage it takes to express our views. I remembered how difficult it has been for some people (especially women) to raise their…
-
Courage, kindness, and lawn signs
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” ~Rumi Last month, I retrieved a nonpartisan lawn sign from my garage and placed it near the side entrance of our home. The sign, shown above, simply encourages us to “BE KIND” — a gentle piece of advice we could all use during a terribly divisive election season. But until last week, I swore I wasn’t going to display a sign for a presidential candidate on my lawn this year. I had dozens of reasonable excuses for that decision, starting with the fact that I didn’t want to offend my neighbors with opposing viewpoints. I…
-
Empty nesting
“It is not what you do for your children; it’s what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.” ~Ann Landers It’s hard to believe that autumn officially starts on Sunday — and the new school year is now in full swing. Whether your kids have just started grade school or flown off to college, your parental routines are inevitably changing with the season. Today our son is a married man with a family of his own — yet the topic of launching our kids to adulthood remains close to my heart, especially this time of year. I’m reminded of an essay I wrote…
-
Mining for gold
“I am a firm believer that every few years one needs to shake one’s life through a sieve, like a miner in the Yukon. The gold nuggets remain. The rest falls through like the soft earth it is.” ~Amy Poehler, Yes Please Fall signals the end of one year and prepares us for the beginning of another, making it the ideal time to launch a few healthy changes. This season, I’m making efforts to reduce or eliminate habits and behaviors that stress me out, slow me down, or otherwise impact my health — both physically and emotionally. Rather than dread the inevitability of aging, I want to move forward with…
-
How we grow
“I think the place we grow in terms of self-efficacy and internal power is not when we are always happy, but when we’re doing emotionally painful things with courage and integrity.” ~Martha Beck Someone I know has been struggling with major depression for a while. Though I’d often wondered about her unpredictable moods, I didn’t realize the full extent of her pain until she shared her diagnosis recently. As she talked about moving past her emotional struggles and daily obstacles, I admired her courage and gained a greater understanding of her rocky journey toward wellness. As Martha Beck reminds us today, we do most of our growing when we’re pushing through…
