Health & wellbeing
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Puppy love
“Dogs never bite me. Just humans.” ~Marilyn Monroe As long as we’re celebrating the month of love, we can’t overlook our wonderful four-legged friends. If you’re anything like me, you consider your dogs and cats as part of your family — and adore them just as much. (As my friends will tell you, you’d better not come to my house if you don’t enjoy animals.) Pet ownership provides companionship and well-documented health benefits, as I discovered after adopting our beautiful Coco, shown above, from a local animal shelter. That’s the topic of my newest column in the February issue of Vitality and online in The Oakland Press. If you live…
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Old friends
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst conducted a now-famous study on friendship. In particular, he investigated how the context in which we meet people shapes our social network. One of his conclusions: We naturally lose about half of our friends every seven years. Given our ever-changing circumstances — we move, change jobs, get married — it’s logistically impossible to remain close to every friend we’ve ever had. My dear friend Debbie and I touched on this topic yesterday. Deb and I met when we were both pregnant nearly 39 years ago, and our enduring friendship is wrapped in layers of shared memories and experiences. We’re also lucky enough to have kept a few…
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Self-love
“Talk to yourself like you would talk to someone you love.” ~Brene Brown Sociologist and best-selling author Brene Brown often reminds her readers that healthy relationships begin with self-love and self-respect. While it might sound counterintuitive, it makes perfect sense. When you feel loved, confident, and secure, you have a deep reservoir of love for others. When you come from a place of abundance, you have plenty to give. Healthy self-love shouldn’t be confused with egotism or self-absorption. Self-love is the ability to accept your own humanity (flaws and quirks included) with gratitude and humility. Self-love is a willingness to keeping growing while you support the growth of others. Meanwhile,…
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Looking on the bright side
“Our job is to find the positive in every situation and focus on that. What you focus on becomes more pronounced. When you zero in on the positive, that’s what you see and that’s where you live….People will not treat you less seriously because you refuse to share a worldview with the Grim Reaper.” ~Victoria Moran All too often lately, I catch myself complaining aloud and rehashing the same-old problems and worries. Just for starters, I’m tired of worrying about the current state of political turmoil and insanity and the future of our country. I’m tired of being disappointed in too many people. I’m tired of worrying about driving on…
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Your side of the fence
“So often we seek more fertile ground — that greener space on the other side of the fence. Where we fail to thrive and where we falter in our appreciation of the everyday is in this urge to be ‘there’ and not ‘here.'” ~Patti Digh, Your Daily Rock The fear of missing out — imagining that there’s something better going on somewhere else — is a real thing. It can feel like being in junior high again, making us wonder if there’s yet another party we haven’t been invited to. Even as adults, we spend hours on social media, tracking what other people do (or have) instead of enjoying our…
