Health & wellbeing
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Love and goodbye
“Grief is the price we pay for love.” ~Queen Elizabeth II Watching the beautiful funeral ceremonies for Queen Elizabeth II yesterday, I got to thinking about the many ways that love opens us to the possibility of loss. Throughout our lives, we lose close friends who move away. As we age, our parents slow down. As our kids and grandkids grow up, we feel another kind of loss as we watch childhood give way to adulthood. Each time I wave goodbye — when a car filled with loved ones is backing out of my driveway, or I’m leaving a dear friend at a restaurant — a twinge of sadness tugs…
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Notes to yourself
“Sit back and reflect, and you’ll see things differently. Don’t buy into someone’s dream when you have your own dreams to bring to fruition. Love who you are and what you can do.” ~Horoscope for Leo (21st Century Media), August 16 Are you following your own script … or someone else’s? Do you design your life around your own vision, or what the culture expects of you? I don’t usually quote daily horoscopes from the newspaper, but this one was worth revisiting. Sometimes the best plan of action is to “sit back and reflect” on what you’re trying to accomplish. Jot down a few notes while you’re at it. This…
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Savoring the last of summer
“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” ~John Lubbock My birthday is always a bittersweet day for me. By the time August rolls around, it feels as if summer is nearly over — and I’m reminded of how quickly our seasons change. Garden blooms are starting to fade. Back-to-school promotions and Halloween displays are haunting the stores again. And I’m already booked for fall writing workshops. (Watch for announcements here soon.) But not so fast, please. Let’s…
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Attitude
“The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitudes.” – Viktor E. Frankl In Man’s Search for Meaning, Austrian neurologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl chronicled his experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. The book — one of the ten best-selling books of all time in the U.S. — describes Frankl’s psychotherapeutic method of identifying a positive purpose or reason to go on living. In short, he concluded that attitude is everything. The meaning of life glimmers in every moment we’re alive. As Frankl reminds us, when we are unable to change our situation, we have the freedom to change ourselves. We choose how to…
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To your good health
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will instruct his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.” – Thomas Edison As I age, I’m paying closer attention to the diseases listed in my family history — and trying my best to avoid them. I just completed a stressful, two-part annual physical that stretched over the past two weeks. For the most part, everything is fine, though there are some refinements I need to work on with my physician. Luckily, he’s a practitioner of preventative medicine, and his longtime guidance has kept any serious medical issues at bay.…
