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Everything you love
“I am all the things I have ever loved.” ~Toni Morrison, American author Last year I coached a journaling workshop titled List Yourself. As the title suggests, we filled our journals with lists of all kinds — favorite films, accomplishments, pet peeves, people who’ve inspired or helped us, places we’d like to visit, and so on. The practice of list-making might seem simplistic at first, but it can lead to profound self-awareness and discovery. If you make a list of all the things you love, for instance, you’ll see a life-affirming self-portrait taking shape on the page — just as today’s quote suggests. Furthermore, if you’re feeling blue, listing your…
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A Thanksgiving conversation primer
“Real conversation can’t happen if listening is just my waiting for you to finish talking.” ~Alan Alda Our social lives took a huge hit during the pandemic. We celebrated birthdays with drive-by parades, limited our holiday gatherings to small family bubbles, and even Zoomed memorial services. Now that our lives are back to near-normal, we look forward to gathering around our holiday tables with friends and family. We’re also rediscovering how to talk to each other after long periods of semi-isolation and social distancing. Not long after the pandemic eased, a friend confided that her social skills suddenly feel a bit “rusty” — especially when she meets new people at larger parties or work functions. No wonder.…
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Your harvest, your life
“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” ~Oprah Winfrey Late autumn inspires us to take stock of what we’ve planted or accomplished. The season of Thanksgiving — not just the holiday itself — underscores a simple choice we always have: We can celebrate all the good things we’ve reaped and experienced, or dwell on the difficulties we’ve encountered. A positive mindset is the natural outgrowth of appreciation. (Happy people are grateful people.) It’s part of the harvest we reap when we count everything on our gratitude list, large and small. ~CL
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Inner compass
“Pay close attention to your inner compass. If you stop steering by your own compass, you’ll hit a rumble strip. Don’t panic. Just question your assumptions and you’ll be back on the road in no time.” ~Martha Beck In the 1950s, most women didn’t have the choices we have today. Typically, they married and had kids, stayed home to raise those kids, managed household chores, and followed the cultural norms of the time. Likewise, their husbands climbed into their cars every weekday morning (or evening) and drove to work to support their families. Breaking that pattern isn’t always easy, even today. We humans are creatures of habit. We follow the…
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“Wild Geese”
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination.” — Mary Oliver Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese” touches a tender place in my soul, and I often share it with students in my workshops. It always sparks compelling personal stories and discussions after I read it aloud. As a child in Sunday school, I was terrified of disappointing the punitive, restrictive God portrayed in our leather-covered bibles. No matter how “good” I was, or how closely I followed the rules, I still felt judged and unworthy. Today, I follow my own moral compass, and I try not to allow the judgment of others to overshadow my…
