Personal growth
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Pure generosity
“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” ~John Wooden My mom was a stickler for good manners, and “reciprocate” was an active verb in her vocabulary. Whenever she was invited to someone’s home for dinner (and whenever she received a gift) she took care to return the favor. She was secretly disappointed when others didn’t follow the same rules of etiquette. While reciprocation is a lovely thing, it took me years to fully appreciate the concept of paying it forward. As today’s quote reminds us, the true spirit of generosity is giving a gift or doing a favor…
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Lifelong learning
“No, this is not the beginning of a new chapter in my life; this is the beginning of a new book! That first book is already closed, ended, and tossed into the seas. This new book is newly opened, has just begun. Look, it is the first page! And it is a beautiful one!” ~ C. JoyBell C. For me, the best part of leading community workshops — in person again — is the privilege of spending time with fascinating people who want to keep growing. This fall, I’ve met many new friends who are ready to brush off the dust of the pandemic and reboot their lives. They’re ready for…
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How do we look?
“Ten years from now it won’t really matter what shoes you wore today, how your hair looked, or what brand of jeans you bought. What will matter is how you thought about yourself, how you lived, what you learned, and where you applied this knowledge.” ~Marc and Angel Chernoff, Marc & Angel Hack Life Everywhere I look, I see ads for products that promise to erase wrinkles, hide age spots, and make me look 10 years younger. Several of my girlfriends have found the courage to let their hair go gray — and they look beautiful — but I haven’t mustered the courage to do the same. It’s human nature to…
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List-en to yourself
“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.” ~Jane Austen, Mansfield Park Did you know that the root of list actually means listen to? When we get quiet and listen to ourselves, we often discover the answers we’ve been seeking. List-making can be a life-changing tool for continuing this inner dialogue. Next Wednesday (Oct.5), I’ll be leading a free community workshop on list-making in the Friends Auditorium at the Royal Oak Public Library. (We’ll have some fun writing a variety of lists in the class.) Meanwhile, I wrote a new article on the benefits of list-making, and you can…
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Domestic arts
“I no longer call such tasks ‘housework.’ I call them the ‘domestic arts,’ paying attention to all the ways they return me to my senses.” ~Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith One of the things I’ve admired about Martha Stewart is the way she elevates homekeeping to an art form. Along these lines, Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor finds the sacred in her everyday tasks. In her book, An Altar in the World, she approaches the “domestic arts” with mindfulness — and the belief that cooking our own meals, washing dishes, and taking care of our personal space can be a pleasure and…
