Blog: Healing Choices
This blog focuses on the small moments that make a good day into a bad day, or a terrible day into a gift of a day. It’s my belief that developing awareness in these small moments is the practice we need to be able to navigate all the ups and downs of life, from loss and grief to love, peace, and joy.
Remedial Play
I truly believe that playing is an essential part of a happy life and, on a more practical level, I also believe that it is an essential part of a productive, useful life. The second part of that statement really appeals to my Puritan work ethic, so I’m going to go...
Saying No Is Not a Bad Thing
Who would you rather ask a favor from? Say you need a babysitter or even, God forbid, to borrow $100? Here are your choices: Friend A, who will interrogate you about why you need a babysitter or what you want the money for. You know she will do this as she always...
Who’s Judging Me?
My husband, Tom, left the country and dry land for three weeks. I stayed home with our son. In some ways, life was harder, but in some ways, life was a lot easier. I noticed about a week after Tom left, that I felt good. Lighter. I had more “work” to do, and less time...
Wildly Improbable Goals
Back in the fall, I started thinking about goals for 2012. More specifically, I reviewed my list of WIGs (Wildly Improbable Goals). Martha Beck talks about them in her book, Finding Your Own North Star. WIGs are goals that seem almost impossible but they are things...
Gratitude
In the past, my thinking about gratitude has been along the same lines as the attitude of a Depression-era parent. “Be grateful for what you have. Don’t ask for more. What you have is good enough.” Since I have Depression-era parents, I came by this thinking honestly....
How Do You Treat You?
If you had a friend who constantly berated you, judged you or criticized you, would you keep her close? Would you want to be around him? Would you try to find ways to spend more time with her or would you try to find ways to avoid him? Most of us would say that life...
Limiting Beliefs
Recently, I got back in touch with a friend I have known since college. She is a born salesperson, and has been in sales since we graduated (many, many years ago.) The last time I saw her, a few years ago, she was commuting about 3 hours a day to her workplace and...
Defensiveness is the First Act of War
As I was sitting in traffic at the Burlington Mall a few weeks ago, I was thinking my thoughts, and scanning the road in front of me. It was bumper-to-bumper to get to the mall exit, so I was sitting with my foot on the brake. I scanned right and then left as the car...
Fun, Anyone?
A couple of weeks ago my friend and colleague, Master Life Coach Susan Hyatt, asked a question on a coaching forum that I am a part of: What do you do for fun? Ever since I read The Four Day Win by Martha Beck years ago and learned about Rat Park, I’ve been trying to...
Your Mind–Servant, Or Master?
There was one point during the Rugged Maniac 5K obstacle race last weekend when my mind tried to scare me. I’d been doing fine with the obstacles. Not fine as in, “wow, that was easy!" but fine as in “I’m not thinking ahead, I’m just dealing with the obstacle right in...