It’s a Saturday in August of 2003. My husband, Steve, and I have lived in Arizona for four months. The small house we’re renting in Cottonwood serves us well until we find one to buy. If things are going so well, why did I wake up this morning in a swamp of anxiety? I…
Christmas cactus 2020 It’s the Christmas holiday in 2020, and I watch in disappointment as newly formed buds fall off my Christmas cactus. They remind me, with sadness, of the “pearls of wisdom and encouragement” I try all year to publish on my blog page. Like those buds on my Christmas cactus, each writing…
Enjoy this video, and if you would like to read an article on the same subject, here it is: Recently, I talked with a woman – I’ll call her Nancy — who told me she and her husband, “Jim,” had an interaction about their differing views on pandemic do’s and don’ts. He doesn’t believe…
Kahlil Gibran gives some of the best advice for relationship harmony I have heard. In his book, The Prophet, he instructs readers to “Let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” Hunkering down with my significant other during the pandemic makes that nearly impossible! Many…
Have you ever experienced someone trampling on your words, interrupting you as you communicated a thought? When someone can’t wait until we’ve finished expressing our thought before they jump in with theirs, it can jar us! Let’s take a closer look at interruption and breaking the habit. Why we interrupt People interrupt for many…
The constant movement of pre-holiday activities left me feeling spent and wrung out. The day after Christmas, I sat down on my couch and practically lived there for the next week. Practicing stillness, I put most duties on hold while I read, napped, wrote in my journal and stared off into space. Given my…
Ben didn’t know of any other family as diverse as his when it came to religion and politics. Every year, when the family gathered for the holidays, Ben watched his Uncle Jim navigate the diversity with a skill that softened interactions and lightened moods. As Ben watched how Uncle Jim could calm the heated…
Gratitude is more than folded hands and bowed head at a table laden with abundance. It is a heartfelt overwhelm that grabs us and hugs us tight until we want to cry from the joy of it. Gratitude is more than dropping a dollar or two into the Salvation Army bucket. It’s our heart saying…
The holiday season is here, which means spending time with family members whom we may not see all the time. Because of the political environment in our country right now, these time of togetherness can result in more rifts than ever before. Therefore, when we gather with family over the holidays, how do we…
Episodes of gratitude erupt spontaneously from somewhere beneath my doing and thinking. They ooze through whatever crack they find – manifesting as a ray of softness, a swelling of thanks, a depth of Silence expanding and encompassing all of what my eyes see, my ears hear, my hands touch. Warmth in my heart fills…