Weaving your own silver lining

Silver linings don’t materialize out of thin air, or magic. We weave our own silver linings with the threads of our own imagination, spirit, and courage.   • • • • • When we suffer a trauma —  job loss, injury, death, or something bizarre and out of the blue, people commonly talk of silver linings. “Opportunities being born out of crisis”; “When Read More …

Acceptance

If you have been alive at least a few years, you have learned there are things that you can neither change nor control. Learning to accept certain things requires a combination of surrender, strength, self-love and a kind of a focused imagination. You don’t argue with the tides; they are inevitable. You don’t judge trees because they are bent. You Read More …

Live Your Life as a Gift

Gratitude—we all know (or think we know) what it is. I learned more about gratitude in the past several years than in the previous 50. I know that depression is a complete absence of gratitude. When you’re depressed, you can’t find any reason to be grateful for anything. (And here I am talking about clinical Read More …

Forgiveness

I have discovered that wholly loving myself requires that I actively work to relieve my pain. This is not simply about being “happy.” The reason lies in the imperative to live a worthwhile life. If my mind is crippled by emotional pain, I cannot live a meaningful life. The pain directly caused by another person Read More …

Inspiration can hide in plain sight

I had an amazing conversation this morning. Amazing because I woke up so discouraged; “borderline depressed” is probably closer to the truth. So it was edging toward 11 a.m. and I needed to call a client back. I didn’t feel like it. I felt kind of lazy, introverted, and had a kind of “f*** everything” attitude. Read More …

On being human

My life has, at times, felt like assembling a jigsaw puzzle on a roller coaster — frantic, confusing, and frequently bizarre. Call me a survivor, human pretzel, sometime circus juggler, and mom. I have felt like a sidewalk performer sometimes — with one too many balls in the air, dealing with yet another perplexing, and Read More …

The Damage of Doubts

You wake up and it’s raining. Shucks. You were hoping for a sunny day. But remember: the sun is still shining above the clouds, and it *will* shine down on you again soon. This is not magical thinking. It’s a fact. We humans have our own weather systems. I think of the sun as a Read More …