A while ago, I was at a seminar with a group of women I didn’t know. One of them immigrated to The United States several years earlier. She said that her “English isn’t good enough“, and that she feels “defeated and less than”. She wasn’t finding other women who wanted to build a relationship with […]
Category Archives: PEACE FULL HOME
Today, I want to tell you a story about a little girl who was born in Wales, Great Britain in the 1930s. She lived with her family in a thatch-roofed cottage on a rocky shoreline, where they had a very simple life—moving through each day the same as the one before. There were seven children and […]
Many years ago I had the wonderful privilege of being with people who are—on the surface only of course—different from me. I was in La Entrada, Honduras on a mission trip with others from my faith community. It was a time that was rich with emotion and learning. In spite of speaking mostly through an […]
Feeling Alone Last week my daughter Erin—a clinical trials & research nurse—sent me a very dismal report about loneliness. Then, I stumbled upon a piece on the same subject while researching something else. And, in the past few weeks, I’ve talked to at least four people about loneliness. When there’s a recurring theme, it’s a […]
When I was in my late twenties, the man I worked for said something that has stayed with me all these decades: “In this world, there are givers and takers. My wife is a giver, I am a taker and you, Kay, are a giver.” I remember feeling proud of that title. It felt like […]
Many of us run through life, like a child in a proverbial candy store—grabbing this and that experience, not really tasting all the “flavors”—simply consuming life. When we’re racing through experiences, we aren’t fully participating in them. We’re simply snapping screen shots as we jump from one thing to another. Because there’s so much going […]
I woke up this morning acutely aware of the amazing freedom and abundance I have. I could choose to lie in my bed as long as I want on this work-free morning, get up and brush my teeth with clean water running through a faucet in one of my bathrooms (while in a third of our […]
wholeness—complete and harmonious unity; a synergy of body, mind and spirit How often do you actually experience a sense of wholeness? Or, is that never part of your reality because you feel like a piece of you is missing—that you aren’t able to complete the puzzle because you’re somehow incomplete? The concept of “feeling whole” won’t […]
In the 1993 movie Groundhog Day the main character is a weatherman named Phil who gets caught in a blizzard that he didn’t accurately predict. He becomes stuck in a time warp, reliving the same day over and over until he gets it “right”. There’s a lot of literature about the underlying significance of this […]
Whenever I wasn’t with clients yesterday, I was outside pressure washing our deck. This is an annual ritual—one that’s made even more necessary because of my beloved locust tree (“The Tree”). The Tree is very messy. Each spring, seedpods fall creating a lot of residual muck to get rid of. But, in spite of the […]
Grace One morning, without even “trying”, I found myself in a place of grace. The feeling was palpable although nothing looked different. It was experienced rather than seen. (Sometimes, we humans don’t believe something’s real unless we can see it and touch it.) At first, this incipient energy created only a subtle shift in the […]
Editing—a fundamentally necessary process to get to the heart of the matter; to revise or expunge or correct When you watch a movie or read a book—or a post like this—it’s likely been edited. Without editing, there may be typos, grammar issues, inconsistencies, and the absence of a through-line (the common thread that ties it […]
There are lines (sometimes very fine) between embracing fully, accepting, settling and giving up. Today, let’s talk about giving up. It’s easy to imagine abandoning hope when you: feel scared or vulnerable, hide in the shadows, don’t have the support of those who are “supposed” to love you, are victimized or minimized or give […]
Have you ever looked at another person and thought, “wow, I wish I could do that”, or “it would be awesome to look that amazing?”, or “his life seems perfect!”? I know I have. In my humanness, I have lapses of gratitude, and go to a place where I think that I’m not as fortunate as someone […]
In early 2016, I wrote a letter to my then ten-year-old granddaughter with ten specific thoughts. It was a spur-of-the-moment sharing, hand-written on simple lined “school” paper with holes in the margin, around which I drew little flowers. She asked me to hang onto it for her and I took it out, and reread it, […]
When we look at each other, what are we seeing? Are we really even looking? Or, are we rushing through life so fast that we don’t even pay attention to who we pass, because the “where we’re running to” and “what we need to do” blinds us to all else? Do we really see each other at all? Am […]
Last week we talked about environmental wellness. This week let’s move on to how choices we make impact our emotional, social and spiritual wellness. Eight Areas of Wellness 1. physical wellness 2. occupational wellness 3. financial wellness 4. intellectual wellness 5. environmental wellness 6. emotional wellness—taking care of yourself from a “feeling” perspective; living as stress […]
We often think of wellness as getting annual physicals, exercising, eating right and getting a good night’s sleep. It encompasses a lot more than that, however! The integration of the different areas of wellness is what allows you to achieve your full potential. Eight Areas of Wellness 1. physical wellness—our bodies need for physical activity, healthy […]
Ubuntu is the South African concept of lifting others up, affirming their value, and being genuinely joyful that their lives are good. It means “humanity”—being aware that we are part of a bigger picture; knowing that we all suffer when others are oppressed. We are not isolated but, rather, joined in our humanness. It does not […]
Good Morning Beautiful Friend. How are you my Precious Daughter? You are so Creative! You’re a Worthless Loser. You are such a Clumsy Jerk! How can you be so Stupid and Ugly? You did a Wonderful job! How can you always be so Generous? You’re a Valuable team member. You were an unwanted Mistake. Why are you so Useless? Get lost you Freak! Your […]
