A new addition to my 2024 morning routine is reading a daily reflection from a book called Everyday Mind. There are already quite a few dog-eared pages that particularly resonated with me, but one reflection written by Joseph Goldstein reached the level of blog-ability. He reflects on getting lost in our thoughts, emotions, stories, and plans, and [...]

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” ~Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” ~ Ferris Bueller My January made me think about both these quotes, which I realize is a strange and [...]

I am a person who appreciates the measure of time. I embrace a new year with the setting of goals and the envisioning of fresh starts. I actively mark the occasion of my birthday with celebrations great and small. Granted, sometimes that’s to take the edge off a big number, but usually it’s to celebrate another spin [...]

Happy 2024! As you may remember, I went with words rather than goals in 2023. My main word was surrender, with sub-words of health, fun, connection and creativity. I am proud and satisfied with my intentionality around all of those ideas last year, and there are significant things I am going to keep right on doing in [...]

Work was rough last week. I had many clients who were sad, in pain, deeply struggling with heartbreaking circumstances. I’m usually pretty skilled at being empathetic with clients in session and then leaving those feelings behind at the office. It’s not perfect, and clients do sometimes stick with me after their sessions, but for the most part, [...]

I don’t often choose to listen to podcasts. Yet this recent episode of We Can Do Hard Things resonated so deeply with me that I listened to it twice and have been thinking about it and talking about it for days. It both fired me up and calmed me down. And so, the only logical next step [...]

It was my birthday this week. And although I don’t love that I’m eligible for the AARP, I am also told there are a lot of good discounts, so there’s that! Mostly, I am feeling grateful for fifty-five healthy years filled with love and fun and security and abundance. Blessed to have an amazing family and fabulous [...]

Wow, I knew it had been a while since I’d written a blog, but I didn’t realize I hadn’t posted one since June! Much too long! Have you ever noticed that you can’t actually do everything you want to do? That there is this thing called time that is a finite commodity? And energy, too, has limits? [...]

Queen Charlotte is touted as a Bridgerton story, so I thought I knew what to expect. Yet I found it not to be the same type of story at all. Sure, there are familiar characters. There are balls and gowns and steamy sex scenes here and there. Yet this is actually a serious story, not the guilty [...]

I am writing a second installment about the Bay Area Book Festival is to rave about the conversation between author Dacher Keltner and Shawn Taylor, a wonderfully charismatic interviewer. Keltner is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and one of the world’s foremost scientists of emotion. He was talking about his most recent book, Awe: The [...]

This is a good news, bad news, good news story. I went to the Bay Area Book Festival this weekend. That’s the good news because I love the book fest, and it didn’t disappoint, with great author talks sparking interest and creativity about a variety of topics. The first time I went alone to Berkeley to check [...]

My 2023 intention to surrender has been put to the test lately, and recent challenges only highlight how important it is for me to keep learning and practicing this concept. Do you remember the book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? How he wakes up with gum in his hair, and his best [...]

In case you’ve never met me or read any blog I’ve ever written, let me tell you that I love stories. I’ve been immersing myself in stellar stories lately, so thought I’d share some with you. For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with the Oscars. Before COVID, I tried to see as [...]

I just finished an amazing book, The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. I read it in two days, actually, which demonstrates that it was a great book and that I had a luxurious amount of time to read this past weekend. I fell in love with this book as the feeling of the words washed over me. [...]

A few thoughts popped into my head this weekend while I was going back in time to scrapbook pictures from 2020. First, and most importantly, kittens are the absolute cutest things. Of course I knew this already, but I still can’t help being overcome with the adorableness of photo after photo of their sweet little faces. Welcoming [...]

Last year around this time, I became aware of people using words instead of resolutions to set intentions for the new year. I had already set my New Year’s goals, but I started thinking about what my word would be if I had done that instead. The word surrender occurred to me, but I pushed it away. [...]

For this second installment about my words of 2023, I will share three that I am grouping together in my mind this year. Health is the first of this word trio. A New Year’s cliché, obviously. For me, health encompasses moving more and eating healthier…yada, yada, yada. I have some specific goals and plans for being healthier, [...]

Who remembers the movie How Stella Got Her Groove Back? I’m not sure I ever actually saw that movie, yet I’ve always loved the title and the implied ideas that we may occasionally lose our groove and that we can do something to get it back. I lost my groove somewhere in the last few months of [...]