“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien It was my son’s fifteenth birthday. His basketball game got canceled, so my wife, my son, and I…
“Rule your mind or it will rule you.” ~Buddha Some mornings I wake before dawn and lie still, listening for signs that the house is awake. A cough down the hallway. The sound of a drawer opening. Water running softly in the kitchen sink. My mother is ninety-seven years old now, and before my feet even touch the floor,…
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ~Carl Rogers I remember sitting on the living room floor one evening while my boys were playing nearby. One of them was trying to build something out of Legos and getting more and more frustrated every time it collapsed. I don’t even…
We are truly free when we let go of the thought that the past could or should have been any different than it was. This is so hard. The challenge is born from our desperate need to validate our feelings and experiences. It often feels like we are invalidating ourselves if we let go of the thought that the…
“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” ~Laurell K. Hamilton My older sister had four years over me. As a kid, I worshipped the ground she walked on. She was so smart, so pretty, so cool. I wanted to be wherever she was, doing whatever she was…
“Music gives color to the air of the moment.” ~Karl Lagerfeld I used to think I was a good listener. I could hold eye contact, nod at the right moments, ask thoughtful follow-up questions. But one afternoon, sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat in a small studio in Rishikesh, I realized I had never truly listened to anything, not…
“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” ~Rumi I grew up in a council house in the 1970s, in a world where children were seen and not heard. We were kicked out in the morning and told to come back when the streetlights came on. On the surface, it looked normal. But what was happening behind…
“Only when we realize that our time is limited do we begin to appreciate the value of every single day.” ~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross I didn’t expect the trip to begin the way it did. In December 2003, I decided to take a holiday over Christmas. I booked an eco-tour of Sri Lanka, traveling around the country and staying in different…
“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” ~Søren Kierkegaard A few years ago, I was catching up over coffee with an old friend I’ll call Ray, a trusted mentor. He’s a few years older than me, silver-haired and down to earth, the kind of man who listens with his whole heart. We were at…
“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” ~Oprah Winfrey My father died at forty-nine. I was young when it happened, still soft in the way grief makes you when you are not yet equipped to hold it. I was so consumed by the loss itself that I never stopped to do the…
