“The fuel of life is feeling. If we’re not filled up in childhood, we must fill ourselves as adults.” ~Jonice Webb, author of Running on Empty I was nine years old the first time I taught myself how to disconnect completely from my emotions. It started with a secret I wasn’t supposed to tell, a classroom that turned on…
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi The room didn’t change when she left. The chair was where it had always been, angled toward the window the way she liked it. What changed was that I could finally see the shape of the thing I’d been leaning on, now that it wasn’t there to lean…
“Every moment, every challenge, every inner reaction is here to show you exactly what you need to let go of in order to be free.” ~Michael A. Singer The other day, while standing in the kitchen, I grabbed my phone to send a text, but it didn’t recognize my face. Suddenly, every time I wanted to use it, I…
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi The first winter, I learned to lie cheerfully. “How are you settling in?” someone would ask, and I would smile and say, “Really well, thank you.” That was the most fluent English I spoke all day. I had left a warm, loud, crowded life and landed in a…
“Taking care of yourself doesn’t mean me first; it means me too.” ~L.R. Knost We live in a society that celebrates pushing through; burnout is often worn as a badge of honor, and many job descriptions state bluntly, “Must be able to perform well under pressure and thrive in a fast-paced environment.” I’m very well aware that self-care isn’t a…
“Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose.” ~Michelle Rosenthal” Today I am sitting in my favorite café in Venice Mall. I got my favorite seat, the one near the water. I have spent countless hours here. I have cried here. Journaled here. Drawn here. Consoled myself here. There was a time when…
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ~Mark Twain It started with a clogged kitchen drain. Or maybe the drain was where everything else I’d been carrying finally surfaced. Regardless, the water wasn’t moving. It was so bad that some of it backed up in the bathroom sink. Baking soda and vinegar didn’t…
“To tie your worth to achievements is a recipe for suffering.” ~Brad Bizjack Children don’t just learn mathematics, science, and languages in school. They also learn what success feels like, what failure means, who they believe they are, and sometimes, whether they think they belong. When I was in primary school, my school introduced academic streaming. If there were…
A few months ago, I found myself wondering whether I had made a mistake. It is not a question I expected to be asking in my seventies. Like many people my age, I sometimes think about retirement, savings, and financial security. I look around and see friends who spent decades building stable careers and preparing for the future. Some…
“Waiting is not mere empty hoping. It has the inner certainty of reaching the goal.” ~I Ching Waiting has a bad rap in modern Western society. It’s not surprising that I had to look to an ancient Chinese text (the I Ching) in order to find a suitable quote to begin this article. We don’t like to wait! It’s…
