Category: Encouragement
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Avoidance Creates Anxiety
It started out relatively small. For reasons related to trauma, I have harbored a deep-seated distaste for country music and a hatred of Valentine’s Day, both of which have taken ownership of significant chunks of my life. How did something so little grow to consume such a big portion of my life? Easy…the answer is…
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Self-Discipline ≠ Punishment
Years ago, I horribly injured my foot hiking a local trail. This was a hike I had hiked countless times without issue. And yet, I headed up that slope without stretching and came home barely able to walk. If I had any commonsense, I would have gone to a doctor and taken appropriate measures to…
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24 Changes to Aim for in ‘24
I’ve already established numerous times here that I am a goal-setter, a go-getter, and a minor fretter; but set that last point aside and let’s focus on the positive, shall we? As I reflect on the past year and look forward to next year, I begin to set my sights on the change I would…
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Embrace the Pivot
For years, I was writing a book about my healing journey. It took so long to write because I am a procrastinator, it contained difficult material, and life threw painful curveballs at me constantly. I even wrote a chapter titled “The Book That Almost Wasn’t” because when I really knuckled down to write, in 2018,…
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From Pain to Purpose
She sits across from me – at a sushi restaurant, a coffee shop, in a living room. We tell each other stories – about our kids, our travels, our days. We laugh…until we don’t. Her face and tone change. She opens up about the abuse or the assault years ago – at the hands of…
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This Imperfect Life
I was watching Moulin Rouge with my husband on Saturday night. I’ve seen this movie countless times before and appreciated it for its artistic approach to storytelling. I have never had an issue with this movie, so I immediately chose it when it popped up as an option. The movie started as usual. There are…
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While You Were Blinking…
Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” I have told people for years that I think life is like a bullet train. Inside the train, life moves at an average pace. Everyday things happen in a frustratingly monotonous fashion. Life…
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Journaling for Dummies
Many people say that they keep a diary to write down events that occur and how they feel about things. It’s rare to hear someone state that they keep a journal. Aren’t they one and the same – interchangeable terms? Well, not really… A diary is a book someone keeps to record events in one’s…
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From Drab to Dazzling: Making a Beautiful Life
For as long as I can remember, art has been a central part of my life. It all began with my gorgeous grey-haired grandma (or GGG, as I affectionately call her), who sang opera while dusting family furniture as a child, took a chemistry class in college during WWII to learn how to create beauty…
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The Power to Say No. The Willingness to Say Yes.
One of the most difficult aspects of depression is the lack of motivation or energy to take action on anything, whether routine or adventuresome. And then, there is the anxiety that slams me with overwhelming fear that it will all be a disaster and I’m better off – safer – not leaving my house. This…
Wisdom from the Trenches 