“Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace—disappointment in all its many forms—and let it open me? This is the trick.” ~Pema Chödrön At forty-seven years of age, I have experienced chronic illness in some form since my mid-to-late twenties….
“I can respect any person who can put their ego aside and say, ‘I made a mistake, I apologize, and I’m correcting the behavior.’” ~Sylvester McNutt I remember I was a teenager when I went through this horrible breakup. I had never experienced heartbreak before, and the pain was excruciating, impacting many areas of my life. For years, I…
“Forgiveness is an action, which your mind can never understand. Your mind’s sole intent is to balance the books. In issues of morality, it only wants to get even. Therefore, practice forgiveness every day if only in trivial matters. This is an excellent way of tempering the mind and empowering the heart.” ~Glenda Green Recently, seemingly out of nowhere,…
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi Have you ever held yourself back from going after what you truly want, or from enjoying what you have, because of a lingering fear that it might be taken away from you, or because you felt guilty for having more than others? For years, I found myself unintentionally…
“Living with chronic illness isn’t a life half-lived; it’s an opportunity to redefine what it means to be truly alive, resilient, and whole.” ~Christopher Reynolds I have spent the past eleven years of my life in chronic pain. While this journey has been long, excruciatingly difficult, and deeply lonely, I am beginning to come to peace with my body. After…
Do I need to forgive my abusive mother to let go of the past? This is the question I found myself grappling with when I started to recover from the pain of childhood neglect. For most of my childhood, I did not have access to a consistent adult who valued me. As a result, I believed that I had…
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” ~Maya Angelou What if the person you’re trying hardest to please is you? For years, I wore a mask—a professional, composed, always-on version of myself that I thought everyone expected. My need to please and perform was deeply…
“The most powerful thing you can do right now is be patient while things are unfolding for you.” ~Idil Ahmed When one door closes, another one opens, or so the saying goes. From experience, I know that the new door doesn’t always open right away. Often you spend some time in the hallway, the state in between what has…
When my ex-wife and I separated in 1999 and divorced two years later, I never imagined that we would one day spend a week together as friends. Over the past quarter century, our lives had rarely crossed, except on the day our divorce was finalized and at our daughter’s wedding in 2012. Yet here we were, sitting across from…
