“Mindfulness is a pause—the space between stimulus and response: that’s where choice lies.” ~Tara Brach We’ve all been there. A sharp reply. A snide remark. A moment when we said something that didn’t come from our heart but from somewhere else entirely—a need to be right, to sound smart, to prove a point, to stay in control, or simply…
“When the soul wishes to experience something, she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own image.” ~Meister Eckhart For most of my life, something in me felt off—misaligned, too much, not enough. I moved through the world trying to fix a thing I couldn’t name. Then, a beautiful chapter emerged where I…
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” ~Alan Watts As I enter the later stage of life, I find myself asking questions that are less about accomplishment and…
“When we show up for our kids in moments when no one showed up for us, we’re not just healing them. We’re healing ourselves.” ~Dr. Becky Kenedy I wasn’t taught to pause and breathe when I was overwhelmed. I was taught to push through. To be a “good girl.” To smile when something inside me was begging to be…
“In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.” ~Deepak Chopra There’s a strange ache that comes with becoming healthy. Not the physical kind. The relational kind. The kind that surfaces when we’re no longer quite so wired to betray ourselves for belonging. When we stop curating ourselves to…
TRIGGER WARNING: This post references rape and suicide attempts, which might be distressing for some readers. “Our lives only improve when we are willing to take chances, and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson This was my third psychiatric hospitalization after my suicide attempts. On this visit, something…
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” ~William Bruce Cameron My gardener and I were talking the other day—his English broken, my Spanish worse—but we found a way to connect. He told me about his eight-year-old son, a bright, joyful kid who loves baseball. The boy wants to play. His mother…
“Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.” ~Rachel Zoe I didn’t set out to find myself. I just looked in the mirror one day and thought, “Wait, when did I stop looking like me?” It was after a breakup—the kind that leaves you foggy, emotionally threadbare, trying to make sense of where you…
“You don’t have to force the flow—sometimes your only job is to soften and let go.” ~Unknown For most of my life, I was obsessed with getting everything right. Planning. Controlling. Anticipating every outcome so I wouldn’t be caught off guard. I saw life as a kind of puzzle: if I just made the right moves in the right…
“If today gets difficult, remember the smell of coffee, the way sunlight bounces off a window, the sound of your favorite person’s laugh, the feeling when a song you love comes on, the color of the sky at dusk, and that we are here to take care of each other.” ~Nanea Hoffman The beach breeze brushed against my skin….
