Reflections from a midlife journey
A successful mistake
Yesterday I made my annual batch of Irish soda bread for St. Patrick’s Day. The same recipe I’ve been making for 19 years. The only change I’ve made in all those years is to substitute gluten-free flour for all purpose.
Until yesterday …
When all the days feel the same
Regardless of where you live and what the restrictions are like there, my hunch is there is still a sameness to your days. If this is where you are, I want to share with you the one practice that has kept me sane and present throughout the past year. This practice helps me take stock of my day—to remember the good, to process the challenges, and to set an intention for a different experience tomorrow.
Want what YOU want
Before Thanksgiving, I wrote about finding what it is that would make you happy. However, this premise applies to every day because we often put our happiness on the back burner while we tend to the happiness of others. Saying “make yourself happy” is easy, though. Doing it is something else entirely. I have a tool that can help. And it works any time and in any situation.
Make yourself happy
It’s that time of year again. Holiday season. For me that used to mean cooking and baking up a storm. I loved it and looked forward to it every year. Now, eh, not so much. Somewhere along the way my relationship with cooking changed. It went from being something I did for me that made me feel special to something I felt I needed to do to be special. Cooking became my currency and contribution; it was how I provided value and proved my worth.
Let your heart break
Last week I received word that the last of the dogs I shared with my ex had crossed over the rainbow bridge. Brady was a good dog. He was a bit of a dinglenut and was the most pain-in-the-ass puppy I have ever experienced—then or now. Still, I loved him and he had a special place in my heart. I didn’t think my heart could break again losing Brady for a second and now final time, because he had already been absent from my life for so long. But it did.
Unconscious compliance
Unconscious compliance can manifest in any number of ways, all of which keep you stuck in your life. At its core, though, unconscious compliance is always a false story that someone else assigned to you that has run your life because you believed it to be true.
All you are
We often say that someone is “a good person.” But what does that mean, really? We’ve come to use “good” as a general catch-all for traits we admire or deem desirable—loyal, helpful, kind, selfless, generous, etc. Whatever your definition of good is, it has been shaped by outside influences, namely other people’s expectations and preferences.
In good time
There is no falling behind. Although the world moves in chronos (sequential) time, our souls operate in kairos (opportune) time. There is only ever the right time for you.
The safe harbor of self-trust
One of the biggest challenges of being empathic and highly sensitive has been the tendency to lose my sense of self. When I subjugate my true self to conform to other people’s beliefs, opinions, and expectations of who I should be and what I should do, my reward is the security I desire. But I pay a high price for this false sense of safety and comfort—my self-trust.
Fuel your fire
Your internal fire is what keeps you showing up in the world to be the person you’re meant to be and to do the work you’re meant to do. When your fire dies, your light goes out. You grow cold and ineffective, of little use to yourself or anyone else.