Life is good and I am grateful
Being mindful is about doing things on purpose, and thinking things on purpose. So many of us just let random thoughts rattle through our brains with reckless abandon. One of the things I am constantly telling my teenage students is, “Your ears hears all the words that come out of your mouth and your brain believes them. Only say good things about yourself so you give your brain the right ammunition to shoot down the negative things you think about yourself from time to time.” Being mindful is the first step on the road to holistic health.
I just finished binge-watching “Station Eleven” on HBOMax. It was a weird but strangely compelling story. It jumped all over the globe and the timeline, but everything came together perfectly in the final episode. As the final credits were rolling, I realized that all stories are just one story: the…
Every year I spend New Year’s Eve (the whole day) contemplating the coming year. Things on the list to be considered include setting goals (like everyone else), examining my finances, considering my health, and–most importantly to me–reflecting on the state of my spiritual health. I’ve just been through a very…
I shared this article on Facebook this morning, because it’s a topic that is near and dear to my heart at the age of fifty-five. I immediately racked up several comments in response to this post rationalizing “OK Boomer” as “not that big a deal,” or defending the entire millennial…
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. As a public school teacher who has been dealing with other people’s children all day, every day, for the last thirteen years, I read a lot of articles about brain science, cognition, psychology, and human development. This morning I read this…
I read this story on Humans of New York this morning and was reminded that this is similar to how I feel about my dad, now. Same sort of “monster” feeling when he was in the house when I was a child, for many of the same reasons. But I loved…
“Only the humble soul can be led. Only the humble soul is coachable. Only the humble soul can truly advance in the spiritual life.”–Matthew Kelly I have had five extremely humbling years. It has been a very good experience for me. Notice I didn’t say it was enjoyable. It’s been…
On June 8th, 2018, I fell off my bicycle and broke my leg into five pieces. My leg broke at a clean angle across the upper tibia and fibula, and my upper tibeal plateau broke into three triangular pieces. The break was so bad that when I was checked into…
Experiencing joy when things are not going our way is easier said than done, but essential on the path to enlightenment and mindfulness. If you find you are too stressed out, feeling like a pressure cooker, and you can’t find the way to “joyful,” (a situation I found myself in…
I wish I were better at taking a breath and being patient in a moment of anger, and I wish I remembered to do it more often. I was angry a LOT in 2019. But my anger showed me where to look for what was causing me to feel that…
I saw a meme on Facebook a few days ago that said (ironically), “The best way to become enlightened is to argue with people on Facebook.” It resonated with me because comments from people trying to argue in my post threads get DELETED. I don’t want that energy on my…