Shameless Self Promotion

It’s going to be a happy, action-packed fall for yours truly.  Thought I’d give you a sense of what’s on my dance card, and extend an open invitation – join in on anything that appeals to you.  You’re absolutely welcome and I’d love to see you. September starts off with a bang – my book tour for I Am Not Superwoman: Further Essays On Happier Living. In each city, I’ll be leading a 5 hour workshop using tools and ideas in the book to help all of... [Read more]

The Ins and Outs of Redefinition

I have always held that the most challenging times of our lives come when we face redefining ourselves. Like when we go from being a high schooler to being a college student. From being a college student to being employed. Or employed by someone else to employed by ourselves. Or from being single to being married. Or being married to being divorced.  Or widowed. From being a kid’s mom or dad, to being an adult’s mom or dad. From being healthy to being sick. From being sick to being... [Read more]

August, 2000: Ten Years Gone

Exactly ten years ago – August, 2000 – I took my then 7 year old son Munroe on a mother-son trip to New York City.  It was so fun, and something we’d planned and anticipated for months. We took the train from Washington, DC to Penn Station.  We stayed in a swanky apartment near the Empire State Building.  He put on a blue blazer and a necktie and we went to one and a half Broadway shows (the second show had “way too much dancing” so we sneaked out at intermission).... [Read more]

Blurting The Comfort Zone

Sometimes when I’m teaching a class, I blurt. Someone asks a question and I blurt out something that then becomes SOMETHING. And people remember it. And because I didn’t write it down (I blurted, remember?) and because it’s so central to my way of being (doesn’t everyone know this?), I am often surprised that whatever I said has had any kind of impact. [Now it appears I am rambling rather than blurting.] In some class or other one day or another a year or so ago, a... [Read more]

Walking The Walk

Sometimes, when you least expect them, great things happen. At least that’s what happens for me.  I was vacationing at the beach in South Carolina – eating more shrimp than Forrest Gump – when I got a call asking me to consider taking on a new project.  To be honest, I was fully in vacation brain (”What’s for breakfast?  Who’s up for body-surfing? What’s for lunch? A nap! Where’s my book?  A nap! What’s for dinner?  Where’s the wine?” ... [Read more]

Yes, This Is For You

In case you’re wondering, I’m writing this for you today.  Because I know how much you struggle.  I know how you try to be brave and strong, and try to be positive, and try so very hard to bring only good things into your life. In an effort to preserve the peace, you’ve swallowed your words for years.  Conflict or even the prospect of conflict – wow, that gives you an ache in the pit of your belly. How can you be the person everyone expects you to be and say things that... [Read more]

Why Being Brave Matters

I recently read that corporate America has $1.8 trillion dollars in cash, on reserve.  Which is a lot more than they had at the beginning of the recession. And unemployment still stands at 9.7 percent.  When you stop counting the people who’ve grown so discouraged that they’ve stopped even looking for a job. Companies have the cash to hire, but aren’t hiring because they’re afraid that the economy will go back in the tank, since people aren’t spending as much money... [Read more]

Stop Making Sense

If you’re like me, there are times in life when nothing seems to make sense.  And maybe, like me, you stew and fret and figure and mull – all in an attempt to get the nonsense to make a teeny little bit of sense. Because if you can understand it, you can make it fit into your general overview of How Life Works. Psychologists call this your Sense Of Coherence, a phrase coined by Aaron Antonovsky in the late ’70s – “The extent to which one has a pervasive, enduring... [Read more]

Freedom’s Twin Brother

Freedom is a precious, precious thing, bought with tears, with blood, with lives.  We’ll fight wars for autonomy.  Immigrants will travel the seas for independence. People will die for liberty. I adore my personal freedoms, and will go to my grave supporting your right to have your own, too.  It’s just that important. But freedom has a twin brother, without whom freedom cannot exist. And his name is courage. Yes, courage is often what you think it is – facing down the gun barrel... [Read more]

Let’s Play Ball

Do you know Seth Godin? OK, I don’t know Seth Godin – but my friend Pam does, so that makes me one degree of separation from Seth. [Just for the record, I am also one step from Kevin Bacon two different ways - Anne will write me later today to say, "He's my neighbor!", and Kevin played my friend Mike's dad in a film. So, obviously, I win "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", thank you very much.] But back to Seth. Seth is a blogger. A writer. A thought leader. Every day, he writes a shortish... [Read more]

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