Posts: Personal Development
Who We Wish to Become
A different take on New Year’s resolutions
Jan 11, 2023
The beginning of a new year is not unlike a grieving period. Some resisting the idea of the current year ending. Others angry about what was not accomplished or goals unmet. Many depressed about holidays and vacations coming to an end and their mundane routines starting up again. Until we all, grudgingly, begin to accept the realities that come with one year ending and another one beginning.
Remain in the Light
Thoughts on playing small and learning to expand
Nov 05, 2022
As a writer, there are those pieces or topics that you know need to be written but that you avoid writing for as long as possible. They’re always in the back of your mind, though, lurking, anticipating the day they’ll be cemented onto paper. They tug at you, not lovingly, until you have no choice but to tend to them, if only to shut them up.
The Layer of Harmony Underneath
Learning to trust the process
Sep 03, 2022
I’m berating myself for forgetting my earplugs. This coffee shop is noisier than I had anticipated. People’s conversations reverberate against my skin and eardrums and it’s hard to concentrate. Of course I could have stayed at home to write, but there is something about the atmosphere of a coffee shop that tugs at my writer’s mind and inspires me to show up for the craft.
The Construction Zone of Personal Development
Breaking ground, rebuilding structure, and navigating warning signs
Aug 08, 2022
Everything deteriorates, eventually. This is what crosses my mind as I’m sitting at a lovely coffee shop/chocolate shop trying to get some writing done. The aroma of chocolate in the air as you walk in is divine. It’s one of those rustic downtown buildings, faded brick on the inside, ceiling pipes and beams exposed, piles of burlap coffee sacks in the corner.
Think About Such Things
Transforming our destructive thoughts one seed at a time
Jul 26, 2022
They are everywhere. Stuck on the garden gnome, the backyard furniture, in-between the patio steps, caught in the Emerald Cedar trees. A few had the unfortunate luck of getting stuck in the citronella candle wax before it hardened. Floating thistle seeds, thousands of them. We found out they’re coming from a field behind the houses across the street.
The Reflection Behind the Blank Page
Resistance to doing the work and the courage to persist
Jul 05, 2022
The desk arrived, finally, after four months of waiting. My writing desk, as I call it. Beautiful rustic whitewash finish. I’d like to believe it was the desk not having been delivered yet that kept me from writing, but I know how untrue that is. I’d like to tell myself that I wasn’t writing because my “writing room” was not complete, what with the unfinished walls and all, multiple paint samples next to each other, none making the cut.
The Hidden Gifts of Our Dispositions
And their potential for our personal growth
Feb 12, 2019
Prone to melancholy. That’s how the pastor described the personality type #4 that I most relate to on the Enneagram. It’s a new sermon series the church started in which they teach on this ancient and insightful tool for self-awareness. My personality type — the “Individualist” — is sensitive, introspective, and self-aware, among other things.
The Sifting of Soul Work
Listening to the stirrings from within
Feb 05, 2019
I’ll be honest. I don’t feel like writing right now. Or doing much of anything, let alone try and be creative. But I committed to writing at least once a week. So I’m here, showing up, despite my inner refusal. I don’t want my art to suffer for the sake of my comfort, or how I feel in this particular moment.
What Do You Need to Release in the New Year?
Thoughts on letting go of what no longer serves us
Jan 15, 2019
The sun is setting on this Sunday afternoon. It will come back, I have to reassure myself, with the looming darkness. The sky, shades of buttermilk and saffron. Kids below in the park, making snow angels before the snow melts, as it will. The passing of January, taking place right before my eyes, in spurts of moments and people flitting to-and-fro.
What It Means to Live Our “Best Life”
Jan 09, 2019
The thing they don’t tell you about “living your best life” is that it takes time to get there. And that it has to be YOUR best life, not a cookie-cutter version of someone else’s. We live in a time of “comparison fatigue,” the mental and emotional exhaustion that comes from constantly comparing ourselves — our stuff, our home, our bodies, our achievements, our travels — with those of others.
The One Thing (among others) that Makes Us Uniquely Human
Sep 24, 2018
What sets us humans apart from other species? Scholars from numerous and diverse fields have attempted to answer this question. The ability to plan for the future, many might say. Developing meaning out of nothing, still others will say. I think something that seems to be fundamentally human is the desire for and work toward personal growth.
It Takes What It Takes
Thoughts on change
Mar 13, 2018
There is no other way around it. Change. Is. Hard. Perhaps the most trying change of all is attempting to change something about ourselves — a character trait, a habit, a pattern, old beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve us. Why even bother? Because staying the same, a same that no longer feels good, is so much more painful.
To All My Fellow HSPs: An Open Letter
Oct 10, 2016
If there is one thing I would want you to know for sure about yourself, it is that you are exquisitely made. There is a river inside of you that runs so deep, you will spend many years thinking it is a void that you need to fill with the things of this world. But my dear, it is actually a space created to collect and hold the pain of your fellow beings tenderly.