Category: Uncategorized
-
When You’re Doing Everything Right but Still Feel Lonely
“We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.” ~Albert Schweitzer I pick up my phone even though it has not made a sound. No missed calls. No new messages. No invitation asking what I am doing or whether I would like to come over. I put it down, but before…
-
5 Harmful Habits That Make a Stressful Day Even Worse
When I was little, I often felt as though I lived in two completely different worlds. My parents’ home was like an ice castle. Everything looked beautiful. Everything was orderly. Everything appeared exactly as it was supposed to. But it was cold. My mother rarely let me do what I genuinely wanted to do. Instead,…
-
I Used to Think Being Easy to Get Along with Was a Compliment
“Being easy to please is often mistaken for having no needs at all.” ~Unknown We’d been together four years when my husband turned to me in the car and asked, completely out of nowhere, “What’s your favorite color?” I laughed, assuming he was joking. He wasn’t. “I’m serious,” he said. “I realized I don’t actually…
-
How My Father’s Cruel Words Shaped My Life for 45 Years
“Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” ~Toni Morrison, Beloved My father was on the other side of my bedroom door, banging hard on it with the flat of his hand, screaming at me to get back to the table and finish my plate. I told him there was no way I was going…
-
How I Found Hope After a Life-Changing Diagnosis
In 2014, at the age of thirty-one, I was told that I might soon have serious difficulty walking. For months, my body had been sending me signals I did not understand. I experienced numbness, vertigo, falls, loss of coordination, difficulty reading, disorientation, bladder problems, and other neurological symptoms. I would walk down the street and…
-
From Anxious to Free: The Surprising Power of Acceptance
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.” ~Carl Rogers For over a year, I woke up at 3 a.m. almost every night. I would lie there in the dark, my heart pounding, my mind sprinting through the same loop: What if I can’t handle my job?…
-
What My Tired Eyes Taught Me About Paying Attention
In my second year of Ayurvedic medical school, my eyes started burning around nine o’clock every night. I did what most students do. I rubbed them, blinked hard a few times, and went back to the screen. Exams were close. The lecture slides were on my laptop, the reference texts were PDFs, and the practice…
-
The Hidden Danger of Burnout No One Warns You About
For most of my career, I trusted my ability to assess risk. I spent decades working in technology, much of it in information security and startups. Risk was not an abstract concept to me. It was my job to anticipate what could go wrong, question assumptions, identify vulnerabilities, and make decisions when the consequences mattered.…
-
When You Can’t Do Things the Way You Used To
“What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~Marcus Aurelius I’ve had two strokes, and after each, there were things I had to relearn. Walking wasn’t what it used to be. My balance became a problem. There are days when my head is foggy, and I have trouble concentrating. My body doesn’t always cooperate with…
-
3 Ways Your Brain Adapts After Emotional Abuse
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ~C.S. Lewis I’m not sure why some of us have a tougher journey than others, but I can say I wouldn’t be who I am today if I hadn’t loved a narcissist. Most days now are…