Category: Uncategorized
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What If Growth Is About Removing, Not Adding More to Your Life?
“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” ~Paulo Coelho For years, any time I felt sadness, insecurity, loneliness, or any of those “unwelcome” feelings, I jumped into action. I’d look…
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I Wanted Revenge; Here’s Why I Let It Be Instead
“To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be.” ~Jack Kornfield I must admit right off the bat—as a serial entrepreneur, I’m a risk-taker. Throughout my twenties and thirties, I jumped at opportunities without always vetting the characters involved or asking what six months down the road…
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6 Simple Things I Do When Life Feels Completely Overwhelming
“You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” ~Timber Hawkeye Overwhelm doesn’t always knock politely. Sometimes it crashes into my day like an unexpected storm—suddenly I can’t think straight, and everything feels urgent, impossible, and too loud. One minute I’m fine, the next I’m…
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How Understanding Complex Trauma Deepened My Ability to Love Myself
“Being present for your own life is the most radical act of self-compassion you can offer yourself.” ~Sylvia Boorstein In 2004, I experienced a powerful breakthrough in understanding what it meant to love myself. I could finally understand that self-love is about the relationship that you have with yourself, and that relationship is expressed in…
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The Beautiful Losses of a Childhood Moved to the Philippines
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ~Alan Watts I must admit, dear reader, that I wasn’t always a fan of change—not even a little. I wouldn’t say I entered this world naturally inclined toward new or unfamiliar things. Like many…
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The Strength I Found Hidden in Softness
“You can’t heal what you won’t allow yourself to feel.” ~Unknown I used to act strong all the time. On the outside, I looked like I had it all together. I was competent, composed, and capable. I was the one other people came to for advice or support. The stickiness was that my version of…
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Micro-Faith, Huge Benefits: Reasons to Believe in Something Bigger
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~Martin Luther King Jr. My grandmother passed away a few years ago after a long battle with cancer. Even as her health deteriorated, she never lost her spirit. She’d still get excited about whether the Pittsburgh Steelers might finally have a…
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Remembering What Truly Matters in a World Chasing Success
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” ~Albert Einstein, adapted I often feel like I was born into the wrong story. I grew up in a time when success meant something quieter. My father was a public school music teacher. We didn’t have much, but there was a dignity in…
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From Loss to Hope: How I Found Joy Again
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” ~Helen Keller The phone call arrived like a silent explosion, shattering the ordinary hum of a Tuesday morning. My uncle was gone, suddenly, unexpectedly. Just a few months later, before the raw edges of that loss could even begin…
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Coming Out at 50: Love, Loss, and Living My Truth
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ~Carl Jung We all had a wild ride during the pandemic, am I right? Mine included falling in love with a woman. At fifty years old. That’s not something I expected. But isn’t that how life goes? One day you’re baking sourdough and…