A friend asked me recently if I’m a hugger. We met post-pandemic, are new friends and are still in that stage where these little revelations are significant. “Yes!” I enthused. Followed by a pause. “Well, I think I am.” More pausing. “I suppose I’m a hugger more in theory than in practice now.” The pandemic... Continue Reading →
I gravitate toward believing that at the core of our experience as humans in this beautiful and chaotic world there’s something universal. It’s less lonely that way, believing that there’s something that binds us together, a landmark that we all would recognize if we were ever privy to someone else’s interior landscape. That flash of... Continue Reading →
Years ago, back in Florida, I spent hours sitting in community centers and church fellowship halls, drinking really bad coffee, and learning things that would keep me sober and sane. One of those ideas that I loop back to the most is that our self perception is slow to change. In fact, we're often the... Continue Reading →
I woke up at 4:25 this morning and immediately opened the AJC to look at the election results. Some of my friends spent the past week vacillating between fretting over a potential loss for Stacey Abrams and trying to be doggedly hopeful so that would be the energy that got released out into the universe.... Continue Reading →
Pick people who will reflect your true self back to you. They are guides. They are a pain in the ass, but they are guides.
Every morning of my late twenties dawned with sickening dread. Every morning. I’d wake up and immediately begin the slow slide into the murky depths of shame. And fear. And regret. Anxiety gripped me like a vise, making it hard to breathe. I hated myself, pitied myself, held dear a storied mythology of myself. What... Continue Reading →
Using a working definition of love that tells us it is the action we take on behalf of our own or another’s spiritual growth provides us with a beginning blueprint for working on the issue of self-love. –bell hooks, All About Love People talk a lot about self-love and self-care. From a practical standpoint, though,... Continue Reading →
It’s funny, the stories I will tell myself sometimes…
One of the greatest joys of being sober is doing shit you never even dreamed of... I didn't have such a great imagination when I was drinking. Sure, I could sit on a barstool & tell you I was going to run a marathon the year I turned 30 (even though I'd never run more... Continue Reading →
A woman who carries a secret is an exhausted woman.Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés I gave up being exhausted in late 2008. For 33 years, I'd been collecting secrets (big and utterly minuscule) and stacking them precariously in various corners of my soul. Which meant I couldn't round a corner without... Continue Reading →
