“I let go of past circumstances easily and painlessly.”

I could use a few more instructional affirmations for this one. And I don’t think that I am the only one who gets stuck in the past. Our unresolved issues don’t just disappear with the circumstances, rather they take up residence somewhere in our body until we take the time and attention to listen to what aches in us. I have been dedicated...

I woke up crying today, listening to the soft breathing of my three kids filling the hotel room and remembering that this was the last morning in a long time that I would wake in the company of us all together. Today was the day I would drop my third child off for the beginning of his college years- a day that I saw coming from years away but still cannot believe has already arrived. When we’re...

I have spent the weekend putting old photos in frames. Some of the photos are images of people I have never met, pictures that I found while cleaning out my dad’s apartment after his death. There are images of him as a baby being bathed by his mother in 1933, and as a toddler and as a young boy riding a bike. I see a resemblance to my own son as I pick and choose among the moments of his life long...

“Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests, and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes parts of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined. No one would call it easy, but the rhythm of emotional pain that we learn to tolerate is natural, constructive, and expansive. It’s different from unwilling suffering the way the sting of disinfectant is different from the sting of decay;...