Good Clean Reads

“Join me in the pure atmosphere of gratitude for life.”   – Hafiz of Persia

I took myself to the beach yesterday because I was longing to look out at the Pacific ocean, to look out at far as my eyes could see to the blue and white capped movement of the sea. I love the ocean and many of my most deeply grateful and joyous moments are memories of frolicking in it. I woke with memories of floating in...

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.” ~Epictetus

The most common and ancient advice you hear about developing a practice of gratitude is the idea of counting your blessings. Every positivity book I have ever laid my hands on has a section that encourages making regular, even daily lists of the blessings in your life. Taken to...

“Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.”  ~William Faulkner

Every positive psychology text you will ever find will name the practice of gratitude as one of the most direct routes to reframing your thinking and increasing the positive aspects of your life. For instance, like love, it is impossible to feel afraid while...

“There is a secret about human love that is commonly overlooked: Receiving it is much more scary and threatening than giving it. How many times in your life have you been unable to let in someone’s love or even pushed it away? Much as we proclaim the wish to be truly loved, we are often afraid of that, and so find it difficult to open to love or let it all the way in.” –John Welwood

Most of us are...

by Elizabeth Spannuth

I turned 39 on Tuesday and in the weeks leading up to my birthday I was having mixed feelings about it. Typically, I don’t mind getting older, because I enjoy the mental journey. I am fond of saying “I miss my 20 year old body, but I don’t miss my 20 year old mind.” But being the birthday before the big 4-0, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I don’t have the trappings that...

by Tinamarie Bernard

“Women over forty have a very clear picture of who they ARE, but a distorted idea of what they actually LOOK like.” – Jillian Todd, photographer

One of the best-kept secrets of women’s lives is that as they age sex gets better. Breasts may sag, tummies may flab, and butts may drag, but none of that really matters in soft candlelight and a warm bed. With childbirth...

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars….”  -Jack Kerouac

I think that this quote is one that I have always remembered because it describes me in...

“Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Years ago a friend transcribed and framed this quote for me as I was graduating and moving away from what had been my home for close to a decade. It was an emotional time for me...

by Elizabeth Spannuth

“You have the cutest little fat rolls!” proclaimed one of my yoga friends. I do Bikram yoga, which involves a room heated to 105 degrees. Naturally, this practice involves wearing as little clothing as possible, no matter how thin you are. It’s true I have a few extra pounds and that I wear the equivalent of a 2-piece bathing suit for this class. However I would never have...