Good Clean Reads

“I believe, in some ways, agitating for social change is the most positive form of thinking there is. In order to do so, we must believe that one person can make a difference, that our opinion is worth voicing, and that the world can become better — if we are willing to make an effort to shape it that way.” -Barbara Ehrenriech

Every now and again I get suggestions about topics for the...

“Games lubricate the body and the mind.” Benjamin Franklin

I am the mother of four children, two girls and two boys. My sons have taught me much about the importance of the game over the years. Deprived of video game technology, they have always been players of one sport or another. The word “ball” was one of the first uttered in our home and the fascination with the game has filled countless...

“Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.” ~Charles Dickens

I love to come home. I love to say the word home. Just the feel of it in my mouth relaxes me. It is where I rest most fully and where I connect most deeply. My home is in the midst of big trees where the air always smells sweet and you can...

‘Love, in all its fragile forms, is the one powerful, enduring force that brings real meaning to our everyday lives…but the love I mean is the fire that burns inside us all, the inner warmth that prevents our soul from freezing in the winters of despair.’ -Bradley Grieves

I always thought of love as the exchange, the giving and the receiving of energy in the myriad forms of life exchanges....

“Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.” – Anne Sullivan

Learning to get back up again after we fall is the one of the pillars in the foundation of positivity. It doesn’t’ matter what you are trying to do, life will hand you...

“To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.” John F. Kennedy

Tonight’s State of the Union Address by President Obama made me reconsider my research and work on positivity. The problems facing this country in the short and long...

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.” -Ram Dass

I was struggling for a lot of the day; I felt a magnetic pull towards negative thinking…it can be seductive like that. Often I start with one solid negative experience or thought. Today, it was a combination of dealing with medical insurance and...

“Mindsight is a literary MRI: a mind-blowing book that will change the way you think about the way you think.” –Arianna Huffington

Ever on the look-out for tools to make this positivity quest of mine a true changing of how my mind works, I came upon Dan Siegel’s book, Mindsight. Siegel, a clinically trained psychiatrist from Harvard, is revolutionizing the practice of psychotherapy by...

“Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”

-Henri J.M. Nouwen

I am faced with the discrepancy of what I teach about love and how well I practice it every...