Posts tagged with “wisdom”
When the Body Freezes: On Love and Grief in Midlife
“I was constantly seeking a balance between mourning what’s already been lost, making space for the time and moments we still had left, and making sense of this complicated process that felt like my heart was split between two contrasting realities: hope and heartbreak.” ~Liz Newman
There is a quiet heaviness that begins to settle into many of us in midlife.
It doesn’t announce itself with drama. It slips in through unanswered emails from an aging parent, through half-slept nights spent wondering how we will ever afford live-in care, or whether that one fall they had was the beginning …
When Friendship Is One-Sided: Letting Go of Someone Who Was Never Really There
“Finally, I realized that I was never asking too much. I was just asking the wrong person.” ~Unknown
Friendship should nourish the soul. And in my life, for the most part, it has. I have a small, longstanding circle of friends steeped in a long-shared history. We’re basically a real-life, thirty-five-year-long John Hughes film.
However, every now and then, a hornet in disguise has buzzed into my life and stung.
He was one of them. A bad sting.
Love Bombing
Right off the bat, knowing him felt amazing.
I was still reeling from the aftereffects of living with an abusive …
Finding Balance Through the Full Spectrum of Emotion
“As a solid rock is not shaken by the wind, the wise are not shaken by praise or blame.” ~The Dhammapada, Verse 81
Some moments lift you like moonlight. Others break you like a wave. I’ve lived through both—and I’ve come to believe that the way we move through these emotional thresholds defines who we become.
By thresholds, I mean the turning points in our lives—experiences so vivid, painful, or awe-filled that they pull us out of our usual routines and bring us face to face with something real. Some come in silence, others with sound and …
The Song That Surprisingly Brought Me Back to Life
“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” ~Maya Angelou
I used to believe that healing and personal transformation required a lot of effort—writing page after page in a journal or getting up at the crack of dawn to carry out a morning routine, to name a couple.
When I moved through a phase of numbness—or the tunnel of darkness, as I now call it—it was frightening, and there seemed to be no end in sight. But one song found me at the right moment and changed everything.
In …
No Time Is Ever Wasted
From the 2025 Day-to-Day calendar. Get the 2026 calendar here!
The Enormous Cost of Being the One Who Holds Everything Together
“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” ~Virginia Woolf
There’s a kind of work in our society that doesn’t come with a title or pay, and for a long time, I didn’t even notice I was doing it. I just lived inside it. It shaped my days, my stress, my identity.
These days, I see it more clearly. I can name it now. I don’t only live inside it, but I still return to it—especially as a parent, especially when things stretch thin. The difference is now, I pause. I reflect. I ask myself if I have to
Full Circle: Reclaiming the Me Who Felt Most Alive
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” ~T.S. Eliot
In my early twenties, I packed a backpack and boarded a plane alone with a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia. It was a move that baffled my father, inspired my friends, and quietly terrified me.
I was drawn by something I couldn’t fully articulate at the time: a craving for freedom, truth, and a kind of belonging I hadn’t yet known. What I didn’t realize then is that this two-year …
The Trauma Keeps Talking—But My Voice Is Now Louder
“Turn down the volume of your negative inner voice and create a nurturing inner voice to take its place.” ~Beverly Engel
After the abuse ends, people think the pain ends too. But what no one tells you is that sometimes the loudest voice isn’t the abuser’s anymore—it’s the one that settles inside you.
It whispers:
“You’re broken.”
“You’re used.”
“You don’t deserve better.”
And over time, that voice doesn’t just whisper. It becomes the rhythm of your thoughts, the lens through which you see yourself.
That’s what I mean when I say the trauma keeps talking.
Living with the Echo
…
The God I Lost, the One I Found, and the Faith That Changed Me
“I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God.” ~Rumi
There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that happens when you realize some of your prayers are going nowhere.
There’s a painful silence that follows unanswered calls. Yet, despite the ache, I can still feel the pull to pray to the God outside of myself—that old reflex to place faith in something bigger, some invisible force in the sky, who, apparently, can make things happen magically here on Earth.
But it doesn’t always go that way, does it?
I prayed my cancer would go …
The Grief No One Talks About: How to Heal After Losing a Soulmate Pet
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” ~Anatole France
When my cat Squiggles died, I didn’t just “lose a pet.” I lost a part of my identity, my greatest source of comfort, and my sense of home.
Squiggles was the one constant in my life through every milestone, every heartbreak, every version of myself I grew into over the course of two decades. I had her since the moment she was born, and for almost twenty-two years, Squiggles was my constant companion, my emotional support, my soul-kitty.
But no matter how much I prepared …
The Weight of Regrets and the Choice to Live Better
“It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes—it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘Well, if I’d known better I’d have done better.’” ~Maya Angelou
I’ve lived long enough to know the difference between a mistake and a tragedy. Some of what I carry falls in between—moments I wish I could redo, things I said or didn’t say, relationships I mishandled, and opportunities I let slip through my fingers. They don’t scream at me every day, …
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.