“Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself.” ~Nathaniel Branden
Have you ever thought that you accepted yourself fully, only to realize there were conditions placed upon that acceptance?
There was a point in my life …
“When you can’t look on the bright side, I will sit with you in the dark.” ~Unknown
I walked in for my monthly massage and immediately sensed something was off.
A layer of desolation hung in the air like an …
“What will mess you up most in life is the picture in your head of how it is supposed to be.” ~Unknown
I expected to get into college. I expected to have a career after a lot of hard work, …
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” ~Johann Wolfang von Goethe
Silence. Not a word.
Another day is over. The news you were waiting for didn’t arrive.
Everyone …
“What if pain—like love—is just a place brave people visit?” ~Glennon Doyle
It’s one of life’s greatest paradoxes: When life is easy, everything seems easy. When life is hard, everything seems hard.
This one keeps coming back to me and …
“Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” ~Brené Brown
My husband’s legs are smaller than mine.
I wish I could tell you that when I first realized this …
“It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
Cancer.
I’ll never forget the moment the words fell from my doctor’s mouth. In one fell swoop, the “perfect” persona that I’d spent thirty-plus …
“Living with anxiety is like being followed by a voice. It knows all your insecurities and uses them against you. It gets to the point when it’s the loudest voice in the room. The only one you can hear.” ~Unknown…
“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” ~Maya Angelou
I’ve always had a complex relationship with anger.
When I was young, I used to think I was somehow …
“Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.” ~Oprah Winfrey
I needed a bit of extra cash last month, so I took on a temporary events role working at a local design exhibition.…
UPDATE: The winners for this giveaway have been chosen. They are Kristie St. Germain and Suzanne Hermary.
As the year is coming to a close, now seems like a perfect time to shine a spotlight on one of my favorite …
“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” ~Brené Brown
Every time I think I’ve unloaded most of the pain from my past, something surfaces that tells me I have more …
“Just like a muscle needs to tear to grow stronger, sometimes we need to wade into our own darkness to find a brighter light.” ~Lori Deschene
Sometimes we need to journey into the deepest, darkest, scariest, most painful places …
“The don’t-know mind… doesn’t fear, has no wish to control or foresee, steps off the cliff of the moment with absolute trust that the next step will land somewhere, and the next step somewhere else, and the feet will take …
“If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” ~Dale Carnegie
Not too long ago I went through an extremely chaotic and emotional two-week period. Anything that could go wrong or …
This post contains an excerpt from GETTING GRIEF RIGHT: Finding Your Story of Love in the Sorrow of Loss, by Patrick O’Malley, PhD with Tim Madigan.
It was spring 1980 when my wife, Nancy, and I received some of …
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” ~Theodore Roosevelt
I could not find the bottom of the pool.
The task seemed simple enough: Wearing no more than twenty pounds worth of gear, swim to the bottom of an eight-foot pool, …
“Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.” ~Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
We’ve just passed the year anniversary of an event that has greatly changed our country. The shock of the election results last …
Hi friends! Earlier this week I sent an email about the limited edition “Be the Change” shirts, which will be available until November 20th.
For those of you who missed that email, here’s a quick recap:
I …
“Focus on what matters and let go of what doesn’t.” ~Unknown
When I was in rehab for alcohol addiction, one of the most difficult things for any of us to overcome was the fact that we thought we were beyond …
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