Environment Shapes Our Perception of “Normal”
How to Stop Letting Anxiety Control Your Reactions
“Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.” ~ Bessel van der Kolk
For years, I thought my anxiety was a character flaw. I thought I could think my way through it. Reason with myself long enough, and I’d finally get to the other side of it. I never did.
Every time I thought I had made peace with it, something small would happen, and I’d be right back in that place. Heart racing. Hands shaking. Anticipating a fallout in something that hadn’t even happened yet.
In my previous marriage, I learned to read a …
When You Can’t Get Everything Right at Once
“I once heard someone say that a sign of enlightenment was the ability to say (and mean it) ‘Well, this isn’t what I want, but it’s what I got, so okay.’” ~Sylvia Boorstein
I once met a speed-cuber, one of those people who could solve a Rubik’s Cube in sixty seconds. Nice friendly young guy.
I hated him.
Not personally.
I hated him on the level of metaphor.
I hated him because I was jealous. Life always felt to me just like one big insoluble Rubik’s Cube. I could never get things under control on all sides at once. The …
How Being Authentic Taught Me to Love Myself
“Sometimes the hardest challenge isn’t receiving acceptance from God or other people; it’s receiving acceptance from ourselves.” ~Leigh Finke, Queerfully and Wonderfully Made
Growing up as a pastor’s kid, I had to hide who I was. I was taught that love from parents was conditional. I was taught that mistakes were met with a strict hand and harsh words. I was taught that I had to prove over and over that I was deserving of love.
As I grew up and learned more about the world around me and myself, I had to come to terms with my own sexuality …
How I Rebuilt My Life After Devastating Loss
On August 22, 2018, my husband collapsed in our bedroom.
Rudy was my best friend and my partner in every sense of the word. His last word was “911.”
I performed CPR while my youngest daughter and my father-in-law stood nearby, and my oldest daughter shielded our four-year-old in another room. The EMTs worked on him before taking him to the hospital, and my father-in-law and I followed the ambulance.
After what felt like forever, a nurse moved us into a small waiting room at the back of the ER. There was no urgency in the building. It was eerily …
When You’re Doing Everything Right but Still Feel Lonely
“We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.” ~Albert Schweitzer
I pick up my phone even though it has not made a sound.
No missed calls. No new messages. No invitation asking what I am doing or whether I would like to come over. I put it down, but before long I check again.
Still no one.
The only other heartbeat in the house belongs to Oliver, my five-pound chihuahua. He brings me more joy than something so small should be able to carry. I talk to him constantly, and he listens with great interest …
