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Posts tagged with “Hope”

Magic in the Ordinary: Finding Glimmers and Hope in Everyday Life

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“If today gets difficult, remember the smell of coffee, the way sunlight bounces off a window, the sound of your favorite person’s laugh, the feeling when a song you love comes on, the color of the sky at dusk, and that we are here to take care of each other.” ~Nanea Hoffman

The beach breeze brushed against my skin. I felt the warmth from the sun, and I could hear the crashing waves and wild shrieking laughter of my toddlers.

I looked down at my perfect ten-month-old with his adorable chubby cheeks, snoring softly in my arms. My chest ached …

How My Mother’s Alcoholism Shaped Me and How I’m Healing Now

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“The journey of the perfect daughter is not about perfection; it’s about finding the courage to be imperfect, to be human.” ~Robert Ackerman, Perfect Daughters

Growing up in a home shadowed by addiction is like living in a house with no foundation. The ground beneath you is unstable, the walls feel fragile, and the roof could collapse at any moment. For me, this was my reality. My earliest memories of my mother’s alcoholism are tied to confusion and worry—a child’s attempt to make sense of an adult world filled with unpredictability and silence.

Her moods were erratic, swinging from one …

The Truth About Rainbows: Hope Doesn’t Always Look Like We Expect

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“If you have ever followed a rainbow to its end, it leads you to the ground on which you are standing.” ~Alan Cohen

There’s nothing more exhilarating than riding in a Jeep through masses of standing water. With each push forward, my friend Angela expertly maneuvered through enormous puddles, sending fountain-like arcs of aquatic glory past my passenger-side window.

This was joy to me.

It was a welcome reprieve considering the past couple of years had unraveled in ways I never saw coming. In fact, this watery wonder, cruising through the quaint streets of the beloved beach island I …

Why You’re Not Happy (Even If Life Looks Fine)

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Do you sometimes see people running around enjoying life and wonder what you’re missing? Sometimes I used to think I must be a horrible person. I had so many things going for me, and I still couldn’t be happy. I would ask myself, is there something wrong with me? Am I a narcissist?

Then sometimes I would decide I was just going to be happy. I would fake it until I made it and just accept that’s who I was. But it wouldn’t take long for me to feel overwhelmingly depressed.

I had a little dark hole that would constantly …

How Grieving a Dream’s Loss Built Hope for a New Life

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“Our painful experiences aren’t a liability—they’re a gift. They give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.” –Dr. Edith Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible

The loss of an unrealized dream sent me spiraling down, down into the darkness. A darkness filled with a despair and hopelessness that I had not known before.

It was safer and more comfortable for me to attribute all my grief to losing a loving mother-in-law suddenly in the beginning of 2023. Her abrupt absence not only in my life but also in my husband’s and daughter’s lives …

Life After Abuse: A Story of Hope and Healing

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of domestic violence and may be triggering to some.

Growing up, I learned early on how to be aware of the little things that spoke volumes. My mom wasn’t just an alcoholic; she was also bipolar, and I never knew if I’d come home to a mom who was cheerful and loving or to one who would say hurtful things and obsess over cleaning.

I grew up in AA, surrounded by people trying to rebuild their lives. My parents were both recovering alcoholics, and while I didn’t fully understand it at …

The Most Important Pieces of My Cancer Coping Plan

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“Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend.” ~Lao Tzu

When dealing with a serious health issue or life challenge, we can choose to navigate through it to the light or bury ourselves in its darkness. While it’s not always easy to find the light, it’s a much easier place to survive in and, in the long run, is much healthier. This way of being has helped me on my recent health journeys.

Twice in the past twenty-three years, I have received the news of a breast cancer diagnosis. Both incidences were …

Finding Light in the Shadows of an Invisible Illness

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“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” ~Albert Camus

Life has a way of throwing us curve balls when we least expect them.

For years, I had been managing the usual ups and downs of life when I was blindsided by a diagnosis that would forever change the way I lived: psoriatic arthritis. It’s one of those illnesses that most people don’t quite understand because it doesn’t always show on the outside. I looked fine, but inside, my body felt like it was on fire. The pain was constant, an unwelcome …

Stay Hopeful

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Your Life Can Always Take a Different Direction

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You Don’t Always Have to Find the Good in the Bad

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A Little Hope and Encouragement for Hard Times

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“If your path demands you to walk through hell, walk as though you own the place.” ~Unknown

Trigger warning: This content contains references to self-harm and suicide.

It was in the spring semester during graduate school. I was living alone in a one-bedroom apartment and working nearly full-time hours at night.

The anti-depressants weren’t working so well. I was keeping up with my therapist, but I suppose it was too much.

I felt too much. It hurt so much and couldn’t handle it. You could list out the symptoms of depression, and I had them all.

Unable to deal with …

If You Aren’t Happy with Yourself and Your Life Right Now…

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“For the person that needs to see this today: Your heart will heal, your tears will dry, your season will change. Rest tonight knowing the storm will end.” ~Unknown

When I was fifteen, I officially started engaging in the diet scene. As a teenager who was trying to fit in, feel pretty, and gain acceptance, I thought that food was the fix. Food—or the lack of it—would be the solution to all my problems. All that thought really did was make everything worse.

As a child, I would visit Europe every other year, to visit family. The culture and the …

20 Inspiring Messages to Take into New Year

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It’s the beginning of a new year, full of promise and possibility. Maybe you have a good feeling about the year ahead and big plans to bring to life. Or maybe you’re coming out of one of the toughest years you’ve ever had, and you’re just hoping this year will hurt less than last.

I’ve been in both situations before, as I imagine we all have. But no matter our unique situations, a new year often brings a sense of rebirth and hope. Hope that things can change, or that we can change, or maybe that we can just change …

One Thing We Need to Survive Crisis, Loss, and Trauma

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“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” ~Viktor Frankl

A couple of years ago, I was sitting in my little mountain cottage, writing away on a new novel. It was a cold and dark February afternoon. So, first, I felt pleasantly surprised when I saw something bright lighting up behind me: I thought it was the sun coming out. But when I turned around, I noticed that my porch was on fire!

Before I knew what was happening, I was standing out in the …

I Don’t Know Who I Am: How I’m Finding Myself Again After the Abuse

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“When you turn the corner / And you run into yourself / Then you know that you have turned / All the corners that are left.” ~Langston Hughes

Nearly two years ago I left a long-term controlling and abusive relationship.

I didn’t know that I was in one. I just knew that I was desperate.

Abusers take everything away from you. I don’t just mean your money or your home or your children, although they take those as well. I mean everything, including your sense of self.

Toward the end of the relationship, I wrote in my journal: “I …

How I Found Hope in my Father’s Terminal Cancer

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“Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty, even in times of greatest distress.” ~Milan Kundera

When my father received a terminal cancer diagnosis, I went through a wave of different emotions. Fear, anger, sadness. It opened a completely new dictionary that I had not had access to before. A realm of experiences, thoughts, and emotions that lie at the very bedrock of human life was suddenly revealed to me.

After the initial horror and dread at hearing the news had subsided, I was surprised to find a new sense of meaning and …

How to Make Things Better When It Seems Like Everything Is Going Wrong

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“You can never be happy if you’re trapped in the past and fearful of the future. Living in the present is the only way to be happy.” ~Unknown

Have you found that the local and world events of the last couple of years have taken their toll on you and your family and friends? With fires, floods, shortages of food, fuel, and medicine, illnesses, job losses, and more, all occurring in a short space of time, it can be hard to find anyone who has not been affected in some way.

Many people are experiencing feelings of hopelessness and living …

My Dying Friend’s Woke Wake and Why We Need to Talk About Death

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“Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back.” ~Marcus Aurelius

Recently, on a beautiful blue-sky Saturday, I attended my first “woke wake.”

My dear friend has welcomed in the love and care of hospice, and she and her family wanted to host a celebration.

The meaning of “woke” signals an awareness of social action, with a focus on racism and bias in our culture. She also wanted to be “awoke” to the experience of her wake. More importantly, her party was an honest expression that she will die soon. Her acknowledgement was courageous.

We share so …

New Year’s Resolutions Simplified: It’s as Easy as 1, 2, 3

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You and I will probably come across a hundred articles about New Year’s resolutions in 2023 … again. And, if you and I are like the majority—the well-intentioned, regular people who genuinely want change—we will aspire to big things and later get frustrated and give up on the list we made … again.

But what if we kept it really simple this time? What if we didn’t have to make an endless list and be reminded, by looking at it, of all the things we may fail at again?

What if we made it as easy as one, two, three?…