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Posts tagged with “memory”

Why I’m Listening to My Aging Mother More Deeply Now

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“When an old person dies, a library burns to the ground.” ~African Proverb

For most of my life, I thought aging was about bodies slowing down—hair turning white, memory fading, steps getting shorter. But caring for my ninety-six-year-old mother has changed that. I now see something deeper and more painful: the slow erasure of wisdom in a culture that prizes the new, dismisses the old, and moves too fast to notice what it’s losing.

We live in a world that idolizes youth and innovation—new tech, new trends, new ideas. “Old” has become shorthand for “outdated.” When wisdom becomes invisible, we …

How to Return to Emotional Safety, One Sensory Anchor at a Time

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“In a sense, we are all time travelers drifting through our memories, returning to the places where we once lived.” ~Vladimir Nabokov

I found it by accident, a grainy image of my childhood bedroom wallpaper.

It was tucked in the blurry background of a photo in an old family album, a detail I’d never noticed until that day.

White background. Tiny pastel hearts and flowers. A border of ragdoll girls in dresses the color of mint candies and pink lemonade.

My body tingled with recognition.

It was like finding a piece of myself I didn’t remember existed. Not the grown-up …

Living a Meaningful Life: What Will Your Loved Ones Find When You Die?

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“At the end of life, at the end of YOUR life, what essence emerges? What have you filled the world with? In remembering you, what words will others choose?” ~Amy Rosenthal

Most people believe sorting through a loved one’s belongings after death provides closure. For me, it provided an existential crisis.

After glancing at the angry sky in my father’s driveway for what seemed like hours, I mustered up the courage to crack open the door to the kitchen. The eerie silence stopped me in my tracks. Wasn’t he cooking up a storm in this cluttered kitchen just a …

We All Make Mistakes, So Let’s Try to Remember the Good

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Julius Caesar has long been my favorite work of William Shakespeare. I am drawn to the political intrigue, the betrayal, the powerful words of Marc Antony.

One line from the play has always remained lodged in my mind:

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

The line often pops into my head when I feel unjustly persecuted or blamed. Shakespeare understood hundreds of years ago that human nature causes us to feel self-centered and unjustly targeted.

While I recognize I am not now nor was I ever a perfect mother, I …

How Meditation Can Make You Healthier and Ease Your Pain

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“If a person’s basic state of mind is serene and calm, then it is possible for this inner peace to overwhelm a painful physical experience.” ~The Dalai Lama

When I finished graduate school I was a bright-eyed engineer with a fresh diploma in hand, ready to take on the world. I landed a great job at a multinational engineering firm and began my career working with people from all over the world.

So it was a major downer when, not long into my new job, I began to suffer from chronic migraines. Every day I would wake up feeling fine, …

Your Past Is Like a Bag of Bricks

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The Story So Far: Your Life Is How You Interpret It

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“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” ~Carl Bard

My life has been a long string of failures.

The earliest I can remember is having my teeth knocked out when my grandpa braked too hard at a stoplight on our way to a church Easter pageant. I was supposed to be singing a solo, the part of the “little gray lamb,” and I did it—performing while clutching a bloodstained washcloth wrapped around ice cubes to hold to my front gums in between verses.

Dumb …

Direct Your Emotional Memory to Feel Good Now

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“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” ~Henry Ford 

You’re stuck at work and you dream of something better.

This dreaming usually starts off great. You imagine yourself sitting at a desk working on a million dollar project or teaching underprivileged kids how to multiply seven times three.

Whatever your vision is, it’s good to daydream about this, but what usually happens is that we snap out of it, and reality smacks us in the face. We’re answering phones, running errands, and hating our lives.

I’ve been …