Nature

“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there.” ~Deepak Chopra Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the chaos of daily life, longing for a sense of calm and clarity? That was me a year ago, trapped in a cycle of overwork and […]

“Not all toxic people are cruel and uncaring. Some of them love us dearly. Many of them have good intentions. Most are toxic to our being simply because their needs and way of existing in the world force us to compromise ourselves and our happiness. They aren’t inherently bad people, but they aren’t the right

“If you love yourself, it doesn’t matter if other people don’t like you because you don’t need their approval to feel good about yourself.” ~Lori Deschene I spent my whole life trying to please other people. I would put myself through stress and discomfort to fit in with what they wanted or needed. I would

“It feels good to be accepted, loved, and approved of by others, but often the membership fee to belong to that club is far too high of a price to pay.” ~Dennis Merritt Jones Like a lot of people, I grew up putting others’ needs and wants first. I learned early that doing things for

“A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what a ship is built for.” ~John Augustus Shedd Growing up in the Midwest in a traditional family steeped in Catholic values, safety was paramount. We adhered to conventional roles: father, mother, brother, and sister, with me as the baby sister. My parents were loving,

“Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences.” ~ Brené Brown, Daring Greatly Migraines. I’ve had them since I was five years old. Sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re really bad. But I have them. When I was five, I had electrodes placed on my skull to do an EEG. I didn’t

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~Dalai Lama In my mid-thirties, my active and adventuresome life as a broadcast journalist collapsed. It began with a trauma, followed by a virus that stuck around for thirteen years. Almost overnight, I lost the pep to walk

“Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world. ~Wayne Dyer Driving home from another visit to the pediatrician, Mother reiterated how puny I was: “You’re just like Mommy. She was so frail. You get sick easily.” I’d say I was five years old when I wholeheartedly accepted

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” ~Theodore Roosevelt In March 2020, the UK went into its first Covid lockdown, and the country was swept with anxiety and sadness. When would we see our loved ones again? Would our health be okay? Was my job safe? And more pressingly, how the heck was I expected to

“When we are aware of our weaknesses or negative tendencies, we open the opportunity to work on them.” ~Allan Looks Last year, I took my then-six-year-old son to a kite festival. He was ecstatic about flying his kites, and we spent a lot of time doing just that! At one point, his kite string got