“You are you. Now, isn’t that pleasant?” ~Dr. Seuss One thing I know for sure is that the more me I am, the more I find myself surrounded by the things that light me up. The more me I was when dating, the closer I got to the partner I have now. The more me I have been in my …
Be Nice to Yourself. You Did the Best You Could.
“The most sophisticated people I know — inside they are all children.” ~Jim Henson On my desk at home, I keep a photo of myself at approximately two years old. Aside from being adorable, this photo reminds me that I haven’t always been the full grown, slightly neurotic, culturally conditioned, emotional baggage-toting, self-armoring, surprisingly skeptical version of myself I am today. …
My Cat is a Jerk & Other Truths About Letting Go
“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.” ~Albert Schweitzer I’ve learned a lot about life and love and relationships from my cat. (Stay with me here. I know it seems like this is just going to be a story about how I turned into a cat lady and started obsessing about my feline …
Why Balance is Elusive But Alignment is Essential
“Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.” ~Anaïs Nin Ostensibly, I am in the business of balance. I mean, you hear acupuncturists talk about balance all the time, right? And yes! Balance is good. But talking about balance from a purely theoretical perspective can …
Turn Off Your Phone. And Other Tips for Making Magic.
“How did it get so late so soon?” ~Dr. Seuss Every year for the past five years, I have visited an astrologer on or around my birthday to get some insight into the year ahead. (Did I already lose some of you by talking about astrology? Possibly. Probably? I dunno. But oh well. I digress.) Usually, I walk into my …
Lessons Learned at Les Schwab (or, On Hugging Strangers & the Power of Acknowledging Our Shared Humanity)
“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” ~Herman Melville This Monday, I took my car into Les Schwab to have my screw-impaled tire repaired and was surprised to find myself in a …
I Am Not a Robot (or, Why I’m So Transparent About My Life in My Business)
“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.” ~Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times I have written before about some of the advice I received when I first started my business. …
Let’s Stop Apologizing, Shall We?
“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.” ~Maya Angelou In a relatively recent conversation, I discovered that I was harboring some previously unacknowledged guilt for being an ambitious woman with dreams of world domination. Ok, ok. I don’t really want world domination. But I do have big dreams and the …
Awe is Awesome: Emotions, Inflammation, and How Your Thoughts Change Your Physiology
“The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.” ~Alain de Botton (Scroll to the bottom to hear me read this article if you’re an auditory learner or just want to listen to my voice. 😉 ) Your brain is made …
This Isn’t A Test: The Comparison Trap and Why You Should Keep Your Eyes On Your Own Paper
“Comparison is the death of joy.” ~Mark Twain One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was to keep my eyes on my own paper. Which was basically just a suggestion to stop looking outside myself for constant validation and to start doing the hard work of figuring out who I was and who I wanted to become …