A friend once sent me a purple rubber bracelet imprinted with the words “NO Complaining” and invited me to join her in a 30-day, no-complaining contest. I must admit that as a motivational speaker and human potential trainer, I truly thought this was a ridiculously simple request in which I would clearly have the advantage! I mean wasn’t it true that I …
Hope
It happened in May at March Air Force Base, located just a few miles up the road from me near Riverside, California, in the year my mother was born, 1941. Bob Hope arrived on the base to do a radio show for airmen stationed there. And the rest, as they say, is history. He received such an amazing and heartwarming response on that …
An Instrument of Peace
I’m not Catholic, but I love many of the beautiful traditions of the Catholic faith. My favorite is the lovely story and mythology surrounding the 13th century Italian Saint Francis of Assisi, the church’s patron saint of animals. My mother always had some stone version of St. Francis in her flower gardens, usually surrounded by bird feeders and birdbaths. Often the …
Letting Go to Leap Forward
In recent Monday Morning Stretches, I’ve written about the steps that Glennon Doyle outlines in her book, Untamed, to create a life that you design on purpose. The fourth and final step is “Build and Burn.” For me, this step is sometimes the hardest: Letting many of your past and current beliefs, relationships, ideas of home, and even the dreams …
The Fantasy of You…
We are the only animals on the planet who intentionally create art and receive pleasure from merely looking at it. We see evidence of this from the beginning of our existence in the early, primitive art of cavemen and indigenous peoples. We have the capacity to imagine something that is not real, something that begins as a beautiful fantasy in …
Feel It All
Last month, my Wild Women Book Club read and discussed Untamed by Glennon Doyle. It’s a sassy, brave memoir of how Glennon reclaimed her true self and best life. Like most memoirs and personal growth books, not everything she presented resonated with me, but I did find great wisdom and helpful tools in her courageous climb out of a conditioned, …
Warm, Liquid Gold
We all have an internal longing to be loved, fulfilled, and significant—a longing to create and experience a joyful, complete life. Most of us work so hard at creating it that we’re often left feeling depleted, stuck, overwhelmed and unrealized—the exact opposite of what we set out to do. I think our answer to this dilemma can be found in …
Our Nation’s Most Important Day, Wednesday
If you’re an American, Tuesday is a very important day. On Tuesday, we will elect a President. But, I think Wednesday will be an even more important day for our country. As an independent voter, I’ve attempted to discern the candidates’ stance on the issues and to be thoughtful about my choice. While I’ve listened to conservative and liberal viewpoints on …
We Belong to Each Other
It’s not an official Music Monday but as the election draws near, I wanted to share two songs (one this week and another next Monday) which express my hopes for us as a nation of Americans. This week features a brand new song by Garth Brooks called, “We Belong to Each Other.” So new, in fact, he does not have an official …
The Little Book Club in the Corner
One of the first and best things I did when I found myself single at age fifty was to join a book club. It was a “meet-up” of diverse women who shared very little in common other than a big love for reading books, female comradery, and the musty smell of a well-stocked bookstore. Out of thirty total members, fifteen or …