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How Do You Know You Are Happy?

March 25, 2013 Read 33 comments and add your own

Why is it that people know sadness more than happiness? Why do the negative stories of our lives stand out so much more prominently in our minds than the good stuff? Why do we hear all of the no’s and take the yes’s in stride barely registering them?

When we learn that emotional pain is a state of mind, why isn’t that good news? Why do we go right to judgment, either of self: “If I can’t change this, what is wrong with me?” or judgement of others: “They must not understand how bad it is.” And let that stick us to the negative place even more.

Last night someone said to me, “It is going to be hard.” I said “Why?” He said, “I don’t know, I just made that up in my head.”

Yeah, you did. Who knows how it is going to be? How do you think that will effect you to think it is hard? What if you go through the whole event saying “This is hard, this is hard.” Could fun even find you in that state of mind? Continue Reading →

When Someone You Love Is In Pain

March 11, 2013 Read 22 comments and add your own

When someone you love is in pain, you look for ways to be helpful.

When we love someone so much, it seems harder to see them hurting than to feel hurt ourselves. I find this especially true with my children. I’d gladly take their pain away even if it means I’d feel it stronger. In a way, I am feeling it because I love them but I don’t stay here because besides it doesn’t help them much.

what do you do when someone you love is in pain?

Pain is Love

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Gender Politics: How Do We Talk About It

October 15, 2012 Read 34 comments and add your own

Gender Politics, why women need to stop being perfect

I am for women’s connecting and supporting women

My husband showed me a great article on gender politics this week called Why Women Should Stop Trying To Be Perfect by Deborah Spar. Here is some thought provoking tidbits…

Even worse, we somehow believe that we need to do all of this at once, and without any help. Almost by definition, a woman cannot work a 60-hour-per-week job and be the same kind of parent she would have been without the 60-hour-per-week job. No man can do this; no human can do this. Yet women are repeatedly berating themselves for failing at this kind of balancing act, and (quietly, invidiously) berating others when something inevitably slips.

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Six Ways to Promote Peace by Honoring Mothers

May 10, 2012 Read 23 comments and add your own

Happy Mother’s Day!

Dalai Lama quote "If you want others to be happy.. practice compassion. If you want to be happy...practice compassion."

Happy Mother’s Day! I am in awe of what mother’s mean: how they multitask, know their children, nurture, solve problems, ease pain with a kiss and a cuddle, and continually give from a bottomless pit of unconditional love.

And I can write a whole post about it, but instead I wanted to turn attention to the real reason for Mother’s Day: to promote peace.

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Remembering How to Really Love

May 7, 2012 Read 49 comments and add your own

Grandpa's eulogy: Anthony Julian. Remembering how to really love

Isn’t he the cutest?

This is an excerp from the eulogy I wrote for my grandfather who died a few years ago.  It is his birthday on May 8th. He taught us so much about love. This is a long post which I tried to edit, but it was too difficult to delete much–he meant so much to me. This post is dedicated to him.  Continue Reading →

10 Things I Love About Life

March 27, 2012 Read 43 comments and add your own

10 Things I Love ABout Life

1. Listening.  This weekend Reverend Mary told a story about a farmer who went to visit his nephew in the city.  They were walking along the street and the farmer said, I hear a cricket.  The nephew was amazed, disbelieving, but they looked around and sure enough, there was a crack in the wall of a building with a tuff of grass growing out of it and a cricket on it.  The nephew asked him how he could hear that.  The uncle took some coins out of his pocket and threw them on the ground.  Immediately other people in the street responded by looking down to where the coins dropped and checking their pockets to make sure they didn’t lose anything. The Uncle said, “We hear what we are trained to hear. We hear what is important to us.” Continue Reading →

Entitlement and Work Ethic: Anxious Kids Need Skills in Doing Hard Things Part II

March 22, 2012 Read 30 comments and add your own

Being a parent today is no walk in the park. Especially with anxious kids.

We are up against commercialism. Every advertisement on TV, billboards, radio, in movies, webpages, (on practically every surface we see) touts the message that we deserve things, just because we are us.  Continue Reading →

Ask Jodi Your Questions!

February 23, 2012 Read 21 comments and add your own

I started this on my Facebook page: Heal Now and Forever Be In Peace.  On Wednesdays, people write in some questions and I do my best to answer them.I am not making predictions or telling the future, as I believe the future is uncertain and can be altered in a moment depending on small and large decisions that we make.  I answer questions about feelings, and relationships and healing, on how to think and make meaning of this crazy world that we are in.  Here are some examples: Continue Reading →

Great Grandmother Frances: Healer as Host

February 20, 2012 Read 26 comments and add your own

Frances Enzero healed people by taking them into her family

Frances Enzero 1942

Reposting about my Great Grandmother Frances today! It is one of my first posts from years ago when nobody read my blog!

It is an excerpt of an article I published called “Therapist As Host: Making my guests feel welcome” in The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 2006 No.3, Published by Dulwich Centre. To see full article go here and scroll half way down: Therapist as Host: Making My Guests Feel Welcome.

 

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Creating a Personal Mission Statement

December 21, 2011 Read 18 comments and add your own

Do you have a personal mission statement? 

A personal mission statement can help you be more of the person you want to be.

“My dear,
In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.
Truly yours,
Albert Camus”

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