Resilience of The Human Spirit

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Resilience of The Human Spirit

May 13, 2013 Read 17 comments and add your own

How do they do that?

Having worked with so many people who have undergone unspeakable trauma, I’ve heard stories of amazing survival skills. It is surprising what we can endure and survive. I think many of us agree that we can’t imagine what it was like to be kept as prisoners in a house for 10, or almost 10, years. We let our minds go there for just a moment, it becomes overwhelming and we skirt away.
We know that so many people who have walked this earth endured horror beyond our worst dreams and within that space, figured out how to live the unlivable. Survive 17 days in a crumbled factory. Survive a concentration camp. Emerge whole and full of light after being sexually, emotionally, or physically abused. Keep alive during combat.

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Crisis: A Time Of Danger; A Time Of Opportunity

April 16, 2013 Read 17 comments and add your own

The loneliness in any crisis can be the worst part. I am grateful that crisis brings with it opportunity to come together. To show compassion, love and strength. We can do and be exponentially more in collaboration than we ever can be alone.

We see the nation coming together in the face of tragedy in Boston. Sending prayers, money, and donating blood. Facebook is plastered with heartened messages of people seeing the helpers coming forth so prevalent from the first moment. Bridget says it well in her post last night on Twinisms: Love Always Wins. What will this tragedy give you an opportunity to do (or to be)? What (or who) supports you to do this? Continue Reading →

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 →

Rape In The News: There Is Justice

March 18, 2013 Read 24 comments and add your own

Just Sunday morning I woke up to three national news stories of rape.

Air_Force_trainer_gets_4_years_for_raping_trainee

Ohio_to_consider_charges_against_others_in_rape

Indian_police_arrest_5_over_Swiss_tourists_rape

It is not because rape is more prevalent. It is because girls and women, wrapped in their communities, are coming forward. Saying this is not OK. The community support is what makes a difference. It is most difficult for a woman to break the silence alone.

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What If You’ve Done Nothing Wrong?

March 4, 2013 Read 29 comments and add your own

Guilt.

It plagues us all. It makes us feel embarrassed, humiliated, undeserving, unworthy and small. Guilt feels worse than awful which immobilizes us so we get stuck in this miserable place.

We all make mistakes and bad choices sometimes. Mostly it is accidental and unintentional. Or the lesser of two evils. This does not make you a bad person. Not in the least. It means you are human.

Guilt, if not used to restore, and then let go, can only contaminate.

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A Valentine’s Story: Your Kindness Healed Me

February 11, 2013 Read 18 comments and add your own

“Love Heals, Kindness Heals” was first published on my Anxiety-Schmanxiety Blog. It has received over 36,000 hits. I am glad romance still holds as much value to all of you that it does to me. Share if this makes you feel good!

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Breaking the Silence of Rape and Sexual Abuse

February 4, 2013 Read 32 comments and add your own

Every two minutes someone in the US is sexually assaulted. Every two minutes. That’s twenty people in the time it took me to write this post. Nineteen of them are women. (With childhood sexual abuse, victim’s gender ratio is 3 girls to 1 boy.)

Rape and sexual abuse are hard things to talk about because of fear and shame. But silence just makes fear and shame more rampant. I believe by not talking about them–our opposition of abusers and support of survivors–we are perpetuating the problem. Sexual abuse thrives in silence. Rape thrives in silence.

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Goodbye, Fear. Good Riddance.

January 28, 2013 Read 36 comments and add your own

A few weeks ago, I invited people to write their own goodbye letters to fear on my Anxiety Schmanxiety Blog.

I said:

Write a goodbye letter to fear.

Start with, “Dear Fear,” and let ‘em have it. Name your fears, tell what you have sacrificed, name its tricks and tactics, list your skills and knowledges, tell it what you’d rather do with your life if it no longer held you back. And then hang it in a place where you can see it, so you can read it everyday until the fear is gone.

Readers, what would you like to say? Dear Fear…..

Here are some responses… Watch me read a powerful goodbye letter to fear in this video. Continue Reading →

Your Personal Invitation To Heal

January 13, 2013 Read 7 comments and add your own

Why do people need a personal invitation to heal?

“Moved by the force of love fragments of the world, we seek out one another so that a world may be.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Continue Reading →

Life Is Precious

December 28, 2012 Read 33 comments and add your own

Some days the preciousness of life beams at you like beacon. At those time we walk so closely between the edges of life and death that what is important becomes clearer. And what is not becomes inconsequential. Emotions abound and our heart fly open.

Yesterday was one of those days. It begun at 6 AM with a text announcing the passing of a beautiful woman and friend. Her incredible, patient and loving daughters ministered and guided her gently through the end of a long and arduous illness. (She guided them, too)

“She just passed.”

“She is in heaven.”

They held her and held each other with open hearts and minds. Continue Reading →

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