I can’t help but notice that it’s Friday the 13th.  I know it’s just a silly superstition.  After all, I own a black cat that walks in front of me frequently.  I bought a house that was #13.  My step daughter broke a mirror but we haven’t noticed 7 years of bad luck.

Still, I find myself treading a little lightly on this day of inauspicious portent.  It’s not a day I would choose for making a risky investment or asking for favors.  I prefer to let it pass quietly.

Superstition aside, I believe we create our own luck by our beliefs.  I recently heard a friend say “With my luck, the plane will be delayed several hours.”  “Not true for me” I thought, “I feel quite lucky.  With my luck the plane will land safely!” 

Most people are as lucky as they choose to see.  When we focus on our many blessings and our outrageous good fortune to be alive at this time in history in this country of bounty, we begin to see how lucky we are.  I still don’t plan to buy a lottery ticket today, but I know that today and every day is my lucky day.

Ashley Davis Bush, LCSW is the author of

 “Transcending Loss:  Understanding the Lifelong Impact of Grief and How to Make it Meaningful”

 To order a copy Click Here

She picked up one item after another, swiping each barcode across the glass surface.  I thought to myself, this woman . . . this stranger across from me, employee in a drug store, has a mother. 

It is my habit, one of my shortcuts to inner peace, to look at the employees in stores, banks and coffee shops, and ask them in my mind, “Who is your mother?”  In that brief moment of awareness when I recognize our common humanity, that we are each born of a woman’s body, my heart is opened. (more…)

The Gallup poll has come up with a statistical composite for the happiest person in America.  He is a tall Asian American, observant Jew, over 65, married with children, live in Hawaii, run his own business, and have a household income of over $120,000. (more…)

Sylvia, my client of several months, sat across from me, clearly agitated. This forty-something woman, mother of two teenage boys, going through a divorce but still living under the same roof with her soon-to-be-ex, crossed her denim clad legs exclaiming, “I’m SOOOO stressed out!”

“Have you ever tried meditation?” I asked.  After practicing meditation for quite a few years myself, I was convinced that it could help her.  But I was also ready for her response. (more…)

We have been waiting months to learn where our daughter will be going to college this fall.  When the day finally came, we learned that her top college put her on their wait list . . . and so we wait some more.

I am reminded of all the times I’ve fretted and hurried in anticipation, only to receive information that required me to wait yet again. Waiting for medical results, acceptances, test outcomes, news – and more often than not, each temporary relief led me to more waiting, more uncertainty. (more…)