After a full day’s travel, we find ourselves north of the Spanish Pyrenees – in the small town of Perigueux in Southern France. We were met by cool temperatures and rain but on this Saturday morning, the slate sky shifted…
#1 The Spanish Butterfly Blog: Expansion and Transformation
When I was 17, during the hot, hot summer of 1980, I left my hometown of Dallas, Texas with a group of students to live for 9 weeks in Segovia, Spain. Before I left, my mother said, “This trip is…
Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There: Doing Nothing and the Art of Niksen
I recently became acquainted with a Dutch concept called Niksen. Niksen is the art of doing nothing. The idea is, well, to just sit there. No work, no distractions. No Facebook or journaling. No counting your breaths or repeating a…
Lifetime Guarantee
It’s rare for me to be in the same room with my mother and my daughter — three generations who live in different places and in different time zones. Yet there we were together, gathered for a family event, chatting…
When it’s NOT the most wonderful time of the year: strategies for sanity
Look around you. Does everyone else seem joyful, festive, and full of holiday spirit? Everyone, it seems, but you. Perhaps someone important is missing from your life and you’re drowning in deep sorrow. Perhaps you’re absolutely miserable. The truth is…
What Door is Opening for You?
September is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, it heralds the end of those especially sweet long summer days. The season’s playfulness starts to ebb away with the longer, cooler nights of September. On the other hand,…
Healthy Grieving
Because loss is a natural part of living, so too is grief a natural process that we need to understand. Most of us will be on that path sooner or later. Knowing some of the elements of healthy grieving sheds…
A New Video: “Living with Loss: Tools for Coping”
I have been so moved and touched by the response to my video, “You are not Crazy.” Now, I’m offering a 2nd free video called “Living with Loss: Tools for Coping.” I hope you’ll find the specific coping ideas helpful…