Wayne Dyer said, “What other people think of me is actually none of my business.” My mother would NEVER EVER have understood this statement. EVERY PERSON’S opinion about us mattered, and all opinions mattered more than our own. I grew up with, What did they say? What did they say about your new coat? What did they say about your project, hair, sweater, shoes, mom, dad and on and on until I wanted to fall to the floor and beg for mercy. At one point, when I was perhaps sixteen

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” - Desmond Tutu 2020. The unimaginable happened and the world shut down. As we tried to take it all in, scrambled to feed our families and homeschool our children, the news kept coming at us. Then in May, we, as a nation, had to face our country’s deep-seated racism in the ugliest way imaginable as we witnessed the murder of George Floyd. Families have suffered through job loss, sickness and death dur

I want to write something amazing, healing and thoughtful. I want my words to make you feel better about everything. I want to use magical phrases that will make your mind rest, stop your thoughts from spinning and dispel your fear and anxious feelings of uncertainty. But I don’t know which words I could use to accomplish that. We are at an anxiety level that many of us have never felt before. Our brains are on high alert all of the time. What the hell do we do with all the f

I am rewiring my brain. I am actively adding images to some of my memories to reflect my self love and my healing. One of my first memories of my mom’s reactions to gifts, was when I was five or six, running through the kitchen. I had a little route, from the living room, through the kitchen, toward the front door and into the living room again. Someone had taken me to the store to buy a gift for Mother’s Day or her birthday. I didn’t really understand what the tiny funny fig

I grew up believing that The United States of America was the greatest country in the world. It felt strong and comforting to me, even as I navigated the rocky terrain of the women’s movement and fought for women’s rights. Thankfully, I did not grow up in a racist home, though, in reality, our neighborhood was white and I did not have much exposure to other cultures or races until I attended high school, then college. But, my parents were intelligent and bestowed me with the

The most important day of my life was the day I broke my neck. The world changed. Every decision I made after that day was different than it would have been, had it not happened. You grow up hearing, “Don’t do that—you’ll break your neck!” You hear about people diving into pools, and the horror of being a quadriplegic. And here I was. I had broken my neck. I was alive and I wasn’t paralyzed. How had I gotten to this point in my life? How had I gotten to this emergency room, w