As I struggled to find words for my sorrow, Lisa's email arrived. She said it better than I could. I would like to share her words with you. (I added the photos.) This is a guest post from Annalisa Gibbs, Founder and CEO of Eden’s Farm, Pittsburgh. If you would like to find out more about Eden's Farm, please see link below. Dear Friends, I write to you now after about thirty-six hours since the shooting in Atlanta. I am of Asian descent. I am Thai American. I stumble here no

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

Life that is. And it just did. All of a sudden, we are in the middle of a crisis and it is scary, daunting and so very confusing. This is LIFE. Recently, I remembered a thought that came to me a few years ago. “What if I hadn’t broken my neck?” My heart actually sped up a bit and I stopped moving. I felt a stab of fear. Fear of what would have happened if I hadn’t suffered a life-threatening injury. Strange as it sounds, breaking my neck was actually one of the best things th

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

Sometimes life just ups and punches you right in the gut. And then as your body automatically jerks forward, with an oomph that lets much-needed air out of your lungs and you struggle to get a breath, life comes down hard on the back of your head and this time, you fall forward all the way to the ground. You take more than a few seconds to raise your shoulders, wincing as you push down on your scraped palms, and as you painfully raise your head, life slaps you across the face

(Updated 2019) In 2011, I finally made it to see the Anne Frank House. Having read every version of her diary, I have always felt connected to this amazing young woman who kept a record of the reality of the Holocaust that has been shared with millions. The house where Anne and her family and friends hid from the Nazis is now the Anne Frank House Museum. I had wanted to see this for 30 years by the time I had a chance to visit. The original building was saved and a museum add