Be Happy: Just because your teen is unhappy, doesn’t mean you have to be!
I live in a home with two teens and two preteens. In the South, where I live, people tend to respond to this fact by saying, “Oh, bless your heart.” Yes, bless my heart. Bless it with happiness and strength. For, if there is a theme for our lives right now it is this: Moods [...]
Be Sweet: Giving up Sugar and Savoring the Real Sweetness of Life
I gave up sugar a week ago. I am not bragging. It’s only been a week, and a week doesn’t especially give you bragging rights. And it certainly doesn’t earn you the privilege of finger-wagging. So just to be clear: I am not wagging my finger at anyone. But I do want to tell you [...]
How To Be Unburdened: Stop wrestling with your negative thoughts!
Yesterday on Facebook, I posted a simple proposal: “Name one thing you can let go of today to lighten your load.” I expected to get concrete answers: meetings, errands, appointments, household clutter, or chores. What I got back surprised me. Most of the answers were not about concrete objects or time-sensitive work, but about habitual thoughts, [...]
How To Be Joyful: Don’t wipe that dumb grin off your face
I can often be spotted driving along in my minivan, all alone, grinning to myself. Sometimes I think for all the world I look as if I don’t have a brain in my head. But isn’t that interesting? Why is it that when we see someone smiling “for no reason at all” we assume that [...]
How To Be Happy: Forget your troubles? Easier sung than done!
Remember the Judy Garland song that goes, “Forget your troubles! C’mon get happy!”? It’s a great tune if you want to get up and dance. But as advice goes, it’s pretty lousy. First of all, it’s scarce on details. Forget your troubles? How does one even begin to do such a thing? Our troubles [...]
How To Be Grateful: “One of these days” … My philosophy of parenting
One of these days . . . One of these days my house will be clean. I will not find dirty socks stuffed between the couch cushions because it is apparently too far to walk to the hamper. I will not have to muffle a cry of pain in the middle of the night because [...]
How To Be Strong: Resist Those Purchases that promise you happiness
These past few months I have been working madly to de-clutter our home. Actually, not madly. Mindfully. Or maybe it is a bit of both. I have been trying to find some breathing room within it, both literally and figuratively. It has been a real period of reckoning for me and for my family. After [...]
How To Be Unburdened: Give Your Complaints a Little Trim
Am I burdened? Or am I blessed? I have a house to clean. I have children to shuttle around. I have a job that needs to be attended to. I have money that I am not managing as well as I could. I have tons friends I just can’t seem to keep up with. There [...]
How to be Present to Beauty: A Memory
All I wanted was a little peace and quiet. A moment alone. I longed for the kind of happiness that a little self-imposed solitude might bring. And I had it all set up just as I had envisioned it: A cup of tea in my hands. A novel (enthusiastically recommended by a friend) sitting temptingly [...]
How To Be Relaxed: Don’t give in to “Prepositional Panic”
I suffer intermittently from a widely suffered yet rarely diagnosed syndrome. It’s called Prepositional Panic. I thought I might describe the symptoms to you so that in case you suffer from the same ailment, you might seek treatment for your symptoms. Those who suffer from Prepositional Panic might find that they suffer from a [...]