“Overwhelmingly, we are attracted to people who listen to us well. When things go wrong in any relationship, the first factor to consider is: Are we still listening?” -Glaser & Glaser, p. 17 Listening skills…they’re the bedrock of healthy relationships and if I had to isolate one topic addressed most frequently in my consulting practice … More Quiet, Please!
My wife asked me to run a few errands last week. I had to drive on a busy four-lane highway near where I live and was rounding a curve when I started to veer into the left lane. The Lane Departure Warning in my car detected that I was drifting out of my lane and flashed … More Drifting out of my lane
I hate to deliver such tough love wisdom, but I do believe that often times, pain is our best teacher. Because most of us as human beings don’t like to experience pain. We want to expedite the process of moving through and/or eliminating our pain as fast as we possibly can. Because it feels uncomfortable and miserable when we’re in it, right? And because of this, I think us wise ones choose to make the best of our pain, move through it in some kind of efficient way, and see what we can learn from it. The rest of us (of course I do this too) often just try to ignore it in the hopes that it goes away. However, that often leads to tumors and other ailments in our body, so I don’t recommend this method. … More How Do We Fill Up Our Cups When We’re Empty?
This past weekend my kids and I were invited to the lake place in Northern Idaho of my best friend, Katie, and her family. They were celebrating 50 years since Katie’s parents bought it and to my best guess, I’ve been coming to the lake with them for 45 of those 50 years. They’d made … More The Long View
The other night, my almost four-year-old Mr. D ran up to me brandishing his strawberry popsicle and said, “My girl wants a red one too.” Your girl? What? Let me back up. Our neighborhood has a wonderful Farmer’s Market. It not only has lots of stands of fruit, vegetables, and products where we can buy … More Love at First Sight
I got the chance to meet our colleague, writer, blogger, and artist, The Goddess Attainable, Libby Saylor, in person this week. For all of you that love reading, hearing her, and seeing her amazing art on Instagram, let me tell you that she is exactly the person that you think she is: beautiful, funny, sparkling, … More Episode 24: The In Between with Libby Saylor
Most of us are taught to live our lives by taking lots of action, making things happen, choosing and moving and doing. And yes, that’s a massive part of the way life works, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, have you ever experienced times in your life when things were so clearly out of your control, and it was very obvious that things were happening “to you,” despite your input or participation? … More Old Doors Are Closing But New Ones Have Not Yet Opened
The other day I had a moment where I was sitting out on my back steps in the sun. My kids and I had been gardening with my mom and I stopped for a moment to look at a splinter that had penetrated my gardening gloves and was embedded in my thumb. Of course, I … More A Brief Moment in Time
My sons were both excited, my daughter a bit less, but she was being a good sport. They wanted to see the waterfalls. Our kids were all relatively young and we had billed up the falls and our trip to the mountains for weeks. We were visiting the Shenandoah National Park in North Central Virginia. … More Running out of gas
Last weekend I was mad at Mr. D. I have been letting the kids sleep in my bed. But the other night, instead of going to sleep after we’d read and told stories, Mr. D got out of bed and ransacked my closet, including getting up on a stool, grabbing my perfume and spraying it … More Building Bridges to Each Other
The Heart of the Matter 