Reflections
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Reflections :: Appreciation Day
I made up a brand new holiday last week. Throughout this coming year, I’ve decided I will celebrate “Appreciation Day” on the fifteenth of every month. It is the one day of the month that I am committed to “tending myself”, to treating myself with what we therapists call unconditional positive regard. It literally means unconditional love: gentle, present, self-affirming, non-judgmental love. It’s revolutionary, if you think about it. An entire day in a conscious attempt to truly accept and love yourself for no other reason than because you deserve appreciation. It turned out to be tougher than it sounds. In depth psychology there is a primary understanding of…
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New Year’s Reflection: Your Soul and Ritual
Image courtesy of Flickr The year that I spent living on the coast of Oregon has come back to me in the last several days, and seems an appropriate reflection for the start of 2014. It was fall when I moved there, and near Christmastime when I met a wise woman at church whom I befriended simply because she happened to be there each time I went, seeking solace because I was so far away from home. She was twice my age, literally, and in January that year invited me to join her and a group of other women who fellowshipped together once a month. I was clearly a…
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A Time of Reflection and Planning for the New Year
It seems like this year has gone by in a blur. There were so many wonderful things that we celebrated together as a family – like my daughter starting first grade, learning how to read, finishing her first YMCA triathlon for kids and has the medal hanging in her room that she likes to show anyone who comes to visit, to getting a new family dog. We are attempting to teach him that he is a dog and not a human as he so thinks. When I look back at the photo’s I took on my iPhone over the past year, I realize we really did have a great time…
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The Heart of the Matter: Family Dynamics at Christmas Time
“My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we are living with right now.” -Byron Katie I sure can’t think of a more potent statement for the holidays and family time. It reminds me of a self-help meeting I was at in my twenties, when a light went on so immediately for me that I saw my whole life differently. Your family, some wise stranger said offhandedly, can push your buttons so well because they’re the ones that programmed them. You know these moments, right? As if basked in breaking daylight, a new and implicit understanding soaked through me. It was the kind of moment…
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4 Important Tips for Enjoying the Holidays
The holidays can be loaded, it’s true. It’s that potentially chaotic time of doing the make-sure-everything-looks-good-and-gets-done rounds. Pile the added traveling/visiting/gift-giving responsibilities on top of the guarantee of nostalgia, and it’s no wonder some people wish they could skip December. If that isn’t you, horaay! The following will only enhance your already special time. Here are tips for enjoying the holidays without bankrupting your peace and happiness. Embrace Nostalgia. The holidays bring memories, it is unavoidable. But you are the writer of your own story. If holiday nostalgia has traditionally been a struggle, you have permission to rewrite. Start new traditions. If you never had a…
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Reiki: Let the Beauty We Love Be What We Do
Melissa and I chatted about it and decided this post would be about Reiki and its benefits. I practice Reiki and have for close to fifteen years, after an aunt introduced it to me at the hospital where she worked. Staff were being trained to use it on patients in the oncology unit. At that time in my life I was deeply in need of answers, stress management, a guide, anything! All these years later I now provide Reiki Consulting. I want to tell you all about it, but before I get to that part, it is really important to me to explain why I think Reiki works. …
