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When a NYT reporter Catherine Pearson asked if I’d comment about some cool research on kindness, it got me thinking. How can we make kindness more intentional? I wrote a book on the subject four years ago. A lot has happened since. I’m tickled that she took some of what I said for her NYT Well article,…
Every once in a while there is something that captures my attention in all its totality. It could be the soft skin of my child’s cheeks, or a painting in my husband’s vast collection of art books, or the spark when someone I work with recognizes their own ability for self healing and love. These…
It can be very hard to be kind to yourself. If you do beat yourself up, you are not alone. We all have a peanut gallery of inner critics residing in our minds. I remember so clearly one young woman I worked with. I’ll call her Marissa. She was a graduate student and really ran herself into…
Driving north on I-95 I was in one of those autopilot moments when you don’t notice that time has passed or how you just cruised by seven more exits on your journey. The air was brisk and cold. The glare of the late afternoon winter sun made it hard to see. Then I glanced up…
I’ve been planting a lot of seeds over the last year and a half. Perhaps this tending and befriending is a byproduct of the pandemic. Maybe it’s because the times have called me to reflect on what matters. Yet, I’m not sitting around thinking, “Gee what’s next?!” I’m busier than ever with work and life. …
Misty Memories. That’s the Benjamin Moore color I chose after splotching the wall with subdued colors in the room that once held my husband’s guitar equipment and old tax file boxes. I was claiming the space. A room of my own, as Virginia Woolf would have it. Misty Memories is a faint lavender, just shy…
My job is listening. Talking. Listening. Talking. Day in and day out for two decades. Something I’ve done a million times it seems. Usually, I’m alone in an office with someone who is sharing something deeply personal and painful. To be in the presence of human suffering is a private, intimate exchange. Being in lockdown,…
When life seems to continuously illuminate the suffering and injustices in humanity and one can only bear witness, it’s time to say a little prayer. When people distrust science and neglect public health prescriptions, it’s hard to know what might evolve humanity toward greater goodwill toward one another and the sacred ground upon which we…