I’m behind, what do I do?
Dear ones, First, thank you so much for the outpouring of support and congratulations you sent after last week’s missive! It’s a delight begin celebrating my book’s upcoming publication with you. As promised, today I’m going to tell you about how to get your hands on a digital advance copy of You Don’t Owe Anyone. But first – let me tell you why I almost didn’t send this missive today. It was partly because of the news from Washington, which is both predictable yet so catastrophically bad that it seems to drown out everything else. But it was also because...
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When Your Family Doesn’t Support Your Dreams
“How do I practice self care and pursue dreams with a family that say they support you until it is inconvenient for them? (Leaving my family is not an option.)” Wow, what a great listener question! What do we do when the people closest to us don’t support our dreams? If you’ve ever wrestled with that issue, then click here to watch the new, 11:56 minute video. …
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Is It Okay to Want More?
“I am in ambivalence (or in quantum congruence?): I both think I am very happy and satisfied with my life as it is; and at the same time I think that I must serve a better purpose. Which one is true?” I love this listener question from The Clarity Course Series, because goodness knows I’ve struggled with it! Back in 2012, I constantly asked myself, “How can I want to leave my job at L’Arche when I love my friends there so much?” For months, I couldn’t come up with a good answer. …
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Can’t Stop Striving? Your Free Perfectionist Recovery Toolkit Is Here!
I knew I was a perfectionist the day I got into a car crash on the way to high school. The accident totaled our family’s pretty blue Chrysler Concorde, and I wasn’t in great shape either. Thankfully I didn’t sustain significant physical injuries, but I was hyperventilating, trembling, and generally traumatized. Still, my tears were barely dry when I insisted on going straight to school. Why? Well, I thought that since I’d already screwed up by getting into the accident and missing two classes, taking a day off was out of the question. Though I would never have asked a...
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You Can’t Just Do What You Want … Or Can You? Plus A Giveaway
Ever wish you had permission to do what you want, rather than what you’re ‘supposed to’ want? Even if it’s something that seems totally out of character? You’re a workhorse who wants a week off, or a couch potato who yearns to go backpacking. Or maybe you’re a shy, studious college student who longs to cut loose and sing karaoke at a bar. Okay, I admit it: that last one was me. I used to think that only really confident people could do karaoke, so I never put my name down even though I wanted to. But one fateful night...
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The Only Life You Can Save.
What if the only life you can save is your own? Something happened to friends of mine this past week. I won’t go into detail, because it is not my story to tell. The short version is: People I love are being unjustly excluded. And I’m angry about it. Writing that last sentence is a big deal for me. See, for a long time I was convinced that feeling anger meant that I was a ‘bad’ person, lacking in compassion. And I wanted so much to be (and to be seen as) ‘good’. So whenever anger arose, I tried hard...
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Have You Been Imagining Those Prison Bars? (Or, Don’t Re-Enroll In High School)
I had this dream one night. In the dream, I was in my twenties. I was living with my parents in New Jersey, in the house where I grew up. Since my career had apparently stalled, a faceless, intimidating authority figure strongly recommended that I re-enroll in high school, to 'get back to basics' or something like that. Good news: you've already graduated! The thought of re-enrolling filled me with dread, but I did it anyway. I didn't think I had a choice. For weeks, I struggled to re-learn my old routines, fumbling through locker combinations, math tests,...
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