Going to Los Angeles for a Motherless Daughters event over the weekend at a hotel in Marina del Rey. The event is a tribute to lost moms on Mother’s Day, and it’s a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the publication of Hope Edelman’s book “Motherless Daughters.” I’ll get to meet women I’ve seen on weekly Zoom support calls for three years. I purchased a window seat on the flight, and it was worth it to look right down into the crater of Mt. St. Helens, which last blew its top in May 1980. It’s covered in frosting right now,…
“The more we can be ourselves, the more positively we influence others.” – Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person Rogers and other psychologists have said that everyone wants to be influential. But Rogers doesn’t talk about it in the power-hungry sense, or the “compensate for our sense of inferiority” sense. Like most of his writing, it takes a positive view of the human mind, and I appreciate that. Reading about the need to be influential reminded me of when I opened my fitness training business, and how inspired I was to share my own life-improving experiences with other people. Recently a…
Playing music was the most beautiful way I’d watched people express connection and togetherness. I had a persistent fantasy of playing guitar and singing for someone I loved. I couldn’t have articulated that, and I wouldn’t have dared to anyway.
By the time I wanted to apply to college, which was after I’d already graduated from high school, I believed my mom had been wrong about me. I wasn’t extra smart, in fact I was unable to do what it took to really get somewhere.
The “Fran” character in my memoir goes from being a secure little girl whose boisterous, tomboy personality shines, to feeling as lost and frail as an abandoned baby animal, then through a meandering path of uncertain steps until she recognizes herself again as the smart, outspoken girl she was meant to be.
I built a fitness community around a popular brand. This time, in my writing, I don’t have a well-known brand. What do I have?
He’s public, he’s private, he’s a resource, a treasure, a person.
Certain composite people, or personas, represent my Facebook audience in my mind. They morph into a gang of inner critics, and their (my) assumptions prevent me from blogging. But I don’t know what anyone thinks unless they tell me.
Headlines state that she was “booed offstage,” but that’s untrue. She remained standing, stopped her band from playing, and performed Bob Marley’s “War” acapella.
Nobody else was in this huge, fresh, natural “swimming pool.” I found that if I gripped the bottom with both hands, with my feet and body pointing downstream, the current would keep my legs afloat and I’d stay anchored in place. I decided to use that easy position to practice breathing.