Browsing Tag

dreams

young casual woman in black with white stripes shirt big summer hat and sunglasses posing at the table in summer cafe.
Encouragement, Healthy Relationships

Moving On After You’ve Been Hurt

You’ve been hurt, perhaps devastatingly so. You’ve been betrayed or even abused and the relationship has ended.

How do you go on?

I know where you are.  I’ve been there in the “in-between” and it can be a nourishing, empowering place.

When I was suddenly and unexpectedly single after my first marriage ended , it was a painful time. I wrote about the “aftermath” and the moving on and I want to tell you about that rich “in-between” period, the one where I was feeling healthy but very much a single mother on my own.

That may have been one of the most enlightening, peaceful times of my life to date. Continue Reading

April 27, 2016
How to Avoid an Unhealthy Relationships
Abuse and Self Care, Encouragement, Health

How to Avoid an Unhealthy Relationship

Last week was important for me and my family. It marked five years since something quite tragic happened to us. I shared about it here in three parts: it took that many to get the story of That Day and our lives since it, out.

How encouraging and healing that experience has been and the support was overwhelming.

I shared because when we raise our voices, others will feel empowered to raise theirs…to share their stories, to encourage others, to leave their harmful situation.

Sharing helps lessen the stigma about domestic abuse. It’s important to know that verbal, emotional, and mental abuse are every bit as much abuse and, as damaging as, physical abuse. It’s just that the scars are often invisible. Continue Reading

April 24, 2016
Encouragement, Life Is Beautiful

Motherhood, Dreams, and Ricki & the Flash

On a chilly winter afternoon in 1984, two giddy teenage girls traveled an hour to the nearest movie theater that was playing the much-anticipated (by them) movie “Hard to Hold” starring the man they were hopelessly devoted to: Rick Springfield. These two 14-year-old girls sat excitedly through the movie featuring their favorite heartthrob…twice…in a row.

Thirty-one years later, now married, busy moms to teenagers, they reunited to view another movie. This time they drove themselves instead of relying on a big brother to drive them. They couldn’t sit straight through two viewings (do they even allow that any more?) because they had busy lives to get back to and wanted to spend the rest of their time catching up on each other’s lives.  They took silly pictures, laughed out loud, and soaked in every precious minute of it. Continue Reading

August 31, 2015
Encouragement, Life Is Beautiful

On Your Graduation…

Thousands of bright-eyed, hopeful, big dreamers are taking part in graduation this month. They will transition from thirteen years of school surrounded by friends, some they’ve known since toddler-hood. They’ll make plans…plans that will set the course for the next big phase of their lives. They’ll make decisions that will direct their paths.

As I sat at two graduation ceremonies this week for two different schools in support of my daughter’s graduating friends, listening to speeches, I wondered what I’d say if I had to share words of wisdom to these kids-turning-adults who are tingling with excitement about what they’ve accomplished and what their collective futures hold. Continue Reading

May 31, 2015