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Practicing the Discipline of Stillness
Breathe in. Breathe out. The steady rhythm of my breath grounded me to the cadence of my feet hitting the ground as I hit mile 3 on my run along the Chicago lake path. As the sun began to spill the first beams of daybreak over the skyscrapers in front of me, I was fully…
Read MoreEscaping Loneliness, Creating Belonging
How does loneliness feel? Scary. Hopeless. Isolated. Sad. Rejected. For quite a long time, I thought it was OK to be lonely. I didn’t need anyone. I could live life all by myself just fine. It took a near suicide attempt to wake me up from my delusion. Thankfully, I’ve come a long way since…
Read MoreAchieving Enduring Success Through Reflection
I made five critical choices on my 25-year journey to enduring success. After making each choice, I couldn’t imagine anything more successful than that next point I had climbed to. Each time, in my mind, I had achieved the fullest success possible. But with each success, deep inside me I knew something was still missing.…
Read MoreFighting For Genuine Gratitude: A Call To Practice Daily Thankfulness
My husband, Joe, walked in the door last Thursday with an armful of grocery bags and a smile on his face. As he locked eyes with me, his smile grew wider. It was the first time that we had seen each other in a few days. My work schedule had me on the road. He…
Read MoreOvercoming the Fear of Change
I can only imagine the thoughts racing through my step-brother, Jeff’s, mind as he drove the 45 minutes from Bellevue to Tacoma to carry me away the day I tried to kill myself. My sister, my always-there beat of hope, called me seconds before I plunged the needle of life-ending crystal myth into the one…
Read MoreTime Management, Choice Management
You can’t make time. You can only make choices. Everyone knows about time management and the benefits it brings to both personal and professional productivity. (But, according to Development Academy, 82% of people don’t use a time management system!) In my opinion, pop culture has watered it down so that we’re no longer inspired to…
Read MoreHope In Action: What Santa Can Teach Us About Hope
Hope is believing that when you set out cookies and milk, Santa will come. – Trish Kendall My family and I celebrate Christmas, and I absolutely love it. I love our family traditions, like spending Christmas Eve with extended family which turns into a too-late night. And every year we stay up too late, Grandma…
Read MoreBreaking Free From Bad Habits
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. My alarm goes off at 5:30am every morning. I fumble around to hit the oval button on the top of the clock that tells me it’s time to get up. My pre-programmed coffee maker has already started working for the day, and the delicious aroma wafts into my bedroom, doing a…
Read MoreThe Micro Actions of Love: Practicing Transparency
“WE HAVE TO DEBRIEF!” – Carolyn. I read the text message on a Sunday evening after one of my closest friends, Carolyn, closed out her time at a very important weekend conference. She had been anxious about this conference for weeks, so I was relieved to hear from her husband earlier that day that it…
Read MoreBuilding Trust By Doing The Little Things Great
“I promise, this will never happen again.” I heard those words from my father so many times I lost count. From the time I was 6 years old, his repeated sexual abuse taught me that promises were meant to be broken. I couldn’t trust anyone. And as I grew up, no one could trust me.…
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