We have a painting in our home by Canadian Artist Ron Christiansen called, Sunset. It depicts four members of the Ojibwe tribe sitting in a circle in a grassy field at sunset. It's rich in color and line. What I like about it is that y...

When I have counseled people who have had struggles with communicating with someone who is angry with them, I often suggest that when they are at an impasse and neither is listening to the other, that they ask the other person, "What do you nee...

During this election season, we have all had to mentally reframe what it would be like if one or the other presidential candidate was elected. It's been a tense time. But as I often do, I lean into a powerful quote by Holocaust survivor, Viktor...

These are intense times for our country. I often turn to the wisdom of people who have lived and led through times like these with love and grace. One of those people is Desmond Tutu, who led South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, ...

Our daughter, Maria, and I have ongoing descriptions of our differences in certain areas. When it comes to experiences, Maria reminds me that she holds no expectations so that she is never disappointed and only pleasantly surprised. In life, sh...

There is a Yiddish verb for complaining, kvetch. Its literal meaning is, to squeeze or to crush. When I think of the definition in reference to a person who is chronically complaining, or kvetching, it really fits, because a c...

How do you deal with things that you cannot understand? Things that are a mystery. It can be fairly frustrating in this day and age when we can get answers at the tips of our fingers...via the internet. However, we are also faced with the conun...

I have a book entitled, Wisdom from The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Whohlleben. In the page on "Patience," he writes: "Acorns and beechnuts fall at the feet of large 'mother trees.' Dr. Suzanne Simard, who helped ...

I love telling the story about a mouse sitting with a dove in a fir tree during a blizzard. The mouse asks the dove what the weight of a snowflake is, to which the dove replies, "Nothing." Then the mouse tells the dove a story about a time when...

For many years I taught piano based on the Suzuki Method, developed by Shinichi Suzuki. Its basis is repetition with little steps at a time. The process allows the learner to build one skill at a time by repeating and repeating the step until i...

A long time ago, I found a book in my Dad's library by Elbert Hubbard called, White Hyacinths (1907). In the front flap of the book was this verse, "If I had but two loaves of bread, I would sell one of them, and buy White Hyacint...

Starting in my late 30s, I seemed to collect a variety of groups that I spent time with. I had a coffee group, The Java Sisters, which included teachers who met at a bookstore for coffee after school. Then there was the Planning Committee, who ...

To introduce today's podcast, I searched the word, "sounds," on the internet. I found a 12 minute YouTube recording of all sorts of sounds. Quite fascinating. I remembered a sound I forgot to include in my podcast, the sound of a baby nestled o...

Making mistakes feels pretty bad sometimes. One often wonders what good can come from them. I remember a big mistake I made many years ago. I was in a musical ensemble and another member urged me to share their opinion that the ensemble really ...

People have often asked why I can always be so happy. I tell them that I live by two philosophies of life. One is that every day I look forward to something. It can be as simple as my morning cup of coffee. The second is that when I'm 108 years...

I love scrolling quotes in Pinterest because I am so inspired by simple sentences that encourage me to live better, be kinder, learn more, and seek wisdom. Simplicity is usually the most lasting mode of sustaining an important message or concep...

Remember when Dorothy was clicking her ruby slippers together and softly repeating, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home...?" And then, remember when she woke up in Kansas and was so relieved and excited to see her Uncle Henr...

Winston Churchill said, "Fear is a reaction, courage is a decision." He was right. Each one of us is living proof of his statement. They pair together whenever we face a scary situation. I didn't know how to dive until I was in my late 30's bec...

When I taught in China we learned it was important in Chinese culture not to lose face or take face. When our group of teachers would be brought to various companies to tour and talk to the administration, I always had so many questions. One da...

In one of the texts I used when teaching Family Counseling, the author, Robert Taibbi, states that, "People are always doing the best that they can." He goes on to expand on this point saying, "If you believe that people are doing the best they...

In the book, "Humankind: A Hopeful History," the author, Rutger Bregman, tells a story about a young social worker who was mugged on his way to a restaurant. He gave the thief his wallet and as the thief was running away, the social worker offe...

My Grandma used to say, "There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us, it behooves us all not to talk about the rest of us."  Isn't that like a lot of things we do in our lives. Some things have both good and ...

I taught CPR for many years. We teach CPR by repeating and repeating the necessary steps so they can become almost an automatic response when the need arises to perform it on someone whose heart has stopped. It seems our minds reme...

I don't know if genetics plays a part in this or not, but one thing I believe I inherited from my dad is the deep care I feel for wounded people. We all have experienced emotional wounds in our lives, but I watched while growing up how my dad w...

Emails have threatened many relationships and sometimes destroyed them because the tone could not be heard and the words written may have been interpreted wrongly without tone or facial expression. Emails are so often judged far differently tha...