Does a “getting things done” mindset interfere with relationships?
Have you ever had what seems like an aha moment, but as soon as the lightbulb switches on, you realize it was a truth you’d always known? This was one of those times.
Continue ReadingThe Year We Almost Ruined Christmas
“Did Santa come already?” my five-year-old asked on Christmas Eve, his eyes shining.
Continue ReadingBrain tumor: when benign doesn’t mean harmless.
Less than an hour after I tucked Matthew onto the gurney, my husband, Mike, and I squeezed into a radiology lab, unprepared for the sucker punch.
Continue ReadingAre worry and anxiety the same thing?*
The afternoon my husband carried our newborn upstairs and laid him in his crib, I became a worrier. How much is too much worrying?
Continue ReadingA 9-11 Prayer.
Looking around at the children’s innocent faces, I thought, “What kind of world are they growing up in?”
Continue ReadingMotherhood Lessons from an Empty Nest
I’m a slow learner of life sometimes, so the universe (or God, or a higher power) has no choice but to thwack me on the head with a spiritual 2X4 to make me pay attention. My biggest thwack was my son’s brain tumor.
Continue ReadingFear of abandonment. What people-pleasers should know
Since I wrote last month about fear of conflict and anger—the main drivers of my (fading!) people-pleasing—I’ve been mulling over the fear of abandonment, curious if it also fits into my puzzle. Here’s what I learned.
Continue ReadingFear and Anger and What Happens When They Intersect.
Anger has always been a tricky emotion for me. I feel it, and I know it’s normal and healthy, but I don’t always know what to do with it or how to express it in a constructive way. Centuries ago, Aristotle described me so well: “Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way–that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.”
Continue ReadingCan people-pleasing be inherited?
Neither my mother nor my father would ever say a bad word about anyone. If they had nothing nice to say, they said nothing at all. It was an admirable trait, and my parents were formidable role models.
Continue ReadingI’m becoming emboldened, and you can, too.
In the process of adding new content to my website, I came up with a phrase that grabbed me. As a writer, I loved the alliteration. As a recovering people-pleaser, I loved how it made me feel. I was smitten.
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