Practicing Abundance

  This week I read a fascinating concept in the book, Bearing the Unbearable by Joanne Cacciatore. It's a deep, healing read and helped me to navigate an intense grief experience the very day I read it.  I recommend giving the book a try if you feel disconnected from the love of your lost one(s).  The piece I read was this:  The word emotion has its roots in the Latin mover  and emover , meaning "to move through" and "to move out". Our emotions move in us, move through us, and move between us. And when we allow them to move freely, they change, perhaps scarcely and perhaps gradually - but inevitably. This is grief's most piercing message; there is no way around - the only way is through. Page 54 Later that evening, I felt another surge of big feelings rising up inside of me (why is it always in the evening??). Sensing that this was a big one, I retreated to my designated safe space and sat, pressing one hand into my heart space and one over my lower belly. I...

  I recently attended a virtual professional conference through the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASHA), the governing body in my field of speech-language pathology.  One of the presenters (who I particularly enjoyed listening to) shared several concepts and practices that have helped her to build awareness and mindfulness into her private practice life. She talked about identifying and living within boundaries, building, resilience, and living true to our core values, among other things.  One concept that she shared has really stuck with me - the idea of "declaring enoughness". It's easy to want to keep going at the end of a work day and finish whatever thing, or keep trying to achieve a higher level of perfection on a project.  But we can reach a point, or a pre-determined time of day when we can sit back and declare it "enough". We can do this by establishing what she calls "conditions of enoughness" These are her exa...

  The Lupus Foundation of America gives this definition: "Lupus is a chronic (long-term) disease that can cause inflammation and pain in any part of  your body. It's an autoimmune disease, which means that your immune system - the body system that usually fights infections - attacks healthy tissue instead." Lupus can affect the skin, joints, and internal organs. People with lupus commonly experience pain, inflammation, fatigue, brain fog, and sensitivity to the sun (it makes us feel sick and activates the disease, introducing the potential for growth. Also, a common drug used to treat lupus, Plaquenil, makes us more likely to burn in the sun. So the sun is not a friend of lupus).  If the disease gets worse or internal organs become affected, it gets more serious. Thankfully, this is not yet my problem.  I do experience all of the above symptoms in varying degrees depending on the day and season, as well as life factors like overall wellness and stress levels. I have...

This song has been on my mind radio a lot lately. I've been hearing it on the radio in the car, and I noticed something beautiful in the chorus: First things first I seek Your will Not my own Surrender all my wants to You to live Your truth walk Your ways set my eyes Lord, I fix my face on you all my desires reversed to keep the first thing first Notice that while the chorus starts out with the plural "things", it ends with the singular - "thing".  I heard something interesting lately - and I can't remember where. I've been trying for days. Someday I'll remember. The idea was that the plural "priorities" wasn't invented as a word until some time post-industrialism. Prior to that there only existed the singular, "priority".  A quick Google search shows that the popular opinion is that the word was pluralized in the 1400s. I don't usually take popular opinion as fact, but I haven't done the work to find a solid source on...