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Monday Morning Inspiration: Ten Blessings
“Every experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within it a blessing of some kind. The goal is to find it.” — Buddha It’s Monday morning and here in Illinois, we are beginning our fifth week of stay-at-home orders and social distancing. It is gray and cold, and the wind is literally howling. The word ‘bleak’ comes to mind. It’s a good morning for a little inspiration, so challenge accepted! After a little bit of thought, here are ten blessings that I recognize on this otherwise bleak Monday morning: I am inside. No kidding – the wind is howling and it is 35 degrees. I am on my couch…
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Cultivating Hope (and Attitude)
With the recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, and reports of an over 30% increase in suicides nationwide, much has been written in recent days about who may be at risk for suicide, the symptoms, and ways in which we can all be more aware of and ready to help those who have reached such deep levels of desperation or depression. Social media has been full of posts asking everyone to remember that we are all fighting a battle and to be more compassionate with each other, which is all good advice, of course. Today in one such post, I read these words of the Dalai Lama and…
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Stopping the Runaway Mind
It is 5 am and I cannot sleep. I decided to get up and write, which I wanted to do anyway, though not necessarily this early. But here I am. Author Flannery O’Connor once said, “I write because i don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” When I have a “runaway mind”, filled with what ifs and worst case scenarios, writing does help me get to the heart of the matter and know what I really think, want and feel about something. The question for me this morning, though, is why do our minds go into this type of negative spiral anyway? Let me give you…