Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the joy of being at "the right place at the right time" and what that is. I wonder how much control anyone has in setting herself up to be in the right place at the right time. You certainly have control over initiating something like...
Weakness Is a Gift
In recent months I've been focusing on relearning how to think about the foods I consume. I had gained 50 lbs since getting married in 2004. I could blame my husband, but all you get as a prize for blaming someone else is that you...
It's the Second Month of 2017. Are You Sticking to Plan?
Since we have the Super Bowl on our minds right now, I began to think about contests and how much we love to watch them. We don't necessarily like to be part of them, but we admire those who participate.
I looked up the definition of Contest and...
Deciding what you'll see in 2017!
I've been thinking a lot about seeing lately. The interesting thing about seeing is that it often isn't sight with which we see, but our...
Giving Out of Your Poverty
I haven't written lately. I didn't want to write from a negative outlook on the world. I was feeling "blah" about everything and trying to stay out of the "muck and mire", given the political tirades I've been witnessing around me. I would have continued not writing, but...
Being Open When You're Hurt.
Today is the second day after the election for President of the United States and the outpouring of emotion from citizens of our nation is reflected in social media, protests, on the faces of stunned...
Leave Room for The Unexpected!
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about our human inclination to gradually narrow ourselves as we grow older. We tend to close ourselves off to things that through time, trial, and error, we've...
Differences are good. Conflicts are good. Atrophy is bad.
The season is here for the U.S. Open and it got me to thinking about how much I like the idea of “The Open” being about openness in sports. Allowing professional and amateur, male and female, American and non-American athletes to match their skills...
You Don't Know Everything About Today's "You"!
On Labor Day, I began what I'm calling, not a diet, but a lifestyle change where I'm forging a different relationship with food and exercise. I've decided to manage them both with a great deal more deliberate decision-making. This was jump-started with a week of journaling about...
Growing Open as You Age
This is past weekend was my birthday and I tend to reflect on my birthday. I think about all the obstacles I've had to contend with, all the risks taken, the gains and the losses; and whether or not I feel up for new challenges in the coming years. To me, this is one of the adventures of aging. The growing tendency to want to relax more as I age; the desire to sit back and...
Why Am I Lazy?
I've hit a rough patch lately where I give in to laziness more than I'd like. It's not something I want to fool myself into believing, "You needed that break". There are times when I just get...
Opening Up to a New Idea!
One day I was commuting to work in New York City from New Jersey when I had a thought. I was in the midst of finishing my first book so I was mostly swirling in thoughts about that, but today I had a new thought. One I hadn’t had before: “I should write a screenplay”. That was the thought. I didn’t know what I’d write about, but the thought...
What If I'm Wrong?
When I was in 8th grade I had a math teacher who would give us weekly brain teasers to sharpen our problem-solving abilities. I looked forward to these times because there was one dollar awarded to the person who came up with the answer first.
You might not believe it to know me now, but I once had a very sharp mind and was good at unraveling the riddles and lining my pockets with “dollar bills, y’all!” When I think back to what made me so quick to unlock the key to whatever conundrum he’d given us is that I’d asked myself, “What if I’m thinking about this all wrong? What am I not seeing?” Invariably, the answer would emerge...
Staying Open in the Face of Hatred
The past few weeks have been a painful exposé of systemic racism within law enforcement all over the country with the recent publicity of the killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. The outcry of citizens demanding police accountability has been met, not only by public support for reform, but also by racist rants on social media condemning the victims. We've even had the misfortune of seeing...
Learning to Accept a "Win"
Today, I stepped on the scale and was disappointed to see that my weight - which I am desperate to get down - remains the same as its been for the past seven weeks. Seven weeks ago, I made some changes in my diet and quickly dropped 7.5 lbs the first week.; thereafter, my weight has been the same each time I do a weigh-in. My hopes for coming down significantly this summer were starting to wane and I was slipping into an abyss of hopelessness and listening to an inner voice saying,
Staying Vulnerable in the Face of Danger
To protect my sense of peace, I don't usually watch the news. This past Saturday though, while doing other writing work on my computer, I decided to have Facebook open so I could engage with "my peeps" a little bit when I needed a break. I started seeing Christina Grimmie's name in my newsfeed...
Be Open to Opportunities to Grow
Hi there! Thanks for joining me for my inaugural post on the Growing Open blog! I thought I'd start this post reminding us of nature's support for openness by drawing our attention to flowers.
Roses are a great source to find lessons about growing open. They require about 5 or 6 hours a day of sunlight to grow well. Imagine that! If you put them in the shade, they may not die right away, but they won't grow as healthy as they would in sunlight. Sun exposes...