One of the most dangerous parts of my psyche is my tendency to think that if I just work harder, then SURELY I can fix it. This part of me is vulnerable to the "hustle harder" hype, the movie montage fix. Can you relate? Do you get swept up in doing more, while refusing to make trade-offs? Do you try to save dysfunctional relationships, resisting goodbyes? Do you override your limits, and then wonder why you're exhausted? Do you repeatedly try to pull yourself up by your bootstraps? If so, I am with you. I get it. As I tell...
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After years of verbal and emotional abuse - after years of constant criticism and control - this was her secret truth: "I'm waiting for my husband to die so I can begin to live." That's what one brave reader wrote to me recently. It's an incredibly difficult truth, and it was brave of her to tell it. And with her permission, I'm quoting it here. Yet as I wrote to her, "If you're waiting for him to die so you can live, then you have no power. You've given it all away. So, what if you turned it around? What...
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When I wrote to you about my recent dream - with the menacing intruders who broke in and took over my house for a party, then were so convivial that I nearly lost sight of the hostage situation - many of you said that that story resonated. To quote one reader: "The party at your house is exactly how it feels in my life ... Because you do start to feel that it's not all that bad, and you can be a part of it, even though you didn't want it! I still don't know what to do with that..."...
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When I read your emails, I have full-body responses. I don't read quietly; I exclaim, I cheer, I shout. I talk with my hands and wave them around. Always, I feel fortunate that you trust me with your words, your truths. As I read your emails this week, I came to one that featured some big traumas and losses. The writer had been through a lot, and she struggled with feeling that everyone was mad at her. The last line was what made me gasp: "I will be free someday, not on this earth but hopefully in heaven." Those words...
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Thank you so much for your brave, courageous responses to my questions last week! So many of you wrote back, which is fantastic. While the stories are different, there are common threads. Here's what I'm hearing from you. If you didn't feel guilty, if you were truly free ... Instead of exhausting yourself so that everyone else is okay, you'd take time to listen to yourself. You'd discover what you want and who you really are. Instead of appearing to have it all under control and managing people's expectations, you'd pay attention to whether you, yourself, are happy. Instead of...
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Do you know that feeling you get when you realize that it's the anniversary of something truly insane that happened to you, and you look back and think: Whoa, I survived THAT? A year ago we were going through a lot collectively, with the pandemic and the politics and the massive injustices and tragedies involved. And on a micro level, this was a tough time for our household. Last spring, I was 8 months pregnant and 100% terrified to labor again. (There was some big-time physical trauma at my first birth.) Then our toddler tripped and sustained a break to...
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Imagine that you're alone in a big, beautiful house that you love. It's your home, and it's exactly right for you. But before you go to bed one night you hear a noise that sends fear up your spine. You check the downstairs side door, and the lock is broken. The instant that you realize this, someone clears their throat behind you. It's a group of people, and they're already inside the house. Pure terror. You're braced for a fight, or worse. But then, it gets really weird. The intruders don't want to beat you. Oh, no! They just need...
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On new year's eve I took our two and a half year old to the park. She needed to run off some energy, and she also needed time for her mama to focus on her while the baby stayed home with dad. So there we were, me and my toddler, climbing on the jungle gym as night fell. The park where we played was across the street from an event space, where people in fancy clothes were arriving for a new year's eve party. And I will admit that for a moment I wanted a different life. Even after the...
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“Build a puppy house,” my toddler says to me, and I hesitate. It’s almost her bedtime, and I sense that this will end in tears. “Build a puppy house!” she cries again. She clutches her stuffed puppy – the one I picked out last Christmas – and gives me her best Bambi eyes. I prompt her to say “please,” but we both know: I’m giving in. Much of my time and attention has been redirected to her new baby sister, and I feel guilty about this. And so we sit in the midst of our cardboard “bricks” on the rug....
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When our new Baby Girl was four weeks old, our midwife reminded me that it was time to introduce bottles. (Though I planned to continue nursing, introducing bottles would give me the option to be away for more than a few hours if I needed it.) So I dug out the box from when our toddler was small, washed the pump and bottles, and set them up on the drying rack. But when it came to actually assembling a bottle, I could not get it to work. I tried multiple times on different days, but the bottle top would not...
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