Year: 2016

5 things my son taught me about life

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Our children teach us things everyday, whether it’s in a quick comment, a poignant conversation, or watching their behavior over time. If we’re open to these lessons, we can be inspired to change our perception, sometimes even shedding a long-held belief. I recently wrote about my daughter and her career.  https://glass-full.me/2016/12/14/5-lessons-i-learned-about-finding-your-dream-career/ I now focus on the lessons I have learned from my son, Tom. Less than 3 years separated our children. She was the eldest and he the younger brother. There are reasons why firstborns are expected to succeed at whatever the family values the most, while the free-spirited youngest is given the latitude to take risks. The first child gets the parent’s undivided attention; the last child gets more leniency and less caution. Temperaments can override the stereotypical birth order, but our family seems to have followed the classic model. At a very early age, Tom marched to the creative beat of his own drum. When his pre-school daycare provider, a puritanical task master, expressed dismay about Tom’s hearing problem, we discovered he was just ignoring her constant reprimands. He didn’t blindly follow authority figures. In elementary school, when many of the other boys were playing football, Tom and …

5 lessons my daughter taught me about a dream career

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Last week, our daughter posted a video on Facebook that reached over 9,000 views in two days.   Claire was the main author of the first study of its kind on marine mammals. She and her colleagues at The Marine Mammal Center found that a slow-release antibiotic gel is effective in healing sea lions whose eyes have been injured by human-made problems like oil spills. She found a career that brings real meaning to her life. Her love of animals started very early. It didn’t matter if it was a prairie dog, rabbit, sea otter, dachshund, or ibis; she was smitten. She’d cross the street to talk to a dog, bring strays home, and take care of the classroom rodent on the weekends. She convinced us to get a family dog, two guinea pigs, and even a dozen mice, for a short period of time. When the beloved palpation dog in vet school was about to be euthanized, she adopted him. She is now a wildlife medicine veterinarian, a career that was influenced and nurtured by her father. Long before the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, they watched shows like Mutual of Omaha’s …

A near life experience in Calistoga

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Traveling to new places gives me an opportunity to learn. It might be talking with someone I’ve just met or learning when I travel with intention to explore a new idea. I’m a big believer in the connection between the mind, emotions and body. I’ve walked on hot coals in Chicago, practiced silence for a weekend in McLean, VA, and used the intuitive power of horses in Point Arena, CA. Recently, I found my breath in a yoga room during a wellness program in Calistoga, California. I started meditating and focusing on my breath a number of years ago in Hugh Byrne’s mindfulness meditation classes in Washington, DC. Hugh is a skilled and inspiring teacher and author of The Here-And-Now Habit, which applies mindfulness to habit change. His weekly night classes helped me cope with a busy mind and I highly recommend him if you’re in DC. This year I discovered Max Strom and my breathing practice reached a new level. Over 200 days a year Max travels the world teaching breathing techniques. I happened to be in California at the same time he was teaching a wellness program in Calistoga. Not …

On being mortal

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When our future son-in-law proposed marriage to our daughter, my husband and I were there. We weren’t literally with them the moment he asked her to marry him, but we were on the Sausalito ferry knowing that he would ask her to take a walk with him. When they came back we were lucky enough to experience her tears of joy. It was a very special day. Later that week Tony and I drove to Carmel-by-the Sea for a short getaway. This picture was taken on our drive down the coast. Although he had survived heart surgery to repair his mitral valve two years before, I never thought we would lose him so soon. We remembered him this month on the first anniversary of his death. I was blessed to welcome the birth of our grandchild four months after Tony passed. Blessed in the sense that this baby boy brought more joy than I could ever have imagined. He was and is a magical distraction. Yes, I still wish he could have known this grandfather and I still have moments of heartache, but time is healing. I don’t know how …

In our new reality, do not let fear take over our hearts

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I had considered a pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago after my husband died a year ago. My research confirmed that it would be an important and unforgettable trip. As it turned out, though, I never made it to Spain. I found the contemplative path driving across the country, heading west. During his ten months in the hospital battling heart failure, my husband was discharged only twice for short periods of time. He never regained enough strength for a heart transplant and several days after his death, I flew from the east coast to northern California to be with our children. When my trips back and forth across the country became more frequent, I realized I would need my car in the Bay Area. I also knew that the time alone, being with and feeling all of the difficult emotions, was an important step for me. My drive began from Virginia at the end of Oct, 2016 and I arrived in San Francisco ten days later after traveling 3,300 miles through 15 northern states. It gave me the quiet time I needed to reflect, laugh, pray, and cry as I …

How to find your voice to heal our planet

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In this 10th-anniversary year of the release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the debate between those who believe in global warming and those who do not has reached a critical stage. President-elect Trump, who has said climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, has threatened to end all funding and ignore past pledges of President Obama’s administration. Those passionate about saving the planet from the effects of global warming face off against others who believe, just as passionately, that there is nothing to save since earth’s climate changes every few thousand years. Chances are you have an opinion, but is there a way to understand the other side and cross the divide? When Gore’s film first came out, I watched the trailers and suggested to my husband that we watch the movie. Tony was not that interested. This wasn’t a total surprise since we had different opinions on a variety of topics, including our every-four-year presidential voting patterns. Yet, I couldn’t understand his disinterest when he had been committed to the environment for much of his life. He joined the Peace Corps after college …

The gift of spontaneity

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This beautiful staircase belongs to friends of ours who bought a small villa in a town south of Sienna, Italy.  I would never have discovered it had I not made a spontaneous decision during our European trip. My son, Tom, flew to Budapest and picked me up at the Vienna airport to start our first weekend in Graz, Austria where he had taught English for five years. Walking from one end of the city to the other during the days, and sharing drinks and meals with his friends in the evenings, was the perfect beginning to our trip. And, it was the only part we had planned in advance. It was unusual for me to travel without having places to stay along the way, but Tom convinced me that part of the joy of traveling is keeping your options and mind open for the inevitable surprises along the way. In other words, be more spontaneous! We left Austria at the end of that weekend and made Venice our first stop in Italy. We found a place to stay outside the city without a problem and the next …

How food can heal the soul

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There were times during my 40s and 50s when I struggled with weight gain, bouts of insomnia and digestive problems. My hair was thinning, my skin tone looked uneven, and it was challenging to keep my energy level up in the middle of the day. I was driving myself hard in a competitive work environment and the distractions of a busy life left me often feeling depleted. Desperation led me to a year long nutrition course with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition that emphasized the importance of bio-individuality, which means there’s no one-size-fits-all-diet. Each of us has unique needs. I started eating whole foods that come from the ground instead of processed foods and I was cooking more at home. Yet, the biggest change in my health over many years was my growing ability to slow down. Being more mindful of the present moment enabled me to better enjoy life. One of my great pleasures in life has been watching my adult children find their way in the world, becoming the type of people I would want to be around. They …

Living without regret

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Most of us are familiar with the common regret of those who are at the end of their lives. They don’t worry so much about what they did as much as what they didn’t do. It’s the living with regret that seems to haunt the dying. We don’t take the time to reflect on what we haven’t done because, quite frankly, we’re just so busy doing.