Do you wake up at 3:00 a.m., your mind racing with what what you have to do today, getting up to check email, heart rate up, hands shaky, chilly and upset that you’re up? How about during the day? Does your whole body scream “ALERT!!” as you’re driving, checking texts at stoplights, grabbing a coffee […]
John Gottman has studied couples for 30 years. By observing couples discussing an issue in his “Love Lab” at the U of Washington, he can tell whether or not the relationships will crumble. Read this article and see if you recognize any trouble signs in your relationship: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-success/201503/3-major-warning-signs-relationship-trouble
Time-outs leave your child stranded, angry, frustrated, flooded with emotions and stress. Time-outs leave YOU stranded, angry, frustrated, flooded with emotions and stress. Time-outs leave your partner stranded, angry, frustrated, flooded with emotions and stress. Nothing is resolved. Nothing is learned, by anyone. Instead, Dr. Dan Siegel teaches a mindful approach. The building blocks are […]
This morning I ran across an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review by game designer and MacArthur winner, Jane McGonigal. I feel I should be “doing something” productive all the time. But I look out my office windows into Boulder Canyon. Sometimes snow is falling, or the squirrel is jumping branch to branch from […]
When you face another challenge, reach out to others. Connect with someone. Let someone care. Hold each other when the going gets steep. Take one step at a time. Look ahead. Share your trail mix. Just ask. Others have been here before, and they can and will help you find the way.
How are Pinedrops, parasitic plants, pine trees, Andromeda, and multigenerational transmission of abuse, trauma, and family dysfunction related? This question began to form as I hiked with a Native Plant Society group. Andromeda, according to Greek myth, was the daughter of Cassiopeia who boasted that Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids. Hades was enraged. […]
The Denver Botanic Gardens has a tropical rainforest pavilion. I, on a mission, went to see Dale Chihuly’s installations, but found the “Ants and Plants” wonderful. You probably know that “symbiosis” means “together + life”. A common example is of orchids clinging to trees for dear life. But there are types of “mutualism” that benefit […]
She lay like a rubber hose sunning her five-foot stripes, coiling the low juniper bed, head erect and alert for toads and hawkmoths back from southern hatch. Alarmed in damp surprise, Primeval fear, then sinking, Why hadn’t I seen her? I dropped the sharp pruner. Instantly, her name like a medieval chant Had I […]
On the way to bring my grandchildren home, I always pass the corner lot where an old man lives and tends his raspberry canes. “They’re looking good,” I say to the kids. “Yeah, they TASTE good,” my grandson says. “I don’t usually like raspberries, but he always lets us have some when I walk the […]
Alison, our pro cycling coach, had set up 20 cones in the deserted parking lot. Twenty-two women showed up for the bicycle handling skills clinic. Zooming around cones? No problem. That’s what I thought. Not so easy. Alison sent us off at 5-second intervals, way too short as some of us wobbled going uphill, missing […]