Kittens in the Garage

So here’s the story. Last Monday, my husband Steve, Daisy, and I heard the mewling of a kitten trapped under a hedgerow. She was about 3 weeks old, and there was no question that she was coming home with us. I could feel her skeleton through her skin, and she cried the whole way home. […]

4 Lessons from Three Blue Men & a Band

If you’ve never seen them, it’s a little hard to imagine how powerful three blue men and a band can be. A couple of weeks ago, my family and I went to a local performance of Blue Man Group. Over 90 minutes of lights, percussion, and wholehearted participation. Here’s what I took away… Communication is […]

Notes on Gratitude

Gratitude, indeed Gratitude, like other positive emotions, can serve as an antidote to despair, unforgiveness, grief, and other difficult (and important) emotions. With my family, my patients, and my clients (not to mention myself), I encourage the positive emotion of gratitude. Felt deeply and genuinely, gratitude can be remarkably healing. Most of us have heard […]

Becoming

What if we consider transformation as a process that can honor both the stories we tell about ourselves as we are right now and can help us dream and consider what is possible?

Our emotional life

As an oncologist, I am no stranger to being yanked around by my emotions. In one day of seeing patients, I can feel the profound sadness of losing a patient with young children, the relief when another patient finally has a response to treatment and easing of pain, the joy shared with another when we […]

Hold lightly…

Last Saturday, my husband and our two daughters enjoyed dinner together. Everyone had enough. Enough food, enough time to talk, enough love. No one was snippy, and laughter was abundant. Somehow the dishes were done without anyone having been asked. I have been learning to hold lightly my expectations. Expectations about how the meal should […]

I’m not busy.

When our first child was born late one November, our lives of course changed. Of love and necessity, our family was reorganized around its smallest member. Other things were put aside, reshuffled, or abandoned forever. We thought we had been busy when, in fact, we hadn’t been.  So we decided that we would no longer […]