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New Year, Your Way
It’s a new year and everyone is making huge plans. There’s a new start, clean slate and another chance to get it right. What pressure! Social pressure encourages us to make big plans, live your biggest life, change the world, lean in, make it count. It can seem like everyone is planning amazing goals, but what if that’s not possible for you? I believe that we need kindness more than admonishment and pressure. (Click to Tweet!) Lasting, healing change happens organically to the schedule of your body, not when an artificially constructed calendar turns over. I’m refusing to pressure myself just because of a calendar invented hundreds of years ago…
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Charging for Our Truth
“There is a charge for the eyeing of my scars. There is a charge for the hearing of my heart. There is a charge, a very large charge, for a word, or a touch, or a bit of blood, or a piece of my hair or my clothes” – Sylvia Plath, Lazarus. Truth is essential, truth feeds our soul and truth sets us free. But the truth is not free. When we are a personal brand, when we are charging for sharing our truth, our story, our big fat opinion (as my dear friend Dyana Valentine says) where do the boundaries lie? It takes something from me to tell these tales. It frees something…
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Guest Post: A Contemplation of Beauty
Remember the beauty of your body: The curve in your neck Crows feet around the eyes Stretch marks from childbirth Worn hands Your belly with its round enjoyment Beyond the untouched beauty of the newborn, our bodies show we have lived: we are alive. Remember the beauty of your heart: Sacrifices for the ones we love Compassion for strangers Empathy that our stories evoke Peace when we truly feel heard Anger that insists on better Even fear that reminds us what is important, even as it stops us in our tracks. Our hearts’ beauty brings meaning, connects us. Remember the beauty of the things we cannot know: The moments of…
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Immune Suppression and Winter Loneliness
We had the first proper frost here yesterday. The grass was crunchy underfoot (and wheelchair wheels), the air was bitingly cold. My yoga trousers did not provide enough protection and Linus dashed back into the house to grab my fleece lined leggings (yes, they exist, yes, they are awesome). There are lots of wonderful things about winter but it can be very isolating. In winter it’s easier to get lonely, especially if you have a chronic illness or need to stay at home for any reason (caring for small children/an adult, working from home, living in an isolated area, etc.). I’ve just had a viral infection, and last winter I had chest…
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Why I Write
The fabulous Theresa Reed tagged me to share Why I Write. Thanks, Theresa, here it is. (And while you are here, you simply must check out Theresa’s sensational new offering Entrepreneurcast.) What am I working on? Right now, I’m doing some deep healing, and my writing is mostly focussed on journalling and adventures in inner exploration. But I’m also working on: The Phoenix Flight School – for entrepreneurs and would-be-preneurs living with illness, pain and disability on how to run a successful, profitable, sustainable and world-changing business while sick. Refining The Phoenix Fire Academy from the feedback of our lovely beta testers. Look for it to open again in 2015.…
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