Tag: hope

Courage/Stupidity

“Courage is knowing it might hurt and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same. That is why life is hard. . . . . .What is the difference between courage and stupidity in your life? A big part of adulting is not crossing the line where your rebelliousness turns into recklessness. The people who ride this line most gracefully usually have a clear eye on their values and a good friend or two who will tell them when they’re being a dumbass. If you can’t decide if you’re being brave or stupid, call a friend.” _ from the Spiritual AF inspirational deck by Roxan McDonald

Earlier this year, I reluctantly agreed to a plan to go on a trip to Egypt with my husband, this upcoming spring. Visiting Egypt is one of my husband’s biggest dreams for a long time now and although I was nervous and not nearly as intrigued as he is with Egypt, I decided that I should muster up my courage and support him and get excited about sharing another wonderful adventure with him. I spoke at length with a sensible friend who had recently traveled to Israel, and she encouraged me to go. At that time, I think that I was choosing to be courageous, and it seemed to me, at that time, that the benefits of the trip certainly outweighed the risks. Egypt might not have seemed like the most safe place in the world for us to visit, but in light of all of the random shootings which we have here in America, “safe” is a relative term.

However, considering the terrifying events of this past weekend, we have cancelled our plans to travel to Egypt this spring. At this point, courage to go there, clearly seems to me, to be veering far more into the realm of recklessness. At my age, recklessness does not appeal to me at all. It goes without saying, that my sensible friend would most likely agree with our decision to not go, in light of the new information about the particularly unstable, worrisome and devastatingly sad circumstances happening in the Middle East.

I love what Roxan McDonald has to say about the fine line between courage and stupidity. This line gets particularly muddled when strong emotions come into play. That is why it is always helpful to have people whom you trust in your life, to be your sounding boards, and your helpful “voices of reason.” In the end, the final decision is totally yours, as it should be, but it is so good to have other people in your life, whom you deeply trust and who have no other stake in the game, other than the fact that they care about you. These people can help you to clear your vision and to see perspectives that you may not have considered, because your decision making process is already clouded by your own preconceptions and heavy emotions. These sounding boards in your life, also help you to get clear on your own desires and inclinations. If you find yourself strongly protesting and arguing against what they advise, this at least, gives you a clear idea of how you really feel about something and what you, yourself truly wants to do. (It’s like that old, wise adage of flipping a coin to make a decision, and then noticing how you are secretly hoping for how the coin will land, while the coin is still up in the air.)

I believe that my husband and I will visit Egypt one day. (Of course, right now my deepest wish is for a peace and comfort for all of the innocent people who are experiencing so much pain and loss in this horrific trauma, and in other traumas happening all over our world. War is hell.) I also know that this time period is not the time for us to go there. At the very least, my level of anxiety would make it impossible for me (and thus, for my husband) to enjoy ourselves and immerse ourselves in the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

There are no perfect answers and decisions about anything in life. These answers and decisions are as unique and personal, as is each individual person and all of the mitigating circumstances surrounding each person. One person’s courageousness is another person’s stupidity. In the end, though, it always comes back to learning to trust one’s self. You have all of the answers that you need inside of yourself. Sometimes you just need a little help excavating those innate answers, and that is one of the beautiful blessings of having each other.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Monday – Funday

Credit: @woofknight, X

Isn’t the cooler weather wonderful?! After such a hot summer, it’s like diving into a cool, refreshing, clear pool of water.

How’s everyone doing? This was a tough weekend. I’m feeling that universal, low-lying, but seeping in kind of stress in the air, like we had when the pandemic first started. And when you have that kind of permeance of uneasiness, swirling all around you, it sort of punctuates your own individual stresses, doesn’t it? Whatever helps you with stress and concern in your mind and in your body and in your spirit, is your own “toolbox.” Don’t forget to open your toolbox, and to use and to utilize your own helpful “tools.” (exercise, prayer, meditation, music, friendships, nature, healthy, wholesome meals, crying, release, easy chores, funny shows etc.) Also, use this as a time to find and to test new, healthy tools to help ease your stress during eventful times.

“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
– Carl Sagan

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” – Mother Teresa

“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”– bell hooks

“Humanity is good. Some people are terrible and broken, but humanity is good. I believe that.” – Hank Green


“We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.” – Albert Einstein

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” – Mahatma Ghandi

“During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.” – Maya Angelou

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Dumb Little Things

I have a couple of friends who are in the beginning stages of getting divorced. It’s a situation fraught with emotion, and unfortunately, I have proven myself not to be the best support system in this situation. I just always manage to express the wrong words, it seems (my foot-in-mouth game is in full force these days). Last night, my guys were all at a football game, so I decided to watch a couple of podcasts with an interesting character named James Sexton, who is a divorce lawyer in New York City and has been one for over 20 years, in order to better understand the situation my friends are dealing with in their break-ups. James Sexton has handled many high profile/high net worth divorces and he has written a couple of books, the latest called: How to Stay in Love: A Divorce Lawyer’s Guide to Staying Together. I should mention that James Sexton, himself, is divorced.

James Sexton doesn’t necessarily believe in the institution of marriage, although he claims that he still gets as weepy-eyed and romantic as anyone, at a beautiful wedding. (He claims he always watches the groom, because he loves to see that fullest expression of excitement, and hopefulness and love, in a man’s eyes.) In his experience as a divorce lawyer, Sexton claims that only about 25 percent of people are happily married. Over half of all marriages end in divorce (although people remain bright-eyed and hopeful, as 80 percent of divorced people marry again within 5 years), and he believes that about another 25 percent stay unhappily married because of religion, or for financial reasons, or “for the kids”. James Sexton says it all starts when people first get married. He claims people don’t know what they want out of marriage and when they do figure out what they want, they don’t know how to clearly and effectively communicate what they want to their spouse. James Sexton claims that if all marriages had prenuptial agreements (which he emphatically emphasizes to get) it would force people to confront those issues, and to learn how to communicate better about the “tough stuff”, right out of the box.

What breaks up marriages according to Sexton? He claims that marriages break apart very slowly, until it is “all at once.” While it appears that a marriage ends because a big calamity of cheating or financial blow-ups, the truth is, according to Sexton, that these things are generally the grand finale of a slow meltdown. “It’s dumb little things, man,” he said to one interviewer. He talks about one client first noticing that her marriage was breaking up when her husband no longer purchased her favorite granola, like he always had done. James Sexton says that the little, every day kindnesses (and sometimes even sacrifices) that we do for each other, is what makes our spouse feel so loved and appreciated and special. And he questions, why is this so hard for us to do? Why are we stingy with the actions and the compliments and the cheerleading for the one person who has given us the most to us in our lives, that being the pledge to share their entire lifetime with us? (James Sexton reminds people that all marriages end – either in death or in divorce.) He claims that the happiest marriages almost always seem to be the marriages that have a “us against the big, bad, scary world/life problems” mentality. Sexton says that the happiest marriages are those in which each partner is, by far, the other’s biggest fan and supporter.

I’ve been married for almost 29 years. I am still completely in love with my husband and I believe that he feels the same way about me (he always makes me feel loved and supported and cherished). It’s not always been a cakewalk. We have gone through major moves, job loss, financial disasters, dealing with supporting a child through the ups and downs of epilepsy, a miscarriage, dysfunctional relationships in our extended families, etc. We also have shared four beautiful children, amazing trips and adventures, financial booms, lived in beautiful places and have together loved countless pets, etc. We have shared an interesting, full life experience with each other so far. I feel blessed by my marriage more than anything in my life, but I also get grumpy and resentful and hurt. My husband does, too. In the end, though, I do believe that we both have always made “Team Us” our biggest priority.

The other day, I got a wake-up call from one of my best friends from college. On that day, I realized that she was even a better friend than I ever knew before. We had lunch and during that lunch, I was complaining to her about a trip that my husband wants to take this spring, to a place that I really don’t care to visit. A place that has deeply intrigued him for over a decade, scares me and really doesn’t interest me at all. I have told my husband to go with someone else, but he really wants to share this adventure with me. I have reluctantly agreed, but I have also managed to make him feel guilty and less excited by exuding my obvious blase, disinterested, “I’m doing you a big favor” attitude. After lunch, my friend called me, as we were both driving back to our own homes. She said that she still wanted to talk to me and that’s when she told me her truth: “You have always been an adventurer and a lot of tourists travel to this place every year. If you need to complain or gripe about it, call me, but support him. We’ve always talked about how lucky we feel in our marriages. I think that you should be more supportive of him. You won’t regret it.”

And she was so right! And in that moment, I felt incredibly grateful for my marriage, and also for this particular, insightful friendship all at once. (that kind of burst of gratefulness will bring you to tears – it feels so good) What did I do then? I burst out of the car when I got home and I told my husband how grateful I was for all his support in everything that I have ever wanted throughout the years (including having three dogs when he would have been happy with one, is just one example) and I also confessed what my friend had said to me, and that I realized that she was so right. I said from that moment forward, I have decided to be more open-minded and supportive and interested about the trip. And then my husband smiled and he said that she was always his favorite out of my friends. (ha!)

There is obviously no one magic formula for a happy marriage. James Sexton makes a point that in any other scenarios, almost none of us would enter into a situation with such hopeless odds stacked against us. Still, we do. Our need for love and connection and hope is strong and wired hard, into our DNA. I highly recommend checking out James Sexton on some of his YouTube video interviews. He is insightful, candid, and a great communicator.

“We’ve been indoctrinated to believe that it’s immoral to try to change someone else. We’ve been told that love, real love, is about accepting your partner “for who they are.” But we’re constantly changing our romantic partners merely by our presence in their day-to-day lives. They react to us. We react to them. That’s kind of the point. We influence each other’s behavior and, ideally, help each other, together, be the best version of ourselves.” – James Sexton

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Kia Ora

I love reading articles by Karen Nimmo. She’s a writer and a sports psychologist from New Zealand. She’s practical, sensible, no-nonsense, yet kind and humorous, as well. She says that when people come to her for issues in their lives, she’s noticed six universal cravings that almost all of us human beings seem to have, in order to create satisfactory lives. Karen Nimmo says that these are the six things that people crave the most:

  1. To Be Happy
  2. A Quiet, Calm Mind
  3. More Excitement
  4. More “me time”
  5. To Contribute to the Greater Good
  6. To be Loved

Do these resonate with you? Do you know what makes you happy? Do you know what calms you? What excites you? What would you do with more “me time” if you had it? What is your gift(s) that you bring to your communities and our world? Do you know just how deeply you are loved by many people?

These are good notions to ponder over the weekend. A new moon was just a couple of days ago. New moons are great times for fresh starts. What could you do to give yourself more of anything from the list above?

I will end with this:

Kia ora kou tou!! (this is a greeting that Karen Nimmo uses a lot. It is spoken by the Maori tribe in New Zealand and it is roughly translated as “Have Life! Be Healthy!”) Today Alan Cohen asked the question in his daily inspiration, “Are you letting life love you?” If you want to feel grateful, think of all of the times that life loved you, and took care of you, and made things alright, even at those times that you didn’t feel particularly lovable or worthy of love. Have Life! Be Healthy! Let life love you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

How to Say I Love You

Yesterday afternoon, I lounged on my porch and I read, in between lazily throwing balls into the pool for Trip and Ralphie to continuously retrieve. (Ralphie and Trip are our true-to-their nature sporting dogs, and all the while, Josie, our true-to-her-nature herding dog, was tirelessly nipping at their heels and earnestly making sure that they got out of the pool, again and again. This morning, we have three exhausted dogs, which makes for a nice, peaceful, uninterrupted morning for this writer gal. All by design . . . ) As I was reading and pondering, something in my reading and meditating and contemplating, sparked me to write this exact text to myself:

“What do you want from this day? From this experience? From your relationships? How do you want to feel? What kinds of outcomes are you looking for? Don’t be a reactor, be a visionary.”

We so often forget that we are the creators of our living experience. The job, the relationships, where we live, how we spend our time, what we eat and drink, what we think about, what we ruminate on, our hobbies, etc. are all of our own choices. If you don’t like some of your choices, you have the ability to change them. You are the one who brought them into your life in the form which they are in, so you have the ability to choose differently. Don’t pick “the victim stance”. It limits you so much.

All of the inspirational reading and listening I have done throughout my entire life – the books, the articles, the cutesy signs, the memes, the meditations, the quotes, really all circle around to the same overall ideas: Be intentional. Be grateful. Be HERE in the present now. Make conscious choices.

And here’s a big one that I want to finish out my year reminding myself and making it a forever practice (and this is a tough one, as a mother of four adult kids who are spread all over the east coast, and as one who has aging relatives and friends, and as one who when she loves, she loves hard and full and deep with her big ol’ entire heart) Worry does not equal love. I am not loving you in the best way that I can when I am worried about you. I put fear energy all around you when I worry about you. It makes you seem small, weak, and victim-like. I am loving you best when I believe in you – when I believe in your strength, and your vision, and your abilities, and when I have faith that Something/Someone so much bigger than all of us, is in your corner, keeping you safe, helping you to carry out your living purpose, which is for the better sake of all of us on this Earth, combined.

I have noticed that when I tell people whom I care about, “I don’t worry about you” and I say it with a tone that implies, ‘I know that you are going to be fine, more than fine. You’ve got the right attitude, heart, and guides to see you through’, this firm statement makes them sit up straighter and feel more empowered and confident than almost anything else I could say to them. “I don’t worry about you,” might be one of the most beautiful variations of “I love you” that we have in our spoken/written communication. Fear is the opposite of love. Worry equals fear, not love.

Readers, continue this beautiful year of your life, living fully and intentionally. Be grateful for all that you have created and will continue to create in your one and only unique life. Finish strong. I know that you will. I love you, readers. I don’t worry about you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

More Little Nuggets of Truth

This is another sweet nugget of truth which I found in one of my inspirational folders, while cleaning out cupboards:

The Symptoms of Inner Peace by Dr. Jeff Rockwell

1. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experiences.

2. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

3. A loss of interest in judging self.

4. A loss of interest in judging others.

5. A loss of interest in conflict.

6. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

7. A loss of ability to worry (this is a very serious symptom).

8. Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

9. Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.

10. Frequent attacks of smiling through the eyes of the heart.

11. Increasing susceptibility to love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.

12. An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than to make them happen.

And also in these same folders, I found some notes that I learned from one of my mentors when I was in my early 30s (which was over twenty years ago, sigh.) She said that she had seven rules/reminders/wisdoms to live by, in order to live a good life. Here are her rules that she laid out for herself:

  1. I am responsible to state and meet my own needs. Other adults are responsible to state and meet their own needs.
  2. Do not be a hypocrite. We are all always changing and growing. Don’t say “I’ll never”, instead say, “As it stands today, with my current scope of wisdom and knowledge, I don’t see myself doing ‘whatever’. ”
  3. The only person you can ever change is yourself.
  4. Don’t judge others on their preferences and habits. No one is 100 percent evil and those who hurt others were often hurt themselves. Still discern who belongs in either of these two categories: “Allowed to be close to me” and “Not allowed to be close to me.” Boundaries are for you, in order to protect yourself.
  5. What people think of me is none of my business.
  6. I am only in competition with myself. I am the only “me” that will ever be, thus I am my only project.
  7. I am human. I will make mistakes. Make apologies and amends where possible. Change my actions and move forward in a healthier direction. Forgive myself.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

This Is A Good One

I remember many years ago my uncle relaying a story of sitting next to “The Boss” (Bruce Springsteen) on an airplane heading to New Jersey, and my uncle said that Bruce was an incredibly nice, gracious, down-to-earth man. Since the theme of the blog this week seems to be trending towards “good, kind-hearted people”, I thought that I would share this video. Good people are everywhere. Make it a point to look for them. They usually don’t make a show of it, but they are everywhere. If you make a point of looking out for something, you will be surprised about how often you find it. Sometimes you will feel inundated. Try it. Pick anything – a red rose, a butterfly, a dolphin, an orange car, etc. and marvel at how many times in a small amount of time you see this particular thing or an image or representation of this item, as you are going about doing your daily life. ( “The Baader–Meinhof phenomenon is an example of such biased attention. What is it called when you learn something and then see it everywhere? This phenomenon is called the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or the frequency illusion.” – Scribbr) Why not add kind, wonderful, thoughtful people to your list of things that you want to see on a daily basis? Wouldn’t that be a great uplift to your every day?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good Food for the Soul

Our daughter experienced the last day of her summer job, this past Sunday. She worked at a popular, local ice cream shop near to one of our more beloved beaches. At dinner last night, my daughter told my husband and I that what she loved most about this particular job, is that it “brought her back to herself” again. Needless to say, this perked my ears.

“I lost myself a little bit, at the end of spring semester,” she said honestly and earnestly. “And these kind, fun, full of camaraderie people whom I worked with, along with the regular, supportive customers, and the excited, happy-go-lucky vacationing out-of-towners, brought me back to my natural self.”

Our daughter is a rising sophomore at a large, competitive university. None of her closest friends from high school ended up attending this same university with her, so she had to navigate a lot on her own, this past freshman year, in an environment that sometimes felt like swimming with the sharks, to her. I told my daughter how proud I was of her, for her considerate self-awareness. I reminded her what a good lesson she has learned, and I hope that she will be able to remember it, and to apply it, for the rest of her life.

“It is healthy and important to limit interactions with people who make you feel ‘less than’, or who you are afraid to be your true self with – these are not your people,” I said to her. “How you feel around a person speaks volumes. You must be true to yourself. You will never be happy if you feel that you can’t be the authentic version of the one-and-only-you. We all get cheated when people aren’t able to be fullest and deepest and truest expression of their own unique selves. People who accept you, and love you for your own distinctive qualities are the best kind of people there are in this world. Remember to be that kind of person for other people, too.”

The ice cream shop coworkers were a hodgepodge of older, full-time managers and workers, college students from all different universities and colleges, working for the summer, and a few high school students sprinkled in for good measure. Based on the funny stories, the social events they had with each other outside of work, and the support and cooperation and consideration shown to each other during busy, bustling work nights (all things which our daughter had relayed to us throughout the summer), it became extremely evident, that this eclectic group of people made for an amazing, good-for-the-soul, mix of coworkers and friends.

Sometimes in life, when all of the individual ingredients are so wholesome and incredible on their own merit, and they come together in one spot, you end up with something like an absolutely unbeatable, unforgettable delicious hot fudge sundae. For me, the fact that my daughter learned to appreciate the goodness and the sweetness of people who make you comfortable to be fully yourself, the people who help you to bring “the you” out of you, and who celebrate you and appreciate you, is the biggest, juiciest, most delightful cherry on top, of this memorable experience, in her young adult life.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Crying Game

“Embrace crying as a spa day for your eyes.” – Chani Nicholas

“Whenever I’m struggling I think of this: what’s going to make the most positive difference to MY life right now? Then, I go do that one thing and I almost always feel better.” – Karen Nimmo

My daughter was talking to me the other day, and she was obviously holding back tears. I reminded her to let her tears flow. Crying and tears were designed to be our bodies’ release valves. My daughter was holding back her tears back because she didn’t feel like she “should” be upset. (the modern day shame – to be upset about anything “trivial” implies that you are privileged. Remember my favorite mantra -“Just because someone is dying of a heart attack, doesn’t mean that your broken toe doesn’t hurt.”) Nothing terrible has happened recently. My daughter has just had one of those seasons “on the grind.” She is finishing up two difficult, time consuming online college accounting courses. She’s worked a ton. Her boyfriend is away, taking summer courses at his college. This summer just hasn’t been a typical, laidback, full of ease and fun season, like it has been in the past for her. She feels overwhelmed and stressed during a time that is often perceived to be the most easy-going time of the year.

I’ve been feeling grumpy lately. There are a lot of little aggravations in my life that feel as “stuck” as the sickenly hot summer air in Florida has been for months. There has been virtually no movement on situations such as car repairs (my husband’s car has been in the shop since the beginning of June due to a shortage of parts) and a few other long-standing, seemingly never-ending red-tape issues going on in our lives. These things are out of my control. I know that things could be far, far worse. I also know that I shouldn’t let things that are out of my control bother me, but I can feel the frustration cooking under my surface, and scolding and shaming myself for feeling frustrated only adds to “the boil.”

I love Karen Nimmo’s (well-known author and psychologist from New Zealand) question that she says she asks herself, and she also reflects upon, any time a client comes to her with their problems: What’s going to make the most positive difference in my life right now? She says when tackling any problem, you have to take it one-step-at-a-time. You have to prioritize what needs urgent attention before getting down to the brass tacks of the overall issue. If a patient comes into the ER with an infection that is full of puss and blood on their arm, this wound must be attended to first, before you can start exploring what caused the infection in the first place.

So mostly, my daughter needed a good cry. I hugged her, and the release made her feel a little better. She also made plans to do some line-dancing with friends this weekend, which is new and intriguing to her. I got my hair done and my eyebrows waxed this week. These things are within my control, and they always give me a lift when they are completed. I’m signaling to the Universe that I am ready for the new season (a season in which hopefully some of these longstanding irritations will come to completion). What’s going to make the most positive difference in your life right now? You’re not going to solve all of your problems and issues and irritations, in one fell swoop, but you can take small steps towards positive resolution. And you will feel, at the very least, a little bit better.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

You’re Not Sunk

“Your fear that leaving this relationship will be a waste of the time you’ve invested in it over these past five years is a psychological trap called a sunk cost fallacy. It’s when you make the irrational decision to stay in a relationship based on your past investment of time, love, work, and energy, rather than on what’s in your best interest going forward. Sunk cost fallacies keep us stuck in the bad thing rather than allowing us to move forward in the direction of something better.” – Cheryl Strayed (from Dear Sugar)

I’ve written about sunk cost fallacies before, but I think this thought bears repeating. Today, is the first day of August and almost the last day of summer. (My husband keeps reminding me that this is not technically true, but the kids from our area go back to school next week and my daughter heads back to college the following week, so in my mind, which has been conditioned to the school calendar for a long, long time, summer is practically over. Remember, much like northerners are usually happy to see the winter end, most of us Floridians feel the same way about summer.) Not only is it the first day of August, but it is also a Full Moon day. Historically, full moons have been thought to be a time of reaping the harvest, and letting all things go that no longer serve us. Full moons have been thought to be times of culmination and of release.

So today, with it being a full moon on August 1st, it is an excellent day to get real with yourself, and ask yourself if you are currently caught up in any psychological traps of the sunken cost fallacy variety. These traps don’t always just relate to romantic and platonic relationships. We can get caught up in sunken cost fallacies related to almost anything: our jobs, the people we go to for services, such as doctors, hair stylists, dry cleaners, etc., a hobby, a volunteer position, where we live, where we vacation, our daily habits . . . . it can apply to almost anything. Basically, we all have areas in our life where things are a little stale and no longer working for us, even if they worked perfectly for us in the past. Just as a lovely little pot is the perfect place to house and to protect a young growing plant, there comes a time when the plant needs to be transplanted to an area where it can better spread its roots, in order to grow and to thrive.

In my own life’s experience and in observing others’ experiences, I’ve noticed that if we hang on too long to anyone or to anything, for no other reason than we have already spent a lot of time, energy, work, resources and emotion, on that situation, eventually the Universe will do the pruning for us, sometimes in a shocking, sudden, dramatic fashion, since we weren’t heeding its constant, growing louder hints from our own intuition, for a long, long time. And then, after the dust settles, we end up landing in this place of wonder and of amazement, because we suddenly see that the drab, dire story which we had been telling ourselves – “There is no other choice/option here”, is clearly false. We were the ones holding the keys to our own options and to our own freedom, the whole time. And this is when we ask ourselves, “Why did I waste so much time and energy staying put?”

Change is scary, but change, as we all well know, is the only real constant in life. By the time we hit middle age, we all are likely to have stories in our histories that prove that the sunken cost fallacy is truly just a mind trick. (Ask me about a money pit house we owned in the Carolinas sometime, if you want your ears burned off.) We are often susceptible to the sunken cost fallacy because of our honest, good intentions, always looking for the benefit of the doubt, our high hopes, and our misguided loyalty that sometimes veers into obstinate stubbornness. We’re human. However, knowing that we are all susceptible to the sunken cost fallacy but also capable of overcoming it, where does it seem to be sinking its teeth into your life? What, in the cupboard of your one life, has gone well over its expiration date? Where in your life, has your intuition been pinging you to change it up? Remind yourself of other times in your life when you finally made a much needed change (or it was made for you), and how the outcome of that change has improved your life immensely. Remind yourself also, that you brought all of the lessons, understandings, and happy memories that came from that prior situation along with you, even after you made the decision to leave it. All is not lost. The biggest trick of the sunken cost fallacy is the idea that just because something is no longer a fit for you, doesn’t mean that you got absolutely nothing for all of the time, energy, emotion and work, you put into it. The most invaluable, precious things in life are the things which we always have with us, the things which no one else can ever take from us – our memories, our knowledge and our wisdom gained, and our strength from fully experiencing life, and processing what those experiences mean to us, going forward.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.