Tag: life

Alignment

Recently I put the final period on a decision, that if I am honest with myself, I started making a long time ago. And it was an incredibly difficult, painful decision for me to make. It hurt me. It hurt others. But it was the right decision for me to make for myself, and in a way, I’m grateful that my hand was forced. I kept trying to buy time, in hopes that I would see things in a different way, but my “inner self knowing”, stayed steady. It could not be swayed. And I am sad, but I am not sad with regret. I’m just sad with the understanding that nothing is black and white, there is good and bad in everything, and a lot of things in life don’t come with the perfect tied bow of “happy conclusion.” I’m sad for the happy parts that I will truly miss, and I am grateful for the lovely memories that I will always keep with me. So many times in life we want to do what is “right”, but as we get older we realize that “right” is often a muddy picture, and often what is right for one person, is not right for another, and we have to come to acceptance of this fact. And getting ourselves to this acceptance is the hardest part. But with this acceptance, we finally give ourselves respect and complete permission to do what is right for ourselves. And we give others respect and complete permission to do the same. And having this full acceptance will always be closer to peace, than trying to contort your own square peg self into round holes, or else trying to force others to do the same type of thing, solely for your own comfort.

“Living in alignment” seems to be a common phrase thrown around these days, but what does it really mean? When I asked AI this question this morning, this was the summary:

“Living in alignment means consciously ensuring your daily actions, thoughts, and decisions consistently reflect your core values, passions, and authentic self. It is the practice of living truthfully rather than for external validation, fostering a sense of inner harmony, purpose, and flow, rather than just striving for success. 

Key Aspects of Living in Alignment:

  • Congruence: Your outer life—actions and relationships—mirrors your inner world, beliefs, and values.
  • Authenticity: Making choices that feel true to your soul, even if they are unpopular.
  • Values-Driven: Prioritizing what truly matters, such as health, joy, or purpose, over societal expectations.
  • Emotional Resonance: A feeling of lightness and ease, which often contrasts with the exhaustion of trying to be someone else. “

In researching living an aligned life, I came across an excellent blog post written by Dr. Shea, a chiropractor in San Diego. In his article, he outlines five principles of living an aligned life. I’ll put a link to the article below (it’s a good read), but he writes that the essential five principles of living an aligned life are this: 1.) Know yourself. 2.) Take full responsibility for everything in your life. 3.) Maintain a long-term focus. 4.) Listen to your body and act upon what it is telling you. 5.) Prioritize self-care.

The second principle is sometimes a hard pill for us to swallow. It’s hard to take responsibility, especially when you’ve been victimized. This is how Dr. Shea puts it this way, and I couldn’t explain it better than he does:

“The good things include actually taking time to celebrate your wins when things go well.   The bad things mean owning up when things don’t go according to plan.  And the ugly things- these are the things we don’t talk about, the things that were done to us, or the things that we only share with a few close individuals.  These are the things that we really have to take full responsibility for because until we do, these things rule our lives.  To take control back from these people or events, taking full responsibility for them is essential.   Even if you have had terrible things happen to you in your life, you are the only person who has control of how you think about it and what you will do about it.  Without this first step, the concept of finding balance will never stick.  Taking responsibility, despite the initial physical and emotional pain, is the only way to take control.”

It’s not lost on me that unless our spine is in alignment, we can’t reach our highest physical potential. When we are off balance, we can’t walk the paths of our individual lives with a steady gait. Living in alignment is not an easy task in this fast paced, “always vying for our attention in every which direction” kind of a world. However, the moments when we truly feel that our outside lives are most aligned and reflective of our inner selves, these are our most peaceful, resonant, honest, authentic, ripe, accepting, connected to something higher, purposeful moments which we can ever hope to experience.

Here is the link to Dr. Shea’s full article on living in alignment: https://alignedlifewellness.com/how-to-live-an-aligned-life/

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

Aging

“At this age, I understand something I couldn’t have known earlier: aging is not about decline, it’s about distillation. You lose what doesn’t matter. You keep what does. The noise fades. The truth gets louder. What remains is clarity, gratitude, and a deeper relationship with yourself.

I no longer rush past moments, thinking there will always be more later. I know now that this is later. This is the season to savor—long walks, deep conversations, laughter that comes easily, stillness that feels like wisdom instead of emptiness.

Seventy-two has taught me that the real gift of time is perspective. You stop measuring life by what’s next and start measuring it by what’s meaningful. You ask better questions. You listen more carefully. You love with less fear and more presence.” – Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey turned 72 years old on January 29th. What she wrote about her birthday is quoted above. It was too profound to not include in this thought museum which I call Adulting – Second Half.

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

Hello Again

First, I am going to trinkle these new “gems” I found onto this pile of life’s thoughts/reflections/wisdoms which is called Adulting – Second Half:

“A lot of things broke my heart, but fixed my vision.”

Marriage argument motto: “I have nothing to win, everything to gain and everything to lose.”

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin

“Those mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” -Najwa Zebian

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” – Buddha

And from a really good movie, Jay Kelly:

“It’s a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It’s much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all.” – Sylvia Plath

“Italy. What is it’s fatal charm? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places lost long ago.”

I’m sorry for a longer than usual absence, readers. The latest flu really got me. (and no, I didn’t get the flu shot, so maybe something to consider. . . .) I just finished one of those wonderfully cheesy, fill-my-eyes-up, 2025-year-in-review videos. It was honestly pretty compelling. These videos always remind me of just how much happens in one year.

Lately, I’ve been observing our human nature to sweep entire years as “good” or “bad.” We often take one monumental event that happened in any particular year, either to us personally (tragedies such as deaths, job loss, or happy things like new homes, graduations or babies being born), or out in the world (think politics, wars or ends of wars, natural disasters or major scientific discoveries) and we make one or two of those major events, the basis for our entire judgment, of an entire year: Good or bad. Then we pronounce blanket statements like, “I just can’t wait for this awful year to be over!” or “I’ll never have a year as good as this one.”

And yet, the video I just watched featured unbelievable Cinderella stories in all different sports, political shockers from both major parties, wildfires and floods and the rebuilding of communities, cultural phenoms, medical achievements and so, so, so much more that collectively happened in just one year, in our lives on this Earth. A year is not entirely “good” or “bad.” Isn’t it often the case that we sometimes look back at our “bad” years and we actually feel thankful for them? In retrospect, they were “good” years because they forced our hands. They brought more of ourselves and our own individual needs and desires and insights, to the forefront of our awareness. We experienced more, and thus we, in turn, became more complex, more interesting, more human.

Years are made up of our moments. There are a lot of moments in our years. One time one of my friends asked me this common phrase when I was being a bit tragically dramatic: “Did you really have a bad day, or was it a bad five minutes you milked out all day long?” Even our worst days, have sweet moments. Even our worst years, have lovely days.

The beauty of keeping a daily journal, is that you have a record of the moments – the “good” moments, the “bad” moments and a record of the days – the “good” days and the “bad” days. As a person who has consistently kept a daily journal since 2013 and has saved my calendars since 2008, I can tell you that most days are just a conglomeration of mostly banal, routine moments, with a few notably “bad” moments and a few strikingly “good” moments sprinkled on top – even on vacation days, even on tax-filing days, even on mammogram days, even on birthdays.

Sometimes I think we get a little bored with our everyday routine moments, and that’s when the stories play in our heads. That’s when our inner narrator starts turning annoying moments into horrific days. We all say we want “peace”. We all say we want “calm”, but the truth is, we often don’t know what to do with peace and calm. We get restless. So we stir up our inner pot to create drama and intrigue. Our stories of what happened are usually much more interesting than what actually happened. Aren’t we humans annoying?

Maybe the answer is to turn our inner label makers off. Days don’t need to be labelled. Years don’t need to be labelled. All experiences teach us something. We can integrate these experiences without the narrative. Our lives are not performances. Our lives are our moments, our days and our years. And we have the ability to live fully in each one of these moments, if we give ourselves permission and freedom to do so.

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

Two Things

I was driving around a lot yesterday and so I was listening to all sorts of music and podcasts. One podcast was discussing what constitutes a healthy group dynamic. In order to be in a healthy group, whether it be a work group, a social group, or even a family, the expert being interviewed said that you need to have two things: 1. The feeling that you can be your authentic self and 2. The feeling of belonging. If you are in an unhealthy group situation, you may feel that you only belong if you change yourself or your beliefs to “fit” what the group says is right or wrong. In that case, you belong at the expense of your own authenticity. Or, if you do behave in your own authenticity, and you are ostracized or derided or shamed or scapegoated for it, then you are being authentic at the expense of feeling like you belong. If you are experiencing healthy relationships in any community (professional or personal) which you belong to, you must feel that you can be your authentic self and also feel appreciated and welcomed for what your unique attributes bring to the group. In any relationship, ask yourself, do I feel like I can be my true self, and also feel that I belong in that relationship at the same time? If so, that is a healthy and nurturing relationship, workspace, community to call home. Anything else is not an acceptable, long-term situation for your own health, well-being and growth.

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

Tuesday’s Tidbits

A week ago, my daughter was having a terrible streak of aggravations and frustrations and she was finally at her limit. She called me and had an understandable meltdown, for which she immediately apologized for, in between her jagged sobs. I, of course, told her not to apologize. I said that that’s what relationships are all about, being there for each other. I also reminded her that just in the previous month, I had melted down to her about something that I couldn’t even recall what it was about now. She laughed and she said that I had cried to her about a couple we both know and love, breaking up (who are now happily back together and stronger than ever). We both smiled and in that moment I already felt the clouds starting to pass.

+ “Selfishness is not living as one wishes. It is asking others to live as one wishes.” – Oscar Wilde

We have a lot of control issues in today’s society, don’t we? At the same token, we are often admonished to “see” things the same way. There is little tolerance for different viewpoints. In my experience, I often see this from people who are screaming the loudest about other people’s horrible, terrible intolerances, yet obviously holding this same level of intolerance about the very people whom they are screaming about being intolerant. “Live and let live” seems a harder concept to come by these days. Perhaps it is difficult for people to realize they can live by their own ideals and values, even if others don’t embrace these same ideals and values. By accepting that others align with ideals and values which are different than yours, does not mean that you have to be best friends with these people. You don’t have to commune with them at all. But a free society means that if you are not committing a socially agreed upon crime (i.e. a nation’s laws), you have the right to live however you see fit. And you don’t want anybody else to tell you how to live, or how to think, or how to worship, or how to dress, or what music to listen to, so why should you try to control others’ ways of living? Control issues are usually about our own needs for safety and security. It makes us feel better if we believe that we are controlling everything outside of us. It makes us feel better if we believe that our narrative is the only “right” narrative. But once you hit middle age and beyond, it becomes more and more obvious that “control” is mostly an illusion. Ironically, we often have the most trouble with “self-control”, and our own self is the only thing which we really have any level of major control, if we are willing and open-eyed enough to take the wheel. Trying to control anything or anybody else outside of ourselves, is just distraction from self-awareness. It turns out that our “narrative” is the right story for us, and everyone else has the right to live out their own stories. And at the very least, doesn’t this make life all the more interesting?

+ “The moment you stop chasing, it comes.

The second you let go, it arrives.

The day you finally believe, it happens.

The Universe doesn’t work on desperation:

It works on alignment.” – Author Unknown

The hardest lesson in life is letting go, and yet we have to do it our entire lives in so many ways, almost daily. Letting go. Acceptance. Don’t those words feel like an exhale? Don’t those words evoke peace? After we have done everything in our power, why is it so hard for us to surrender and to let go when we know that acceptance and letting go, is what ultimately brings us to our truest nature – alignment with Life/Love/Peace/Faith/Hope? Usually it is the stage of utter exhaustion past our wildest desperation that we finally do “let go” and that’s when we finally witness the miracles starting to flow.

+ “You are the art.” – KTZ

You, your body, your daily rhythms, your surroundings, your community, your choices – these are the artwork in your little corner of the greater tapestry of Life, which we all share. You are an artist. Create with joy! You are a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

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

Empty to Full

Empty nest is often portrayed as a grieving process. Empty nest is often a time that one is expected to feel a little lost and afloat at sea. Even the thought of an actual empty nest is such a sad, mental picture – a lifeless little blob of browning grass, slowly turning to dust. But my experience with empty nest (and what I am witnessing my friends’ experiencing) is while definitely being a time of transition and of BIG feelings, entering into the empty nest is anything but lifeless and empty. Empty nest is a time of refilling the empty spots with the rediscovery of yourself and the latent interests that you had long buried. Empty nest is a time of celebrating the family which you created, and successfully delivered to the starting line of their own adult lives, by leaving behind all of the daily duties and worries and time juggling that raising a family entails. Empty nest is the end of a lot of the “make do”. When we are raising our families, we parents often “make do”. Our priorities are our children’s needs. We live in neighborhoods close to good schools, sports facilities and other families. We buy enormous family cars, (which quickly fill with random petrified French fries, food wrappers and stinky cleats) and these battered tanks of cars, often go in opposite directions on the weekends, as we move our broods around to their events and birthday parties and games. We take “family vacations”, with the idea of getting away, but still being able to keep the kids entertained and on a reasonable sleep/food schedule. We typically spend any leftover money (ha!) on ourselves, only after we are sure that our children have all of their needs met. We try to sneak little bits of time for ourselves, only after we have supported everyone else’s needs and activities. And we don’t regret doing any and all of this. Our families are the greatest loves of our lives. Our families are our most enduring creations. Our families are our hearts and our stories, walking around on legs.

My husband and I spent this past weekend with our youngest son and his girlfriend. A couple of weekends ago, we spent the weekend with our middle son. A month ago we hung around NYC with our eldest and his fiancée, after having spent a fun week with our daughter. When you are raising four kids, one-on-one time with any of them is a rarity. You do your best, but time and space is a commodity in a big family. One of the biggest joys I have experienced as an empty nester is getting to experience more focused one-on-one time with each of our children. Getting to know our children better as individuals, instead of just a part of the blob of “the kids”, has been one of my biggest surprise blessings of the empty nest. And of course, getting them all together at times like the holidays, or witnessing our children getting together with each other, makes my heart glow with comfort that they will always have each other to lean on, even when my husband and I are long gone. Remnants of “our family” will always remain in family lore, which I hope will go on and on for generations.

Currently, our kitchen remodel is getting close to being finished. Our home is being transitioned from “make do” to “make a wish come true.” When we bought our home, we were renting it first. It needed a lot of work, but it was big enough and it was in the right zip code, for the right schools. We eventually decided to buy it, mostly so we didn’t have to move again. We filled our home with a hodgepodge of “make do” furniture that we collected along the way of living in three different states. Our home is filled with furniture that shows the wear and tear of teenage boys and their sweaty friends, making good use of it, always with a couple of dogs trying to get in on the action. (with dogs, it’s always “the smellier the better”) I recently tried to donate a couple of our old leather couches to a thrift store. They didn’t want them. Sigh.

Our home always felt “temporary” to me. We moved a few times when the kids were young, so it occurred to me that we may easily move again. We rented our home first. And truthfully, despite its lovely views of a teeming nature preserve, I never felt like I gave my heart fully to our house. In my mind, our home was a “stop gap” until we got the kids all launched. But then suddenly, the kids were launching like rockets. They were plunging off the diving board towards the pool of their own lives, in rapid succession. In the last few years, my husband and I have had to have real conversations, about our own real next steps. And this felt awkward. When you have lived “the family formula” since 1996, it’s hard to fathom coming to the end of the formula. It’s hard to start a new equation that seems simple, 1 + 1 = 2, but is really filled with so many more possibilities than we were ever afforded before (it’s so overwhelming that sometimes the formula seems more like 1 + 1 = infinity). And yet, we eventually came to the conclusion that we weren’t ready to sell our home. We were just ready to give it a refresh and a makeover. We decided to take our home along on the journey, of our own transition into this new stage in life.

When something is empty, it is natural to want to fill it. Empty to full to empty to full to empty to full, is just another cycle of the endless cycles which we experience in life. We experience the mixed feelings of loneliness, quietness, peacefulness, simplicity, that empty brings, and we start filling it again, until the fullness feels too brimming, too cluttered, too overwhelming, too claustrophobic, and so we start the process of emptying again, so we have some space to fill our lives with something new. And this process comes with a lot of feels. It comes with a lot of conflicting feels. As you age, you better understand that “happy/sad” is a real feeling. In fact, in life, “happy/sad” is often the prevailing feeling as you go through the many cycles of filling up the empty spots, and emptying out what is no longer needed. And no matter where you are in the empty/full cycle, you realize that there is always room for feelings. In fact, it is these feelings that are the true guides to the next steps you are meant to take in this journey of the cycles of your life.

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

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ Today is the last day of September in 2025. Tomorrow marks the last and final quarter of the year. It’s not lost on me that I woke up this morning recalling a strange and terrible dream. In my dream, a serious looking, bearded young man, dressed in black, was standing at our glass doors holding a large gun and a precious baby. I let him in and he sat on the couch and started an unknown conversation with my husband. I proceeded to call 911, but the dispatchers were distracted in their own conversation. They were laughing with each other and they were not taking me seriously. I was watching this young man cautiously, not sure what his next move would be. And then I woke up.

I haven’t sorted out what this dream means to me personally, but I do believe that it speaks to choice. And our choices are ultimately what makes us who we are, right? We can choose destruction or we can choose innocence. We can choose darkness and hate, or we can choose new life. We can choose the hope of new beginnings, or we can choose the despair of a dark ending. And sometimes these are the consequential decisions which we make, even sitting in the living rooms of our own homes.

+ I was introduced this morning to this wonderful new musical “band.” Various musicians play parts of a beautiful song, from all different places in the world. They call it “Playing for Change.” The link above is Playing for Change performing “Soulshine.” The link below is Playing for Change performing “Waiting for the World to Change.”

I am a huge mix of utterly grateful and completely envious of those of you musicians (unfortunately no musical bones appear in my body, sigh.) and all of your wonderful talent. There is no greater connection to the divine on Earth than music. Music is the universal language of the world. Music is how the divine communicates to all of us on Earth, because we all can understand it and we can all feel it and we can all vibrate with it and we all can connect with each other through music. I absolutely adore watching musicians perform, whether on big stages or on street corners. It’s witnessing someone plugged into our universal soul. And it is beautiful. Musicians, thank you for sharing your gifts. Thank you for dedication, passion and vulnerability in sharing. Your gift is our gift. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

+ We were boating over the weekend with our son and one of his friends. His friend was talking about seeing some old family friends in the town that we were in. He said something profound. My son’s friend said, “It’s good to know people who knew me before I knew me.” I thought that was a beautiful thought. It takes a while to “know ourselves” and the people in our lives are often the mirrors to ourselves. They are often the way-showers. Their perceptions of us, and their reactions to us help us to discover and “find ourselves”. The people in our lives help us down the path as to what actually resonates and aligns with whom we really are, deep in our cores. Recently, along these lines, a dear friend asked me to pray for her to get “unstuck.” I told her that instead I would pray that she sees herself, the clear way that I see her, “Beautiful. Kind. Authentic. Accomplished. And not stuck at all.”

+ Finally, here are some new exhibits, in this thought museum which we call, Adulting-Second Half:

“Y’all ever wonder what life would be like if you didn’t overthink everything? I think about it all the time.”

“Anger is an emotion of justice.”

“Some people are so poor, all they have is money.” – Sherrie Campbell

“Your feelings are always valid, but your behavior is not.”

“Blood isn’t always thicker than water, though it is often stickier.”

“You have to be odd to be number one.” – Dr. Seuss

Let’s all meditate a little bit today, before we walk into the final quarter of the year. Let’s meditate on our choices going forward. Let’s feel grateful for musicians and the people who knew us before we knew us. Let’s meditate on what makes our own souls shine and let’s let them shine – brightly. That is how the world will change.

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

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ My husband read an interesting article the other day about the different stages of retirement. It made a lot of sense. The article said that retirement is actually quite expensive in the beginning (even if your kids have all moved out, and are on their own, and they even have their own cell phone plans). The first stage of retirement is “go-go”, where you are still young and healthy enough to make up for lost time and freedom. This is the stage that people spend a lot of money on travel and hobbies and renovations and going out, etc. People are then often shocked about how expensive this first stage of retirement can be. It can make them panic and wonder if they have saved enough for retirement. The next stage is “slow go” where you have aged some more, and have experienced some more, and now the novelty of “everything that you can do in retirement” is wearing off and you find a more moderate routine in your every day retired life. The final stage of retirement is “no go”, but that’s also the stage that healthcare costs and nursing care costs are at their highest. I found this all to be really interesting because as a 54-year-old woman whose youngest of four children is graduating from college next year, I have found I feel a bit of relief from a lot of the expenses that raising a big family entails. But my husband is not retired yet. We are not living on a fixed income. And in talking to retired family and friends, many have discussed that they find retirement to be more expensive than they thought it would be. I like to think that my husband and I are doing a lot of our “go-go” stage right now (we had our children relatively young) while he is still working, so that when it comes to full retirement we can ease into the “slow go” phase relatively quickly. Time will tell . . . . Readers, what have your experiences been? Any wisdom to share? My husband and I have also noticed that a lot of our friends and contemporaries are delaying retirement. I was at my dear dentist’s office yesterday and he told me that he doesn’t want to retire because he still enjoys what he does, and he doesn’t have an alternate plan. Our dentist told me that his office and his practice feels more like “home” to him than anywhere else. I’m certainly not complaining. Our talented dentist treated our family all the way from baby teeth to wisdom teeth removal. The day that he retires (same goes for my hair stylist) will truly be bittersweet days for me.

+ Yesterday, I got myself into a tizzy because I couldn’t reach my husband. His phone went directly into voicemail (10 times). When I got home, I ran inside where he was nonchalantly cutting up some vegetables and watching some football. I hit him and hugged him at the same time. We compared phones and mine showed me calling him (10 times) and his showed no calls coming in. We still don’t know what happened. This is the hard part of today’s world. We expect to be able to reach our loved ones at all times, and our imaginations go into overdrive when we can’t reach them. When one of these rare times happen that I can’t reach someone whom I love, and as I hyper-ventilate, and as I vacillate between worst, most awful case scenario/girl, please calm your crazy a$$ down, I think to myself, “Wow, I truly love and value these wonderful people in my life. I don’t know what I would do without them.” What I can take out of these annoying experiences of occasional tech failure (and also my annoyance at myself for being so phone dependent) is the reminder of the gratefulness that I have for the beautiful people in my life. When you entertain the idea of losing someone you deeply love, the little things that irk you about them, lose their potency real quick.

+ I bought these gems the other day when I was at a cute seaside store with one of my favorite friends. These quotes seem particularly apropos for times like these:

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

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ I recently mentioned The Five Minute Journal, as a wonderful tool to get started in journaling. There are two questions to answer every day that really make me pause and ponder. The first question is “What would make today great?” This question really brings up “stuff”. Like you find yourself asking, “What’s too much to ask for? Is that just total fantasy? Is that a selfish desire?” or sometimes my line of thinking goes to, “Am I asking for enough from myself and my life? Am I settling?” Sometimes I get really stumped on this question (especially on a “normal” day when there isn’t much planned except the usual routine) and I take this as a good sign. I already live a “great” life. Sometimes what makes a great day is just the peace and comfort of going about my every day experience. And only I can get in the way of “great”, by adding unnecessary worry and rumination. The other question that you are asked to answer every day in this particular journal, is to be answered at the end of the day. The question is, “What did I learn today?” At this middle stage of life, sometimes we get trapped into believing that we already know everything there is to know. “What did I learn today?” is one of those humbling, bring yourself back down to Earth/touch grass questions that tells you, if you can’t answer it, that maybe what you learned, is that adding more self-awareness and curiosity and open-mindedness in your life, may lead to a much fuller experience of living.

+ I’ve recently gotten hooked on listening to the “A Little Bit Culty” podcast as I go about my everyday chores. The founders of the podcast are a married couple who are survivors of the NXVIM cult. They interview survivors of other cults in each episode, in order to help others recognize that they themselves may currently be in a cult, or to help inform people so they do not become susceptible to joining a cult. This is one of those shows/programs that is so easy to go, “What?! How could you ever believe that ridiculousness, or think that this is normal thinking?” But if we are honest with ourselves, many of us probably carry around some beliefs about a variety of topics, that if we truly, openly, and candidly explored these beliefs, we might realize that these beliefs no longer serve us, nor are they in alignment with our deepest core values (this also happens in society – look how much has evolved in civil rights and women’s rights, just in our own lifetimes.) People are most susceptible to join cults when they are young children (they do not have a choice, they are fully dependent on others for their survival), and also in times of big life transitions such as adolescence into adulthood or entering into empty nest. (like so many of us are doing). People often join cults because they are in one of those fearful, existentially lonely times of searching, and they want to believe that someone else has all of the answers. So they give their power away. My biggest takeaway from these cult survivors is to never give your power of reason away, to anybody or anything. Question everything that you do and you think and really ask yourself if that is your own true belief, or is that what has been programmed or conditioned into you, by someone else. You really do have all of the answers inside of yourself. Resonation/intuition is quiet, deep, wise, persistent and knowing. Make listening to yourself, your highest priority before listening to anyone else. Another takeaway I’ve gotten from the show, is that so many of the survivors left their culty experiences without any sense of self. Their whole identity had been stripped away by someone else’s belief systems. Their experiences are a reminder to compassionately give yourself regular time away from your duties, roles, social circles, social media, entertainment choices, etc. in life, to check in with yourself. “What do I like to do? What resonates with me? What feels purposeful and meaningful in my life? What, when doing it, makes me feel fully “in the flow” of creating my own original life? What feels out of alignment in my life? What no longer serves?” One time a very wise person suggested that a good question to constantly ask yourself is not if an experience is “normal”, but is this experience “healthy” for me? Healthy is a much better long-term arbiter of choices in life, than what is considered to be “normal.” I am sure that we could all make long lists right now of what has been, and also what is currently happening, which while considered to be currently “normal” in society, is in no way, actually “healthy.”

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

And a Luna Moth

I started writing this blog in the summer of 2018. It marked the beginning of my “letting go.” I call our eldest son “the alpha”, and our daughter, “the omega.” They are the eldest and the youngest, of our four children. In 2018, our alpha started his first career job, after graduating from college. And just the other day, our omega accepted a wonderful job offer, after experiencing a successful, engaging internship over the summer. This coming summer, after she graduates from her university in May, our daughter has a job all lined up to officially start her fully independent adult life. The ending of my “letting go” is now fully upon me, as I now more clearly see the growing glimmers of my own fully independent life (a life without any dependents) gathering quickly, right around the corner.

Today, as I slowly awoke out of the kind of deep sleep that only a three-day weekend seems to truly afford, I sauntered out on to our back porch and there, quietly resting on one of our stools was a beautiful Luna moth. Luna moths aren’t actually rare. There are many of them, but they don’t live long. They only stay alive to procreate (only about 7-10 days – they don’t even have mouths to eat) and they usually prefer being out and about at night. I took this Luna moth sighting as a sign. The internet suggests that Luna moths represent rebirth, transformations and new beginnings.

As I have aged, I have learned that change is the only constant but I have also learned that very few changes are sudden. Most change is gradual, subtle, and sometimes not even recognized until it has already happened. I have spent the last seven years of my life, changing and evolving and growing and stumbling and soaring. I have spent the last seven years of my life metamorphosizing away from my major adult role as a career mother, to this new, less encumbered form of myself, who is still working her way out of the fragile cocoon of change and discovery and acceptance.

The Luna moth is still on her perch as I write this. She is taking her time, to let her wings dry before she flies on to her next anointed role, into the winds of her beautiful, transforming, fleeting life. Like nature does best, the Luna moth surrenders in total trust, to the higher forces of Life. She understands that there really isn’t a true beginning and a true end to anything, because each ending always signals a new beginning. The truth is, the alpha and the omega are actually on the exact same spot, on the one big, beautiful, magnificent, comforting circle of Life.

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