My instinct always is to rush to judgment. I love pondering what someone else’s ulterior motives might be, making up an entire backstory as if I’m going to play that person in the TV adaptation of their life. I shut down and believe that they can never change or won’t...
The other day, I put my car key fob in a sweatshirt pocket and washed it with the laundry. Fortunately, the fob still worked after I dried it out and put in a new battery. The next day, I went to the grocery store only to discover that I left my wallet at home. The...
Last week I attended a community conversation at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Columbus, Ohio, on the topic of loneliness. The gathering was sponsored in part by the Ohio State University Interfaith Council (of which I am a member). Though I was very eager to...
Packing and preparing to get out of the apartment was a slow, arduous process. I used to be a lean, mean, packing machine. But for this work trip, my first in two years, I put my suitcase out three days before I had to leave because I wasn’t sure how long it would...
I went to my delightful massage therapist earlier this week. She asked what she should focus on, and I complained about my lower back – not typically a problem for me. I explained that a few weeks earlier I felt like the usual tightness in my outer hips had reached up...
I’m nervous about my next yoga series. That’s a good thing. I just started a yoga series for the Christian season of Lent that explores Christian prayer practices, yoga movement (asana) and breath (pranayama), and some of the teachings of yoga (yamas/niyamas). It’s a...
There is no one right way to do anything, including yoga poses. For the past few weeks in my yoga class, I’ve been encouraging participants to really make their practice their own. I’ve taken some of the more intimidating yoga asanas (poses) and vary them for what...
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have heard me gush about an interview on the podcast “It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders” with Sarah Schulman, a journalist and member of ACT UP, a movement that fought the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. She has recently...
I figure you'll get enough of that commercialized romantic love BS from the holiday industrial complex in February. Let’s talk about loving ourselves instead. Romantic comedies often give lip service to loving ourselves when the protagonist of their story has trouble...
I’m a workaholic. It started in high school when I began taking on too many activities: theater and choir rehearsals, speech team competitions, college visits, high school newspaper deadlines. I learned to manage my own calendar because my mom could no longer...
When I've gained weight (as I have in the pandemic), I have a tendency to engage in some really negative self-talk about my body. Not out loud. To myself. I would never say these things to another human, but somehow it’s acceptable to say them to myself. Why?...
Happy New Year, wonderful humans! I had a wonderful, restful Christmas holiday. I didn’t travel to see family, though we did share a Zoom meal together on Christmas Eve. I didn’t even attend a party, just one church service. On Christmas Day, I made some cookies and...
Pay attention, and tune into hope. That’s what I’ve been asking people to do in my weekly yoga classes and my Mindful Advent Yoga Series. So I thought I’d put my hope-filled reflections out there, too. Here are five things (plus an honorable mention) that have...
I’m conflicted about the holidays, but not for the reasons you’d expect. I’m not stressed out about holiday cooking and shopping; I gave most of that up years ago. I’m not anxious about holiday travel; I’m not doing that anymore either, thanks to COVID. I’m not...
I had a revelation the other day: My ministry is a grumpy teenager. For people new to my blog, I should mention I am an ordained clergy person in the United Church of Christ. I also teach yoga and meditation and do leadership and organizational development and am a...