Addicted or Free

Yesterday morning I had breakfast with two of my dear friends.  We don’t see each other as often as we like, but we seem to pick up right where we left off.  These are the friends who, over time, have built up my trust.  I know I can share the hard things with them and they won’t reveal those discussions with others.

When I’m with these two, the conversation usually gets deep, and it doesn’t take us long to get there.  I love those kinds of talks.  Some people you need to go slowly with, kind of like wading into cold water at the lake.  You tread slowly, first by just getting your feet wet, then a little further, maybe up to your ankles and then knees, before finally getting your whole body wet.  You do this because the water is just too cold and you need to take it slow.  Do you have those type of friends?  With these two, we are able to just dive right in!  We know wherever the wave of the conversation takes us, it will be okay.  We’re safe with each other.

Yesterday was no different.  We shared our fears and struggles; our good news and successes, and we always talk about our personal stumbling blocks.  

Somehow, we got on the subject of addiction and how at times a person can be addicted to a feeling or emotion.  People who are addicted to the dark, heavy things like drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. experience these outside activities taking control over their lives.  Even the softer, more “socially acceptable” addictions like coffee, food, and social media can wreak havoc.  These are not activities engaged in moderation.  The addiction takes control.  

But what about a feeling or emotion?  What if that is the addiction?  What about someone who is addicted to their jealousy, anger, bitterness, fear, pessimism or depression?  They struggle with it all day, every day.  It’s so powerful it takes control. It’s not a feeling or emotional they experience, they live and breathe it.  Just like a drug addict, it’s like a poison they inject into their bloodstream and it soon spreads throughout their whole body.  It is safe to bet we all know someone who suffers from that type of addiction.

I recently heard author Resmaa Menakem on a podcast.  What he said I think is something I think we all need to hear, and embrace as truth.  He said “While we see anger and violence in the streets of our country, the real battlefield is inside our bodies.  If we are to survive as a country, it is inside our bodies where this conflict needs to be resolved.”   

The battlefield is in our body and our mind.  You may have heard the only thing we have control over is ourselves.  Our attitude and reactions, and how we treat others.  This is so true.  We have opportunities to choose every day.  Are we living from an addiction?  Or our freedom? Reacting and living from an addiction often shows up in name-calling, road rage, judgement, hatred of ourselves and of those we see as “the other.”  Being free almost always shows up as love: responding with care, empathy, compassion and forgiveness. 

We get to choose how we are going to show up.  

Addicted or free.

Cleaning my lint screen

The other morning when I got my blow dryer out, the cap at the end fell off.  When I went to put it back on I noticed the screen was covered in lint.  I spent a few minutes cleaning off that screen before attaching the cap.  And then thought nothing more of it.

The next few mornings I noticed how much more powerful the air was in the blow dryer.  It got me thinking.  Actually, I think this was God getting my attention in a way he tends to do for me.  He takes an ordinary, everyday thing and sheds light on it in a way that gets me to go inward.  I began to wonder, how much lint do I have on my mental screen?  Am I holding on to and gathering old, unhealthy thoughts patterns, judgements, or negative feelings and emotions?  If I am, how is that holding back the power I have in my own life?  Is it lessening my power to show kindness, caring, love to others?  And to myself?  

This prompted a little self-examination.  What can I let go of?  And how do I do that?  I know for me, acceptance is one way.  Accepting is different than liking it. I can hate something but still accept it.  A few months ago, I went through something that I hated and I was angry.  I was angry because I had no control over the decision, it was made for me.  When I realized I could not change the outcome, I had two choices.  I could either accept it or have an internal, mental battle fighting it, with thoughts like: I can’t believe that’s the decision, it is so wrong and stupid, everyone else thinks so, too…and on and on the warring, internal dialogue could have gone. 

It. Is. Exhausting.  

So, I chose to accept it.  And what I can share now is that a lot of beautiful fruit came from that decision.  And I wonder, if I had chosen to not accept it, if I had chosen to hold on to the anger until it produced bitterness, would I have received the beautiful fruit?  Or would it have reaped a batch of rotten apples? I’m grateful I chose wisely.

I hope you seek ways to clean your internal lint screen.

Book Review

I’m excited that my book, The Letters, is available in three weeks, on February 1. Below are two reviews that the book has received.

“Precious, validating and warm. The Letters is a beautiful, sacred story captured in precious letters between a husband and wife. The Letters teaches valuable life lessons and validates challenging, grieving truths while offering a path of hope through difficult times. The Letters will leave your heart feeling warm and full.”
-Jane Munk, MA, MBA, Founder of Kerith Brook Retreats for Grieving Adults


The Letters explores many different forms of loss and is a beautiful illustration of the unique path that each individual’s grief takes. The Letters is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit and is an encouraging reminder that we can always find ways to stay connected to the ones that we love.
-Laura Guerrero, MS-MHC, Grief Counselor

I would like to express my thanks to both Jane and Laura, for their warm, positive reviews.

You can pre-order The Letters by heading over to the Ways to Purchase tab.

Happy reading!

Book cover

I’m really excited to share my first book, The Letters. If you move over to the Ways to Purchase section you can read a brief description. I would like to give credit to the photographer of the cover, Caleb North. I’m also proud to be his aunt!

When I asked Caleb if he would create the cover for me, I had an idea as to what I wanted. I was so excited to see the finished product, he created it exactly as I had pictured it.

The image is taken on an antique secretary that came from my mother’s family. On it are two very old, tissue paper thin letters that were written during World War II. One of them is from my grandfather to my grandmother, written while he was serving our country. The other letter is a letter from my grandmother to my grandfather. Sitting on top of those two letters are my reading glasses. I love how Caleb was able to capture the letters so the reader can see they are hand-written. I will always be grateful to him for taking the picture in my mind and turning it into a reality.

The other pictures on this website, my head shot and the picture of my family, are taken by Caleb as well. The photo shoot with my family will remain as a favorite memory of ours. More often, photo shoots are something to endure, a lot of “look at the camera and smile.” However, one of Caleb’s talents as a photographer is to bring laughter and even some silliness to the occasion, and we had so much fun!

So this blog is a thank you to Caleb, for the role he played in this project, and for creating a professional cover for my book.

Hope is my Superpower

I choose Hope as the topic of my first post. In early 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, when so many things were shutting down and we got slower at work, I had a lot of vacation time and chose to use it and let my co-workers continue to work. I took a free on-line class from Yale. It was called The Science of Well Being. One of the things we did was answer a series of questions to determine what our signature strengths were. The results showed my number one strength was Hope. I thought, “hope, really?” After that came Spirituality, Fairness, Honesty and Gratitude. There were a total of 24 and I won’t bore you with them all. It stated that Hope is “expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it; believing that a good future is something that can be brought about.” Okay, I thought, I get that, but I really thought Gratitude or Spirituality would have ranked #1. In 2017 I began a Gratitude Journal and every day, without fail, I write at least 5 things I’m grateful for that day. I keep it to one line for each entry, which helps me to be consistent in that practice. They aren’t always big things, sometimes they are just little things: the sun shining today, seeing deer on my drive home from work, an unexpected call from a friend or relative. It does help me look for things throughout the day to put in the journal as well as reflect back on my day and focus on the good things. I have filled two books and now am on my third journal. And I’ve grown a lot spiritually in the last several years, so I would have understood that being first on the list.

But Hope. That surprised me. It wasn’t until several months later I gained a better understanding of why that was first on the list. I was listening to a podcast and the guest speaker was author Tahni Cullen who wrote about her son Josiah entitled “Josiah’s Fire: Autism Stole His Words, God Gave Him a Voice.” It’s an inspirational read if you are looking for one. Tahni said something during that podcast that I had to stop and write down. She said “to choose to hope, in what is good, that God is good, that the future is good, that you can declare and speak life over the situation, to do that is to risk disappointment, but to not hope is to choose disappointment.”

Wow! As soon as I heard that it was an “aha” moment for me. And I think the key word in that is “choose.” I choose to hope in all of those things, to seek the good in people, circumstances, situations and in God’s goodness. I don’t always get it right, sometimes I fall flat on my face. But then I choose to stand up and seek Hope again.

So yes, I believe Hope is my Superpower.