I spent some time with friends outside of Boston last weekend. On Saturday night, they gave me a treat: pizza night in their home. When they first told me that homemade pizza was on the menu, I felt the need to assure them that I didn’t expect or need anything so elaborate. My friend Stephanie looked confused. “But it’s our favorite thing!” she exclaimed. “That’s what we’d be making tonight if you weren’t here.” In theory, I like making homemade pizza, too. In…

This week, I was really struck by a thread about rest, written by psychologist Nicola Jane Hobbs. Specifically, I loved the way that Hobbs delineates different forms of rest, many of which I hadn’t considered. Hobbs writes, Physical rest is sleep. Stretching, Nourishing food. Mindful movement. Mental rest is any kind of non-thinking activity. Baking. Painting. Gardening. Single Tasking. Emotional rest is crying. Journalling. Therapy. Healthy emotional expression. Sharing rather than suppressing. Social rest is hugs. Solitude. Intimacy. Community. Activism. Employee resource groups….

I spent last weekend in upstate New York with my best friend and her kids. It was a low-key, happy few days in a place that I associate with feelings of safety and home. Weekends with Chloe and her family always fill my cup, but they’re tough to return from. Whether we go someplace together or I visit them, I come home to some melancholy. It passes, of course. But it can be poignant, and that’s how it was early this week. Between…

As I mentioned last Sunday, I’ve had some thought-provoking, deep exchanges with new acquaintances lately. One of these was a few weeks ago. I got on the topic of age with a woman whom I’d recently met. According to her, we each live many lives. She told me that she’s living one of her early lives. Her eighteen-year-old daughter, on the other hand, has lived a great many lives before this one. It was a very novel outlook for me. Yet the woman…

I’ve had two conversations with complete strangers in the last few weeks that have stuck with me. This seems to happen more and more these days, perhaps a sign of increasing openness and curiosity on my part. It’s a good thing. I’ll share about one of the exchanges today and the other next weekend. A few nights ago, I ended up speaking with a woman who’s a generation above me; she has a daughter about my age. We got to talking about work….

A yoga teacher of mine introduced me this week to Mark Nepo’s wonderful meditation on “the art of facing things.” This is from Nepo’s The Book of Awakening, which I haven’t actually read. I plan to get a copy of the book soon, but in the meantime, I found the passage online. Please forgive any inaccuracies that I might have included in transcribing it. I’m going to share the whole thing, because Nepo’s central metaphor is most powerful in its entirety: Salmon have…

I saw a post by psychotherapist Helen Marie on Instagram this week that I loved. It’s titled “a little guide to glimmers.” Helen Marie writes, Glimmers are the opposite of triggers. She goes on to explain them this way: they are tiny moments of awe. they spark joy & evoke inner calm. they send cues of safety to our nervous system… our body responds with positive energy. they allow us to feel hope when lost… once we start embracing them it can become…