From Dread to Delight: A Lesson in Attitude Adjustment
Last weekend, I had the “opportunity” to do something I was looking forward to about as much as a tooth extraction: standing […]
Sharing a Fine Whine
Whining often gets a bad rap. Culturally, it conjures images of someone stuck in the past, replaying the same story to anyone […]
Time to Move
Next week, I plan (okay—hope) to move this newsletter blog to Substack. It should be simple… but let’s be honest. We’re talking […]
In Case of Catastrophe—Calm
When the news bombards us with calamity after calamity, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, our minds caught in a never-ending spin […]
The Future Needs Us to Go Deeper
Einstein once observed that our problems can’t be solved at the same level of thinking that created them. My take? To address […]
The Power of Kindness (First lessons from recovery)
I’m five weeks into my recovery from hip replacement surgery, and things are going well. By well, I also mean SLOWLY. It […]
Time to shout “no” to misogyny
I wish it were easy to just say no to a force that has been weighing us down for centuries—affecting our bodies […]
Have you taken the AI challenge
(Hint: It helps to be human) The rapid advance of AI technology feels dizzying, exciting, and terrifying. New technology is outpacing our […]
A Gift from an Unusual Source
What if you could strengthen the qualities you need by feeling your connections with friends who have died? I know this may sound […]
What to say (or not say) to a friend who is dying
Thanks for reading—it’s not easy to think about losing a friend, let alone what to say. I’m not thinking today about the […]
All You Need is Love (but skip the roses)
I’m writing this on the National Day of Loving, aka Show-People-You-Love-Them-By-Spending-Money-on-Them Day, aka Valentine’s Day. How did we get started with this […]
Blessing the glad and the sad
Thanksgiving in the US is almost here, the day we sit around the table, hopefully with family and friends, and share with […]
Beyond Barbie (What would you say in your speech?)
When I was eight, the girls in my neighborhood loved playing with dolls. I didn’t. I preferred to explore the Connecticut woods […]
Friendship in a Post-Pandemic world
Did friendship change during the pandemic? It’s hard to say. But I know what changed for me: I don’t take it for […]
Nine Reasons NOT to Write a Book* (*unless you must)
1. Writing a book takes time—more than you can imagine. Whoever purports: “You can write a book in ten days” (or two […]
Bringing light into dark
Monday morning, my husband asked me to read a heavily researched article about a small pack of men who had been systematically […]
Dropping “should” for “I prefer”
Yesterday, I faced a blank blog post without an idea of what to write. No ideas. It was too late in the […]
We Don’t Need to Know Before We Go
One of the cool things about artists is that they often start their pieces (and I’m defining artist in the broadest possible […]
Give your brain a break—extend your mind
Where does the mind live? In our brains? Our bodies? The environment? Each other? Some mix? Or, as philosophers Andy Clark and […]
Should I say, “thank you” to “Alexa?”
Are chatbots making human interaction transactional during a time when human civility is increasingly endangered? I put the idea to the test […]
How to say no, nicely
For some of us, the pandemic brought a guilty pleasure. We were released from the burden of having to say no […]
Do you know these (mostly) new words?
Words create worlds. Words in turn have lives of their own. I used to think that the words in the dictionary had […]
How to change your pose to change your life
Can body language, and specifically your posture influence how you think, how you feel, and how you are perceived in the world? Dr. Amy Cuddy thinks so - and presents her findings in her popular TED talk. I do too, except that those power poses all look like alpha males! I think so, and that’s why I wanted to hear Dr. Amy Cuddy’s TED talk “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are.” It’s one of most viewed TED talks ever. I could see why: Cuddy’s poised, personal, and packs a powerful take-away: the idea that you can become more self assured and be perceived as powerful by simply shifting your stance for a couple of minutes.
How to give advice people want to hear
Ever wish that you could give people a piece of your mind and have them wanting more? Or, give feedback that someone really used because it was both tough and compassionate? The best model I’ve found recently for balancing straight talk with caring isn’t in a leadership book. It’s in an on-line advice column “Dear Sugar” by Cheryl Strayed, compiled in her book, Tiny Beautiful Things.