It’s a brand new year! Thank goodness! Last year was a very difficult year, full of many sorrows. A lot of us struggled with sometimes overwhelming feelings of fear, frustration, anger, grief, and loss, as the pandemic spread across our world. Some of us grew sick with the virus, or our friends and family members … Read More
My last post was about the terrible fires we were having in our area. As the holidays rolled around, we thought that we were past the worst of it. And then came the predictions of a bad rainstorm, and the serious worry about mudslides in the burned areas. We again had mandatory and voluntary evacuations … Read More
For any of you who live anywhere near Santa Barbara, you know that this has not been a typical holiday season. Early in December, what has become known as the Thomas Fire began. It started quite a distance from here, but quickly spread. In a matter of days, people from Santa Paula, to Ojai, to … Read More
There’s a certain comfort in staying with the familiar, no matter how unhappy we might be. We know how to navigate around familiar situations. Finding the courage to step into the unknown isn’t easy! We can find all kinds of reasons to stay with what is. It’s temporarily comforting to lean into our defense mechanisms … Read More
“When we protect ourselves so we won’t feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of the heart.” ~ Pema Chodron Please think carefully about this quote. It’s so important! Our defenses, up to a certain point, can help to protect us from harm. There comes a time, though, that … Read More
When we were kids, getting older seldom crossed our minds. We were too busy being involved in whatever we were doing at the moment. There came a certain time, though, that we began to look forward to getting older, because it meant additional freedoms and more exciting adventures. At some point it began to mean … Read More
