When new information is unpalatable, either because we recognize and dislike it, or because we have no idea how to respond to it, our first reaction tends to be denial. “Nope, didn’t see that, hear that, experience that.” Denial buys time to gather resources and absorb information more gradually. It is not meant to be… Read More
Hard Times, Abuse
Talk About Abusers
Some Portland intersections have painted green “bike boxes” on the pavement to allow bicyclists to wait for the light in front of cars and get through the intersection ahead of right-turning drivers. They help prevent “I just didn’t see them!” right-hook collisions between cars and bikes. When I am out on my bike, I often… Read More
A Harvest of Understanding
Take a couple of slow breaths, and notice where you are right now on the range from calm to anxious, settled to frantic. With kind eyes, look back at this pandemic year. Unevenly distributed In April 2021, the worldwide Covid pandemic continues to be unevenly distributed. India is undergoing a devastating surge with a horrific… Read More
Within Sight of Relief, Pause
Have you noticed people driving fast out there? Maybe you are one of those fast drivers, in a hurry to get to your destination and away from where you came from. It seems like everyone is vibrating with stress and the need to get out and away. Now that we are past the solstice, longer… Read More
Rock the Boat About Racism
This article discusses racism and white supremacy as seen in the US, and is applicable in the rest of the white-dominated world as well. Notice your inner responses as you read. Do you feel numb and bored? Do you feel angry and defensive? Do you feel relief because someone is naming your experience? When you… Read More
Wear a Mask to Belong
Many survivors of childhood abuse and neglect have an ongoing ache to belong, an unassuaged longing for the warmth of secure attachment. We develop strategies both to hide our vulnerable hearts and to reach out for connection. We hide our core self to be acceptable and we expose our rawness to be visible. Belong right… Read More
Adapt to New Risks
How do you relate to risks? Do you think of yourself as risk averse, risk tolerant, risk seeking, or some mixture? Is your approach different for physical, emotional, and financial risks? Risk tolerance is affected by current resources. Can you recover from a bad outcome, physically, emotionally, and/or financially? Do you have friends who cheer… Read More
Agency in a Time of Pandemic
We are individually and collectively navigating a bumpy transition from “life as usual” to “life in a worldwide pandemic.” We are adapting to disorienting change as well as managing our emotional responses to this crisis. As the pandemic moves toward us disarmingly slowly and then shockingly fast in its exponential growth pattern, we each make… Read More
Mend What You Can Reach
“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” —George Eliot, Middlemarch World news is terrifying these days, from… Read More
How to Resist Enough
The news is overwhelming these days. Hurricanes, wildfires, increasingly violent bigotry, decreasing access to medical care, war, genocide, environmental destruction. To secure our own survival and to be good people we want to do something, only it never seems like enough. How do we resist enough? How do we know that we are doing our… Read More