I don’t naturally enjoy working out in a gym. But, I’m doing it more now, along with other healthy things. I gravitate toward times when the gym is otherwise quiet. One day recently I took my iPad along and propped it up in front of the screen that keeps you up to date on your workout. I’m always looking for ways to distract myself from the lack of oxygen and joint pain that comes along with a lengthy elliptical workout, and I thought maybe playing games would help.
Are You Ready?
So, Suzanne, what are you ready for?
The woman I’d just met on Skype blinked and waited for my response. I blinked back at her, and frowned. Then I suddenly felt a wave of something…relief, or freedom…? Or…? I don’t know, but it was big. She was asking me a legitimate question, and perhaps the most critical question I could ask myself, not just at this moment, but every day.
Pink Notebook Christmas 2016 Gifts of Wisdom
I’ve been blessed to attend various support groups over the past two years, and have recorded many of the more meaningful comments and quotes that have been made by others in my pink notebook, along with my own thoughts, many of which have been shared (respecting anonymity, of course) with TPN readers over the past year. Read More
Beauty is in the Eye…
Cybill was THE model of teenage perfection in the 1970s, as visualized in Cover Girl ads in many issues of influential magazines, like this one.
I’m a pretty typical late Baby Boomer woman, I think. I grew up in an era (a really long one) where women were objectified constantly in the media (not that we’re entirely finished doing that) and where certain cultural definitions of beauty were foisted on young women at a most vulnerable time in life–high school.
Answering Questions with Questions: A Walk in the Snow
It was Fall, 2015. I’d been making a real effort to more clearly identify my list of “needs and wants.” I finally had figured out why I needed to make this list. It wasn’t easy. My first attempt got an F from my counselor: Apparently “wanting my loved ones to be healthy and happy” didn’t quality as a need or a want for ME. (Who knew?!)
At the end of the calendar year I had finally assembled my starter list. Still, I wasn’t sure I actually had done it right. [bctt tweet=”It takes a lot of work, I’ve discovered, to dispel the notion of having wants and needs as being selfish.”] Instilled at a young age by well-meaning parents from a very different generation, it took a very persistent counsellor and a strong support network of friends and family to encourage me past the front gate of self-worthiness. It was new for me to see a difference between self care and selfishness.