Anything you deny or fight will fight you back harder. Don’t fight the fear, pain, disappointment, etc. Let it in and let it teach you what it wants to teach you. Then you can part as friends.
Explore American Sign Language. Libraries have books and websites like Lifeprint.com are great resources.
It’s a good skill, helps build vocabulary and verbal skills. Seems that preschoolers are naturals -they just think it’s fun.
You don’t have to have everything you want. Practice saying “no thank you” to dessert or passing on the purchase you’re considering. Benefits are plentiful: Build self-discipline (which is like a muscle) and you learn you’re really ok and often happier when you don’t indulge a “want.”
Set up automatic payments so they are initiated on your end, so that you send out money to the bill/ company you’re paying instead of giving them access to take money out of your account.
Girls forget a good bit of compliments they receive but they remember every single insult. Speak gently, remind them they’re beautiful. Never qualify it.
College: you’re gonna do great! You’re also probably gonna want to quit at some point during your first year. Totally normal. If you decide college isn’t for you or now isn’t the right time, okay. But give it a year if you can. You’ll thank yourself later.
No matter how smart you are or how much you know, you still don’t know everything. ALWAYS be willing to learn and to change your position when faced with new information or perspective.
Two years after Trump lost re-election I still struggle to understand how anyone could support him, to say nothing of work for him. But then it came to me: being close to power is intoxicating. It makes people feel important and accepted, which are things very few of us ever, though we all long to, feel. I recalled how very much I longed for this type of acceptance for most of my career. I *loved* being included in meetings with the CEO. I loved having a access and influence. It was so validating, so satisfying! Looking back I’m embarrassed, even ashamed about how much of a fan girl I was. (Don’t get me wrong! Ambition and drive are good things! But I was more concerned with being perceived as important than I was in substance or actual effort.) All this to say, be mindful of the lure of being in the “it” group. We all crave the acceptance and approval. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a seat at the table, just pay more attention to be table than the seat. If you had a chance to work in the Whitehouse for Donald Trump, would you? Would you trade your values for power?
Talk about how choices become habits. Habits can become addictions. Describe how pathways are literally dug into the brain and it's very hard to change them once those paths are made.
Screw “achievement.” Do things you enjoy, share experiences that expand your capacity for joy and compassion. It doesn’t matter if you’re any good, it just matters that you’re in your groove.
People may have all kinds of different motives for doing what they do, saying what they say.
To “give someone the benefit of the doubt” means that you consider what the best possible reason they may have for doing what they did and assume that was the motive.
If someone has earned your trust, even if it’s that they’ve done nothing to break your trust, give them the benefit of the doubt.